Some bits of business…
- August 27, 2026 — City Council Regular Meeting, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
- Des Moines Historical Society — New Executive Director
- Community Engagement Services Fall/Winter Activities
- 2026 2nd Quarter Financial Report
- Development Agreement Ordinance – 2nd Reading
- Groundwater Remediation Consultant Contract
- Judge Pro Tem Compensation – 1st Reading
- Capital Improvements Plan – 2nd Reading
- Marina Steps Innovative Stormwater Bioretention Testing, Grant and Consultant Contract Amendments
- ILA with Highline Water District for 2026 North Hill AC Water Main Replacement Project
- 24th Ave S Improvements Project - S 223rd St to S 216th St - Transportation Improvements Board Grant and Professional Services Consultant Agreement
- September 3, 2026 — City Council Study Session, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
- Joint meeting with Planning Commission — downtown planning scenarios & zoning
- September 10, 2026 — City Council Regular Meeting, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
- Hispanic Latino Heritage Month Proclamation
- Legislative Update from Senator Tina Orwall
- Des Moines Creek Estuary Restoration - 30% Design and Public Outreach Update
- Comprehensive Safety Action Plan
- September 24, 2026 — City Council Regular Meeting, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
- Update on the Port of Seattle Economic Development Grant
- Legislative Agenda
- Canopy Preservation Program Update
- Discussion on MFTE Program
Future Agendas is the closest thing the City currently has to a calendar of upcoming City Council topics. It’s not always accurate. But until we develop a genuine calendar, this can be useful if there is a particular issue you don’t want to miss.
About The Cover: Tell me you want a pony, without telling me you want a pony
This is the big slide from the budget town hall last week–which I’m told involved more buckets and stickers. 37 people showed up, at least one of which does not reside in Des Moines. By showing up late I only got yelled at by only three. Which is still 8.3% of the set — Statistically legit! 😀
All kidding aside, this is completely unrepresentative of Des Moines. But if you are one of the 37, you probably think that last sentence rather snippy of me. Should not democracy be about the people who show up? Maybe.
(When I ran for office I vividly recall being told repeatedly that only property owners should have a right to vote. Straight outta 1776! 😀 )
I hope we whip out this graphic from last year which is the best graphic I’ve seen from the City since Attila crossed Stevens Pass to conquer… just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.
Attendees want the City to focus on public safety. As a percentage, we already spend more per tax dollars on public safety than any city in the region. And the reason it’s 54.4% and not 54.5% is that we’re maxed out. But ironically, we end up having about the same force levels/crime rates as other cities. (It seems ridiculous to compare ‘crime’ like that because each city is so different.)
Attendees want more business in order to keep their personal taxes low. I’m shocked. They also want us to achieve that by (super hot take) business development. 😀
See how the City gets only one penny for every taxable dollar? Sit with that for a moment. (That seems to be the hip expression today for ‘pay attention’.) Light a candle. Fire up some incense. Breathe in through your nose. Out through yer mouth. Now…
Look up and and down the Des Moines retail area. Explore the space and guess how much total taxable sales all those businesses generate. All of them. From Red Robin to Dollar Tree. Anthony’s to Quarterdeck. Now multiply your guess by 0.085. That is the amount of revenue the City obtains from our downtown.
Before you grab yer calculator (or a Tylenol), here is a hint: $1,000,000 in taxable sales generates $8,500 in City revenue. (How could you take a slice out of my fave president’s head?)
So, even if the City brought in “tens of thousands of tourists”, who each spent $100 on something taxable (not groceries), that would bring in about enough money to pay one city employee’s starting salary. For a month. (And worth every penny!) Just do that for twelve such events every year and you have one salary. To my knowledge we have never done any such event.
In short, sales tax is not a great strategy to dramatically boost revenue for cities like Des Moines. But keep reading.
I know people are concerned about the budget. But one of the biggest fibs in history is telling people that retail development is the key to big budgets. It never was. The reason you develop a downtown is to make the place unique and worth staying in. Otherwise, the city becomes just another interchangeable box.
What concerns me is that whenever the City seems concerned about financial stability, it pulls back on exactly the kind of planning one should be doing for the future. Which is totally backwards. It’s like when a corporation scraps its R&D in order to ‘scrub the budget’. All it does is screw the future.
SAMP Comment Period closed!
Speaking of which. The Sustainable Airport Master Plan state comment period closed. Thanks to everyone who commented. This is another polarising issue. As a person who worked in another factory town (Detroit), Des Moines should have been getting significant compensation from the Port all along. Why haven’t we? We never thought of it like that. Really.
After the last airport expansion (the Third Runway) we often had a certain number of councilmembers and residents who worked for airlines and the Port. It was a lot like the above Budget Town Hall. The number was never that large. It just felt like it because those were people who engaged in civic life. It’s a lot like how people think Des Moines is ‘older’ than it is.
Plus: the Port was always able to sell the concept of ‘jobs and growth’ — a lot like how large corporations have always been able to sell the notion everywhere. We have union offices here that serve Port workers and that is no accident.
Back in Detroit, my old company used to do worker surveys and employees would tell us quite clearly:
“I know there is pollution and noise. I worry about it. But when I hear all the racket and smell the smoke, I think ‘That’s my kid’s college money!'”
In factory towns there is always this primal fear that if one somehow upsets some delicate balance jobs and growth disappear and leave a ghost town. I don’t see the airport like that but people feel how they feel.
The people who could afford to move, moved. People who care about the environment and health stopped moving here. The people who were unconcerned, or who bought into the ‘growth’ stayed. We self-sorted. And that concentration continues.
So now, most people assume that airport impacts are like the weather: Everyone complains, but nobody does anything about it. It seems that intractable–and we’ve stopped even asking.
This feeds into that demographic shift. Seniors move here because (sorry, these are the verifiable stats) they tend to be less concerned about long-term issues of public health, the environment. (Although it should be noted that both Wesley and Judson take increasing pains to provide good sound insulation.) People of more modest means for similar reasons. People overwhelmingly move here for the airport discount. Affordability. The airport lowers property values. Unfortunately, ‘lower’ is a relative term. Property values increased here by 257% in the last decade. The market is fighting itself. Given our location, we probably should be a lot more expensive. But the airport keeps us nearer to SeaTac than any nearby city. That’s the Airport Discount. If you have a spot, that’s ‘the hidden gem’.
But it also has exactly the same effect on the types of development, both retail and amenities. Developers go where the market (and the demographics) tell them to. I’m always struck by complaints about the lack of ‘variety’ here in retail. The market responds to the people who are here. Based on the concerts you attend, the restaurants you like, a developer can guess your age with about 90% certainty. That’s not good or bad. But it does determine how much many we can obtain and where we can get it from. You don’t “build it and they will come.” Unless you hear voices and see dead baseball players, of course. We should acknowledge that reality in our planning.
The airport drives the market and for that reason it heavily influences who lives here.
One last thing: I worked pretty hard to get the Business Park warehouse tax– which just started last year. That’s also the airport. It’s owned by the Port of Seattle and a lot of homeowners lost their homes back in the 90’s to provide a noise buffer. We’d been leaving a lot of money on the table because people did not know it was not providing revenue for the City. But now that we have it, that tax generates more revenue than the entire downtown area you’ve been pondering with your mindfulness break. If you’re concerned about our budget, think about where we’d be without that.
The airport drives everything. It always did. The solution was always to stop thinking of it as some friend to ‘partner with’ or foe to be fought and simply ask for what we always should have had.
I want to show you something about design…
This a screen shot from a web site by the urban design genius Victor Dover. Street Design is a $90 book that architects drool over. Fortunately, he is extremely generous and the web site for the book has a zillion animations to apply his design concepts to pretty much any type of city application.
First of all, these animations are how every motherforkin’ project should be presented in 2026. Any developer who does not offer these kinds of drawings and animations cheerfully at no charge should not be considered.
Second, the principals are pretty much universal–there are examples for cities from the size of Miami to a village of 1,000.
If we want to break out of the Airport Discount, we’ll need to expect more. We can start with looking at books like this. 🙂
City Manager Stuff
City Manager Reports! August, 21 2026
The highlight for moi is a notice on Redondo Parking lot resurfacing next Saturday, plus an art show at Inkfish Studios for local artist Nanci Bogner who is very good.
This Week
Wednesday
Citizens Advisory Board (No agenda as of this writing.)
Thursday
City Council Meeting. (August 27, 2026 City Council Meeting Agenda Packet) Some AI highlights…
CITY MANAGER REPORT
- Legislative Update from Senator Tina Orwall – 25 Minutes
Sen. Orwall will likely pitch re-introduction of two airport bills from last year. STNI did not find these particularly thrilling, which raises an important point: - Des Moines Historical Society New Executive Director – 10 MinutesThis should be interesting. The DMHS has struggled for a very long time. Former Mayor Richard Kennedy stepped in several years ago to revive it and recognised that the solution is some form of professional management — which was the secret to getting the very nice Highline Heritage Museum off the ground.
- 2026 2nd Quarter Financial Report – 15 Minutes General notes:
–People always focus on the general fund and sales tax. I don’t. Why? Because it’s like betting on the weather. Sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down a bit. But overall, we tend to hit the end of year targets within 1%. And then act like we won something in Vegas.
–I tend to watch the two Enterprise Funds (Marina and SWM). They are supposed to be run like ‘businesses’ and thus should almost always be very stable. But they are not atm.
–What these presentations do not provide are baselines and trends. Drives. Me. Nuts. And this is the biggest reason to have a Finance Committee (or at least require council training.) The Finance Director provides data on each individual slice (good.) But look at the Marina. It shows little red lights–because revenue is down. Got it. But it’s down for predictable reasons–we installed new docks. So, we put up a little red light, but then tell people “nothing to see, folks.” We have to find ways to indicate the trends of our finances. - Community Enrichment Services – Fall/Winter Programming Preview
Staff Presentation: Kyle Ehlers, Program Supervisor
This should also be interesting. There were some cuts last year and this summer. Some of it based on lack of demand. But this was the reason for my airport economics lesson above. It’s a catch-22. You want really good services like this–especially for kids. It’s a key reason I moved here.
CONSENT AGENDA
- Judge Pro Tem Compensation – 1st ReadingMotion: Ordinance 26-059
- ILA with Highline Water District for 2026 North Hill AC Water Main
- Hemstad Consulting Contract Extension
Mr. Hemstad is our state lobbyist. I typically vote ‘no’. Not because he isn’t a great guy and doing what the Council asks. It’s because we need an airport advocate. That’s where the money is. See above. - Citizens Advisory Board Appointment: Philip Mendoza
- Marina Steps Innovative Stormwater Bioretention Testing, Grant and Consultant Contract Amendments: Motion 1: Acceptance of the Puget Sound National Estuary Program Grant for the Marina Steps Innovative Stormwater Bioretention Testing project in the amended amount of $548,386.00 and authorize the City Manager to sign the State funding agreement when it is available.” Motion 2: Assignment 2025-016 Amendment #2 with Psomas, Inc. to provide stormwater bioretention testing and reporting in association with the Marina Steps Innovative Stormwater Bioretention Testing project in the amended amount not to exceed $263,323.07. At first skim it reads suspiciously similar to the grant the Council refused two weeks ago: Water filtration to promote salmon recovery and better water quality in Puget Sound.
- Groundwater Remediation Consultant Contract: $119,356.00. This is a highly over-simplified, never-ending story: there were these fuel tanks in the back of the engineering building that were cleaned up years ago. Every few years they are declared ‘fine’. But because water tables under our area tend to shift with time more ‘stuff’ tends to reveal itself every few years.
The entire airport is a set of ginormous fuel tanks and deicing stations and aircraft that are constantly generating crap that has to be processed and filtered. And even when one test reads ‘pristine’, the aquifer moves around (we’re in an earthquake zone, it’s fluids right?) the next year might reveal something different. And everything that happens on the airport plateau ends up in Des Moines and Puget Sound.
NEW BUSINESS
These were held over from the last train wreck of a meeting. It’s a bit weird to me to allocate a whole 20 minutes to a CIP or a policy that will set the direction of development for the next decade. But
- Barnes Creek Trail Project – Joint Utility Trench Agreement with Comcast
- Capital Improvements Plan – 20 Minutes No. 26-098
- Development Agreement Ordinance – 1st Reading: 26-030 to a second reading on the next available regular Council meeting agenda.”
Last Week
Tuesday
6:00pm Burien/Des Moines Joint Airport Committee (Burien Library 152nd/4th Ave.) Senator Tina Orwall’s presentation was the main event. (See above.)
6:00-8:00pm Budget Town Hall Activity Center: 2045 216th St. (See above.)
