Some bits of business…
City Manager Stuff
City Manager Report March 08, 2024
In addition to the usual sports report, he also mentioned the retirement of Senator Keiser. Regardless of your politics, it is hard to overstate the transformation of our 33rd Leg. District over the past 40 years and the senator has had a lot to do with that. 1She wrote an excellent book about state politics. It should go without saying that whatever success we’ve had in dealing with the airport impacts, her name is on it, including the Port Package Update bill she sponsored this year, SB5955.
This Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda) Two things for us
- The Commission will have its first reading of the Land Stewardship Plan, which we heard about last month.
- The Commission will hear about two airfield contracts, one of which is, essentially SAMP, without the SAMP.
Thursday 4:00pm Transportation Committee Meeting (Agenda) They will choose a chair, look at progress on the capital improvements plan. And, of greatest interest to moi, hear from WSDOT on SR-509. This is huuuuge for anyone who cares about environmental issues, including tree canopy because it concerns the Barnes Creek Trail and the future of any WSDOT lands in Des Moines. There are a lot, by the way. In fact, it reminds me now to be a lot more mindful asking who is visiting the city. 😀
Thursday: 5:00pm Environment Committee Meeting (Agenda) Highlights will be our NPDES Permit, which is as bureaucratic as it sounds. But given the large amount of ‘water’ around here, is extremely important.
“The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) is a permit program first introduced as part of the Federal Clean Water Act in 1972. Public owners of stormwater drainage systems, like the City of Des Moines’, are considered dischargers.”
Dischargers? How wude! 😀 But indeed, we are. One of the genius moves of the Clean Water Act was to hold cities responsible on a macro level for everything that goes into Puget Sound. That then puts the onus on the City to educate and hold accountable people, homes, businesses, etc.
Unfortunately, all that water makes this a heavy lift for a small city like Des Moines.
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) This will be a biggun.
A certain amount of the ‘communication’ issues people care about actually have to do with the council calendar. It would be far better for the City (and the City Council) if we could enforce some form of what is known as ‘load balancing’, ie. spacing out various key decision points. That would afford the public more notice and give the seven of us more time to study specific issues.
Instead, what we tend to do is have these long periods without much going on, punctuated by bursts of activity where a ton of ‘stuff’ gets piled onto a few meetings and gets rammed through. Ironically, some members of the public like those slow periods because (shock!) they tend to be the most amicable. Of course they are. When there is nothing to discuss, there’s nothing to argue about. 🙂
The solution is for the Council itself to go over scheduling–which happens in other cities, but it does not happen here. Here, the agenda are set solely by the City Manager and Mayor. That’s one of those ‘superpowers’ I go on about. Until we get a Council that recognises the value of better scheduling, one of the things I try to do with these Weekly Updates is give people more of a heads up.
Anyhoo, the three big issues, which are discussed in other parts of this novella are:
- Public Safety Property Tax Lid Lift
- Biennial budgeting
- City Manager recruiter selection
Last Week
Monday: Meeting with Emergency Management Dept. to go over some questions I had regarding the County’s Emergency Management committee I’m on.
Thursday 4:00pm: Finance Committee meeting (Agenda) Matt Mahoney was chosen as chair with Jeremy Nutting as vice chair. I had hoped to be nominated, but it was no surprise that I was not. There were two big issues, which I know will give many of you pause. I urge you to listen to this meeting, because these are two issues are sorta like hills to die on for me. I’ve been wanting them since taking office and I will be selling them hard. The tricky part is that my colleagues also support them, but for very different reasons.
- We moved to forward Biennial Budgeting to the full Council. I want it in order to reform our financial reporting systems in a fairly major way across all departments. I want each department’s machines to ‘talk’ to one another. I want staff to be able to generate far more informative reports for council with less work. In short, I want visibility into the corporation in exchange. I was strongly rebuffed by my colleagues for attempting to micro-manage. So I’m not sure why they would want to go Biennial if there is not a promise of some defined benefit.
- We moved to forward a Public Safety Property Tax Lid Lift to the full Council. See below.
Thursday 5:00pm: Public Safety Committee meeting (Agenda) The big item was a possible new Fireworks Enforcement ordinance. We currently have a massive fine for setting off illegal fireworks, but the officer literally has to catch the person in the act. Ridiculous. This change will attempt to hold the property owner accountable. As I wrote last week, I have been pushing for this for many years.
In a somewhat unexpected situation, the committee took a vote and it was (2-1) with Mayor Buxton opposed.
Thursday 6:00pm: City Council Study Session (Agenda). Recap below.
Finance Committee March 7, 2024: More on Property Taxes
As I wrote, at the March 7 Finance Committee meeting (Agenda) we moved to forward a Public Safety Property Tax Lid Lift to the full Council. I support a Permanent Single Year Lift. My colleagues support a Permanent Multi-Year lift. We agree that it must be specifically for public safety. Cops. Cars. Not for other stuff. This will require some ‘splain’, Lucy. But first…
Last week I wrote that the cost of a police officer is prox. $100,000 a year. Our Finance Director put that at closer to $200,000. And I would never argue with a finance director. 😀 My source was the salary schedule from our last budget. I can only assume that the doubling is due to the fact that I ignored little details like FICA, employee benefits, medical insurance, equipment,. You know… little details. (where’s the eyeroll emoji when you need it?) Bush league sloppiness, and I regret the error. But, since I am a (cough) politician, check this out: “All the more reason we need more police funding!”
Some history…
We had a lid lift like this in 2006: Ordinance 1375. And if you read it, you’ll notice that back then our property tax rate was actually higher than it is today. A lot higher. You can complain mightily over utility taxes–and I do. But one thing my predecessors did not do was go to town on property taxes. Why? 2Perhaps because it’s the only tax you get to say ‘no’ to. 😀
So many options
Since this is King County and WA, there are four ways you can raise property taxes above the current max of 1%. They involve two choices. Temporary vs. Permanent. And Single vs. Multi. 2There will be a pop quiz at the end and no fruit cup for you if you get it wrong.
Temporary vs. Permanent
The 2006 lid lift was temporary, meaning that when it ended, in 2012 the tax rates went back to 2006 levels. This meant that the police budget also had to wind back six years. Which made us instantly short handed–just like we were in 2006. That is what led to a reduction in staffing levels we have never restored. But previous Councils would always go on about how we’re ‘adding officers!’ and ‘fully staffed!’ In fact, the best we ever got to was not being short handed for every shift. Woo hoo!
What is being proposed now is permanent, meaning that after six years, the tax rate will stay where it is when the Lid Lift ends. No cliff. No staff cuts.
Single-Year Vs. Multi-Year
There is also a single year option and a multi-year option. This is the tricky part.
Currently your property taxes are .90 per $1,000 of assessed value. Again, that is far less than it used to be.
- A Single Year increase means that your taxes jump by certain dollar amount in the first year, but then only go up by the State max of 1% from there for the remaining years. One proposal is to raise to $1.35/$1,000 in year one, then 1%, 1%, 1%, 1% each year after.
- Multi Year means that, again, your taxes go up by a dollar amount in the first year, and then can continue to rise by an increased percentage for the duration. The recommendation from the City is $1.35/$1,000 in year one, then 3%, 3%, 2%, 1.5% for the remaining years.
March 7, 2024 Study Session Recap
As you know by now, a Study Session is a special meeting designed to dive into one or two issues in depth. And this meeting had two doozies, although there was only one issue that required much discussin’. There was also one (usually) routine annual proclamation thrown in. But this year with a twist…
The Steven J. Underwood Memorial Proclamation bait and switch
As usual, the Council passed a proclamation honouring fallen police officer Steven J. Underwood. But the Mayor pulled a fast one and added a second section to that agenda item. (See above: the Mayor is the only member of the Council that can put an item on an agenda without Council approval. Another superpower.) Only a few weeks after the Council voted to end the Hearts and Mind fund with a $2,000 contribution to Dollars For Scholars in Officer Underwood’s name, a new idea was on the agenda. This is to have a ‘voluntary’ $25/month contribution from CMs… which is exactly what Hearts and Minds was. But now, instead of having it be a general fund that can be accessed for any number of one-offs (like flowers when a notable community member passes on) it will now be dedicated exclusively to Dollars For Scholars. Hell. No. The City Council should not, Not, NOT have a single, favoured charity, no matter how worthy and I will opt out.
The long-awaited Communications Consultant thing
The Consor people (communications consultants) faced a tougher crowd than most outside presenters do. That reflects the passions people feel about the various issues in play, and a lot of pent up frustrations. And in my opinion they were very good sports about it. Which tells me that they’re professional communications consultants. (See what I did there? 😀 )
Overall their recommendations were as good as they could be under the circumstances but did not go nearly far enough. My guess is that they were trying to find a balance between a huge range of stakeholders and opinions.
One critique I have is that their demographic analysis did not prepare me for the large number of communications professionals that reside in Des Moines. 😀 And we’ve heard from all y’all recently. In the kind of depth one usually finds only in a New Yorker Article. Or a Weekly Update.
To all? Yer preachin’ to the choir, sistah. 🙂 I definitely have some feelings on this, but I can tell ya five things that we shoulda started on four years ago–during my first term. They are all low dollar and would create an immediate impact.
- Reinstate Zoom and remote participation. It never shoulda gone away.
- Buy a cordless mic. A tripod. And an OWL. So we can at least do community presentations well.
- Schedule major events more frequently and at times/venues that are more convenient for the general public. If resources are an issue? Solicit volunteers.
- Institute a 3Councilmember Information Request, which many City Councils (eg. SeaTac) already have.
- Get an off the shelf App to do the following (among others)
- Integrated community calendar
- Press releases
- Bill pay (pets, permits)
- Activity sign-ups
- Public safety reporting
- Fix-it
- Emergency alerts
And so on…
I know those aren’t what many of you want. But they ain’t chopped liver, either. And they are not rocket surgery. They are all low-cost things that we can do now.
Public Comment
Normally public comment happens at the beginning of meetings. But Mayor Buxton moved it to after the consultant presentation to give commenters a chance to hear them before speaking. It was a good idea, but I don’t know how satisfying it was because people want a two-way dialogue and that is simply not the purpose of public comment at a City Council meeting.
Speaking of which…
Perhaps it was because I had just finished a Finance committee meeting, where my desires for ‘better communication’ were not exactly embraced. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reviewing the whole City Manager search stuff. But I walked into that Study Session more ornery than usual.
But the whole Communications discussion is the first time in my entire tenure where I felt genuinely triggered, both by the discussion and the public comments.
I still haven’t been able to put my thoughts into some concise format and this article has already gone on waaaaaay too long. So I’ll return to this after I’ve had a few more drinks… er… had more time for deep reflection.
And on that cliffhanger… 😀
1Which turns out to be absolutely useless in preparing one for life in a city council like Des Moines. Curses! 😀 Highly recommended, nonetheless. 🙂
2Too cynical?
3Many cities maintain a searchable database of all questions and answers from councilmembers to staff over the years. That is a Councilmember Information Request. We do not. Think of this like a Public Records Request system, like the one the Port Of Seattle has. When any elected asks a question, not only do they get the answer (and the relevant documents), but everyone else can see the answer–not just today, but forever. Electeds tend to ask the same questions over and over (and over and over). That is because we all confront the same issues every year (permits, zoning, policing, roads, storm water, whatever.) Having this database provides a library where new electeds can get up to speed on all sorts of issues without having to ask staff to do research. That saves the City oodles of time and money re-answering the same questions. Again, we don’t do that. There is no way for a councilmember to access the wisdom or history of their predecessors. And the same goes for staff. I can’t tell you the number of times that (and my older colleagues) have mentioned to staff relevant things that happened 15 years ago. We know things staff does not know because we live here and they do not.
How are the fish in the pen at the Marina doing / Kaylene Moon
Swimmingly! 😀