The Bainbridge Island City Council conditionally approved funding for a design charette for the future Highway 305 and High School Road roundabout at its Nov. 18 meeting.

The design charette, a goal-oriented intensive workshop, requires $25,000, which will come from the 2025 Council Contingency fund pending collaboration with the state Department of Transportation on a proposal and contract, per city documents. Council voted 4-2 in favor of the motion. Councilmembers Clarence Moriwaki and Kirsten Hytopoulos voted against the motion. Councilmember Joe Deets was absent.

Moriwaki shared his concerns with the charette, including both fiscal and process.

“I just believe that we have to have more of a fair process on this, and again, I am uncomfortable with going with a firm that I have no idea who they are, regardless of how nicely endorsed these individuals were,” he said.

Hytopoulos shared her concerns about the scope of the charette.

“I would really like to at least be clear that I don’t think that I’m voting to disenfranchise the community. I don’t know exactly what this is even going to be. I don’t know whose voices are going to be there. It’s definitely not going to be the average citizen in the room. So voting against this is not giving away an opportunity for our community to influence it,” she said.

Councilmember Leslie Schneider supported the motion and reiterated the reasoning for the short timeline for approval. Schneider said she has been in contact with Steve Roark, WSDOT Olympic Region regional administrator, who informed her that the roundabout is moving forward.

“The roundabout is a WSDOT project. It’s going to happen. They are planning to be finished with a preliminary design by May. And any kind of input that we want to have in this roundabout that is going to be at the heart of our community has to happen soon,” she said. Schneider said the project is a professional collaborative design exercise and is not intended to be a public engagement workshop.

Councilmember Brenda Fantroy-Johnson shared her support for the project.

“I think it is important that we should conditionally approve it, but the conditions that we are approving it on are one, WSDOT supports it, and two, making sure we have the right stakeholders,” she said.

Schneider said she understands and agrees with the council’s concerns and wanted to balance them with the short timeline, adding, “we really want to work with WSDOT to make this as good as it can be,” she said. “I just want to reiterate that if we as council, and if we as the city generally, including residents, want to impact this process and this ultimate outcome of design, there’s not a lot of time. We have to be engaged now.”

WSDOT is currently in the pre-design phase of the project, which started in July, and is anticipated to conclude by the summer of 2026, per WSDOT.