POULSBO — Preparing to leave the old fire station-turned-city-hall building on Jensen Way, Mayor Donna Jean Bruce smiles as she looks east toward the site of the new municipal campus.

Of all the things she’s managed to accomplish, including five major road projects, use of the banked tax levy for paving projects, and a financially sound city with an A-plus rating, the municipal campus tops her list.

“I think that probably heads it up,” Bruce said, noting that the Viking Avenue, Finn Hill Road, Front Street, Caldart Avenue and 10th Avenue projects rank high as well.

“Way back, even before I became mayor, we talked about remodeling this building and it was going to cost something like $3-$4 million,” she said. “Of course, that was like, ‘Holy cow!’”

The city then purchased the Morris property and preliminary studies showed a city hall could be built there, but without parking, she said.

“I said, ‘You know we’re not putting a building here with no parking because we require everybody else to have parking and we have to do the same thing,’” she recalled.

Because of that, the city was forced to look elsewhere and this year purchased property on 10th Avenue between the Poulsbo Fire Department station and Olympic Property Group headquarters.

“It finally got to the point where you’re in here and it’s like a can of sardines,” she said of the existing city hall. “Now, we just have to wait for the plans to come together and keep it going and I think it will.”

In as much as the municipal campus project has been a source of pride, Bruce expressed her disappointment in the closure of the Marine Science Center, the blame for which she places on the North Kitsap School District.

“If the school had realized what a good program they had, it seems to me they could have found the money to continue,” she said, adding that $50,000 a year is not a large amount of money in relation to the NKSD’s budget.

“It just seems to me that if they had thought it was a good program, they would have found the money to keep it going despite the Marine Science Society,” she said. “They could have kept it going and they didn’t and I’m disappointed.”

For all of the talk about getting the MSC going again, Bruce said city officials have heard plenty but seen nothing.

“You kind of wonder (if) people really want it, because they want it but they don’t want to pay for it,” she said. “Maybe someday someone will come forward; it can’t sit vacant forever.”

The municipal campus project and Marine Science Center represent opposite ends of the spectrum for the mayor, but she also has mixed feelings about the city council’s committee system, which was implemented almost 10 years ago.

“Before the committee system we used to have liaisons to the departments and the only time we ever met was at budget time, so actually I think the council is much more informed because of the committee system,” she said.

Some committees work better than others, she added, but overall the system has worked smoothly and helped the city.

While she has seen her share of sunny day and days when the sun refused to shine, Bruce has always appeared to keep an even keel.

“You have to take it in stride and make it work,” she said, crediting the city’s department heads for being able to get the job done.

Now, as she makes one last round through city hall, Bruce said the meetings won’t be missed, but one thing definitely will: the people.

“The people, you miss people,” Bruce said. “That’s probably it.”