Active residents keep quality of life high

By LARRY LANGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Residents of Indianola guard their good fortune while they're enjoying it.

An active, 69-year-old volunteer group, the Indianola Beach Improvement Club, maintains the half-mile long community beach, a small park and a meeting hall that dates from 1928 and is a local landmark.

And the Indianola Land Trust is well on its way to helping purchase and set aside 80 acres of pristine forest and wetlands to protect it from encroaching development.

"They have a real sense of community," said Kitsap County Commissioner Chris Endresen, whose district includes Indianola. "They look out for each other."

Residents have made an effort to control the growth they see headed their way. When the Beach Improvement Club heard the federal government wanted to build a bigger Post Office, the club members got acquainted with the planners and persuaded them to build on land the club will purchase about a block from the present location. The club will recoup its investment through a lease.

Club members bought the land to keep the Post Office centrally located and accessible by foot for most. That way, it will remain a community gathering spot.

The Land Trust, meanwhile, has raised most of its $560,000 share of the $1.2 million purchase price of the former Blodel property on the west end of the town, including at 3.5-acre parcel on the waterfront that includes wetlands.

Kitsap County bought the land in late 1997 but agreed to preserve it if the trust puts up half the price. So far the trust has raised $466,000, enough under the detailed pact to save the waterfront parcel and 10 of the other 77 upland acres from development.

Development of the remaining 67 acres north of Indianola Road would be heavily restricted. At most, the land could be used only for limited recreational facilities, such as trails or picnic areas, said trust president Connie Reckord, a landscape architect.

Reckord, by town standards, is a newcomer to Indianola. She moved here from Seattle in 1991 with her husband, Terry, who spent most of his formative years in the Kitsap community.

With growth knocking at the community's door, "there was a concern that landed development would start to take away some of the values our community seemed to have," Terry Reckord said.

Like other community efforts, the trust is "assuring our small community has some say on what happens."