Oak Harbor council weighs dredging, breakwater and fee options to stabilize marina

Oak Harbor city staff laid out a menu of repair and replacement options for the Oak Harbor Marina on July 22 and asked the City Council for direction on which projects to pursue and how to pay for them. David Goldman, the city’s deputy administrator and finance director, presented cost estimates and financing scenarios that range from maintenance dredging to a full marina redevelopment and include potential new fees, local taxes, district formation and federal grants.

The presentation said the projects fall into three groups: dredging, a breakwater repair or replacement, and dock repair or reconfiguration. Goldman gave estimated construction costs and annual debt-service amounts for each option. For dredging, he reported a range of about $10 million to $13.2 million (inflated to 2026 dollars in the city’s materials) and noted the council previously “made the motion to pursue the maximum option as a preferred option.” The city has a $1,000,000 grant agreement with Allen County that “reduced the amount that we need to borrow,” Goldman said. He also described a roughly $5.5 million maintenance dredge projected for about 2036 and noted that setting aside about $410,000 per year now would fund that future maintenance without borrowing.

Goldman said the council’s consultants had advised that marine-construction work must respect a fish window (roughly mid‑August through mid‑February) and that good contractors tend to book early in the spring, a schedule constraint the council repeatedly cited in discussion.

Nut graf: The council discussed combinations of smaller immediate repairs versus larger replacement projects and several revenue mechanisms — increasing the marina dredging fee, establishing a new breakwater fee, a business-and-occupation (B&O) tax, utility taxes, property‑tax levies, forming a port district or a metropolitan park district, and pursuing federal grants — but did not adopt any ordinance or take a binding vote at the workshop.

Most urgent items and costs: Goldman presented two breakwater…