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.

The fire department’s projects are needs more than wants, said Interim Chief Gordie Olson, referring to the new fire station on the west side of the island and new flooring for Station 81.

Police requested a total of 11 projects, the biggest being a station remodel and a new roof.

“If you’ve been in our training room, our flooring is torn up, worn out, and you’re down into concrete spaces,” said Police Chief Tony Slowik. “We’re using that for meeting rooms for the community, citizens academy training areas. There’s tripping hazards and other concerns.”

The presented budget also called for two new electric police vehicles.

Councilmember Jim Woessner has heard complaints from constituents about this project 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, 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.

Public Works Director Steve Schuller said there are a lot of “heavy things” coming before his department soon.

“This is a big year,” he said to the council. “You’re going to be making major decisions about land use and where that goes. After you do that this year, you’ll see in the budget, there’s a number of things. There’s a water comprehensive plan. There’s a transportation comprehensive plan. A sewer comprehensive plan, et cetera. We will then be rebuilding the foundation of what Oak Harbor will be to get us to that year 2045.”

Oak Harbor has committed to bringing on major growth in the next 20 years and providing housing for future generations, he said.

While the city has begun a sewer charge for developers, which will increase annually, that charge will decrease as the city grows and developers split the cost.

“I’m just speaking with my sewer hat on only. Throw me all the growth you can throw me,” he said. “It’ll only make things better.”

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.”

Which direction to take Windjammer Park sparked the most controversy among the council—to keep it open, green space to ease the return of the carnival, festivals, markets and car shows or to find an alternative area for those and focus more on additions to the park such as the windmill and an accessible playground.

Oak Harbor staff will present the amended budget proposal to the council in September. The proposal will return twice in November, first for a public hearing and finally for adoption.