Sarah Blossom
What is your vision for improving mobility, particularly for people who ride bikes, walk, roll, scoot, and other forms of non-driving transportation, on Bainbridge Island?
Our focus should be on creating a safe, connected, and well-maintained mobility network designed for everyday trips by people of all ages and abilities. The goal should not be scattered stretches of should or isolated bike lanes, but a compete and connected system that allows people to travel safely between neighborhoods, schools, commercial areas, parks, and the ferry terminal.
Safe routes to school and closing gaps in our existing network should be top priorities. These efforts should be paired with an annual list of small, high-impact projects. Lower-cost improvements like new trails or connections, enhanced crossings, and visibility upgrades.
While an all-ages-and-abilities standard is ideal, we need to be realistic. Not every segment of our network can meet that design level. We’ll need to balance the desire for high-comfort infrastructure with the urgency of completing critical connections that the network functional.
In addition to building non-motorized facilities, traffic calming measures must also be part of the strategy. In well-traveled corridors where are abilities are limited due to topography, utilities or narrow rights-of-way traffic calming may be one of the most effective ways to improve safety.
While separated paths are valuable in many locations, we must also plan for practical, year-round maintenance. For example, on Eagle Harbor Drive, debris accumulates in the fall and makes the separated path less safe for cyclists. If a path cannot be easily cleared by standard maintenance equipment like sweepers and blowers, its usefulness as part of the network is compromised for good part of the year.
How do you see the Bainbridge Council's role in implementing the Island Wide Mobility Plan? How would you prioritize and fund it and partner with other agencies and organizations (for example, Kitsap Transit, Bainbridge Parks and Recreation, BISD, utilities, etc.) to implement?
The Council’s role in implementing the Island Wide Mobility Plan should be proactive, strategic, and collaborative. By adopting the plan, the City establishes it as policy, and from there it should then act as a guide for capital planning, budget decisions, grant strategies and coordination with other agencies.
As I mentioned earlier, the City should maintain a list of lower-cost, high impact projects that could be completed on an annual basis to demonstrate visible progress. For the larger, higher-cost projects I believe the City should consider a voter-approved bond. However, before going to the public with such proposal, the City must rebuild trust by demonstrating the ability to competently deliver major projects. Just as important, the City must present a clear, specific project list and concept-level designs. The last time a funding measure was proposed, it amounted to asking the public for a black check, and that approach cannot be repeated.
The City should be coordinating with the Parks District to align trails and open space connections with mobility corridors, the School District to develop safe routes to school, and utility provides such as KPUD and PSE to coordinate utility work with should and pathway improvements.
Traditional bike safety improvements like paved shoulders are not sufficient to help the majority of the population feel safe biking and walking the Island, for example kids biking and walking to school. How would you ensure any mobility investments support improving mobility for all users?
There is a real tension between building fewer miles at a high all-ages-and abilities standard and building more miles at a lower but functional and safe standard to complete the network. We can’t apply the high standard to every piece of our network.
Realistically, we need a balanced approach. The Island-Wide Mobility Plan should identify where an all-ages-and-abilities standard is most essential. The focus should be a on safe routes to schools and everyday destinations like grocery stores, medical services, after-school activities, transit access and our neighborhood centers where people are most likely to walk or bike to. In other parts of the network, a safe but less intensive design may by more appropriate if it means we can fill gaps and connect our network sooner.
Sarah Blossom
The Comprehensive Plan (CP) guides land use regulation and links the community’s future vision to regulatory action. The Groundwater Management Plan (GWMP) states that while development regulation is a goal, its primary purpose “is to establish a comprehensive framework for cooperation between regulatory agencies and utilities to protect the island’s EPA-designated Sole Source Aquifer system”. To be effective, the strategies from the GWMP must be integrated into the CP so that groundwater sustainability directly informs decisions about growth patterns and land use. Without this, the CP could assume levels of growth that our aquifers can’t sustain.
To support this, I propose restructuring the Water Resources element of our CP. Instead of a “Vision” section, it should begin with a clearly stated “Goal”: Ensure the long-term sustainability of the island’s aquifers. That Goal should be supported by Objectives and accompanying Policies. Objectives define the strategy; Policies establish the tools and actions required to implement it. This creates a clear policy framework that can shape land use and capital decisions.
For example, an Objective could be to “Manage Aquifer Recharge”. Policies under this Objective could include evaluating the feasibility of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) plant capable of producing water clean enough to recharge groundwater or support stream flows.
Growth patterns, impervious surface coverage, vegetation removal and well placement all influence aquifer recharge and groundwater quality. If the GWMP’s tools and strategies are not embedded into the CP, land use approvals and capital decisions could unintentionally work against groundwater protection goals. Integration ensures consistency across policy documents and implementation tools.
For instance, if data shows that directing growth in Winslow conserves water because average household use there is lower than in the Conservation Area, that only works if development capacity is intentionally “shifted” from the Conservation Area to Winslow. That shift could increase wastewater treatment needs, potentially requiring a new facility. However, a new facility could result in treated water being discharged to the sound rather than recharging the aquifer through drainfields. Integrating groundwater policy would require the City to evaluate beneficial wastewater reuse to maintain or improve groundwater recharge.
Describe your experience and qualifications that specifically prepare you to address our affordable housing crisis on Bainbridge Island.
During my time on both City Council and the Planning Commission, I have been involved in four major affordable housing initiatives: the Housing Design Demonstration Project (HDDP) code, the City-owned Suzuki property, bonus density for properties owned by religious organizations, and ongoing updates to the Comprehensive Plan and Winslow Subarea Plan.
The HDDP has enabled projects like Ferncliff Village and Ericksen Community. I’ve consistently supported its continuation, even as it faced several sunset clauses. In 2018, as a Councilmember, I introduced a successful motion to allow 100% affordable projects to continue under the HDDP, despite a recommendation to suspend it. In 2021, as a Planning Commissioner, I supported amendments to simplify its site design requirements.
While on Council, I was a Council liaison to the Affordable Housing Task Force and was a strong advocate for affordable housing on the City-owned Suzuki property. My views on the Suzuki property have since evolved, and I now believe other locations would be more suitable.
On the Planning Commission, I helped advance an ordinance allowing churches to develop affordable housing. This supported Bethany Lutheran’s long-standing plan to build what is now proposed as Finch Green.
I’m currently gaining direct experience with new state-mandated affordable housing requirements through the Comprehensive Plan and Winslow Subarea Plan updates. While I do not support the approach recommended by staff and consultants, I remain committed to supporting effective and equitable solutions that advance affordable housing on Bainbridge Island.
There is no debating it—Bainbridge Island doesn’t have enough affordable housing. What do you think contributes to this shortage? What do you think needs to change in order to address these challenges?
Several key factors drive the affordable housing shortage—most notably the high cost of construction, expensive land, and limited financial resources for subsidizing affordable housing development. Of these, construction costs are the most significant and, aside from permit fees and processing times, largely outside the City Council’s control. The City’s own experience with the 625 Winslow project and past concepts like Suzuki show that even when land is donated, construction costs far exceed what can be recouped through affordable rents or sales. Similarly, land costs are mostly beyond the City’s influence.
I do not subscribe to the belief that changing our land use policies can overcome those first two factors. We can’t increase our density to the extent needed to make tools like Inclusionary Zoning feasible without straining our existing road network, exceeding sewer capacity, and raising concerns about the sustainability of our aquifers. At a certain point, additional growth would demand significant infrastructure investment—potentially increasing costs for current residents and even causing displacement. I also remain unconvinced that simply building more housing will meaningfully or sustainably reduce costs over time.
While land use tools like the Housing Design Demonstration Project (HDDP) are important and should remain available, we must look beyond zoning and density changes for durable, equitable solutions to our affordable housing challenges.
You are seeking a City Council seat. If elected, how do you understand your role in addressing our affordable housing crisis?
If there’s one clear takeaway from the Comprehensive Plan and Winslow Subarea Plan update process, it’s that creating housing for households earning 80% of Area Median Income (AMI) or below is extremely challenging. It has become clear that market-rate, for-profit developers—even with incentives—are not able to deliver the deeply affordable housing our community needs.
This underscores the importance of the City forming strong partnerships with community organizations such as Housing Resources Bainbridge. I remain hopeful that, with the continued generosity of individuals and institutions like Bethany Lutheran, new opportunities for affordable housing will emerge. But to realize these opportunities—particularly for our lowest-income residents—the City must actively provide support.
When a faith-based organization like Bethany Lutheran seeks to use state law allowing added density for affordable housing, the City should do everything it can to facilitate that effort. In addition, the City must take full advantage of available funding sources, including allocating portions of the lodging tax, to help make affordable housing projects viable.
At this time, without a clear understanding of the potential impact, I do not support a housing levy or bond funded through an increase in property taxes. However, the City must explore all available funding sources and consider how it might leverage other assets to partner with organizations like LIHI on projects similar to 625 Winslow.
July 11, 2025