KINGSTON — May is a busy month for Sacks Feed and Garden, when plant starts fly off shelves and employees sling feed bags into trucks.

“My back is feeling it from the weekend,” owner Dave Hildebrand said on a quiet Monday in the shop. “We loaded lots of compost.”

Hildebrand has owned Sacks for 15 years — long enough for the work to take a toll on his back. Long enough to be working with a second store dog. Long enough to be ready for some-thing new.

He hopes to have the Kingston store sold by the end of summer so he can semi-retire and focus on a side career in architecture.

Hildebrand is ready to move on but his customers aren’t walking

away. This spring a core group of Sacks shoppers is conjuring up a plan to buy Sacks and main-tain it as a cooperative business. The group held its first planning meeting in late April and has been trying to spread the word with c u s t o m e r surveys and booths at local events. The group will hold a n o t h e r m e e t i n g May 8 (see page 6).

So far 63 people have expressed interest in buying a $100 share in the co-op, said Kinley Deller, a Sacks shopper from Eglon who is organizing the effort. The co-op would need to sell 5,000 shares

to buy the business and property — both are for sale — but Deller said there’s potential to buy the business and have another inves-tor purchase the property.

How to structure the co-op is still in early discussion. It would prob-ably include a discount buying club for members and they may also contrib-ute volunteer time, Deller said.

The co-op could be challeng-ing to float in a town where oth-ers have had mixed results. The cooperative Kingston Art Gallery recently fled to Poulsbo, while a co-op bakery moved into the

STORY BY TAD SOOTER PHOTOS BY BRAD CAMP

KingstonCommunityNews.com Vol. 26 No. 5 • May 2010

Kingston • Hansville • Indianola • Port Gamble • Little Boston • Eglon

COMMUNITY NEWS

FIRED UP FOR FOURTHPlanning for Kingston’s marquee celebration is already under way.

PAGE 12

Kingston Community News18887 Hwy 305, Ste #700Poulsbo, WA 98370

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Saving SacksBrad Camp/For the Community News

Owner Dave Hildebrand offers a treat to shop dog, Tish, inside Sacks Feed and garden Tuesday.

Customers hope to buy the longtime Kingston feed store.

By TAD SOOTEREDITOR

KINGSTON — Work to replace a South Kingston Road culvert with a bridge could begin this time next year.

The Carpenter Creek bridge project will likely go to bid this summer, after securing $2.7 mil-lion in the 2010 state budget. Kitsap County engineer Jon Brand said work probably won’t start until the spring of 2011, because the construction window will be closed this year by the time a con-tract is finalized.

The county plans to replace the culvert near Arness Park with a 70-foot-long bridge to slow water-flow into the slough on the west side of the road. The slower water flow will make the habitat more accessible for marine wildlife.

Brand said the project could last up to six months. At least one lane of South Kingston Road will be kept open at all times, he said, most likely by building a tempo-rary bridge alongside the existing roadway.

The county and various Kingston groups have sought funding for the project for nearly a decade. The money was finally included in a package of construc-tion projects proposed to the State Legislature by the Puget Sound Partnership.

North Kitsap County Commissioner Steve Bauer has recommended the bridge be named in honor of Stillwaters Environmental Education Center, a main supporter of the project.

Bridge work may start in 2011

By TAD SOOTEREDITOR

HANSVILLE — With less than two weeks of voting left, the Point No Point Lighthouse is in fourth place in a regional competition for grant funding.

The 131-year-old Hansville land-mark is among is among 25 histori-cal Puget Sound structures nomi-nated for Partners in Preservation grants, a $1 million pool of money offered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express.

A public online vote is being used to pick the top preservation project and the winner will receive its full grant request. Voting began April 15 and supporters can vote for their favorite project at http://www.preservationnation.org/partners-in-preservation/seattle/ once each day until May 12.

The United States Lighthouse Society, a nonprofit group based in the Point No Point lighthouse, applied for a $118,000 grant to repair the building that houses the light itself.

“It was exciting to get on the list,” Lighthouse Society Executive Director Jeff Gales said. “It was exciting just to be asked to apply, period.”

Point No Point beat out several other Puget Sound lighthouses to make the list of 25 nominees, said Anthony Veerkamp, Director of Programs for the western office of the Trust for Historic Preservation.

“We wanted to make sure that we had properties that adequately

Public can help wingrant forlighthouse

SEE SACKS > PAGE 6SEE LIGHTHOUSE > PAGE 6