SILVERDALE –The rural Barker Creek area in between Silverdale and the Central Kitsap Urban Growth Area – or UGA – means that Silverdale won’t be annexed by Bremerton.

Angie Silva, a senior policy analyst at Kitsap County, gave a brief overview of the annexation process to members of the Central Kitsap Community Council in Silverdale Sept. 17.

There are several unincorporated UGAs including East Bremerton, West Bremerton, Gorst, Puget Sound Industrial Center, Central Kitsap, Kingston and Silverdale.

Because of the rural strip of land along Barker Creek in between the Central Kitsap UGA and the Silverdale UGA, the boundaries of the two UGAs do not touch one another.

“There’s no city adjacent to these UGAs,” Silva said, referring to Kingston and Silverdale, both of which are surrounded by rural land. “We call them stand-alone.”

“And before I talked about how to annex it has to be an urban area … same thing with Silverdale. There’s no additional urban area touching Silverdale. We have the Barker Creek corridor which is rural between the Central Kitsap UGA.”

“Right now as it stands today it’s a stand-alone UGA,” Silva said of Silverdale, which is unincorporated.

“So the fear of being annexed by Bremerton is …” asked CKCC member Rob MacDermid.

“… not there,” Silva said.

Silva said the county provides services such as the court system, assessor, auditor, treasurer and more.

“When annexation or incorporation happens typically those urban services like roads, like permitting, stormwater, sewer, get transferred to the city,” Silva said of the process in general.

“We also want to encourage proactive conversation with cities about annexation plans … This ensures smooth transition of local services.”

Silva said that taxes and level of service could be higher, lower or the same during an annexation process,  depending on the specific proposal.

“Some people are satisfied with county services which is why they don’t want to do an annexation. And some folks believe certain areas have a separate community identity than the city proposing annexation.”