Sam Fletcher reports from the Oak Harbor City Council workshop of Wed., Jul. 24, 2024 for the Whidbey News-Times.
Oak Harbor staff are currently incorporating city council feedback for a budget proposal for the city’s projects as part of the 2025-2026 budgeting process to be finalized and approved in November.
Deputy City Administrator David Goldman presented a colorful document to the council at a recent city workshop, listing 64 projects organized by 13 different funds. Mayor Ronnie Wright’s general direction for the capital projects list supported proactivity, he said, planning for “the rainy day” so the city isn’t scrambling for funds as it has had to do in the past. This meant bigger maintenance and equipment funds in addition to large-scale projects.
They Said It
Councilmember Jim Woessner has heard complaints from constituents about [a budget request for two electric police vehicles] after a lackluster performance by Island Transit’s two new electric vans caused a potential delay to its zero-emission goal.
Island Transit’s struggles are “a whole different deal,” he said.
Regardless, the state has mandated the police department to make the switch to electric vehicles where it is feasible and possible, [Police Chief Tony] Slowik said, and the city is avoiding doing it where it is not feasible and possible.
“Unfortunately, the way to find out if it’s feasible and possible is by doing it,” he said.
The hybrid vehicles currently used by the department have performed better with less down time than their other vehicles, which have had transmission problems, he said….
Woessner took issue with some of the proposals regarding the marina, which included updating the dock’s breakwaters as opposed to brand-new breakwater concepts that might work better in the long term.
“Let’s face it. We don’t have the money to do these much less more,” Woessner said, noting he would prefer bigger changes that would cost significantly more upfront but would likely reduce dredging costs and make the area more useful to recreators.
“We’re proposing here about $35 million worth of repairs and infrastructure upgrades, and it only makes sense to spend the appropriate amount of money to protect them,” he said. “Floating docks is not the way to protect that marina moving forward. It’s not the way to prevent expensive dredging moving forward. It’s not a way to allow us to un-landlock our mini harbor and create that connection to our downtown.”
When the infrastructure surrounding the bay was developed, it wasn’t done so holistically, he said, hoping for a more cohesive plan in the future.
“Reinventing what we have is probably not the solution,” he said.
The problem comes down to money, Wright said, as the city has struggled in identifying ways to fund such projects.
Woessner praised the 22 projects on Goldman’s list involving either parks or parks and rec, as a recently proposed ordinance regarding the ability to vote on disposing parkland has brought them into the spotlight.
“We’ve had all these conversations about parks and about how little we supposedly value our parks because of the current discussion,” he said, “but the reality is maintaining our parks and maintaining the infrastructure with the parks and making the parks a pleasant place for our community to go is a priority for us, and I think quite frankly a lot of the things you have on this speak to that.”
