$8.5-Mil Emergency Center Proposed

BREMERTON, WA-An abbreviated, $8.5-million, five-year bond proposal to finance a new emergency center in West Bremerton could be in front of Kitsap County voters this November. The plan, a stripped-down version of a similar proposal rejected by voters in 1996, would house a 911 dispatch center as well as an emergency disaster center and several offices for emergency specialists.

While local officials have lobbied the state legislature in Olympia the past several years for 0.1 percent sales tax to fund emergency centers, no real concern was voiced until the earthquake that hit the Puget Sound region Feb. 28.