Unalaska city council is back with a full agenda tonight, after several weeks’ hiatus.

They'll be finalizing a number of changes to city code, including merging the Planning Commission with the Historic Preservation Commission.

The commission lapsed around 2008, after a number of members stepped down or moved away. Vacancies were never filled -- city clerk Cat Hazen says there wasn’t enough public interest to keep the board going.

But according to minutes from one of the last meetings of the commission, at least two residents wanted to apply. Hazen couldn’t locate digital copies of any applications from that time. She says it’s possible they’re stored as hard copies or that they’ve since been destroyed as part of regular clean-outs of city files.

The commission may have become inactive -- but the city still needs to have one to qualify for certain preservation grants from the state. The type of commission that lets them qualify is called a certified local government program.

Summer Rickman of the State Historic Preservation Office has been working with planning director Erin Reinders on restarting the commission's activities under a new header.

"While we always would rather see an independent historic preservation commission we support the City of Unalaska in combining their commissions in order to get a functioning [certified local government] program running again," Rickman says in an email. "[A] local government has the option of establishing an independent commission or expanding the duties of an existing commission to include historic preservation responsibilities."

That’s the change that city council will vote on tonight -- folding the historic preservation commission into the planning commission.

Council will also vote to move their regular meeting time from 7 to 6 p.m. permanently -- tonight’s meeting is at 6 p.m.

In an executive session at the end of the meeting, council will discuss a new collective bargaining agreement for Ports and Harbors employees represented by the Inlandboatmen’s Union.

Assistant city manager Patrick Jordan says he'll also ask council for permission to start negotiating a wage increase for some unionized Parks, Culture and Recreation department employees. That increase is part of recommendations in a city compensation study that found the wages weren't up to national standards. 

Council won't vote tonight on the PCR wage increases tonight, but they are slated to vote on the IBU agreement for Ports Department employees when they return to their regular meeting.

Council will take the first step tonight toward finalizing some changes to the city zoning code. The revisions to Title 8 have been in the works for several months. They include new rules for construction camps and clearer requirements for property owners who want to subdivide their lots.

An ongoing effort to clear away scrap metal at the landfill is up for renewal tonight. That project has been headed up by Ron Moore for the past two years. He’s already hauled more than 11 million pounds of scrap off the island. Now, he needs a new contract to keep going. The one up for a vote tonight is a year long, for $30,000. It’s renewable for up to 10 years.

Council is also set to vote on a budget amendment that would pay to double city hall’s internet speed. The city is paying about $41,000 a year for their internet right now. Doubling the bandwidth would cost $37,500.

That same budget amendment also transfers existing funds from the Delta Way storm drain budget over to the Biorka Drive force main replacement.

Council will vote on the city’s annual write-off of uncollectible debts owed to the city -- just over $12,000 in outstanding ports and utilities accounts. In past years, the write-off has ranged from under $2,000 to more than $60,000.

And council will have to approve another waiver for a senior citizen, Arnold Dushkin, who filed for a property tax exemption after the March deadline. Two seniors were already granted waivers this year, after they said they didn’t know about the exemption in time to file.

Tonight’s meeting is at 6 p.m. at City Hall.