Some bits of news…
SR-509 Update…
Responsiveness
As we enter into ‘campaign season’ my current turnaround on non-urgent communications is slow. You will find it about 800% faster if you call me on (shock!) this device known as a telephone (206) 878-0578 or (shock!) an email. And one other thing. It would take a lot for me to ghost someone. I mean a lot. If you aren’t hearing from me promptly it’s either because you’re trying to text me (which I cannot do very well) or because I’ve reached that age where I can no longer work eighteen hours a day to stay current with email–which used to be my one and only *superpower.
WD54
I keep getting asked about Water District 54, which you can contact here. I have nothing to do with WD54. I am not a water quality engineer. I don’t even play one on TV. I am simply a long-time customer who took some chemistry. Forty years ago.
- Basically, the H20 from the well had high naturally occurring manganese (Mn) <—proof that I took a chemistry class since God made the area. Over time, like any mineral, the Mn coats the insides of the pipes. Perfectly normal. Until you run chlorine through it. Chlorine is an oxidant. That’s how it gets stains out of clothes, right? Even at super-tiny amounts, It does the same thing to the pipes–yanks the bits of Mn off the walls of the pipes where they were just there minding their own business and puts them into the flow.
- Currently the water is being sourced from Highline Water District, not WD54. So the chlorine level is exactly the same as Highline.
- My completely WAG is that eventually the scouring action will die down–as will the smell (which I’m sensing as well btw. It ain’t yer imagination.)
This Week
Monday: King County Public Health
Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda) The main item will be a review of Q2 budget. The Port will announce that aviation revenues are down slightly. But that is not a big boo hoo because overall below the line income is actually about 10% above budget. And some of the aviation revenue will likely be recovered by year end through various accounting dealios. There will also be a post-mortem for the whole ‘second airport’ discussion known as the CACC. There
Saturday: Cambodian Festival at Saltwater State Park (super fun music and food.)
Last Week
Tuesday: National Night Out. I attended four events, which was great. I also got a note from the City indicating that the location of the events was private. More below in the Comments section of the meeting Recap.
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) Recap below.
City Council Recap
The City Attorney was again pinch hitting for the City Manager. I get asked about this a lot and at the risk of sounding snippy, don’t ask me where the City Manager is. 😀 One assumes on holiday.
City Manager’s Report
There was a presentation from St. Anne Hospital, basically an explainer on what they’re doing and the services they provide to the community. The Mayor offered to help with introductions to various local organisations.
I made a comment (which probably seems ‘nostalgic’ or even irrelevant to today) that, back in the ’90’s they put a lot of effort into fighting the Third Runway. And that was all the proof I’ve ever needed as to their commitment to this community and especially to public health.
Consent Agenda
- I pulled the item concerning the 24th Ave. S. rebuild, partly to praise the engineering team (it’s a huge deal) but also (hoping against hope) to get some sort of construction timeline. Nope. If you’d like to get up to speed, here’s the Open House video we held in 2021.
- We signed off on a State grant to allow Laborers 242 to build a new training center along Pacific Highway (you’ve seen the construction site next to their Union Hall on 220th.) This is not our money. It’s just a formality. There were two union reps who spoke on behalf of the item, which is great. There are all kinds of public benefits. However, as designated buzz kill, I wanna point out something I will go on about as long as I am on the Council. Land and Money.
Since its founding in 1959 Des Moines never tried to be ‘business world’. You can tell that by the areas we annexed (older residential like North Hill and Woodmont) and the bits we did not (commercial along Pac Highway which went to Kent.)
And, back in the day, that was fine because cities got to keep a much bigger percentage of your tax dollars. But that has changed dramatically since about 2000. We now get less than forty percent of our budget from property taxes. We’re expected to get the rest from either utility taxes or business tax. I’ve never been a huge fan of utility taxes (which now make up a third of our budget) because they are regressive — they’re extra tough on lower income people. That leaves business taxes. In the current reality, cities with strong business communities make for strong city budgets.
Non-profits are wonderful things, but they do not generate business taxes. So when you give up land to non-profits, you’re giving up a key driver of revenue–the revenue which could also do wonderful things for the rest of the community.
If you made a map of Des Moines which showed the areas of land occupied by various entities which do not generate tax revenue (governments and non-profits), it covers a lot of non-residential land available for development. And most of these land uses are not exactly filled with trees and green space.
So you can reach a point where you can wonderful yourself to death by allocating too much income generating land to institutions that are as tough on the environment as any business, but will never generate business revenue. And that puts more pressure to create economic development on the few remaining places which are available to business.
This is not a critique of any individual non-profit–and certainly not LiUNA. But it is a choice that we as a City make that has far-reaching consequences for the rest of the community. If we talk about wanting to promote something called ‘business’ (which we should because we desperately need the money!) we need to have places for them to business.
New Business
- Compost Procurement Ordinance: The ordinance is based on a 2023 State Law which is meant to reduce the size of landfills. I hope that at some point (soon) DM and our residents–and all cities, will be creating our own compost, not so much ‘procuring’ it. We have to find ways to generate less solid waste. It may seem tiny but… I built a worm bin in 2005, based on a commonly available plan, which cost me about $25 and an hour of my time. And since then I’ve had all the soil amendments I’ve needed for a fairly large vegetable garden.
New Items For Consideration
The Mayor asked to write a letter encouraging other cities to adopt the Flock Camera program we have. Part of that was in response to his truck being stolen, which, having had my car stolen three times, I’m extremely sympathetic to. But people should read the agreement at least once so as to keep expectations realistic.
I proposed that the City Council send flowers via the Hearts and Minds fund to the family of Carol Davis, who died recently. Mrs. Davis was the founder of the Des Moines Area Food Bank and that alone merits something like a Hall Of Fame level acknowledgement. There will be a service at United Methodist Church on Ninth Ave. on August 26 at 11AM.
I also proposed something that I guess ‘passed’, although it got treated which such obvious eyerolls we’ll just have to see. 😀 But I think it really does matter: I want the speakers podium lowered or replaced. Really. I am not kidding.
The current podium is fine if you’re 5’9″-ish and above.
But if yer 5’5″ or less, it pretty much covers your body and puts the microphone right in yer eyeball.
In my opinion, it’s intimidating and borderline disrespectful. And I’m only making a thing about it because the Council was so obviously dismissive.
Whether speakers say so or not it’s one of those customer service details that shows courtesy. Many people, even really tough individuals, get to that podium and find it quite daunting. Public speaking can be hard. This is one of those details where we can be more encouraging to residents.
Comments
National Night Out
I told people that I attended four National Night Out events. And I sent letters of apology to three other communities that were gracious enough to send me an invite. These letters were along the lines of, “You’re doing a great job. You already have my attention.” 😀 I spent my time at new sites because I’m trying to encourage new neighbourhood groups to get in the game.
And as I said from the dais, I am against the idea of a private National Night Out. According to the National Night Out web site:
“The best way to build a safer community is to know your neighbors and your surroundings. National Night Out triumphs over a culture that isolates us from each other and allows us to rediscover our own communities.”
And here is the Des Moines sign up sheet for NNO. No mention of privacy or confidentiality.
I believe in safety. But I do not believe that the way to get there is by encouraging people to sign up and then make their engagement “by invitation only.”
Port of Seattle Commission Meeting on Sound Insulation
I mentioned that I had attended the last Port Commission meeting where the Commission voted on an updated Sound Insulation Plan. If you have a Port Package and you’re part of the SeaTacNoise.Info mailing list, you should already have gotten a note by now, but the short and sweet is that the current Commission has really walked back its 2020 commitments on sound insulation. It is pretty stunning and a reminder that what a government promises in 2020 can change in 2023, both good and bad. As of now, the possibility of fixes for bad Port Packages seems to be off the table until 2027.
North Sea-Tac Park and Des Moines and FAA money…
And in the good news/bad news area, I thanked Congressman Adam Smith for his work to get what is essentially an earmark into Federal legislation to ‘save’ North Sea-Tac Park. The legislation is a once every five year bill (The Federal government seems to work on five year plans.) I had been working like a little beaver to get that earmark in place. Except, I also wanted slightly different language which would have provided parallel benefits for Des Moines (I’ll explain another time. 😀 )
For those of you who care about airport issues, including Port Packages? Take note: the moral of those last two items is as follows. Whether a policy is right or wrong, it’s difficult to ask either the Port or Congress to do something that the Council majority does not want to do. The City of Des Moines has supported neither idea since basically forever. But the City of SeaTac was all-in on saving NSTP. So… the Port was able to walk back any commitments on sound insulation. And the Congressman did the only rational thing possible–going to bat for the portion of the law that his constituent government endorsed.
Now about those public comments…
If you watched the last meeting you noticed that all five public commenters were from Redondo. A neighbourhood that, in the past year has taken the message of National Night Out to heart. Big time.
They’ve organised. Exactly what I had hoped would happen. However, I’ve gotten enough mail to know that they’re angry at everyone (including moi) about the fact that it doesn’t seem to be working.
From my colleagues, and the City, I heard a good deal of empathy (‘we hear you’) and finger pointing at the State (‘those new laws!’)
To which I have several replies, in no particular order. I’m going on here a bit because although they seem Redondo-specific, they concern public safety throughout Des Moines.
- The problems in Redondo go back decades. And I’ve seen this movie. Several times. There have been other people who move here, try valiantly to work ‘collaboratively’ with the City to achieve some resolution–and end up getting just as frustrated by previous City Councils. I want to help end that cycle.
- One of the best things we could do would be to develop some kind of retail along the Boardwalk. Having Salty’s and the fishing pier closed are probably as detrimental to public safety as any ‘new laws’ and anything we can do to speed those rebuilds and get more good people hanging out on the boardwalk, the less encouragement it provides for the idiots. Even ‘small’ steps, like the new Snack Box will likely help.
- Kids were going nuts with or without ‘those new laws’. So I’m also not super jazzed about the prospect of high speed pursuits anywhere along Redondo Beach Drive. When it comes to Redondo, blaming ‘those new laws!’ is a non-starter with me.
- In 2007 the City had 36-ish police officers available to patrol. We had enough commissioned officers to provide the neighbourhood-based approach residents long for. Now? It’s a dozen less. And that is what makes neighbourhood-based policing impossible.
- I believe that one obvious solution for improving public safety throughout Des Moines would be to return to something approaching those staffing levels. I believe in neighbourhood policing as much as any engineered solution. And as ‘tech-focused’ as I am, I’ve said so since I ran for office.
- The public does not see the value in the 272nd Substation. Regardless of any benefits to regional policing (SWAT, ATF, etc.), the fact is that there is a Des Moines-branded police station right next to a major-chain grocery store that many residents openly shun as ‘unsafe’ is not a good look. We should find ways to leverage that space to make the entire Woodmont/Redondo space safer.
- In our 2021 budget we finagled money for two officers for three years using one-time money. I have no idea where funding comes for those paychecks after next year. I believe we should have this discussion. Yesterday.
- I’m a fan of (attractive) physical barriers whenever possible. Much of the bad activity depends upon having places to park, legal or not.
- Speaking of tech, I’ve pushed back on the speed camera thingee because, after learning what it takes to deploy them, hearing what the Chief of Police actually said, I was 100% certain they would not be deployed on time and on budget. I said that it was better to make the staff come back with real dates and real numbers rather than write a blank check for an empty promise.
- I did the same with body cameras–which at the time, got me hate mail from basically everybody. But the fact is, we ended up being one of the last cities in the area to actually deploy them. They took almost three years and we went 300% over the initial budgeted price.
- Whether something is a fantastic idea or not, I will not vote for things unless I am confident that they will be executed as advertised. And I encourage everyone else to promote that culture. Because I do not believe in creating an environment which provides no consequences for (and actually incentivises) lack of evidence, poor communication, delays and cost over runs. Full stop.
- What I want most for every neighbourhood is to be able to trust the communication from the City–especially on issues you really care about. I love people coming together as a neighbourhood, but I do not want people to feel like they have to show up to meetings all frustrated, month after month. (That’s my job. 😀 ) The goal should be to have a government where you obtain a commitment, then go back to watching Yellowstone or whatever you like to do in the evening instead of schlepping down to City Hall. Those of you of faith will recognise this as the Parable of the Centurion, a trust-based management system I strongly endorse.
*We can argue as to whether or not that qualifies as a superpower. If so, I’m pretty sure everyone has at least one lame superpower–whether they know it or not. For example, me Dad had this uncanny ability to find a great parking space under any circumstances. 🙂