At long last, Oak Harbor has its first list prioritizing nearly $89.5 million in large, non-enterprise capital facilities projects. These are largely “quality of life” projects, including everything from a number of downtown redevelopment projects to a new senior center.

At the top of the list is the $19.4 million Oak Harbor Marina redevelopment project, followed by the $10.6 million Pioneer Way “reconstruction and streetscape” and Highway 20 widening.

City staff created the list and unveiled it to council members at a workshop Monday night. It’s based on a three-tier criteria that gives the most weight to projects that preserve existing assets, resolve public health and safety problems, or are required by law.

It’s only the first version of a priority list that is bound to be tweaked over time. A couple of council members have already expressed discontentment with the list, though they said it’s a good starting point.

“You should focus on the rating criteria. If you come to agreement on that, it will sort itself out,” Steve Price, the city’s funding strategy consultant, told the council Monday.

Three council members discussed adding a criteria to take into account time and money that have already been spent on a plan. Most notably, city staff, residents and consultants have worked for eight years to design and permit the $7.4 million municipal pier. So far, $1.3 million was spent on the project and the city obtained $2 million in grants.

The priority list doesn’t include two major projects: a new city hall and relocation of the waterfront sewage plant. Staff members apparently forget to put the proposed $2.4 million city hall on the list, which will be added later. They said the sewage plant project can be added once a consultant studying the issue provides the city more information

Price presented the briefing on the ongoing work on the city’s update of the capital improvement plan for years 2007 to 2012. For the first time, the major update includes both enterprise and non-enterprise funded projects.

“It will provide a better management tool for us and a better decision-making tool for the city council,” City Development Director Steve Powers said. “It’s an improvement on the document that we’re really excited about.”

In general, enterprise projects have their own fund generated by user fees. The fees residents pay the city for water, for example, can be used to build water lines.

Major enterprise funded projects on the list include a force main replacement at the sewer plant, a 42-inch storm drain at Windjammer Park, design improvements to NE 16th Avenue, and projects to fix stormwater drainage problems on Pioneer Way, Freund Marsh and Scenic Heights Road.

For the most part, the non-enterprise projects are paid for out of the general fund or have no funding identified.

Council members Eric Gerber, Paul Brewer and Danny Paggao pushed to prioritize these projects after Finance Director Doug Merriman pointed out that the city has a proliferation of plans for large projects, but no sensible funding solutions. In fact, the plans for a number of the projects pointed to the same funding sources.

Now that the city has a first draft of a priority list, Powers said the next step will be for city staff to look at various funding options and to attach funding to specific projects.

At the same time, the entire capital improvement plan, with both enterprise and non-enterprise projects, will head to the comprehensive plan task force for input. The task force will provide recommendations and forward it to the planning commission, which in turn will come up with recommendations and send it to the City Council for approval.

The draft will go to the City Council for the Dec. 5 meeting, but Powers said the process of finalizing the non-enterprise project priorities and finding funding will likely continue into the New Year.

You can reach News-Times reporter Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewstimes.com or call 675-6611.