In the movie “Field of Dreams” a disembodied voice informs Kevin Costner, “If you build it, they will come,” as he gazes out onto his Iowa cornfield. Something similar happened in Little Norway recently, with a slightly different twist.

“If you annex it, they will build,” the voice from across the Sound whispered. The Poulsbo City Council did and “they” did as well. At least until the council put a stop to it all Sept. 13. Councilman Dale Rudolph, who led the charge, cited the need for the adoption of the city’s new Critical Areas Ordinance and overwhelming number of incoming applications to beat its effective date.

The rest of the cities in Kitsap County and the county itself managed to adopt new CAOs by March of this year with Bremerton being the most recent to do so. Why didn’t Poulsbo?

The CAO was first discussed in 2004 and appeared to be on its way to adoption in 2005 until it was shelved without explanation. Now more than a year later, it’s the highest priority for the city government.

Kitsap County Realtors Association Executive Director Mike Eliason pointed to the city’s municipal campus project as one reason for the delay, and he might have something there.

While the rest of the county was trying to protect the environment, Poulsbo was entranced in a mayoral election and, of course, the location of its new city hall.

The 10th Avenue site would have been impacted by the new CAO and building there might still prove difficult if the vote goes its way in November. No one from the city has yet to dispute Eliason’s allegation. We, at the Herald, are continuing our search for answers as well. We’ll have them in an upcoming edition of the Herald as our staff is working hard to get all the facts before printing the story.

One of the engineers associated with the development on Noll Road, which has raised quite ruckus, Mark Kuhlman said he was surprised by the council’s decision to enact the moratorium.

After meeting with residents in the area, Kuhlman said he expected to have applications for the Planned Unit Developments to the city by the end of the month.

Now, he and his associates are left with investments that may never come to fruition. Time is money, and six months is a long time to wait to apply for a building permit.

While the council stopped building, it didn’t place a moratorium on annexations. Annexations spurred the rash of building applications, but they also add to the city’s coffers by way of more property taxes.

Councilwoman Connie Lord had repeatedly asked for a moratorium on both annexations and building applications, but had met resistance at every turn until Sept. 13.

Then-Councilwoman Kathryn Quade, who is now the city’s mayor, asked for the municipal campus decision to be postponed until after the 2005 election, so the city could deal with more important issues.

Could those issues have been a new CAO, stormwater, transportation and sewer plans? Maybe. Perhaps we’ll never know.

Even though its timing looks fishy with the municipal campus going ahead of the CAO, the onus is now on the city to keep the moratorium’s length to a minimum.

Fifty years from now, when the new municipal campus needs to be replaced, will future generations look back on 2005 and ask why the building wasn’t built to the standards of environmental protections adopted less than a year later?

We don’t know, but rest assured whoever carries on the Herald’s legacy will do their best to find out.