City Council got a preview of what’s to come in 2012 from City Manager Chris Hladick at last night’s meeting.  The five-word summary: water, wastewater, wastewater, paving and Shell. 

The three big, ongoing projects are getting secondary filtration for the city’s drinking water, upgrading the wastewater treatment plant to comply with federal standards and managing the landfill’s heavy metal runoff.

All three projects are multi-year endeavors with a total estimated cost of $34.5 million.  For comparison, total projected revenue for fiscal year 2013, which starts in July, is $31 million.  The city has applied for and received state and federal grants to help cover some of the costs.

In terms of paving projects, the city is projected to spend at least $7.5 million on resurfacing several roads.  And depending on funding, the city might move forward with paving of several unpaved roads, including Ballyhoo.

Finance Director Tonya Miller went over how the city will pay for all the upcoming projects and broke down the 2013 budget projection, emphasizing that most of the city’s revenue comes from seafood and sales taxes, which fluctuate year-to-year.

Shell Oil’s summer drilling plans will probably also be a big topic of discussion at Council over the coming year.  If Shell drills in the Chukchi Sea this summer, they’ll likely stage out of Unalaska.  Hladick says that could raise a number of issues that council may or may not want to address.

"If Shell moves forward like they say they are and there's 80 vessels, there's not enough places to live now, it's going to be extremely tight once they show up.  During the exploration phase there might only be people here for five or six months, but as time goes by, if they move into production, there will be more and more people here.  We've got to figure out if they bring in AVCO trailers, do we want to do something about it, do we want to regulate it or do we just want to let things go and whatever happens, happens?"

All three resolutions on last night’s consent agenda passed.  The first established taxicab rates for 2012.  They didn’t change from 2011.

The second appointed a three-person committee comprised of Mayor Shirley Marquardt, Assistant City Manager John Fulton and a member of the public to evaluate community support applications for the fiscal year 2013. 

The final item identified federal funding priorities for 2013 as paving Ballyhoo, dredging the entrance bar to Dutch Harbor and acquiring a fourth engine for the powerhouse.

Council also voted unanimously to apply for an $8.5 million loan from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to cover unexpected costs from the wastewater treatment plant upgrade.