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Some bits of business…

Future Agendas is the closest thing the City currently has to a calendar of upcoming City Council topics. It’s not dynamic, ie. you have to click it every time you want to see a new version. And it’s not always accurate. But until we develop a genuine calendar, this can be very useful if there is a particular issue you don’t want to miss.

Important change: City Manager Caffrey has adopted a new format. Good news? Much more colourful! Bad news? Super short-term, ie. it has zip past February. This is hopefully temporary. All governments have a broad notion of where various items will fit into the year.

As of this writing, three things seem to be in my future, none of which I’m thrilled about: a review of the Council Rules of Procedure – which was terrible two years ago. A review of using One-Time Money for general fund expenses – not great financial practice. And an airport committee at exactly the wrong time. I keep waiting for the good things to show up. 🙂

City Manager Stuff

City Manager’s Report 1.10.25

Best. Gift. Ever.

Said it before, say it again: if you do whatever this is, you’ll get any number of nice surprises. I got this late-arriving, and totally unexpected ¹meme-pillow 😀 from someone who follows our City Council. I cannot stop laughing. It represents a tone I wish the City Council could embrace. We obviously disagree. But we don’t have to take things (or ourselves) quite so seriously.

This Week

We have no meetings this week.

Tuesday: Meeting with UWDEOHS. They did a paper last autumn that improves on the work they’ve done, not only to demonstrate the dangers of ultrafine particles, but also to show that they can distinguish between the source of those UFPs. Normally I provide links to papers like this, but this one is pretty dry. Hopefully, Des Moines will obtain the first fixed-site monitor in the area in 2025. That will help close some of the remaining gaps in the science and make regulation of aviation pollution possible.

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission. Their first meeting of the year. Unlike us, the agenda is fairly light. The only thing of potential interest to us is a renewal of their 30-year agreement with Midway Sewer. Said before, say it again, everything that runs off the plateau, water, sewer, storm water, is something the City of Des Moines needs to keep an occasional eye on.

Wednesday: Regional Transit Committee. First meeting of the year. RTC’s job is to provide recommendations to the full King County Council which governs Metro. I’m part of this because obtaining ‘last mile’ service for the south end of Des Moines is pretty important. What good is having a Light Rail if people can’t get to/from it in Des Moines?

Wednesday: Middle Housing Community meeting 5:30 – 7:30pm Senior Activity Center 2045 216th St.

Last Week

Monday: City Audit Entrance Conference. And wouldn’t ya know it? Like us, they got a flag too! 😀 Every year the City is audited by the State and this is the beginning of that process for 2023. I covered this last week. SAO Entrance Conference 20250106.

Monday 3:00pm: Grand Opening of Jumpin’ Jambalaya Kitchen at Highline College Building 8. I want to mention this because the new 236th College Way road is such a great opportunity. Being able to access the campus directly from Pac Highway should be a game changer.

Thursday: I met with Mayor Ferrell of Federal Way to discuss Federal Way’s strategy re. the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. The Mayor is quite the football enthusiast and referred to the SAMP using the phrase ‘power sweep’ – which I need to look up. 😀

	Mayors since 2015	Administrators since 2015
Burien	4	3
Des Moines	4	3
Federal Way	same	2
Highline Schools	n/a	2
SeaTac	3	3
Tukwila	1	2

It’s a funny thing. Mayor Ferrell is literally the only elected or top-level administrator left from the original SAMP process in 2015. In fact, Mayor Ferrell is the only one left from where things left off in 2018! And in his case, the strategic advisor he depended on to do their research has also left. Said it before, say it again, the only reason we never get anywhere with the airport is that lack of continuity. The only agencies that have gotten somewhere are the City of SeaTac and Highline Schools. It’s not due to ‘land’ or some advantage we don’t have access to. It’s mainly because they are the only agencies that maintain focus.

Thursday 4:00pm: Transportation Committee (Agenda) First meeting of the year was basically setting a planning calendar. Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the Youtube feed so no video was recorded. Grrrr….

Thursday 5:00pm: Environment Committee (Agenda) Also, our planning calendar and a much more thorough discussion of the Estuary presentation the full council saw at 6:00pm. But watch this one as it is much more in-depth.

This is no joke. An ongoing challenge with the Beach Park, nay the entire Marina, is flooding and climate change. Keeping the park (and those lovely historic restorations) going was always gonna be expensive. But now that we understand how quickly sea level is rising and take into account that one of the original purposes of restoring the Creek was salmon recovery, the discussion is about to go next level.

Salmon recovery and flood control are often in tension with one another. So, it’s a bit weird to see grants for both purposes in one project. Although it’s not because ecosystems don’t compartmentalise like that. In fact, the ‘estuary’, the mouth of the creek, is the interface between salt and fresh water. But there’s no clear line between ‘salt’ and ‘fresh’. It’s all one thing.

Eventually we will need to remove as much of the artificial sea wall (‘rip-rap’) surrounding the estuary mouth. Eventually the estuary will look more like the tidal marshes and Blue Heron Sanctuaries at Nisqually and Everett.

This will have impacts for nearby homeowners, condo dwellers, and all denizens of the Beach Park. It also calls into question our events planning program at the Beach Park and basically everything near the Marina. I strongly encourage you to read this portion of the packet carefully.

Council Meeting Recap

Thursday 6:00pm: City Council Meeting Updated Agenda) Usually the first meeting of the year is fairly benign. But not this one. In fact, this one gets the Pee Wee Herman Action Packed Seal of Approval!

Public Comment

There was a very enthusiastic public comment re. the Des Moines Flag is (or perhaps technically, the ‘seal’.) And of course, when you Google “seal Of Des Moines, WA” you get this.

But apparently, according to this organization of vexillologists, our City flag is a total fail. After reading the article I am not sure I’m convinced. Many of the ‘rules’ it seems to break (showing the founding date “1889”) I consider a plus.

Although, having “Waterland” in quotes should probably go. It’s like saying how much I “love” our new mission statement. 😀

The main problem? I’m not sure too many of you have ever seen it! It has not had a place of prominence anywhere in the City in years. At the moment I can only think of three places it exists, and none of them are highly visible. It’s not visible at any Council meeting. It’s in a conference room at the Police Station. It does fly over City Hall, but is often obscured by trees. I don’t think it flies at the Marina. It definitely does not fly at Redondo or Steven J. Underwood or basically anywhere else I can think of.

In addition to the vexillogical, there were three other comments all from people in Redondo. What got me going on the ‘flag’ thing is that when the City proposed a park district at Redondo, I had hoped there would be at least one nod to the fact that Redondo is in Des Moines, eg. putting up the City flag! If we want to tie the community together, we do need have shared symbols.

Ferry Presentation by Peter Philips

This presentation was not only a sales pitch and a ‘surprise’, the entire stats page was a pack o’ porky pies, mate. I mean everything. ‘Unique’ visitors actually included repeat visitors. ‘100% utilization’ was more like 70%. And I still have no idea what ‘utilization’ means.

Costs? His sheet says $296,000. Here’s the more realistic numbers from the actual contract.

The latest is that King County will be doing a ‘test’ ferry run from Pier 50 to Des Moines. Which is just another sales pitch.

ZEV Car Share

There’s been this green electric car near the Harbormaster’s building for several months. It’s an electric car you can take for a few hours up to a week using a phone app. You sign up for a one-time membership fee ($500?) and then you get a fairly low rate. Zev Co-Op Grand opening is January 22nd. Here is a coupon for your first ride.

Public Records Fee Schedule Update

I’m not grousing about a rate increase. But this is exactly the kind of thing I wish the Finance Committee would discuss before bringing to Council – especially on an already packed agenda. There was this thing about 1,400 hours of staff time. OMG! Enormous! Until you do a bit o’ division and realise that it’s only .7 of one full time staff member – and a public records officer is a state requirement, not a luxury.

City of Des Moines Mission, Vision & Values

The Council voted for this. I voted ‘no’ because I do not believe this should be our mission. An audience member seemed puzzled that I did not take credit for correcting the grammar in the original blurb. I did not take credit because that correction came from ChatGPT.

As I tried to explain, wanting to prevent the City Council from signing off on something embarrassing is not the same as supporting a bad policy.

The fact that the Council spent $8,000 on this endeavour and ended up with ₂almost exactly what we had before should be what we focus on more.

I also voted against a subsidiary motion rather than ‘abstaining’, because in ‘elected school’ we were taught that in Robert’s Rules of Order an ‘abstention’ counts as a ‘no’. Generally, the only time I ‘abstain’ has been when I wanted to file an official objection into the record. I was told “No, we fixed that in the new Council Protocol Manual.” I checked the new version and… I don’t see that.

New Contest: There is a really good gift certificate for the first person who reads through our 2023 City Council Protocol Manual and shows me where abstentions are discussed!

Des Moines Marina Steps Project

I’m gonna be honest here. I walked out of this meeting triggered. The initial essay I wrote, which would have been more than appropriate in the previous regime, today would read as unfair given the newness of Ms. Caffrey and her team.

The problem, of course, is trust. All seven of us voted for Ms. Caffrey, but for very different reasons. And with each passing week, and especially at critical presentations like this, we all look for ‘signs’ as to the kind of leadership she will provide.

But there was an over-stuffed agenda, a ton of ‘surprise’ info, a lack of answers to longstanding questions, coupled with helpings of mis-information. All perhaps understandable one-offs for a new leader walking into a situation like this. But also eerily reminiscent of the last regime. 😀

I’ve strongly advocated for giving the new CEO a lot of time to learn the City and develop her own approach. However, I acknowledge that during this period a lot of bad can happen. Given the past decade or so, it’s tough to sit quietly and be patient.

And then there was this:

If you take $2 million out of the project, is it still acceptable and does it meet the requirements that was intended as a signature project? If you take $4 million out, my belief is that it wouldn’t, but we could probably go that far and end up with a staircase.

I object, your honour. Leading the witness! 😀

Frankly, I’d hoped this little budget problem would afford us a chance to look at things a bit differently. This is the fourth major version of ‘Marina Redevelopment’ since 2017. The whole notion of ‘placemaking’ only began in 2024 – as a response to public criticism of both the new design and the bond sales. In short: the new design seemed to require new justifications.

‘Placemaking’ implies that somehow a ‘staircase’, ie. connectivity between the downtown and the Marina, is secondary; that the Marina needs to be dramatically enhanced with a bunch of doodads in order to be successful and to draw people here.

That was never ‘the plan’. Going back to master plans three decades old connectivity was the main goal of any improvements to that central core! And newsflash: People already love visiting the Marina and the Beach Park.

Thought experiments: Just how many new visitors would be attracted by a splash pad or a jungle gym than would otherwise occur? How much new downtown revenue would be required over time to break even on those add-ons? Would it not be better to be patient and apply for grants to add park amenities over time (as we have done everywhere else in town)?

If the project were scaled back to a simple, elegant, and truly ADA-friendly way to transit between the downtown and the Marina – and came in under budget that should be more than enough success.

And the funny thing? That was the original mission going back three decades.

Des Moines Creek Estuary Project Update

See above in the Environment Committee.

Telecommunications Franchise Agreement with Ezee Fiber and Ziply

This kinda/sorta blows my mind. As of today, there are a ton of gaps in broadband coverage. In the past, new providers treated their coverage areas as state secrets. The rep for Ziply stated on the record: they intend to provide 100% coverage to Des Moines. I don’t want to give a hard date, but it’s so much faster than previous rollouts of Comcast or Centurylink it was hard not to raise an eyebrow. But if it turns out as advertised, this is tremendous news. One important value proposition for Des Moines should be remote work and/or businesses that can support Seattle without requiring commuting.

But wait, there’s more…

The discussion of logos was postponed until the 23rd. There was also an announcement of a ‘Non-Profit Summit’ which I don’t quite get. But Cms Achziger and Grace-Matsui seemed to be aware of it and supportive.

If you don’t get the gag, it’s sort of a Japanese version of the Real Housewives yelling at Smudge meme I’ve used a couple of times.

²As a civic-minded Des Moines, I know you are aware that our previous statement was “Create a vibrant, inviting, livable, safe and sustainable waterfront community, while embracing change for the future and respecting our history.”

Weekly Updates

Weekly Update 01/05/2025

January 5, 2025January 7, 2025

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Some bits of business…

I gave new City Manager Katherine Caffrey the best gift ever. Two weeks off from the wonders of me. And then welcomed her back with a 3,000 word essay. Break’s over. 😀

Duwamish Head

A couple of people asked me “What happened to the sailboats?” This race, usually one of the best of the year, was marred from the start by bad weather. Started late. Got scrubbed at the mid-way point. So, if you were wondering why you did not see boats sailing across the finish line in late afternoon, that’s the deal. To be clear: by ‘bad weather’ I only mean no wind. In sailing wind is the only thing that really matters. Cold and rain are generally no impediments that cannot be overcome by purchasing muy caro (and muy macho) gear. 😀 The main races are in winter is because this is usually the time of the best winds in Puget Sound. Just. Not. This. Saturday. 😀 Still, a great time and some great piccies at the Three Tree Point Yacht Club Facebook Page.

Yelling Fire in a crowded tax season

I don’t wanna be that guy, but many of you received your Fire Benefit Charge details. Despite voting to approve it, the statements have been greeted with surprise, confusion, and in some cases buyer’s remorse. I won’t get into South King Fire’s business (mainly because ¹I want someone to show up if my house is burning 😀 ) However, to the extent it affects the City, it’s still an interesting discussion.

First, despite what you may have heard, when the Finance Committee initially proposed our ill-fated property tax levy back in January 2024, no one was considering how it related to the FBC. However, somewhere in April-ish SKF was the origin of the strategy to place the levy on the ballot twice, ie. if it failed in August put it back on the ballot in November. I strongly disagreed and in fact, my colleagues (in private, of course) seemed to agree. But the administration heeded their advice, based on SKF’s ongoing success in getting their ballot initiatives passed. And apparently that was enough to get some of my colleagues to …er… ‘reconsider their decision’ 😀 on the ‘second try’ thing.

The first I heard of the notion of using the FBC as a sales tool for our property tax levy was from former SKF Chief and former councilmember Vic Pennington. But that began after the August 6 election. The notion was that the FBC would ‘free up capacity’, and thus be a net zero for residents even with the property tax levy.

It is understandable that proponents would want to provide new sales arguments after that fail. But honestly? That never would have occurred to me. My mind just does not work that way.

Say it out loud, “Even with the City’s new tax, you’ll still come out ahead so long as you vote for this other tax (..er… ‘fee’). But you gotta do both!” Which sounds like something a former SKF Chief might say. 😀 (Sorry, Vic.) But seriously, making one tax contingent on another did not seem like a great idea. Especially if you’re not 100% sure about the effects of that other tax.

I applaud SKF for acknowledging their ongoing funding issues and finding a creative solution. There are some great aspects to the FBC (eg. Port of Seattle property is tax-exempt but is subject to the FBC. Wish we could do that!) My concerns, which I stated at the presentation SKF gave to the City Council, were two-fold…

a) The FBC seemed hard to calculate. I think they coulda provided some sort o’ calculator on their web site to allow voters to instantly know how it would affect them before they voted. Check this out:

FBC = √square feet* x (18)* x (category factor) x (response factor) x (risk factor) x (fire flow factor) x (discount)

“I’ll take Polynomials for $400”, Alex. 😀

b) Also, and this may just be me, the ‘risk component’ felt uncomfortably like insurance. It is quite understandable to charge many fees based on usage (water, electrics, sewer, etc.) Up to a point, one can choose to conserve those things. However, First Responders like police and the brave men and women who are gonna save my house (in spite of this article!) provide an intrinsically different service. To me, what they do feels more like a responsibility we should all share in equally. For example, I’m trying to imagine how it would be if police were funded on a similar model – charging residents a variable rate for public safety based on the current crime stats on their street or whether or not they own a private security system. Not a fan.

City Manager Stuff

Even with her well-earned break, Ms. Caffrey has really set the bar with her City Manager’s Report January 3, 2025 The promo for the Des Moines Historical Society is always welcome. One minor complaint: either the piccie of the boy with a salmon is a stock photo or I’m ratting her child out to DFW for fishing out of season! jk.

This Week

After several much needed weeks off, once again the games begin, ²Maximus… 😀

Monday: City Audit Entrance Conference. Every year the City is audited by the State. This is for 2023 and it is routine – nothing like the archetypal “OMG, we’re getting audited, Frank!” 😀 As I keep saying, the City’s books are surprisingly complex, so the State rotates the areas it reviews every year, covering most aspects in sort of a 3-4 year cycle. It will also add on any potential weaknesses it noticed from the previous year. In general, these are fairly uneventful. The last noteworthy ding (‘finding’) was 2020 and that was not particularly serious. Very few Cms show up for these. I do because, well… I guess I have nothing better to do? 😀

One last thing that also bears repeating: State Audits are not management audits! The last City Manager used to crow whenever we got a clean bill of health. Not so fast, sir. One way these audits are like the IRS is that the State’s concern is partly to find gross fraud (very rare), but mostly they’re about getting paid. The State has no interest in running our city. It’s important that these audits go smoothly. But regardless, they are no guarantee that the services the City provides, or the projects we’re undertaking are wise, or otherwise. I think of it like a restaurant inspection from the Health Department. Very important. But it’s the baseline you expect. The tastiness and quality of service might be another matter entirely. 😀

Monday 3:00pm: Speaking of good (and Creole) food! Grand Opening of Jambalaya Kitchen at Highline College Building 8.

Thursday 4:00pm: Transportation Committee (Agenda) First meeting of the year is basically setting a planning calendar.

Thursday 5:00pm: Environment Committee (Agenda) Also, our planning calendar andA the Estuary presentation the full council will be seeing at 6:00pm? Not sure why the redundancy. But it is important, I guess. I will be asking my colleagues for their ideas. I have a couple.

One being the review of our Environmental Stewardship Policy. Didn’t know we had an ‘environmental stewardship policy’? Come to think of it, I had totally spaced! But we do. It’s in Resolution No. 1199 – adopting Environmental Stewardship Policies for the City of Des Moines. And we even updated some key aspects of it in 2015 with Resolution No. 1291. But unfortunately, one of those changes disapproved of any county-wide climate targets (like greenhouse gas emissions) Wow. No sound code. No environmental targets? The last time the Environment Committee looked at this was 2017 but I don’t see that any action was taken.

I think it’s a fine time for a top-up. 🙂

Thursday 6:00pm: City Council Meeting (Agenda) Usually the first meeting of the year is fairly benign. But not this one. In fact, this one gets the Pee Wee Herman Action Packed Seal of Approval!

The issues range from the sublime to the rid… er… less sublime 😀 and include:

Ferry Presentation by Peter Philips
Inshallah, may I serve long enough to see this guy not get another ‘six month’ contract. This was a topic of that 3,000 word essay. If I had a dime for every vote the Council has taken in my tenure that were ‘just a small step, we can always change our minds’, I’d have a lot of dimes.

Public Records Fee Schedule Update
This is something the Finance Committee discussed last year. My only gripe is that the specifics of the proposal should also be first vetted by the Finance Committee before going to the full Council. If we are not capturing our costs, obviously we should have that discussion.

City of Des Moines Mission, Vision & Values
Inshallah, may I serve long enough to see us notice that the majority of the city is nowhere near the water. And have the ‘vision’ to do something about it.

Des Moines Marina Steps Project
Inshallah, may I serve long enough to… OK, I’ve beaten on that expression enough. This was also a part of those 3,000 words. When we voted for those bonds in 2023, we were told that they had to be applied to these specific projects. And we were specifically told that the project had to be bid as one all-inclusive deal. And yet, the agenda now talks about breaking the project into smaller pieces or even backing away? How are these things even possible, Grasshopper? And if so, why are they now only possible simply because we came up short on the dough-re-mi?

Des Moines Creek Estuary Project Update. This is no joke. An ongoing challenge with the Beach Park, nay the entire Marina, is flooding and climate change. Just keeping it (and those lovely historic restorations) was always going to be expensive. But now take into account that one of the original purposes of restoring the Creek was salmon recovery. And to do that, eventually we also need to remove the artificial sea wall (‘rip-rap’) surrounding the estuary mouth. How it will impact nearby homeowners and denizens of the Beach Park is going to be an interesting discussion. If you live or use the Beach Park, I strongly encourage you to read this portion of the packet carefully.

Telecommunications Franchise Agreement with Ziply
I confess, as of this writing I have not finished plowing through the thing because these franchise agreements go on for pages and pages. But I will. People have screamed about both a lack of coverage and choice in broadband service here for decades and I do intend to read this thing carefully because having those things really is a strategic interest for the City. One important value proposition for Des Moines should be remote work and/or businesses that can support Seattle without requiring commuting. Without much better broadband we cannot do that. To me those services are just as important as physical links (like a ferry).

Council City Logo Discussion
In another hard hitting issue, we will be discussing some form of coherent branding? Actually, this does matter to me in the sense that we have a zillion web sites and brands. And in many sections of the city we literally don’t say ‘Des Moines’. Eg. the new Redondo restrooms will say ‘Redondo’ which is ridiculous. If we spend over a million dollars on a bathroom, I want visitors to know who the hell paid for it! 😀

I’m also not thrilled that over the past two years the City unilaterally embarked on its own ‘temporary’ branding, which is now all over the place and cost however much it cost. Frankly, I wish we had that moolah back in order to pay for all the new branding.

I’ll be honest: I kinda like the old brand. I tend to favour older designs (buildings, logos) because although they may look ‘stodgy’ for a few years, over time they tend to look better and better.

However, I will be moving to have this opened up to the Arts Commission for a public competition. As we have done with other public arts projects. We have a ton of talented professional artists in the area and I’d rather have them take a whack at it than the seven of us who are definitely not artists.

Non-Profit Summit Hosted by Des Moines City Council
I have no idea what this is. I can guess. But any agenda item called a ‘Summit’ with no description deserves a bit of mockery.

Last Week

I spent a certain amount of time on STNI stuff, including this letter to our State legislators calling for a revision to the law to open up Port of Seattle funding to cities like Des Moines for aviation impacts. The letter gets a little (ok, a lot) into the weeds, but besides ‘the noise’ there are many other problems in our relationship with the Port. A big one being that there is no path to funding to compensate for the harms caused just by being next to the eighth largest airport in America. This legislation is meant as a path to at least partially addressing that.

I also put out Part Deux of my year-end grab back. It contains gems such as

You call this a Happy New Year? 12/31/2024 – JC Harris For Des Moines, Washington

New Marina Parking Rates
An article on Oklahoma City which funds downtown projects in a very cool way!
Some stats on property values, commercial, home, tax-exempt and how we compare with the rest of King County.
Some gossip on three new businesses!
An update on Middle Housing
And an AI Generated Christmas Card I will treasure for at least 361 more days. 🙂

¹A certain staff member referred to me recently as ‘Maximus’. I assume because the character spends most of the movie being tortured to death?

Economic Development

You call this a Happy New Year? 12/31/2024

December 31, 2024December 31, 2024

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Some bits of business…

HAPPY NEW YEAR, DES MOINES! OK, this is also no ‘Weekly Update’. It’s not even all that ‘happy’. There are certainly no resolutions. Some might call it a bunch o’ rando bits o’ business! I’d call it part deux of last week’s ‘economic development’ rant. 😀 Still, I hope you find it interesting.

When it comes to urban planning, AI really delivers

¹Before we get into the serious stuff, this cover image tickles me no end. All I asked for was a “Happy New Year Card”. But apparently, ChatGPT decided that our little town deserved several upgrades. I ask you to take a moment and zoom in. Going by this, once again, we are celebrating with totally awesome pyrotechnics. The town has been rebuilt to look even more like Leavenworth than Leavenworth, replete with a shopping boardwalk and medieval bell tower! The Marina Activity Tent has been moved out to fairway and now includes a working lighthouse! Just beyond, the jetty now supports a floating bridge providing convenient transit from Redondo all the way over to Normandy Park. And beyond that? Three Tree Point is now a set of 19th Century working docks! It’s like a Christmas episode of Here Comes The Brides that just keeps going and going. Perhaps best of all, Mt. Rainier has (sensibly) replaced the Olympic Mountains, providing even better views for all our residents. Last week I asked us to start thinking more about ‘urban planning’. Well, AI really delivers! 😀

Marina Parking Rates 2025

I’m putting this on the Links page, along with basically everything you ever wanted to know about Des Moines but were afraid to ask.

Oklahoma City

This interview with the Mayor of Oklahoma City is one of the most interesting podcasts I’ve heard in a while. Oklahoma City stole our basketball team. Since then, the Thunder have been doing very well. But that’s not the point. The point is how they’ve handled economic development. I had to (emphasis on the had to) visit OKC many years ago and the joke was that it was the furthest thing from OK. Since then, the transformation via their MAPS initiatives has been pretty amazing. A couple of guides they used along the way:

They build some amenities to be functional, and some just to be cool.
But it’s a pay as you go deal. They always went to the voters for the taxes to pay for it. They did not issue debt for these kinds of projects. Which is rough because you were asking people to pay for taxes for years before they could see anything getting built. So, they had to sell the idea and keep selling it. It’s less efficient, but it built trust. And after seeing so many failed attempts, their voters decided a long time ago that trust was the key.
Along those same lines, they run everything through what is essentially a public planning commission. It’s not just a trust deal, it’s a skills deal. They recognised that community expertise makes their projects better.

Tax Exempt table goes here…

I’m putting this breakdown of property values by city here to emphasise a point I’ve been trying to make for-ehveeeeer about Des Moines. We have, essentially, the highest amount of tax-exempt land of any suburb in King County. It was one of those choices you make along the line you don’t realise you’re making, but end up having to live with.

JURISDICTION	TOT APPR VAL	TOT TAX VAL	TOT EX VAL	TOT EX VAL%	COMM TAXABLE	COMM EXEMPT	COMM TAX %	COMM EX %	RES TAXABLE	RES EXEMPT	RES TAX %	RES EX %	Total %
ALGONA	920,140,196	891,504,500	28,635,696	3.1121014085119	498,039,200	22,851,000	0.54126447487574	0.024834259061105	393,465,300	5,784,696	0.42761451103914	0.0062867550240138	1
AUBURN	17,475,588,098	14,758,628,790	2,716,959,308	15.547169530226	7,273,864,565	2,521,713,518	0.4162300303835	0.14429920777823	7,484,764,225	195,245,790	0.42829827431425	0.01117248752403	1
BEAUX ARTS	285,891,000	284,273,000	1,618,000	0.56594995994977	-	-	#VALUE!	#VALUE!	284,273,000	1,618,000	0.9943405004005	0.0056594995994977	#VALUE!
BELLEVUE	97,666,841,734	90,063,367,804	7,603,473,930	7.7851129359833	42,243,521,444	6,754,442,376	0.43252674801395	0.069157989099269	47,819,846,360	849,031,554	0.48962212262622	0.0086931402605643	1
BLACK DIAMOND	2,168,866,052	2,066,582,632	102,283,420	4.715986028998	193,474,622	60,907,478	0.089205426873453	0.028082636981585	1,873,108,010	41,375,942	0.86363471283657	0.019077223308395	1
BOTHELL	10,156,262,264	9,041,668,224	1,114,594,040	10.974451141842	3,876,245,920	996,145,610	0.38166067587086	0.098081910855232	5,165,422,304	118,448,430	0.50859481271072	0.011662600563187	1
BURIEN	11,593,290,579	10,266,655,382	1,326,635,197	11.44312900604	2,527,673,492	1,163,097,687	0.21802899485489	0.10032506983883	7,738,981,890	163,537,510	0.66753971508472	0.014106220221568	1
CARNATION	660,528,583	578,651,352	81,877,231	12.395713540227	65,824,153	70,166,947	0.099653754120736	0.1062284794419	512,827,199	11,710,284	0.776389110477	0.017728655960373	1
CLYDE HILL	4,389,712,700	4,199,078,200	190,634,500	4.3427557343331	5,477,900	158,826,800	0.0012478948793164	0.036181593387649	4,193,600,300	31,807,700	0.95532454777735	0.0072459639556821	1
COVINGTON	4,753,350,375	4,141,478,099	611,872,276	12.872442124572	628,681,600	561,402,500	0.13226073198949	0.11810669437554	3,512,796,499	50,469,776	0.73901484676479	0.010617726870176	1
DES MOINES	7,144,458,831	5,836,688,638	1,307,770,193	18.304678127972	1,591,560,300	1,212,046,100	0.22276848920931	0.16964841266086	4,245,128,338	95,724,093	0.59418472951097	0.013398368618859	1
DUVALL	2,441,862,909	2,348,381,443	93,481,466	3.8282847761623	232,179,900	66,269,300	0.095083101980972	0.027138829029161	2,116,201,543	27,212,166	0.86663405025741	0.011144018732462	1
ENUMCLAW	2,837,286,919	2,463,523,950	373,762,969	13.173252465131	679,758,700	342,184,400	0.23958052865502	0.1206026777583	1,783,765,250	31,578,569	0.62868694669367	0.011129846893006	1
FEDERAL WAY	18,862,473,057	16,538,728,769	2,323,744,288	12.319404146943	6,041,229,478	2,114,975,400	0.32027769952244	0.11212609256532	10,497,499,291	208,768,888	0.55652825900813	0.011067948904109	1
HUNTS POINT	1,782,653,997	1,759,406,500	23,247,497	1.3040947395918	-	-	#VALUE!	#VALUE!	1,759,406,500	23,247,497	0.98695905260408	0.013040947395918	#VALUE!
ISSAQUAH	17,931,616,586	16,378,309,740	1,553,306,846	8.6623915838839	7,566,821,990	1,456,354,320	0.42198214275381	0.081217123565816	8,811,487,750	96,952,526	0.49139394140735	0.0054067922730232	1
KENMORE	7,584,474,782	6,960,639,743	623,835,039	8.2251580621051	1,149,095,980	491,383,000	0.15150633537962	0.064788006305484	5,811,543,763	132,452,039	0.76624208399932	0.017463574315567	1
KENT	33,867,484,206	30,665,462,433	3,202,021,773	9.4545604672718	17,367,087,196	2,935,390,337	0.51279531394668	0.086672819248852	13,298,375,237	266,631,436	0.3926590813806	0.0078727854238657	1
KING COUNTY	77,454,812,441	69,679,491,963	7,775,320,478	10.038524699705	4,481,190,558	3,216,423,579	0.057855547212298	0.041526452361499	65,198,301,405	4,558,896,899	0.84175920579065	0.058858794635552	1
KIRKLAND	46,894,598,341	43,306,930,696	3,587,667,645	7.6504923209104	15,274,846,056	3,201,328,689	0.32572719665764	0.068266469961447	28,032,084,640	386,338,956	0.59776788013325	0.0082384532476574	1
LAKE FOREST PARK	4,530,295,340	4,366,269,256	164,026,084	3.6206488029983	301,140,600	90,703,400	0.066472619862351	0.020021520274658	4,065,128,656	73,322,684	0.89732089210767	0.016184967755325	1
MAPLE VALLEY	6,625,151,137	6,296,046,307	329,104,830	4.9675067510841	817,633,082	289,589,892	0.1234134988157	0.043710684633699	5,478,413,225	39,514,938	0.82691143367346	0.0059643828771419	1
MEDINA	6,864,890,400	6,619,440,151	245,450,249	3.5754430835487	34,153,500	131,224,900	0.004975097635936	0.019115367085831	6,585,286,651	114,225,349	0.95927047152858	0.016639063749656	1
MERCER ISLAND	21,157,949,054	20,178,007,089	979,941,965	4.6315546109831	2,143,138,814	563,908,686	0.10129237047174	0.026652332159453	18,034,868,275	416,033,279	0.85239208341843	0.019663213950378	1
MILTON	523,501,800	494,812,200	28,689,600	5.4803249960172	304,873,200	26,357,600	0.58237278267238	0.050348632994194	189,939,000	2,332,000	0.36282396736745	0.004454616965978	1
NEWCASTLE	5,382,272,063	5,216,626,600	165,645,463	3.077612225118	1,369,565,770	103,679,330	0.25445866614863	0.019263115796902	3,847,060,830	61,966,133	0.71476521160019	0.011513006454278	1
NORMANDY PARK	2,622,219,798	2,538,219,546	84,000,252	3.2034024021963	179,973,600	55,200,600	0.06863406345161	0.021051095732746	2,358,245,946	28,799,652	0.89933191252643	0.010982928289217	1
NORTH BEND	2,912,429,175	2,774,805,373	137,623,802	4.7253956656302	744,696,174	113,434,109	0.25569589138593	0.038948280690809	2,030,109,199	24,189,693	0.69705015195777	0.0083056759654937	1
PACIFIC	993,149,899	939,237,200	53,912,699	5.4284553675417	227,721,900	28,554,900	0.22929257731315	0.028751853097656	711,515,300	25,357,799	0.71642286901144	0.02553270057776	1
REDMOND	37,805,387,480	34,560,907,372	3,244,480,108	8.582057543297	19,903,873,279	2,929,050,642	0.52648245675381	0.077477069731121	14,657,034,093	315,429,466	0.38769696781322	0.0083435057018492	1
RENTON	29,527,379,099	26,196,171,524	3,331,207,575	11.281758410833	10,980,189,797	3,067,763,845	0.37186469412627	0.10389556874365	15,215,981,727	263,443,730	0.5153177217654	0.0089220153646797	1
SAMMAMISH	29,243,515,533	28,374,654,328	868,861,205	2.9711243301768	2,223,615,600	642,210,720	0.076037903086267	0.021960790564845	26,151,038,728	226,650,485	0.89425085361196	0.0077504527369233	1
SEATAC	9,263,375,715	5,601,974,125	3,661,401,590	39.525565006191	2,873,162,825	3,590,563,500	0.31016369338745	0.38760853607458	2,728,811,300	70,838,090	0.29458065655064	0.0076471139873225	1
SEATTLE	364,245,340,561	288,811,027,400	75,434,313,161	20.709753773327	138,382,388,697	71,998,905,009	0.37991532982651	0.19766596025116	150,428,638,703	3,435,408,152	0.41298713244022	0.0094315774821138	1
SHORELINE	17,314,596,500	14,590,172,055	2,724,424,445	15.734842247118	2,937,860,921	2,393,179,978	0.16967539041409	0.13821748476784	11,652,311,134	331,244,467	0.67297618711473	0.019130937703342	1
SKYKOMISH	55,073,100	47,960,110	7,112,990	12.915543159909	5,391,310	5,313,790	0.097893708543736	0.096486124805032	42,568,800	1,799,200	0.77295085985717	0.032669306794061	1
SNOQUALMIE	5,005,201,220	4,464,069,830	541,131,390	10.811381325444	828,372,130	489,335,370	0.16550226326365	0.097765374156126	3,635,697,700	51,796,020	0.7263839234819	0.010348439098319	1
TUKWILA	10,062,097,642	8,436,535,352	1,625,562,290	16.155302282248	6,583,656,052	1,564,126,800	0.65430254070675	0.1554473883727	1,852,879,300	61,435,490	0.18414443647077	0.0061056344497755	1
WOODINVILLE	6,447,779,900	6,074,536,204	373,243,696	5.7887164541705	3,147,311,275	335,941,100	0.48812324921327	0.052101825001812	2,927,224,929	37,302,596	0.45398958624503	0.0057853395398934	1
YARROW POINT	2,101,869,200	2,076,678,500	25,190,700	1.1984903722839	0	19,366,100	0	0.0092137512648266	2,076,678,500	5,824,600	0.98801509627716	0.0027711524580121	1

So what?

We have somewhere between 12k and 13k housing units. But less than 7,000 taxpaying single family homes. So when you add it all up:

Our property tax is only a third of our budget, not the almost two thirds it was back in the dark ages.
We depend on a very small number of homeowners to power our property tax.
By some reasoning known only to the gods (and the county tax assessor) commercial properties generate less tax per sq ft. than homes.
And the land we offer to developers always comes with big discounts and tax abatements.

In short, our land is not productive. And that places the real burden for fiscal health on…

Utilities
Fees (dog licenses, traffic tickets)
Construction (one-time sales tax)
Business taxes (recurring, fairly predictable)
Retail taxes (recurring, fairly predictable)

The problem with construction sales tax is that a) there isn’t that much land and b) you’re expecting things to wear out every 25 years or so, which is not great environmentally. So you’re basically looking for a constant stream of places to tear down and rebuild and re-purpose. Fine. Where are these? And what do you put in their place? Do you just keep building to build – the way my generation used to buy a new car every three years?

The point I keep trying to drive home is this: Suburbs like Des Moines did not care about this kind of discussion back in the day. You literally could not find anyone to discuss “how much money should our city be making”. Considering the ‘economic efficiency’ of land just was not a part of the thought process. In my opinion, it now must be unless you simply want to tax people the true market rate of what it costs to provide the services people say they want.

Get it? Take a business like our region’s commercial aviation sector. The cost of your ticket to Oklahoma City is about half what it should be if America really was a ‘free market’ paradise. The other half is covered by

A variety of Federal subsidies the airlines get from the government
Their ability to charge a la carte now for all those ‘amenities’ like checked baggage and everything down to peanuts and water.
And most importantly, huge (and I do mean huge) payments from credit card companies as part of the ‘frequent flyer miles’ scam we’ve all come to depend upon.

Until recently cities like Des Moines never had this kind of discussion. It was just assumed that there would be a constant stream of building on all the undeveloped land, and then property taxes would do most of the heavy lifting. In other words, the last century.

But what do you do in a town once it is mostly developed and where property taxes now play a much smaller role? In 2024, you cannot afford to not discuss how to fund the amenities people expect in a fundamentally new way. Otherwise, your only choice is to either a) continue running into financial problems every 5-7 years or charge the real ‘per seat’ cost of running a city.

We have to think strategically about how much income each decision we make affects the community. Otherwise, only the wealthiest people will be able to afford to fly… er… live in Des Moines.

Downtown Businesses…

There are two new businesses in Backstage Alley along 225th: Iris and Peony Flowers (underneath the apartments in the Theatre building), and Patti’s Gift Shop next to Creole Soul. (Smoothies coming soon!) 🙂

Since you don’t get feelgood news on this site without a side o’ veg, it also appears that Candace’s Vietnamese on 223rd is no more. 🙁

But on the other hand, according to contractors furiously sheet rocking, a new Italian restaurant is coming in ‘three months!’ 🙂

And on the fourth hand, this will be the second Italian-themed restaurant in that spot; and probably the seventh since I’ve lived here. And despite voting to name the alley ‘Backstage’, it’s still not showing the proper address on Google Maps – which makes promotion even more challenging. 🙁

2025 has gotsta be the year we start doing more meaningful work to cross-promote our downtown. All the businesses working together. Better signage. Not because any of it will ever ‘pay the bills’. It won’t. It can’t. But again, because a functioning downtown is what residents expect. One has to think of the downtown like properly functioning parks. It will be up to the City to help these businesses survive otherwise you’ll continue to have ribbon cuttings on the same spots every 2-3 years. It’s like replacing your lawn every 2-3 years. They cannot do it organically. The airlines figured this out a long time ago and so did the FAA. They need each other and are willing to support one another. We need to start thinking the same.

The SAMP shifts gear

The SAMP is the generational decision for Des Moines. It should be a key part of the above strategy. If you haven’t, I hope you’ll follow Sea-Tac Noise.Info, which, as part of its Legislative Agenda, is pushing the state to open a pathway to more funding from the Port of Seattle to cities like Des Moines. Your personal interest may be noise and/or pollution. I get it. But as your representative, my interest is also in what the airport does to the City. And the fact is, the airport has lowered our tax base, lowered our public health, increased our public safety needs. In other words, it has made it more expensive for us to serve you.

As part of the Port of Seattle, the airport is only responsible to the voters of King County. What I find a bit ironic is how much contempt so many people have an understandable disdain for ‘King County’ when it comes to public safety. But residents here don’t seem to make that same connection with the Port Its service area is also King County. And it has the same lack of accountability issues. We in Des Moines suffer because the Port provides benefits to the rest of King County.

The SAMP is a chance to rebalance that equation. And even if you don’t see the path to get there, I hope you will support the notion that this is a necessary goal.

Middle Housing

And since property tax is the life blood of cities like Des Moines. And since we (me and the Queen) support housing in Des Moines.

The public open house will take place on January 15th from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM at the Des Moines Activity Center, 2045 216th Street, Des Moines, WA 98198.

Please feel free to contact dmplanning@desmoineswa.gov with any questions.

You can RSVP for the public open house at www.DesMoinesMiddleHousing.com. We hope to see you at the event!

¹Just to be fair, here is what ChatGPT came up with for Federal Way. Apparently the AI has certain ideas about Christmas in the Great Northwest. I do think it’s interesting all the details it gave to Des Moines. Remember: AI is trained on data from somewhere. If I had to guess, I’d say that ChatGPT threw in all those extra Des Moines doodads because that is how people talk about Des Moines. It’s a (slightly 😀 ) exaggerated representation of how much people like the Marina – or how they wish it was like.

General Stuff

You’re asking me about economic development?

December 22, 2024December 24, 2024

2 Comments

Since the Council has several weeks off, I want to wish you all Happy Holidays. For my family, that means a combo platter of Hanukkah gelt, midnight Mass, followed by every movie in the entire Die Hard franchise. ²Which makes us traditionalists.

For Duty And Humanity!

At my last chat with our new City Manager, she asked me what direction I would like the City to take in terms of Economic Development. I’m usually caught off guard whenever anyone asks what I think about anything. 😀 But in this case, I was caught off guard for a couple of other reasons.

First, if memory serves, the Council spent four hours and a lot of money in November developing a mission statement. I can see the eye rolls even across over the Interwebs, but in my experience a mission statement from the board should be a real blueprint for the CEO. A mission statement shouldn’t be some empty motto like ¹For Duty and Humanity!

For example, the Port of Seattle uses its mission statement to drive everything they do. Whether I agree with it or not, their mission is clear. One might argue that because they are a special purpose government that mission is easier to define. But your Council settled on a very specific message:

“To be the premiere marine destination in the Pacific Northwest.”

If that really is the direction? I think the direction is pretty clear. Take it and get to work.

But totally, do not do that!

Actually, I’m glad she asked me, and I’m just enough of a politician to talk out of both sides of my mouth on this one. I completely disagreed not only with that draft mission statement, but also the lack of seriousness of the exercise. If it had been a true ‘mission statement’, the next question would be “What does that even mean? How do we do that?” After all, the origin of ‘mission statement’ is strategy, right? “Men, the mission is clear: we’re gonna sneak past the American Fleet and sail down to Cuba…” Or whatever war planners do that hasn’t been covered in other extremely realistic John McTiernan movies.

OK, here’s my real advice

Don’t ask me. In fact, don’t ask any of the Council. Take a year. Hire a for realz and independent analyst; not the City Manager (we’ve tried that more than once) and definitely not some guy we pay to promote ‘ferry’ as the solution to every problem. I get that there is all this immediate pressure to raise revenue. But all that has ever led to in my time here has been short-term, cockamamie decisions that ended up boxing us in over the long haul. This should be left to a dispassionate independent professional. And the fact that the Council came out of that marathon session with ‘marine destination’ as the end all, be all for Des Moines is reason enough to ignore all of us. Because it ignores a majority of the people, businesses, and land.

This is no disparagement. All of us have gifts and I’ve seen all of us, at various times, make great choices. But all of us, to one degree or another, come in with a variety of biases. Unless a true professional provides an objective set of all available options, we will always tend towards those pre-existing biases. That’s just called being ⁴human.

Where to begin?

In 1966 we started building this wonderful Marina while simultaneously permanently crippling ourselves by selling off the ‘walkable downtown’ urban planners dream of.
In the 90’s, we had a chance to have a clearly defined boundary along Pacific Highway. Look at the boundary we ended up with. I’d be fascinated to learn how one provides economic development (or public safety) with challenges like a main gateway to the City literally split between two cities!
There’s the Des Moines Creek Business Park, which looked great, wiped out a ton of property tax (and trees and critters), brought in almost no money (until this year – thank you City for solving ⁷half the problem), and never yielded the ‘thousands of new customers for local businesses’ promised by its proponents.
Then there are the things people still talk about as ‘new ideas’, which we’ve actually ³tried, including but not limited to, making Seventh Ave a one-way street and ‘making Des Moines into a theme town eg. Leavenworth’ (see Cape Cod in Des Moines circa 2012.) If nothing else, we could at least stop wasting energy re-litigating old ideas as somehow ‘new’.
In the same category of ‘tried that’, but meriting its own bullet point: many people rightly complain about empty lots, assuming the City simply needs to provide ‘tax incentives’ or ‘more height’. This fails to appreciate just how many times we have offered great deals to every developer who shows interest. You just don’t hear about them because real estate negotiations are conducted ‘on the down low’ as the youth of America like to say. The real question is: if our ‘waterfront destination’ (or any waterfront) is so desirable, why do developers need these kinds of incentives (or ferries or steps or…)? Shouldn’t they be flocking here without them? Hasn’t anyone noticed how hard it’s been to obtain lift off at the theatre (which, yes has received substantial help from the City)? Is it impolite to mention that the only new downtown building for over a decade was: wait for it, yet another tax exempt senior living building? These are lovely ideas, but again: we should be honest enough to ask these kinds of questions and take this discussion out in the open.

With the benefit of hindsight, one can see all kinds of decisions the City has made, by well-meaning amateurs (meaning us), often under pressure, and which at the time may have seemed ‘brilliant!’ (or at least, the best we could do.) But now these are all easy to recognise as having no long-term strategic benefit – and in fact, being boat anchors towards obtaining the larger goal. It’s not merely that many are impossible to unwind. It’s that, after a while, you have basically taken most of your chess pieces off the table – leaving not much room left to maneuver.

Premiere marine destination taken seriously

Again, I did not take that draft Mission Statement seriously. But hey, if it’s what the majority wants, who am I to argue with democracy? 😀

But let’s do take it seriously for a moment. What is the actual economic opportunity of being the premiere marine destination? How do you even define or quantify that? What is the goal? Tourism? That’s not necessarily the same thing as revenue.

One of the few things I know is that we could build a dry stack facility at the Marina in a year and rake in $250,000 every year thereafter. That was on the Marina Master Plan as far back as I can see (1999).

Another thing I know is that you only get .03 per dollar on sales tax. And B&O tax is no panacea either. To create $250,000 new ‘marine destination’ revenue, people drawn to the area by the theatre (when it opens) or a (potential) ferry or Marina Steps would need to find them compelling enough to spend $8,500,000 more in the downtown every year than they do now. That’s a lotta tickets and tourists – not to mention the additional services they would require.

I have no idea whether a ferry or a hotel or a Steps project at the Marina will some day bring in that kind of money. Maybe it could. But the steps (sorry, it’s a disease) to get there involve a lot of variables like finding investors, building storefronts, marketing, and above all time. The basic argument is that eventually a ferry and Steps will provide the enticements to kickstart all that and (finally) get past whatever has held developers back during all those previous ‘down low’ talks.

What we need

But here’s one other thing I know: even if the last Property Tax Levy had passed, in order to build a sustainable budget, using 2019 staffing levels, we will need over ten times that $250,000 every year in structural revenue.

⁶Read that again: Even if you had voted to tax yourselves another $3,000,000 a year, the City of Des Moines will still need another $2,500,000 in regular revenue to return to 2019 staffing levels, maintain a healthy bank account and pay for the necessary upgrades to the Marina and various amenities and programs throughout the rest of the City.

As ironic as it may sound, I voted against the Property Tax Levy to address that.

Back up a sec… despite the City’s hair-on-fire sales pitch for the tax levy, Ms. Caffrey came in and, presto, we have a balanced budget for two years. Painful as heck, but not magic. (Sorry, she is a very talented person but having been through this before, I was pretty confident that she could do it. That said, I do not envy her position and I hope to make her life easier in the future.)

Secondly, these cuts are unsustainable. Again: un (as is not) sustainable. I wanted us to finally confront the need for a ton more structural revenue than I believe we can hope to obtain via notions of ‘premiere marine destination’. I felt/feel that this really is magical thinking because that goal, even if possible, is unattainable for so many years. And my fear was that, if we got the added money now we would continue kicking that discussion down the road (as we’ve done with ‘the airport discussion’ by the way.) Frankly, we did that after the Great Recession. Back then we got the added revenue via red light cams and utility taxes – and finally the organic economic recovery everybody else did. But as soon as we hit another economic downturn we’re right back where we started.

Putting the public back in public planning

I will continue to say that I don’t care how much people scream for immediate ‘economic development’. Please Ms. Caffrey, take a gap year. Hire someone who is not our ‘ferry consultant’ and do a comprehensive and objective analysis of the entire City. Find out what the real opportunities (and challenges) are. Everywhere. Develop a strategic plan for the entire City!

It should include building housing – which is not only an intrinsic good, but also generates property taxes. It should also be commercial. It definitely should be an outcome of the SAMP! (the discussion we’re not having.) But in every case, leave the construction revenue off the table. That. Does. Not. Count. That’s the gravy. Look at all what will generate the most ongoing revenue. And no matter how painful or unpopular these choices are at the moment, just put all the options on the table.

But once again: public planning commission. It never should have gone away in 2012. We need it now. I’ve heard all the arguments against it, but having seen groups Human Services Advisory Committee, we have expertise here that is amazing. If we can get even a few residents with similar, and relevant acumen, the results could be wonderful. (Not to mention the fact that it would cure all of the problems people have about transparency and constantly feeling ⁵blindsided about land development.)

But somebody has to do a critical analysis of what the real revenue opportunities are of this city. So, to the extent that anyone listens to what I think: the only economic development to ‘do’ in 2025 (well, other than build a dry stack 😀 ) is to develop that objective strategic plan and re-establish the Public Planning Commission.

One last thing: So many people here ask some variation of, “Why Des Moines never reached its ‘potential’?” This essay has been my attempt at an explanation. And I think it’s telling that three out of four finalists for City Manager asked the Council in their one-on-one, the following question: “Where is our strategic plan?” After so many decades, and before we do anything else ‘strategic’, 2025 should be the year we finally get a real mission.

¹ Cinephiles will recognise this as a high point in the Three Stooges oeuvre.

²I forgot to mention the whole ‘rolling of the tamales’ deal when my son-in-law’s people show up.

³Note to residents: if there is some obviously great ‘new’ idea you have? Chances are someone already tried it. Yet another benefit of a public planning commission could be making that list of ‘tried it!’ more available.

⁴AKA ‘local politician’.

⁵Woodmont Recovery Clinic, Marina Hotel, Des Moines Creek West and on and on…

⁶Yes, it’s a bold statement. I call your attention to this Finance Committee – 06 Jun 2024 Five Year Forecast. Ms. Caffrey made reductions in service levels – in spite of the City implementing a new Warehouse Tax. To get back to our best year ever (2019), maintain that 16.67% Reserve, pay for the Marina, actually implement the Parks and Rec Master Plan, get to 1% of budget for Human Services, etc., my back of the napkin math says that we don’t need $3,000,000 a year (the Prop #1 tax levy proposal), we need more like $5.5M. Think I’m full of it? Show me what I got wrong.

⁷Although the Square Footage Tax is a great start, the property is yet another example of how much tax exempt land we have, which lets the Port of Seattle rake in millions in lease revenue but pay us far less than properties like ProLogis, right across the street on 24th Ave. Ouch.

Finance, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update 12/15/2024

December 15, 2024December 16, 2024

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Some bits of business…

This is a truncated Weekly Update. Sorry. I cut out a ton of stuff which I’ll try to put into next week to summarise 2024. This year reminds me of the old joke, “I spent a year of my life one weekend in Des Moines.” This is a year that felt like ten. 😀

Salty’s Redondo

Many of you know that Salty’s is up for sale. I am beyond sad because, to paraphrase one of the most legendary of the Las Vegas School economists, “If I cannnn’t make it there. I can’t make it annnnywhere!” (Too soon? 😀 ) But seriously, this is a conversation we need to have: what kind of commercial venue can make it in Redondo?

Salty’s Redondo, Des Moines, WA | Retail Space for Sale

Police Weekly Snapshot

This is really interesting and there’s a lot to say about it. But not today. 🙂

The SAMP Comment Period closes

The Sustainable Airport Master Plan Draft EA Comment Period is closed. Thank you to everyone who stepped up to comment. There’s a lot more to say, but for now, I’ll share something I said to the City Manager this week to express some of my very mixed emotions as to how the City has handled the situation from 2018 to today.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

The SAMP is the generational decision for Des Moines. What I told her is that you have to do better. Which sounds harsh. But I also have to do better. And so do all my colleagues. Even if the fiendish FAA and the diabolical Port of Seattle and the dysfunctional Congress and the pain in the neck State or even our own City Council lets us down? Tough Noogies. Someone has to step up and save us from ourselves because some things are simply too important to screw around. We can’t afford to get this wrong. All things considered, she took it pretty well. Some of my colleagues on the other hand? 😀

City Manager Stuff

The City Manager Report, in PDF Format, is back and in living colour, baby!

City Manager’s Report December 13, 2024

Lots of good stuff, including a new recipe. 🙂

This Week

Airport meetings, mostly. If your idea of game night is “I’ll take Part 161 for $800, Alex!” Give me a call. (206) 878-0578.

Wednesday 5:00pm: Sea-Tac Airport Aviation Roundtable (Agenda) Zoom Registration

Last Week

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Agenda. Their last meeting of the year, a record year, both in terms of airport operations and revenue.

Several people showed up to comment on Item 10d, which concerned expanding the Port’s tourism program. Bless them. After years of crying into the void, people are starting to put it together: the Port spends billions goosing up demand for flights. All the new flights are not the result of ‘organic demand’. We in Des Moines do not benefit from it and in fact we suffer from it.

There was also the Commission’s approval of their end of the Des Moines Creek Basin Plan. Here are my comments on this as part of Sea-Tac Noise.Info. In fact, the Basin Plan should be a conduit to environmental improvements throughout Des Moines. Instead, it turned into a storm water processor. We can and must do better.

Item 8j Des Moines Creek Basin Plan V5 – Sea-Tac Airport Noise And Pollution

Thursday: Environment Committee (canceled) We were planning on having a planning meeting :D, but ironically, the one time we have open for it, is the time of the year people have the least amount of time to prepare. Welcome to local government. 😀 I’m hoping we can have an informal discussion sometime over the holidays and hit the ground running in January.

Wednesday: Emergency Management Action Committee (EMAC) Agenda. Last meeting of the year. We discussed something very mundane that every local government should have addressed twenty years ago: connecting the earthquake warning system known as Shake-Alert to buildings, phones and people. We could provide a twenty second warning to everyone in the event of an earthquake. But even that level of preparedness has not been undertaken. Given the recent 7.0 in Northern California (which is actually on the same plate as Puget Sound).

Here is a presentation on Shake-Alert from the same person.

As with the SAMP, someone has to step up. Some things are simply too important. For now, you should sign up for Shake-Alert right now.

Thursday: Our last City Council meeting of the year. Agenda. This one gets the Action-Packed Seal of Approval.

December 12, 2024 City Council Meeting Recap

Regular Meeting – 12 Dec 2024 – Agenda – Updated

Last meeting of the year. Several of my colleagues mentioned surprise that we got through a ginormous agenda in two and a half hours. They should not have been. In fact, it woulda been under two hours had there not been unnecessary kerfuffles. Every member of this council has already made it clear to new City Manager Caffrey that she has, essentially a blank check… er… our complete confidence. 😀

Consent Agenda

There were a bunch of items I coulda groused about. But I was going for that ~~blank check~~ … er… confidence! vibe.

Item 2. SENIOR ACTIVITY CENTER SOLAR POWER GRANT ACCEPTANCE
Item 3. SOUND TRANSIT CONTRACT AMENDMENT
Item 4. WATER DISTRICT 54 FRANCHISE AMENDMENT
Item 5. HEMSTAD CONSULTING CONTRACT RENEWAL (AMENDMENT 3)
Item 7. 6TH PLACE/287TH STREET PIPE REPLACEMENT PROJECT
Item 8. 2025 VEHICLE PURCHASE
Item 9. TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANT SERVICES CONTRACT

Cm Mahoney pulled the WD54 item. This was labeled as contentious by the Waterland Blog. That was not the most contentious item on the agenda by any means. (I’m gonna show you ‘contentious’ very soon in my year-end wrap up!) For now, Councilmember Grace-Matsui recused herself from the Water District Franchise Agreement, which passed 6-0. I’ve given my feelings on the item more than once.

Unfinished Business

The Warehouse Tax passed with a slightly higher rate than originally proposed. My only grouse was that it has an automatic annual rate increase which does not kill me.

The Council set aside the Mission, Vision and Values thing after I asked ChatGPT to read it and here is what it said. New Years Resolution: Propose that the City Council run every goofball idea through the AI first. 😀

We voted to renew our SAMP ILA with the Four cities. Passed 6-1. I voted no because it is the worst strategic mistake since the Council voted to spend 25 million dollars for bonds in 2023.

PUBLIC HEARING/CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING

Item 1. 2024 ANNUAL BUDGET AMENDMENTS

Basically, we gave the rest of the ARPA money over to shore up the General Fund. ~~Blank check~~… er… ‘confidence’ strikes again.

Item 2. 2025 2026 BIENNIAL BUDGET

I’ll get into what I think this all means in a bit more detail next week. But for now I again want to express my appreciation to Finance Director Jeff Friend and City Manager Caffrey for taking one for the team. As I’ve written many times, these cuts were necessary – and a whole bunch reaaaally suck. In my career, I’ve watched thousands of people get canned. Been fired a few times. Never had to lay off anyone, let alone round the holidays. And this is the ‘easy’ part.

Passed 7-0.

NEW BUSINESS

Item 1. DRAFT ORDINANCE 24-088 – SUSPENDING RESTRICTION ON USE
OF ONE-TIME REVENUE FOR 2025 AND 2026.

See essay below. This discussion was the shocker of the meeting. It made me reconsider the whole ~~blank check~~… er… ‘confidence’ approach.

Item 2. DES MOINES MARINA STEPS PROJECT – BID REJECTION

We rejected the bids on the Marina Steps. I had nothing to say because DPW Slevin has promised to come back on 9 January, so why speculate.

At some point I’m going to do a little ‘Bond Scorecard’, ie. documenting the money juggling we’ve done over the past two years concerning the Redondo Fishing Pier and the Marina. Someone should be held accountable. Instead, we keep doing these “OK, that’s fine. We’ll fall back and go to plan B… C… er… ‘F’! Yeah, yeah, we’re on Plan F, now, right? Or is it ‘G’?

Item 3. 2025 AND 2026 HUMAN SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE

I’ve had a lot of criticisms about the Human Services Advisory Committee during my tenure. The people are fantastic. The goals even more so. But the process? Often it has fallen short. So, budgeting $150k is better than I expected and speaks well of Ms. Caffrey’s values. However, I grieve that we have never gotten to one percent of general fund. That pitiful level is not who we as a community should aspire to be. But until we get real about our finances, this is as good as it gets.

Building Just to Build

I visited the Soviet Union many times before it fell apart. They had countless jobs simply to achieve 100% employment – elevator operators and concierges in even modest apartment buildings, excess customer service staff at stores with empty shelves. They were obviously focused on activity rather than an actual economy.

Post-War America has benefited greatly from an unprecedented era of construction, including buildings, roads, and infrastructure. But just as the Soviets confused jobs with productivity, at a certain point here we began to confuse building with economic development. It’s not putting up the building that creates the sustainable revenues – it’s what will live inside it for the next fifty years.

The City of Des Moines has struggled with this concept. For example, we now have the third highest percentage of tax-exempt land in King County. At #3, the City of SeaTac is 42 percent tax-exempt, aka Sea-Tac Airport. #2 is Seattle. Neither is comparable.

The Warehouse Tax we passed at our final meeting of 2024 is great, but it should be noted that the businesses it will apply to are on tax-exempt land owned by the Port of Seattle. So even there, we’re only getting half the benefit we should be getting from commercial property.

We are outliers in any number of ways like this. You can see something of a pattern across the City, including the downtown, Redondo, and the Marina. Time and time again we’ve avoided developing a strategy to properly develop and exploit our limited resources in order to provide adequately for the future.

In 2012 the Council created an ordinance to set aside construction taxes on projects in excess of $15,000,000 – the sensible notion being that in a small town like ours such projects would be relatively rare. So, saving a sliver of that one-time money for long term community projects made sense.

Sadly, we’ve almost always had to override that to pay immediate bills. Because the reality is that, even at our best, we’ve never had the dough to do otherwise. To quote my father-in-law, “You can’t have no fiscal discipline if you ain’t got no fiscal to discipline.”

At our last meeting of the year, I intended to vote for that override ‘one last time’, in order to give the new City Manager support in a tough spot. (After all, none of this is her fault.) But when I heard the majority say they see nothing wrong with viewing this money as reliable revenue – and the City Manager seemed to agree – calling it ‘variable recurring revenue’? After that, I changed my vote not just to ‘no’, but ‘Hell No’.

For whatever reason, in the moment, the term “variable recurring revenue” struck me with the oxymoronic weight of a lead balloon crushing a jumbo shrimp. Either money is predictable (recurring/structural), or it’s not (variable/one-time).

Relying on a constant stream of construction revenue here does not match what has consistently happened here or my notion of sustainable economic development. It’s like thinking that building airplanes alone makes for a healthy aviation sector – when in fact, the broader airline industry is nine times larger. Similarly, building construction is just the foundation; it’s the businesses, residents, and activities inside that create lasting economic value.

If you continue to focus on highly variable construction money, you’ll never pursue more stable revenue sources like commercial property tax, business activity, and yes, compensation from the airport. This “if you build it, they will come” approach mirrors the Soviet mistake of confusing activity with productivity. Construction is important, but just as workers need a useful purpose, and airplanes need passengers and routes, buildings need vibrant businesses and residents inside to generate the real sustainable economic growth for cities like Des Moines.

General Stuff

Mission Statement vs. AI

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At Thursday’s meeting we will vote to approve our Mission and Values Statement.

As a double check, I asked a couple of AI’s for feedback. I agree with its assessments and think some of the alternatives it suggested are better than what we came up with. But I’d also like the community’s take on it before we vote. Please let me know.

My city just proposed this as a mission statement. Please analyze and tell me what you think

“Des Moines is a waterfront community committed to building a safe, sustainable environment, by providing a high quality of life for all to live, work and play.”

Let me analyze this mission statement for Des Moines:

Strengths:

Geographic identity – Immediately establishes Des Moines as a waterfront community, which helps set it apart and emphasizes a key asset
Balanced priorities – Addresses environmental, social, and economic aspects through safety, sustainability, and quality of life
Inclusivity – Uses “all” to indicate the city serves everyone
Active language – “committed to building” shows ongoing dedication and progress
Lifestyle completeness – Includes “live, work and play” to cover all aspects of community life

Areas for consideration:

Specificity – Could be more specific about what “high quality of life” means in concrete terms
Measurability – Lacks clear metrics or indicators to measure success
Distinctiveness – Besides the waterfront reference, much of this could apply to any city
Redundancy – “Environment” appears both literally and in the concept of sustainability
Grammar – The comma after “environment” is unnecessary and disrupts the flow

Would you like me to suggest some potential revisions to make the statement more distinctive to Des Moines or more actionable?

I need you to be as objective as possible and not present either a positive or negative spin based on what you think I want to hear. But at first read, it did not make logical sense.

You’re right – let me analyze this purely from a logical structure standpoint:

“Des Moines is a waterfront community committed to building a safe, sustainable environment, by providing a high quality of life for all to live, work and play.”

The logical problems:

The causality is backwards. The statement says they are “building a safe, sustainable environment BY providing quality of life.” This implies that providing quality of life is the method used to build the environment, which doesn’t make logical sense. The environment would be one of the factors that creates quality of life, not the other way around.
The structure creates a circular reference:
- They’re building an environment
- By providing quality of life
- For people to live in (the environment)
“Environment” is used ambiguously – it could mean either the natural environment or the general surroundings/conditions, making the sustainability commitment unclear.

A logically coherent version would need to either:

Make quality of life the end goal, with environment as one of the means
Make environmental sustainability the end goal, with quality of life as a benefit
Present them as parallel goals rather than one causing the other

Would you like me to demonstrate how it could be restructured to resolve these logical issues?

Please.

Here are logically sound restructures of the statement, each with a clear relationship between its elements:

As parallel goals: “Des Moines is a waterfront community committed to maintaining a safe, sustainable environment while ensuring a high quality of life for all to live, work, and play.”

With quality of life as the end goal: “Des Moines is a waterfront community committed to providing a high quality of life for all to live, work, and play through environmental sustainability and public safety.”

With environmental sustainability as the end goal: “Des Moines is a waterfront community building a safe, sustainable environment that enables a high quality of life for all to live, work, and play.”

Each version eliminates the original’s problematic causality and presents a clear relationship between the city’s priorities. The choice between them would depend on which element the city considers its primary focus.

Would you like me to break down the logical structure of any of these alternatives?

No. That was very helpful. 🙂

Finance, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update 12/08/2024

Last Updated:December 11th, 2024 @ 01:32PM

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Some bits of business…

This is a very long Weekly Update. Sorry. In fact, it is waaaaay too short. I cut out a ton of stuff which I’ll put into next week in order to try to summarise 2024. It’s not just because it’s the end of the year, it’s also because this year end is so action packed.

The SAMP Comment Helper

Our friends at Sea-Tac Noise.Info have created a presentation Commenting on the SAMP. I did not write most of it, which is good because it’s a lot better than what I woulda come up with. 😀 Attend the City open house, for sure, but read this before you write your comments to the FAA. The thing we try to get right at STNI is this: positive change is within reach, but only if we talk about things which are possible. These issues are so complex, and we’ve gotten nothing for so long, it’s easy to use the SAMP as primal scream therapy rather than to accomplish anything useful. 2025 doesn’t have to be the worst of times. It can be the best of times. Airport-wise, at least.

Lady Throckmotron Contest Winner!

OK, I got two correct entries. So, there are two gift certificates on the way, one for Marina Mercantile and the other for Tuscany Des Moines Creek. Oh, now you regret not putting in a little more effort? I try to tell you: the prizes are good!

I asked you to look at the 11/17 Weekly Update (paying particular attention to the Council Meeting Highlights) and watch the meeting. And then pick out at least one error/mistake/difference. Without going into ‘naming and shaming’, what both people saw was that the first page of the Agenda did not match the items actually discussed at the meeting. For example, one item concerned a contract the Council had already voted on a month before.

Congratulations, State Senator Orwall!

King County Democrats have chosen Tina Orwall to take over as our State Senator in the 33rd District from retiring Karen Keiser. Her slot as State Representative will be taken by SeaTac resident ¹Edwin Obras. Congratulations to both.

Rather than complete her full term, Senator Keiser retired with a year left. In that case, the party in the seat chooses a replacement to complete the remainder of the term. This has become something of a tradition in the 33rd and the politics of this strategy should be fairly obvious. Speaking broadly, I am not a big fan democracy-wise. However, Ms. Orwall has served Des Moines on airport issues, teaming with Sen. Keiser on several airport bills. So I look forward to continuity on that in the future. Mr. Obras Méndez is new to airport issues, but hopefully he will get up to speed quickly in this year of the SAMP.

City Manager Stuff

For some reason the City has reverted to not providing her report in a PDF format. So, I am again providing a replica: City Manager’s Report 12/06/2024. Lots of good stuff.

I’ll just plug one more holiday thingee…

Monday 5:30pm – 7:00pm Santa Parade and Canned Goods Drive will be in Marine Hills. No, technically not Des Moines, but this is a short drive for people in the south end and if you have kids, you really need to do this.

Be sure to follow the Santa Tracker! which usually doesn’t go live until just before they hit the road.

This Week

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Agenda. Their last meeting of the year, a record year, both in terms of airport operations and revenue.

This bears repeating over and over and over. The SAMP is over 800%, eight times, more expensive than the Third Runway. And yet, the Port of Seattle is rolling in money, an accomplishment that goes unappreciated. When the Third Runway opened in 2008 it was 400% over budget, scandal-ridden, and almost ruinous. Adding insult to injury, at the time they were also being eclipsed by the Port of Tacoma. (Container ships found it more profitable to sail half a day past Seattle.) So at the beginning of the Great Recession, they were on at least the same shaky ground as the City of Des Moines.

Sixteen years on, Des Moines is once again in another financial pickle. Whilst the Port of Seattle has transformed itself into the economic engine they always advertised themselves to be. Except that now it’s for realz. With a five year outlook that is going nowhere but up.

Wednesday: Emergency Management Action Committee (EMAC) Agenda. Last meeting of the year. We’re gonna discuss dealing with an earthquake. Given the recent 7.0 in Northern California (which is actually on the same plate as Puget Sound), this is not an entirely unrealistic exercise.

Thursday: Our last City Council meeting of the year. Agenda. This one gets the Action-Packed Seal Of Approval. So many items it gets its own section!

Consent Agenda

Item 2. SENIOR ACTIVITY CENTER SOLAR POWER GRANT ACCEPTANCE
Item 3. SOUND TRANSIT CONTRACT AMENDMENT
Item 4. WATER DISTRICT 54 FRANCHISE AMENDMENT
Item 5. HEMSTAD CONSULTING CONTRACT RENEWAL (AMENDMENT 3)
Item 6. INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT FOR COORDINATED SAMP REVIEW
Item 7. 6TH PLACE/287TH STREET PIPE REPLACEMENT PROJECT
Item 8. 2025 VEHICLE PURCHASE
Item 9. TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANT SERVICES CONTRACT

Item 6–the SAMP contract is a hard mistake. The deeply frustrating thing is that both City Manager Caffrey and I have worked very hard to try to get up to speed on airport issues and I appreciate her effort. But she insists this is a trivial item and I know it’s not.

Unfinished Business

Item 1. SQUARE FOOTAGE TAX SECOND READING. This will bring in an estimated $700,000 a year in new structural. You’re welcome. 🙂 My only other comment is this: I’d been trying to get the City to consider this since 2020. As painful as our next budget is, it was not even under consideration until this year, and as with so many other revenue items we could have been pursuing all along, one should stop to wonder where we’d be without it.

Item 2. CITY OF DES MOINES’ MISSION, VISION & VALUES. Here they are. Remember, we spent four hours (the longest City Council meeting of my tenure) and at least $5,000 to produce the following…

PUBLIC HEARING/CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING

Item 1. 2024 ANNUAL BUDGET AMENDMENTS
Item 2. 2025 2026 BIENNIAL BUDGET

~~As I wrote above, I was asked not to show ’em to ya. But if you refer back to the updated Study Session Packet~~

12/10/2024 update: Here is the final budget we will be voting on:

2025 Digital Budget Book

NEW BUSINESS

Item 1. DRAFT ORDINANCE 24-088 – SUSPENDING RESTRICTION ON USE
OF ONE-TIME REVENUE FOR 2025 AND 2026

Shocker: We’re again using one-time money to plug budget holes. So whatever you hear about not using one-time money and ‘sustainability’? Yeah, take it with a pinch of salt.

Item 2. DES MOINES MARINA STEPS PROJECT – BID REJECTION

Shocker: We maxed our our credit card in the highest inflationary cycle in 30 years and now come to find we don’t have the money to do the project. I begged my colleagues to break the project into smaller pieces. But nooooooooooooooo.

Item 3. 2025 AND 2026 HUMAN SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Shocker: From a certain perspective this is actually good news. At $145,000 this is still higher than we ever got to outside of one-time ARPA money. I know it was $250,000. But recognise it took a freakin’ PANDEMIC grant, money that (DV) will hopefully never come again to get there. The real issue is why even 1% of budget for Human Services has never been a realistic goal.

Last Week

Monday December 2 Port of Seattle Commission planning meeting. To their credit, they do it right: Instead of paying a ‘facilitator’, they book lunch at a very nice Indian restaurant. Even if I learn nothing, any excuse for a tax deductible samosa works for me. 🙂

Tuesday December 3 6:00pm SAMP Community Meeting. Sustainable Airport Master Plan Public Meeting – City of Des Moines, WA You might think I’d have some comments and provide links to the City’s presentation. And… you’d be wrong. This is not ‘reverse psychology’. I really do not encourage you to watch the presentation because it was so… er… not great. Not. Kidding. The only plus is that it got a hundred more people into the game. But at the cost of giving that some really not great information. It’s the reason I’m pulling Item 6. on consent. We’re committing to another four years of this and I cannot tell you how strenuously I object.

Wednesday: Budget briefing with City Manager. We received a copy of the final budget. But were asked not to make it public in order to give the City Manager time to break the bad news on various cuts.

Thursday 5:00pm Finance Committee – 05 Dec 2024 – Agenda – Pdf

A lot of the meeting was replicated at the big show, so I’ll save that for the Council Meeting Recap. But of note: to his credit committee chair Mahoney, suggested we put together some ideas for a tentative work plan before the January meeting and as with the Environment Committee above, I agree.

Since it’s the last meeting of the year, my summary of the first year of our Finance Committee? There have been some pluses–most notably the Warehouse Tax.

We also proposed and moved the City to biennial budgeting, which sounds like less oversight, but which should actually free up the Finance Director’s time for other things.

We also proposed the ill-fated tax levy. I voted for it. And then spent the rest of the year trying to kill it. Yeah for me. 🙂 It’s nothing to be happy about. We really do need the money and unless you’re totally bloodless this will hurt. But I felt then, and feel now, that the City simply would not have made progress on any number of necessary reforms had we simply given it another $3M.

But there is only so far this committee can go given the obvious differences of opinion. If we cannot agree on how we got here, how can we hope to agree on where to go forward?

However, to end on a positive note, the Finance Committee is another one of those things we used to have, then got rid of. At least this is one thing we brought back. How grateful should one be for restoring a portion of normality I leave to the reader.

What do I not like?

The constant focus on month to month. We have to stop thinking like that. At the risk of sounding insensitive, that’s the Finance Director’s stress. Our job is policy, not the day to day (or even month to month), particularly how to avoid the need for him to be monitoring so closely.
The incessant focus on ‘general fund’. In addition to the warehouse tax, I’ve also made proposals to increase revenue in other funds. But because they’re not to do with ‘general fund’, it’s as though those monies aren’t as important.
- Having more money in the Marina Fund counts. It means you don’t have to borrow to finance dock replacement.
- Having more money one can use for roads, crosswalks, sidewalks, curbs (none of which are ‘general fund’ sounds pretty useful to moi.

‘General Fund’ has become synonymous with ‘financial health’. Which is like using your checking balance as a proxy for your entire financial health and ignoring other aspects of your life. It’s just another version of short term thinking.

December 5, 2024 Council Meeting Recap

Study Session – 05 Dec 2024 – Agenda – Updated

Public Comment

There was one public comment from the president of the Rotary Club. For years, the City has offered a number of ad hoc discounts to a few beloved charities like Rotary. But the deal is: if you’re giving people ad hoc discounts every year, they stop being ‘discounts’; they come to be unaccounted for expenses. I support shifting to a grant-based model–as we do with Human Services. Allocate a fixed amount every year and let organisations apply for those funds so we can maintain a proper budget.

Legislative Agenda

We approved several recurring items. I’ll just point out some things I found notable:

The City always votes to ask the State to lift the 1% Property Tax Cap. I do not support this. Again, not because I’m ‘anti-tax’. It’s just that the voters of WA have said ‘Hell, No!’ so many times that, at some point, we need to accept it rather than trying to defy that collective will.
We support the State allowing us to apply a teeny-tiny sales tax add-on for public safety. The first question every City gets asked is “Have you gone to your voters first, before asking the State?” Well, this year we did. So I would be OK with this.
We’re asking for $2M to replace the the Redondo Fishing Pier. We were told that the odds of success were low. Despite the popularity of the pier , instead, I supported asking the State for $1.3M to replace the boat launch at the Marina. Because a dry stack system would bring in $250,000 a year. Something we’ve been trying to get to since at least 1999!
My colleagues supported three modifications to the section on Airport Impacts (for which I am very grateful):
- Air Quality Monitor in Des Moines
- Study. The SAMP Draft EA provides for exactly zero mitigation for any of the impacts of airport expansion. We can appeal. But to do so effectively, every aspect of the document will need to be scrutinised by independent subject matter experts. That takes money. Since the State is one of the primary beneficiaries of airport revenues, it is only fair that they provide us with the data we will need to obtain a reasonable outcome.
- RCW 53. Under State law, the Port of Seattle is legally allowed to provide airport mitigation in only two ways: property buyouts and sound insulation. The Port of Seattle will make record profit this year. And every year from now on. We must find ways to make it possible for them to spend their own money for other aviation impacts.

Budget Presentation

The full Council got a budget presentation which is radically different from the First Reading we got before Ms. Caffrey took over. This will likely sound harsher than I intend but there’s so much it’s gotta be a Lightning Round until we pass the thing (with all the gory details) next week.

The presentation in the packet (start on pg 45) is a step up from anything we’ve seen to date in terms of clarity. Well done. For now, it (mostly) gets past the foolishness of trying to sell the tax levy and provides some very clear action items.
Ms. Caffrey proposed a number of painful, but conventional cuts. They are things that probably any competent manager would do. That’s actually a relief because again ‘conventional’ does not mean easy.
She also took pains to point out that this is not ‘sustainable’. Good. I’m not sure who was listening because what we tend to do is endure these acute episodes and think this is ‘the cure’. It’s not. It’s the surgery. Unless we act differently from this point forward we’ll be right back here in two years. And the next two are going to be no day at the beach. As I said: If I never hear the word ‘sustainable’ again it’ll be too soon. Between the SAMP and our cyclic budget woes, the word no longer has any reality for me. And a bit more humility would not go amiss.
My only quibble with her comments is that she made a point of emphasising that there will be unmet service-level expectations. Which I found a bit odd since there currently are no expectations. 😀 It’s not really a joke. Residents really have no idea what constitutes acceptable response times. In fact, they often tell me they worry that they might be complaining too much! All I think people want is some specific service-level expectations. If we need 48 hours (or 48 days) to do something? Fine. Just put them on the web site and the residents will step up. 🙂
She promised to do something about the web site in 2025. Great.
She promised to do something about the budget book next year. Great.
She chose to retain the City Currents, perhaps with more ad support, and cut the summer Beautification program? Not great.
She set aside some money for economic development. My colleagues talked about the absolute necessity of ‘economic development’. But I have no idea what that means.
I asked why we have not done the groundwork to have three new speed cameras installed throughout Des Moines. This got some pushback that more speed cameras are not possible. Even though it says so right here: HB2384-S.PL

De-Compression

I’ll try to fill in the gaps next week. But for now, I’ll close by mentioning one of my true beefs. Calendars and Compression. Every year is the same: the meetings at the beginning of the year are a flurry of activity, followed by a bunch of empty in the middle, which accelerate to a smash, hit finish at end of year.

The number of ‘things’ in these last two meetings is truly overwhelming, but even without a new City Manager and the SAMP and all the ‘budget’ stuff it would still be nuts.

Other cities (and the Port) do a much better job of load-balancing. They are intentional about spreading various decision processes over the course of the year. The Port uses its planning meetings, not just for the great food, but to address that sort of thing. City councils like Burien have a calendar check-in about once a month. SeaTac begins budget meetings in April. There are many ways to address this, but you get the idea.

Load balancing not only provides more time for each item, it also minimises blindsiding–the chronic practice of staff presenting items for Council votes (almost always on the Consent Agenda) which have to be made that night. Or else! The go to move is for the City to do a presentation explaining how routine the item is, rather than… wait for it… simply scheduling the item for a normal discussion.

I’ve lost track of the number of times, the Council has been told that if we don’t vote to approve (x), grant (y) won’t happen, or penalty (z) will ensue.

That’s a big part of the reason I mention the Futures report every week. And scream about the absolute necessity for a Calendar. It’s not just for the public to know what’s going on. It’s to help us.

The obvious reason it never happens, as with so many other things, is that in recent years the Council gave so much authority to the City Manager. If you have absolute trust in management, then why not put as many things on consent as possible?

I’ll close with that SAMP Consultant Item 6. It’s not just that it was a terrible agreement back in 2018, it’s that we’ve had two years to address the issue. And because we put it off, we now are told that we can’t pay the people we hired for work they’ve already done without renewing it. Which now makes continuing down the wrong road almost inevitable. Fighting airport expansion was always going to be hard. But it shouldn’t be this hard.

So many of the challenges our Council faces often come down to something as simple as scheduling.

¹Mea Culpa! The original version of this article incorrectly said that the spot had been given to Burien resident and party vice-chair Sam Sam Méndez. I regret the error! In my defense, he was the top ranked of the three finalists and had the support of Rep… er… Senator Orwall. However, the final choice is up to the King County Council and apparently they had other ideas!

Finance, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update 12/01/2024

December 1, 2024December 1, 2024

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Some bits of business…

The SAMP Comment Helper

City Manager Stuff

At press time. I see no City Manager’s Weekly Report. Given the holiday, and the fact that the SAMP community meeting and the next meeting are properly noticed on the City’s web site, that’s fine. Oh, and did I mention that the last two meetings are likely gonna be no day at the beach for the new City Manager? 🙂

I’ll just plug a couple of holiday thingees…

Monday 5:30pm – 7:00pm Santa Parade and Canned Goods Drive (North Hill)

Monday 7:00pm – 8:00pm Santa Parade (Zenith)

Tuesday 5:30pm – 7:00pm Santa Parade (Woodmont)

Be sure to follow the ‘Santa Tracker’! which usually doesn’t go live until just before they hit the road.

Christmas at Big Catch Plaza 2022 It looks a lot cooler after it gets dark. 🙂

Tree lighting at Big Catch Plaza, aka ‘Dollar Tree Plaza’, aka ‘the guy kissing the giant fish in a vaguely lewd manner plaza’, will be next Friday @ 6pm. Don’tcha dare miss it!

This Week

Tuesday December 3 6:00pm SAMP Community Meeting. Sustainable Airport Master Plan Public Meeting – City of Des Moines, WA

To participate via video:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81185738221?pwd=byE4KD2VLyoIgtbffrgfJ0ahVo5Agn.1

To participate via phone:
1 253 215 8782
1 301 715 8592

Meeting ID: 811 8573 8221

Passcode: 100927

Wednesday: Budget briefing with City Manager. This should be good. 😀 I kid because I love.

There’s kind of a point here. I’m nervous about giving Ms. Caffrey a big head, but basically every week she is breaking a new record in terms of (cough) ‘transparency’. For example, this is the first year the City Manager asked my opinion re. ‘the budget’. I don’t take it personally because even if you were another member of the City Council, unless you also happened to be the Mayor, your opinion probably wasn’t requested neither. So, this is great. 🙂

But here’s the funny part: none of my colleagues seemed to think that previous state of affairs odd. Or at least, not enough to mention it publicly. Get it? There was nothing preventing the Council from directing the previous City Manager to do better in about 327 ways. But if neither the Council or the City Manager or the public insist on various norms, over time, what is abnormal becomes normal.

Whenever a new staff member comes in (up to and including the new City Manager), we should assume they are good at their job. But just bringing a new perspective isn’t some superpower. The same transformational effects could be achieved by other means, including just by taking a look around a bit more often.

And it shouldn’t have taken a change at the top just to get a weekly report–something the last CM simply stopped doing in 2017.

Thursday 5:00pm Finance Committee – 05 Dec 2024 – Agenda – Pdf

Trireme Battle of the Supermodels in 300 Rise of An Empire (c) Warner Bros.

First of all, any financial report that mentions a trimean is totally awesome. Like that scene in 300 where the Greek ships ram the Persian fleet and… Sorry. I may have misread that. 😀

It may instead be that the Finance Director is trying to express our cash flow challenges more clearly using another superpower known as statistics. And if so, that would also be totally awesome. Besides ‘trimean’ sounds a lot cooler than my ‘farmer’ example below. 🙂

It is also very cool that the Finance Director is now routinely mentioning (and linking to) the State FIT Tool. That never happened in the previous regime. I always caution residents not to read too much into comparisons with other cities (especially on the revenue side.) But this thing can be very useful. One number seems to indicate that we were at a 32 day cash supply in 2023.

Here is a voice memo I wrote myself after reading packet in advance of my budget meeting with the City Manager.

Monthly reports may not be super useful. It makes people freak out during the months when there’s no cash coming in. We need some form of quarterly/longitudinal flow of funds chart. Five year period? Council needs to develop feel for trends, not rely on F/D to interpret these swings. Need for consistent budget book. Even if yer not some financial wiz, if you get paid twice a month, you can guesstimate what you can ‘afford’. If you’re a farmer, and only get three checks a year it’s a lot tougher. Somehow we need to learn to think more like that. I’ve tried to hint nicely “Why do we need a large cash reserve?” Residents don’t get 16%. Should describe more like cash in the checking account. You want to have enough so that you don’t have to think before you write a check. I mean it’s nice to be on top of your bank balance, but you don’t want to have to check your account before every payroll.

***

Tax Levy originally sold as ‘increasing public safety’. It is now being (correctly) perceived as the ‘Oh shit, we’re having a cash crunch levy’. That will make trust rebuild harder.

***

I nag about SWM, not because it’s ‘large’ but because, as at the last meeting where we’re writing a $124k check for ‘bird balls’. Concerned it will get used for ‘water adjacent’ things not directly associated with purpose as storm water utility. The reason that $124k flew under the radar (see what I did there? 😀 ) was that staff could say “It’s budgeted in SWM.” Fine. But if it had been $124k out of the G/F? A much more appropriate level of outrage would have been on display. It’s easier to ignore bad spending when someone reassures you, “Don’t worry. It’s paid for.” We do that too much. Bad spending is bad spending.

Thursday 6:00pm Study Session – 05 Dec 2024 – Agenda – Pdf Highlights: Legislative Agenda, Budget

I hope to modify the Airport section, which explicitly supports the Port’s Shared Legislative Agenda–something our own StART members (and those in Burien) do not. Our interests really only align with the Port at the Federal level and it’s time we stop pretending otherwise–especially with the SAMP.

The full Council will also get a budget presentation in advance of voting to approve our first Biennial Budget. This too will be interesting. Unlike last time, I’m making a note to bring all four sets of reading glasses and all three types of anti-migraine pills. 🙂

Every time we get a financial report, I focus on one thing and this time I wanna mention Sales Tax. We get a breakdown by category, but that is also a fairly recent development. Whenever I see these categories it makes me wonder which specific businesses are in each category. Neither you or I can see the sales tax receipts for specific businesses. But the Finance Directory can. Lucky guy. 😀 Call it one of my trivia games.

Until the 1990’s, ‘bedroom communities’ like Des Moines, did not depend on sales tax to pay the bills. But now we have this (cough) ‘three-legged stool’ where we also need utility taxes and a variety of business taxes to survive. I know a lot of you like the results of the various ‘Eyman Initiatives’, but although they reduced car tabs and property taxes, they really put the screws to cities like Des Moines–cities with no intention, and certainly no skills to become retail centers. There are years where the ‘sales tax’ seems sorta ‘healthy’ (sorry for all the air quotes). But those are mis-directions. In fact, the ‘sales tax’ we depend on most is construction, which I wish were kept off to one side because construction is not structural. I mean, there is only so much building one can do in a city like Des Moines. I’d like these reports to focus more on real ‘sales’, ie. the stuff that doesn’t leave every few years when the construction cranes go away.

Last Week

Holidays. Unfortunately, I missed the opening bell for ‘holiday’ stuff here. Sorry. For most of you, Saturday is the day for events in Des Moines. For moi, it’s usually the only day I get to catch up with family/fishing/crabbing… not necessarily in the order. 🙂

In my defense, I did do some local spending and I’m taking notes on the state of retail for 2025. Once Ms. Caffrey finds her feet, it’s time to have a serious discussion about how the City can promote local business better. Over the past decades we’ve tried to swing for the seats: Cape Cod In Des Moines (remember that?), building heights, Business Parks, ferries, etc. It’s time to hit a few singles. For example, after four frickin’ years, the Council finally got round to assigning an address to the Backstage Alley. Great. But that’s only fifty percent of the job. Now, we need to change signage rules. It’s kinda nuts that restaurants throughout Des Moines can’t have tasteful, but prominent displays; not just here but especially on Pacific Highway.

Lady Throckmotron Contest Repeat!

I only got one correct entry. That’s either because the issue is too ‘hot’… or… because people were anesthetised with holiday stuff. But I’m running it one mo’ time because this one should be easy, peasy. The prize will be extra special. Anyone who watched our last meeting and read my last Weekly Update will get this. Here’s all ya gotta do…

Look at the 11/17 Weekly Update (paying particular attention to the Council Meeting Highlights.)
Watch this week’s meeting
Find one error of fact/mistake/difference between them. There are at least three biggees.

Background: In the academic publishing world it used to be a common (and pretty diabolical) practice for writers and editors to bury a random reference to a certain ¹Lady Throckmorton somewhere in lengthy documents. (The dear Lady was, of course, entirely fictional.) Something as nonsensical as ‘Lady Throckmorton’ should instantly stick out to anyone reading a book on ‘Surgery of the small bones of the human hand’. But the problem was/is that these documents are so complicated and boring that even pros often miss even super-obvious gags like this. I know how ‘mean’ that may sound to you. But at a certain point, if yer running a business that demands accuracy, you have to have some form of quality control; not only on the ‘error catchers’ but even to test that everyone who is supposed to be reading the material really did. The gaffes in the last Weekly Update are not buried. If you watch the meeting, or even look at the agenda, at least one should hit you in the face like a Bird Deterrent Ball! 😀 But unlike like Lady Throckmorton I don’t want to shame anyone. I want to reward you for paying attention!

Hope you win!

1The name doesn’t matter. She just had to sound posh. 🙂

Environment, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update 11/24/2024

November 24, 2024November 24, 2024

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This Week: SAMP meetings. Pumpkin Enchiladas? Last Week: 223 Green Streets is $20,000,000! Highline Forum (SAMP) RTC meeting. City Council Meeting featured $124k for Bird Balls, WD54 tax, Property Tax Levy, Budget Amendments...

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Environment, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update 11/17/2024

November 17, 2024November 18, 2024

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This Week: 223 Green Streets is $20,000,000! Highline Forum (SAMP) RTC meeting. Flood meeting! Last Week: SAMP Open Houses. SR-509 Open House! Contest winner! Worst meeting ever!...

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Some bits of business…

City Manager Stuff

Best. Gift. Ever.

This Week

Last Week

Council Meeting Recap

Public Comment

Ferry Presentation by Peter Philips

ZEV Car Share

Public Records Fee Schedule Update

City of Des Moines Mission, Vision & Values

Des Moines Marina Steps Project

Des Moines Creek Estuary Project Update

Telecommunications Franchise Agreement with Ezee Fiber and Ziply

But wait, there’s more…

Some bits of business…

Duwamish Head

Yelling Fire in a crowded tax season

City Manager Stuff

This Week

Last Week

Some bits of business…

When it comes to urban planning, AI really delivers

Marina Parking Rates 2025

Oklahoma City

Tax Exempt table goes here…

So what?

Downtown Businesses…

The SAMP shifts gear

Middle Housing

For Duty And Humanity!

But totally, do not do that!

OK, here’s my real advice

Where to begin?

Premiere marine destination taken seriously

What we need

Putting the public back in public planning

Some bits of business…

Salty’s Redondo

Police Weekly Snapshot

The SAMP Comment Period closes

City Manager Stuff

This Week

Last Week

December 12, 2024 City Council Meeting Recap

Consent Agenda

Unfinished Business

PUBLIC HEARING/CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING

Item 1. 2024 ANNUAL BUDGET AMENDMENTS

Item 2. 2025 2026 BIENNIAL BUDGET

NEW BUSINESS

Item 1. DRAFT ORDINANCE 24-088 – SUSPENDING RESTRICTION ON USE OF ONE-TIME REVENUE FOR 2025 AND 2026.

Item 2. DES MOINES MARINA STEPS PROJECT – BID REJECTION

Item 3. 2025 AND 2026 HUMAN SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Building Just to Build

Some bits of business…

The SAMP Comment Helper

Lady Throckmotron Contest Winner!

Congratulations, State Senator Orwall!

City Manager Stuff

This Week

Consent Agenda

Unfinished Business

PUBLIC HEARING/CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING

NEW BUSINESS

Last Week

What do I not like?

December 5, 2024 Council Meeting Recap

Public Comment

Legislative Agenda

Budget Presentation

De-Compression

Some bits of business…

The SAMP Comment Helper

City Manager Stuff

This Week

Last Week

Lady Throckmotron Contest Repeat!

Item 1. DRAFT ORDINANCE 24-088 – SUSPENDING RESTRICTION ON USE
OF ONE-TIME REVENUE FOR 2025 AND 2026.