Weekly Update: 05/05/2024

Some bits of business…

Future Agendas

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.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager’s Report May 3, 2024

As always, some great stuff. Although:

• I keep hoping the City will note that there are Food Trucks at the Field house and at Highline College on Mondays.
• There was a line in there about ‘ferry grant funding’, which made me reach for a migraine pill. 😀
  

South End Transit

If you live in the south end please look at the South Link Connections Mobility Project which will “…address changing mobility needs and improve travel options for communities in South King County.” Blah, blah, blah. 😀 Basically, we need better east-west connectivity in the south end of town. If you live near 216th, you can take the 635 Shuttle from the Marina to the main Bus lines and the Light Rail. There is nothing equivalent for the rest of Des Moines–Kent Des Moines, 240th or 272nd. And there oughta be–especially with the upcoming Highline Light Rail Station.

• Take a survey about your transit needs – survey deadline is May 10th.
• Apply to join the Mobility Board (a paid leadership opportunity) by May 10th and advise Metro on community engagement efforts and the best ways to update our transit network.

May 2 Study Session

Study Sessions are limited to specific topics. In this case, there were two visits:

State Senator Karen Keiser

Senator Keiser is retiring and stopped by for an update on her final term. There were many very justified plaudits (And a very nice gift basket. 🙂 ) I never find the right words to express my gratitude–which is profound.

The Senator had an outsize influence on State politics both for women in State politics and for Des Moines. If you did a search through local newspapers, her legislation comes up far more often than one would expect from a city our size! And whenever ‘the State’ comes up in discussion, I always mention the stunning number of bills that are now proposed in every session. The work load for any State Senator or Rep. is staggering and the fact that Sen. Keiser was able to get so much done in that environment, with so little money and staff is amazing.

All that said, these Weekly Updates are about politics… and Sen. Keiser will be retiring before her term is up, which will create a scrum to get someone appointed to her seat–sort of a tradition here–which does not entirely thrill me. It’s her choice (and given the workload, I don’t blame anyone for saying ‘Adios!’. But this approach has traditionally made it easy for whoever gets appointed to get re-elected. And re-elected. And re-elected.

Also, we did not always agree on my interest: airport issues. But I don’t blame her on that because–if you take nothing else away from this Weekly Update it is the following

The higher-ups will tend to follow the will of the Cities they represent.

If you get upset with your Congressman, or the Port of Seattle or the State or the County for not doing more on ‘airport issues’ recognise that they are responding to the will of the City Council Of Des Moines. No higher elected is going to do something substantial on any airport issue without the active support of the City of Des Moines. Read that again: It doesn’t matter what they think, or what the majority of people in Des Moines think. If the City Council does not make it a priority, why should any higher-up make it their priority? That’s actually how democracy is supposed to work. The higher-ups can’t talk to everyone, so they respond to the will of the local government that you elect. If you don’t elect Cms who care about the airport? They will spend their time on other issues. That’s why I mentioned the sheer volume of legislation at every level of government. It ain’t like there aren’t other issues for them to work on.

The fact is: For the past 25 years we’ve had a decidedly Pro-Port City Council, which has ended up being to the detriment of our City. And until we have a majority that recognises how bad that has been for the City, it sets the ceiling on what any State legislator–even one as effective as Sen. Keiser–can hope to accomplish.

Issue #2: The City Manager Recruiter also pays us a visit!

Honestly, I don’t have much to say about it, except to say that it’s only May and already it feels like we’ve been at this for about 100 years.

April 29 Burien City Council Meeting

And now… for something completely different. 😀

Why am I talking about Burien? Because this meeting was an absolute banger. And you can learn a lot more about local government by watching other cities once in a while.

The problem with Burien at the moment is that  ‘homelessness’ has become so totalising that few people (including residents of Burien) can focus on anything else. Most people who watch this meeting will focus on the current kerfuffle over Police Chief Boe during public comment and then the discussion over palette homes.  Which is a shame, because there was a lot more important fish to fry (at least for Des Moines.)

First of all, let’s talk about a couple of process issues:

• They have figured out how to do ‘Zoom’. They simply committed to it and it runs fine.
• They do not have ‘committees’ like we do, so it can seem like their meetings are ‘endless’. Not really. The amount of hours each Cm puts in is about the same. They’re just all in one room at the same time, rather than in separate meetings.
• They also have a fascinating process by which councilmembers can basically get any idea they like at least looked at and considered for an agenda without overburdening staff. They are encouraged to work with the City Manager and staff, not kept isolated like we are.
• To that end, every month they do a calendar review so every Cm knows what is coming down the pike and can take an active role in agenda setting.
• Regardless of your positions on housing, homelessness and drug addiction (they really aren’t the same thing as much as people try to lump them together), I will say that the discussion, which offered complete freedom in proposing and voting on amendments, was excellent. If the decisions were incorrect, it was not the fault of process.

But onto this meeting:

• There was a totally awesome presentation on the Green Burien Partnership. Burien is the only City thus far that has taken decisive action on tree canopy and environment. They have a Climate Action Plan that should be a model for Des Moines.
• It was followed by a great presentation from their lobbyist on the State Legislature. Our Council/lobbyist have followed a strategy of limiting the discussion to a very few issues. That can be very effective. But other cities work differently: they provide a discussion of a much broader portfolio of items, and then let the Council whittle those options down to a set of preferred policies. In other words: most cities tend to learn about more legislative ideas.
• And at the tail end of the meeting, the Council voted, with almost no discussion, to increase utility and B&O taxes by over $2,000,000 a year. Imagine if Des Moines tried that? 😀 . However, they had already completed some fascinating economic development research, such as this.

You don’t want to be like them…

Over the past four years, when people roll their eyes at some of my (cough) ‘novel’ ideas, the joke is that I almost never ‘invent’ anything. I simply rob good ideas from other cities (which is not all that hard to do since most cities publishes the calendar I mentioned so I know when to watch!)

Since I’ve lived here what we’ve often tended to do here is demonise other cities. It’s a cheap political trick. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard, “You don’t want to be like <x>” I’d have a lot of dimes. Look, every city has problems. And every city has blind spots–things that are so obviously terrible to outsiders, which they can’t see because they’re too close. That includes us.

To make this point clearer, I’ll close with one practical detail: I’ve been concerned about our finances since I ran for office in 2019. Many of my colleagues, and our last City Manager, were and are dismissive. How could I possibly have ‘foreseen’ our current situation? I have no crystal ball. I simply watch other cities every once in a while.

But the current mantra is, “Oh, everyone is having problems.” Yes, everyone is having problems with inflation. But on the other hand:

• Burien (like other cities such as SeaTac) ¹just took substantial action. In April. They’ve been researching and preparing and planning and they are way ahead of us.
• And, yes Burien raised taxes, which is not great. Bu they also had headroom. They have more options in their toolbox before going to voters. We basically maxed out most of our taxing options (besides property tax) years ago. They were able to plug the majority of their deficit, with structural revenue, in one night! They weren’t already relying on a crap ton of one-time money (like ARPA.) In fact, they (mostly) used ARPA money for programs more in line with its intended purposes.

Everyone is being hit by inflation. Everyone feels some pain coming out of COVID. But no, we are not all in the same boat.

Do I want to be like other cities? No. We can’t be like other cities because we’re all structurally very different. But we can learn from one another. And instead of doing a bunch of expensive ‘studies’ every few years as emergencies come up, we could simply attend their meetings every so often and rob their best ideas.

• 0:46:00 Green Burien Partnership/Climate Action Plan
• 2:55:00 Housing
• 3:24:00 Taxes

¹And just to be clear, they are also considering a ‘public safety’ property tax increase–not this year. That also does not make me happy because as it stands now, it reads like a bit of a bait and switch. The current idea is to hire two police officers and creatively fund positions such as an accountant— which don’t exactly strike me as major crime-fighters. But on the other hand? It’s not for plugging holes in a deficit; that’s already taken care of.  It’s adding more services–including a ton of things people in Des Moines would enjoy (sidewalks) but not necessarily enjoy paying for. The main thing? They’re planning.