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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 24, 2005
Contact: PJ Callahan, Board of County Commissioner's Office
Phone: 360-337-4481
No. 05-12
County Commissioners Revving Up for
NASCAR
PORT ORCHARD, WA—After several months of
compiling questions and input from the public, the Kitsap Board of County
Commissioners is currently developing a “What We Need to Know” matrix to
help sift through the overwhelming amount of information that will
inevitably be coming their way.
“While Kitsap County has still not yet received a
formal proposal from International Speedway Corp., we want to be prepared
with the right set of questions when that time comes,” said Chris Endresen,
chair of the board.
Since no decisions need to be made at this time, the
board would like to take this preliminary step of sorting through what they
do and do not know, formulating a list of questions and using this time to
solicit the opinions of residents and businesses in other parts of the
country who have been impacted by NASCAR locating in their neighborhoods.
NASCAR operates at 32 speedways, raceways and motor sports parks nationwide,
which should provide a wealth of information to the board.
While recognizing the efforts of various community
organizations to help keep this public discussion moving forward in a
constructive way, the board clearly wants to do more research on how NASCAR
can impact a community the size of Kitsap County before allocating any
county resources to the process.
“Once we have more clearly outlined the types of
information we might need to move forward, we will publicize how the public
can get involved in the process,” said Commissioner Patty Lent. “We will
continue to engage our stakeholders, including the cities, chambers of
commerce and Kitsap Economic Development Council, in the public process
after our initial analysis has been completed.”
“The board expects to have a concept for gathering
information by Thanksgiving. Once areas where the public can provide
assistance have been identified, we expect to engage citizen volunteers in
December and have them begin information gathering starting in January,”
said Commissioner Jan Angel.
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