At their Jan. 26 meeting, members of the Homer City Council finalized a list of 14 projects they would like to get done with the help of federal dollars.

"If Obama is doing what he's saying, we ought to get a bunch of that money," said Mayor James Hornaday.

With Sen. Lisa Murkowski having recently been named to the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and Sen. Mark Begich being a member of the president's political party, Alaska is in a good position to steer funds north, said Hornaday.

The only hitch, said city manager Walt Wrede, is the rules for applying for stimulus money were still being hashed out in Congress. Will the Alaska Legislature or Governor Palin, who has expressed disapproval of the stimulus bill, be responsible for "filtering down" requests from municipalities?

The answer to that question, said Wrede, is still unknown, as is the fate of the stimulus bill itself, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives Jan. 28.

One thing that was made clear, said Wrede, is that all projects must be "shovel ready," meaning work can begin on them within 180 days, to be considered for funding.

Also, water and sewer projects and "green energy" infrastructure projects would receive a high priority.

"Personally, I'd like to see everything dropped except for the water and sewer projects," said council member Dennis Novak. "We're only going to get one or two, so let's ask for something that really is going to benefit this community."

Council member Bryan Zak disagreed.

"Times are real hard right now and we might not ever get an opportunity like this again," said Zak. "I think we need to fill this list up."

From an original list of eight city projects - including $2 million for Town Center infrastructure, $800,000 for restrooms downtown and on the Homer Spit and $109,000 for construction of the Reber Trail - first proposed by Wrede, the council added all but one - completion of the Homer Spit Trail - to the list.

From there, the debate was on.

Council member Beth Wythe proposed lumping a slew of projects, including construction of a new city hall building and renovation of the Pratt Museum, into a single request for a "full community renovation."

"I believe that the goal is to put people to work and stimulate the economy," said Wythe. "We can do one thing and that would be great but if we could do something that touched our entire community ... that would be our holistic dream."

Hornaday, whose unofficial responsibility it is to present the request to legislators, said lumping all the projects together was not the way to go.

"This is not the way to do this," said Hornaday. "That is no way to make a presentation. If you vote for it, I would have no idea how to present this. It's impossible."

"It's only impossible if you go in there with that negative attitude," replied Wythe.

In the end, the council voted 4-2 to bundle the 14 projects into one proposal. The projects that made the final list were:

• Town Center infrastructure

• Harbor float replacement and Ramp 3 gangway

• Freight Dock Road and Harbor parking area paving

• Downtown and Homer Spit restrooms

• Senior access trail and sidewalk

• Reber Trail construction

• New city hall

• Town center infrastructure

• College expansion

• Vocational education center

• Intersection and road improvements

• Port and harbor maintenance

• Deep water dock expansion

• Pratt Museum renovation

Aaron Selbig can be reached at aaron.selbig@homernews.com.