Parks District welcomes your ideas for Sakai park (WU-224)

What would we as a community like to create on the Sakai family property?

In this podcast, join Ken DeWitt, one of the five elected Commissioners for the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park and Recreation District, and BCB host Christina Hulet as they discuss an important public meeting to shape the future of this parkland.

The Sakai property is a 23 acre parkland in the heart of the High School Road and Madison Avenue part of greater Winslow. Last August, it was purchased by the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District through a bond ballot measure approved by voters this past February. Bainbridge residents now have a unique opportunity as a community to plan what happens on this property.

A video of the Sakai property by Anson Brooks, including drone aerial views, is here:

https://youtu.be/9pan6Sv2JlM

Specifically, the Park District Board of Commissioners is looking to the public to develop recommendations, beginning with a public meeting on January 23rd from 10am-3pm at the Bainbridge Island High School commons. This first meeting will focus on generating ideas for potential uses and then creating community-led teams to better understand the requirements and feasibility of various options. Then, as a follow-up, residents can come back together at a subsequent public meeting to share what the teams have learned.

In this podcast, Ken talks about how this process is explicitly designed to create true community engagement; this is not a planning process with a pre-ordained outcome. Ultimately, the Parks District is looking to the public to make a recommendation for the property that community members would be willing to see their public Parks and Recreation dollars used to construct and maintain.

You can learn more at the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District website.

Credits: BCB host: Christina Hulet; BCB audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.