In a turnabout, councilors may stick to current shoreline regulations.

They hit like a wave, flooding City Hall with calls to preserve the least-developed harbor in central Puget Sound.

Boaters, biologists, lawyers, high school students, a best-selling author, a Congressman and over 100 other islanders urged the City Council to dump a legal settlement allowing private docks in Blakely Harbor and hold firm to rules limiting their construction.

While their voices often seemed strained, sometimes desperate, by the end of the night the council showed signs of ebbing with the public flow.

“I’m in support of keeping the status quo until we see the big picture,” said Councilwoman Debbie Vancil, who stunned some Wednesday by suggesting the city retain the current cap, which allows just two new community docks and a new public-use dock.

In earlier discussions, Vancil had joined a majority of councilors in expressing support for allowing more docks. But citizen input shifted her position.

“We owe it to the citizens, the neighborhoods, the community…that when you come forward and say what you want addressed, we need to be flexible and respond to that,” she said.

Vancil’s proposal, which also includes establishing a task force to implement the ordinance, was met with a burst of applause.

“You guys amaze me,” said a teary-eyed Lisa Macchio, who has led efforts to retain the current ordinance. “I’m so proud to live here because of the fact that you finally listened to us.”

But sticking with the ordinance may re-spark the long legal fight with harbor residents who have repeatedly sued the city to allow more docks.

“It’s now up to the litigants,” said Vancil, admitting that the city’s legal costs on the matter, which include a $250,000 settlement, could grow. “It’s worth the risk. There are greater risks here – both ecological and social.”

One of the litigants, Kelly Samson, declined on Thursday to say how he’d react if the council opted out of the settlement’s provisions and prohibited more docks.

“That is the big question,” Samson said.

Vancil plans to formally present her resolution at Monday’s council meeting. At least one other councilor, who had also supported amending the ordinance to appease litigants, said the new proposal may get his vote.

“I can support it,” said Councilman Nezam Tooloee after the meeting. “It addresses both the long-term and short-term.”

Tooloee and other councilors had characterized the ordinance, passed in 2003, as unworkable because none of the prescribed community docks had yet been built.

“After three years, we see that the effect of the ordinance is to ban docks,” said Council Chair Bob Scales. “Not one citizen has come forward and said the community dock (provision) can work. This ordinance, in this form, doesn’t work.”

Jack Sutherland, one of the property owners suing the city, was one of two in the audience who spoke in favor allowing more private docks.

“We would do nothing to harm this place,” he said of his home on Blakely Harbor’s south shore. But the ordinance, he said, has “proven to be unworkable. It discriminates against residents on the harbor and represents an illegal taking of property owners’ rights.”

He also asserted that having no dock limits access to the harbor and is an inconvenience for his family.

“I have three grandchildren,” he said. “They complain when they have to haul the canoe…and are knee deep in mud.”

While a backyard dock may foster muck-free frolicking now, the long-term implications of more over-water structures are not so spotless, said Emily Thomas, a senior at Bainbridge High School.

“Twenty-eight docks…may be a boon for property owners, but it hurts the environmental system,” she said. “(It’s) time to set a precedent. You, as the council, have the opportunity to ensure Puget Sound’s waters do not die.”

Other students stepped up to the podium and urged the council to consider the harbor’s long-range environmental health.

“Nature is our home,” said Jonathan Hallet, who helped gather more than 400 signatures with the high school’s Earth Service Corps in support of current regulations. “Please preserve Blakely Harbor for future generations.”

Numerous regional and local environmental groups, including Gov. Chris Gregoire’s Puget Sound Action Team, have characterized Blakely as a valued part of the sound’s ecosystem and warned that new docks will degrade habitat used by juvenile salmon, spawning surf smelt and other marine life.

A recent city assessment of Blakely’s near-shore habitat showed that new docks, as specified under the settlement, would put the harbor’s ecological vitality “at risk.”

“Why is the council fooling around with legislative questions when the real issue is what the salmon recovery folks recognize?” Councilman Bill Knobloch asked. “We have a pristine harbor and we’re going to decide whether to settle with private individuals? Get with it. This is not a parochial issue. It’s a regional issue. We have to get the big picture.”

It’s a picture so big, Congressman Jay Inslee can see it from Washington D.C.

“The sound is a large, connected ecosystem,” the Democrat and island resident said in a letter read by one of his staffers. “It doesn’t care about political boundaries. Blakely Harbor is perhaps the most pristine in the central Puget Sound. If we’re unable to protect the most pristine, how can we fix the rest?”

Inslee, in his letter, said he never intervenes in local issues, except on very rare occasions.

“The future of Blakely Harbor is one of those moments,” he said.

The same is true for author David Guterson, who admitted he had never before addressed the council, nor attended a council meeting, in the two decades he’s lived on the island.

“That it’s the first time I’ve done so in 23 years of living here should tell you how strongly I feel about docks in Blakely Harbor,” he said.

The author of “Snow Falling on Cedars” put the task before the council in simple terms: “A vote for more docks is a vote for damage to Puget Sound,” he said.

How the council votes will serve as a “highly-publicized litmus test for much of the electorate,” Guterson warned.

“With every ill-considered and ruinous change, more sadness and anger is galvanized and ultimately transmitted into political consciousness and political action,” he said. “The voters of Bainbridge Island, including me, have this question about you, namely, are you wise and visionary with regard to change?”

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Dock talk

Due to a long list of citizens wishing to testify on the Blakely Harbor dock issue, the council has scheduled an additional public hearing for Monday, starting at 6 p.m. The council is scheduled to deliberate at 8 p.m. and make its final decision Wednesday.