City council is one step closer to loosening its rule for taxing the appliances and furniture that landlords provide for their tenants.

The business personal property tax applies to equipment used inside businesses, including rental units. Or, as clerk Cat Hazen put it at Tuesday's council meeting:

"If you can pick it up and remove it without either destroying the object or destroying the building that houses the object, then usually it's personal property," Hazen said.

Taxing that property is set to bring in about $1.8 million this fiscal year -- mostly covered by the businesses who have to pay the most. Still, the landlords who pay a smaller portion of the tax say it can discourage newcomers from wanting to get into the rental business.

Hazen consulted with the state tax assessor to design a $30,000 exemption for everyone who pays the tax. Bigger businesses could apply that as a credit toward their tax bill -- while businesses with less than $30,000 worth of taxable property wouldn't have to pay at all. 

The city would lose about $36,000 in tax revenue as a result. Councilors supported the change, though Mayor Shirley Marquardt noted she didn't think the tax filing process was as big a nuisance as some landlords made it out to be:

"Look, let’s just be honest, it’s not because it’s tough and difficult to do, and time-consuming and was a bad thing," she said. "But it can certainly, obviously, be done more efficiently and quickly by staff."

She asked the clerk's office to design an exemption for approval down the road.

Also at Tuesday's meeting, council awarded a $94,000 contract to engineering firm Hattenburg Dilley & Linnell to design a new chlorine tank for the water treatment plant.

And the city gained a staffer: New police officer Michael Dassler was sworn in on Tuesday. He attended a police academy in Green Bay, Wisconsin last year before moving to Unalaska with his wife, Mikela. Dassler will have to go through several months of training before going on patrol. He covers half the department's staffing shortage. Police chief Jamie Sunderland says they'll still be short one officer as of next month.