(Credit: Pipa Escalante)

This week, KUCB is profiling candidates running in the Oct. 7 municipal election. This profile focuses on Zoya Johnson, who is running unopposed to keep city council seat E.

For Zoya Johnson, being part of city council comes down to a simple goal: "My first priority will always be the quality of life in this community," she says.

Since she’s running unopposed for her second full term, Johnson’s already looking ahead to the city’s to-do list for the next three years. And she says the biggest variable is Arctic oil and shipping development. If new industries do arrive in Unalaska, Johnson says she wants to be prepared to make sure the community doesn’t suffer.

"That will put some pressure on our finances, our infrastructure. I would like to go about it very deliberately," she says -- meaning trying to clear the way for new housing developments, so the current market isn’t overstressed, and testing new sources of energy to keep costs down as demand goes up.

But Johnson says she’ll follow staff recommendations as to how to make all that happen. Meanwhile, she wants council to focus on ongoing projects -- like the EPA-mandated wastewater treatment plant, which will stretch into her second term.

"We have to finish the projects that have been imposed on us by the federal government, those unfunded mandates," she says. "They are stressing any decision we will be making in the next several years, because it’s a huge amount of money that we will be spending there."

That’s pretty much how Johnson says she makes decisions as a councilor: based on the city’s finances. And as director of the Museum of the Aleutians and a former co-owner of a small fish processing plant, Johnson is no stranger to managing money.

Sharon Svarny-Livingston is the chair of the Museum’s board of directors, and she says she’s seen Johnson’s ability to balance a budget firsthand.

"I think that coming from the nonprofit sector, Zoya’s very, very cognizant of money and money issues, because being a nonprofit, you sometimes really have to watch your pennies," Livingston says. "And so I think she’s very, very capable of taking a set amount of money and making sure it gets distributed to the places that it needs to go."

Livingston also says that the Museum has grown immeasurably under Johnson’s leadership. It’s thanks in part to continued financial support from the city. Johnson’s dual role as councilor and museum director has meant recusing herself from a few votes on nonprofit funding in her first term if the money went toward her salary.

But recusal is not always an option: When the museum requested a $202,000 grant from the city two years ago to put toward renovations, the city attorney advised that Johnson had to weigh in. And the mayor denied Johnson’s request to be left out of the vote.

Overall, Johnson thinks she’s balanced her duties responsibly.

"You cannot rely on your personal ethics, or hope that everybody trusts your personal ethics that there won’t be conflict of interest," Johnson says. "But one thing is clear: This community built the museum because they thought it was a good thing to have in our community. And the museum was getting the money, the city support, before I became a council member, and the museum will be getting the money after I’m gone from the city council.

Johnson says she wanted to join council to be a part of the democratic process in town, and to work more closely with policy-makers in the state and around the world. With her second term just around the corner, she’s looking forward to helping make some of her goals a reality.

Zoya Johnson is running for City Council Seat E. She is away on a council business trip and will not be participating in KUCB and Channel 8’s live Candidates Forum this Thursday at 7 pm.