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            The Kodiak City Council finalized its Capital Improvement Projects list at last night’s meeting. Not much had been changed since Tuesday’s work session when it was discussed at length. A new pump house at the Monashka reservoir is listed as the city’s top priority. City Councilman John Whiddon said the 40-year old building and 70-year-old equipment is called upon to reliably provide water for residential and seafood processing use all day every day.

            Councilman Terry Haines agreed, saying the pumping equipment and other items on the list reflect the city’s goal to focus only on essential infrastructure.

            Councilman Charlie Davidson said he hoped funding for a bike path from town to Deadman’s Curve could find its way onto the list, perhaps after the statewide transportation bond is voted on during the General Election.
            The city’s total request for four items, the new pump house, 911 system replacement, Shelikof Street parking and a new fire engine, total $7.9-million.
            The resolution passed unanimously, and will be sent to the state capital for its consideration during the upcoming legislative session.

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            Bears continue to be a hot button issue in Kodiak, as evident by the hour long discussion Kodiak Island Borough Assembly members had about them during last night’s work session. The assembly heard from various community members that have dealt with the problem over the last few weeks including police officers, local residents and Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Larry Van Daele. Van Daele said he and other members of a bear safety group have tried to address the bear problem in four phases. The first phase was education and making sure residents are being bear aware.

            Coming up this week: There are more questions than answers at the state’s Chinook Salmon Symposium this week, the fate of foreign cannery workers is still up in the air, and Senator Begich issues a challenge to the makers of Xtra Tufs. We had help this week from KSKA’s Ellen Lockyer in Anchorage.

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            The Baranov Museum is slated for some changes in the coming year. Katie Oliver is the executive director for the museum and joined KMXT’s Talk of the Rock on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming exhibit redesign.
            “Well this is a project that we’ve been talking about for several years, but we wanted to finish up a lot of the structural work we’ve been doing on the historic facility, on the museum building which is a national historic landmark," she said. So we applied for a federal grant last November to take a look at exhibit redesign and storytelling in the museum in a very thoughtful and comprehensive way. And we were awarded that grant in July of this year. So we’re still in the first sort of quarter of the year long work in reimagining the exhibits.”

            Oliver said part of the grant allows staff to travel and research archival materials held off island. Anjuli Grantham is the curator of collections for the museum and recently returned from a trip doing just that.