At its Nov. 12 meeting, the Bainbridge Island City Council voted 6-1 to adopt consultant Joe Tovar’s suggestions to complete the Comprehensive Plan, with a few amendments, which puts the city on track to complete it by June 2026.

While the June date of completion would still put the city 18 months past due, it would help the city keep existing funding awards from the state, avoid an audit and a punitive state review, and remain eligible for future grants.

“The metaphor here is, you’re all roped together going up a glacier. It’s steep, it’s dangerous, the weather’s closing in, so there is some need to do things in a timely manner. There are lots of reasons to rope together to support one another. You don’t get to say, I don’t like that member of my team, so I’m going to cut him from my carabiner […] That does not work,” said Tovar.

“It may feel good to call someone out for something that you don’t think is quite appropriate or that you can’t agree with. That’s fine, but you’re still roped together with these other members of your team,” Tovar continued. “You need to be nimble, you need to be thoughtful, you need to be respectful, as you move forward on what is a very challenging journey up the glacier.”

Tovar’s plan creates a roadmap with deadlines in early 2026 for each portion of the Comp Plan to be drafted and reviewed by the city staff and the Planning Commission, delineates the responsibilities of each regulatory body, and minimizes extraneous details that may bog down progress.

By Dec. 18, the Planning Commission must finish the Winslow Subarea Plan and all associated regulations, per Tovar’s resolution. Between January and March 2026, the city planning department will prepare drafts of specific portions of the Comp Plan for the Planning Commission to review and certify. By April, the Planning Commission will prepare a Preferred Alternative for the city council, who will deliberate through May and June, and officially certify the plan at the end of June.

“People have argued that [the process] has been too open — this is a tool to focus it. The first word I said when I saw this plan was ‘sobering,’” said Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki, expressing his approval for Tovar’s resolution. “Yoda [referring to Tovar] has brought his wisdom to us, and said, ‘This is your path, people. Achieve this if you want to. Do or do not, there is no try.’”

Before Tovar’s plan came to the council floor, Councilmember Leslie Schneider added three amendments to the resolution, each of which focused on clarifying the responsibilities of leadership and the dissemination of information.

Schneider’s most significant amendment empowered the Steering Committee — a coalition of three councilmembers and three members of the Planning Commission — to gather input from influential organizations on the island, like the Bainbridge Island School District and Housing Resources Bainbridge, on the best ways public funding can subsidize and promote housing for the lowest income brackets in the county.

“One thing I kept coming back to is that I think it’ll be a nonstarter for the council to have one decision now, and one at the very end. We need to have a job to do in the meantime,” said Schneider. “I thought the steering committee could have a role.”

Not all members of council were supportive.

Councilmember Kirsten Hytopoulos had 12 concerns with Tovar’s resolution, three of which were related to the tone of the language in the resolution, which she saw as lacking good faith and casting blame on the council and city attorney for the delayed submission. Hytopoulos outlined those concerns to fellow councilmembers at the Nov. 12 meeting.

“I feel like one of the biggest problems with this process is that, although we’ve all had the joint goal of getting to the end of this process with a good plan, there has been such diversity and strong opinions about the next part of that goal: what does that mean, what is ‘affordable housing,’ what are the strategies, we’ve actually been operating very divided,” said Hytopoulos.

Deputy mayor Jon Quitslund and Councilmember Brenda Fantroy-Johnson each responded to Hytopoulos that they did not perceive the same tone of blame in the resolution. Quitslund added that there was no need to “strive for unanimity in something as complicated as this,” because the goal was to achieve a plan acceptable to a majority of stakeholders.

“We’ve had differences already, and the differences can remain,” said Quitslund.

Fantroy-Johnson agreed.

“I am not one for fearmongering, but being in security, that’s what we do […] We don’t want the state to come in here and say, ‘All this precious land that you think you have, we’re gonna put houses on it,’” said Fantroy-Johnson. “We want to be able to control what we’re doing ourselves. I love the idea that the Steering Committee is going to be the feedback loop […] If we beat [a dead horse] we will have so many different diverse opinions that we will die of stagnation and won’t get anything done.”