Weekly Update: 07/14/2024

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.

Kroger Albertsons Safeway QFC Planned Divestiture Locations I know a lot of you are concerned about possible store changes from the proposed Kroger/Albertsons merger. The two stores nearest us are the Safeway @ 272nd and the QFC in Normandy Park. Both would be turned over to a new management company, but remain open for at least two years. The plan after that is unclear.

A quick reminder that Summer Road Paving is beginning in Redondo and then McSorley Creek.

City Manager Stuff

Interim City Manager George is away this week, and yet, somehow managed to submit a City Manager’s Report July 12, 2024 from the great beyond!

This Week

Wednesday: Regional Transit Committee. (Agenda) We’re getting prepped for the big vote to not only add new lines but also rejigger existing ones (like our A Line.) Personally, it doesn’t look great for us–especially in the south end. But I’m told to be patient. Which I love. 🙂 😀

Last Week

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission (Agenda) I testified to pause the Port’s plan to buy the open space north of 216th that connects to the Des Moines Creek Trail. To my very pleasant surprise, several members of the community showed up, as well as Defenders Of Highline Forest. If the project proceeds, it will mean the west expansion of the Des Moines Creek Business Park West. If you would like to learn more about the issue (and how you can engage in the decision-making process) read below and at Sea-Tac Noise.Info

A gentle reminder: despite the name, Sea-Tac Noise.Info (STNI) should more correctly be thought of as ‘Port of Seattle Watch’. Because, as people who live near 216th Ave. are finding out, almost everything in Des Moines has been, does be, and will be connected with the Port. And wouldn’t you know it, PortofSeattle.watch redirects you to SeaTacNoise.Info. If you have any concerns about Port owned property–like Des Moines Creek Business Park, SR-509? STNI is the place to get the skinny.

Fun fact: There used to be a ‘Port of Seattle Watch’ newspaper, back when there were such things as ‘newspapers’. It was one of the more effective tools residents had to push back on various issues like this.)

Thursday: Environment Committee (Agenda) We had a review of our National Pollutant Discharge Elimination permit. Over-simplification alert: NPDES is basically the Clean Water Act of 197-ish. In my opinion, it is what the EPA/State should do to protect the bajillion bits of water we have around here. Because the one thing I’ve learned about our environment: everything affects everything. The term of art used in the permit is ‘receiving waters’ to describe the waters the state controls, which I like. Every drop of water from every little creek-let, many of which are probably within a block of you, ultimately feed into Puget Sound. NPDES has a framework that says: every time a new pollutant is discovered, they can require more tests and more compliance. And of course, they’re always finding more ‘stuff’ that my generation thought was a great idea to make: better packaging (plastic), fire retardant and frying pans (PFAS), and tires (6PPD). And now that we know how toxic all that stuff is, for some reason, it’s the City’s responsibility to filter it out.

What I’m getting at is this: Des Moines has the highest beauty-premium in the area. We have all this environmental wonderfulness which we love, but which costs a stonkin’ fortune to keep clean. It’s worth paying for, but it ain’t free. And that is all the more reason to have a budget that works.

On the other hand, pollution from the airport is not regulated in the same way as water. There’s no NPDES for air. So we have no tools (or funding) to do something about it–as we do with water. The airplanes literally dump on us every day and there’s rules or funding to help us fix it–as there is with water. I’m workin’ on it. 🙂

Thursday: City Council Meeting (Updated Agenda July 11, 2024)

Highlights:

South King Fire & Rescue Chief gave a presentation on their upcoming non-tax, tax called an FCB. You should read this part of the packet CAREFULLY!
Report from Acting Police Chief Mark Couey on fireworks over the Fourth Of July. Some excellent news. Apparently calls for service concerning fireworks were less than thirty (30). South King Fire also noted a significant reduction in calls for service. There were also three (3) citations written. And, perhaps most impactful: the police wrote letters to people who had received warnings in previous years before the Fourth.

For me, this is such a change, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around. I’ve been pushing for all of the above for years. As part of my incessant nagging, I did a public records request last year which I know our public records officer loved. 😀 It looked at fireworks calls for service and citations and prosections over the past decade.

In a typical year, calls for service would be in the sixties. At the same time there would usually be zero citations. Despite what many residents tell me, this was not so much a question of police willingness to write tickets or availability. It was mainly because the previous law pretty much required that the officer witness the event to write a ticket. Impossible. Our new law makes it easier to cite the owner of the property. Going from zero to three is huge. And sending warning notices is hopefully going to have an even bigger impact.

Getting real here: If you live somewhere that was a ‘war zone’ this may not be of great comfort. I get it.

But I am certain that the above are positive steps and I am grateful to all of the above for helping move the needle.

Introduction of incoming Police Chief Ted Boe.
Introduction of new Director of Public Works Mike Slevin Environmental Services Executive Profile – City of Tacoma.
We voted to approve construction on a new $2,500,000 Redondo Restroom and I voted ‘no’. I gave my reasoning last week.

This was one of the rare times I’ve gotten viscerally annoyed. We have this habit of what I call ‘received wisdom’. Several years ago, someone (not saying who 😀 ) decided they wanted to move the restroom over to the parking lot. They said it’s ‘impossible’ to rebuild on the boardwalk. They said that it’s ‘so much more expensive that it’s not worth discussing’. And I’m like. “Cool. Just show me the piece of paper.” And instead of that piece of paper I got a set of eye rolls. It is not hard to think of examples concerning other development projects that have worked like that.

We have this tendency to make certain decisions that were actually more about preference than evidence. But when there are no records, after enough years go by, if you ask for the evidence, they roll their eyes. “We already discussed this. There was plenty of paperwork. Plenty of public input.” With no evidence of either. That is what the Redondo Restroom is. And even if you find the notion of a bathroom on the other side of the street a great idea, you should not want this style of decision making process.

Saturday: Septic Rebate Party at North Hill Espresso. Free coffee. Snacks. Car wash. But seriously, there are many people in North Hill with septic systems that need attention. The maintenance rebate from King County is great.

Go apply!

Saturday: I attended the premiere of a Port of Seattle Youtube movie called Elevated, with a panel discussion from past and current leadership. What was it like? Imagine being in a theatre with 100 people who think everything about the airport is so great that the only way it could be better would be if we could get more flights. And me. 🙂

Another retirement

Longtime IT Director Dale Southwick formally retired last week (Assistant City Manager Johnson-Newton listed his term of service as 25 year, 7 months, 13 days! 😀 ) Given all my whinging about the City’s digital presence, you might think we did not have a particularly great relationship. And you would be wrong. The state of the City’s digital presence is exactly where the City Council and management have wanted it to be. We pay for the items we actually value. For example, we were fairly early adopters of Flock cameras, but are the only government in the area to have literally dropped remote access to meetings (Zoom) and do not record various community meetings. Mr. Southwick’s job was to keep a ton of disparate electronic gizmos running, not make policy, and I applaud him for his service and the dozens of times he helped me.

Scoreboard

I used to think of our staff as being kinda like the Rolling Stones. You may not necessarily follow them any more. But you loved ’em. You know what to expect. And… you expect them to go on. Forever. 😀 But recently that has changed. So I think it’s worth taking a pause to check the scoreboard since I took office.

We will now hire a new IT Director.
We just hired our fourth Director of Public Works.
New Finance Director.
New Parks director. Who became the new communications director.
The old communications director(s) have swapped places.
We’re on the third events planner.
Completely new building team.
Completely new planning team.
Two new police chiefs.
New SWM manager.
New Emergency Management Director.
New Harbormaster.
New ¹Assistant City Manager (who remains HR Director)
And of course, we’re hiring a new City Manager.

That’s in four years.

Our org chart has flipped so many times in that time I’ve honestly lost track. Most of the remaining long timers have played a lot of musical chairs, and despite a fairly high FTE count, many people wear multiple hats. I’m not sayin’ any of this is necessarily a bad thing. Part of the generational shift happened likely because our last before our last City Manager came on board 30 years ago during another generational shift. Those employees probably liked the gig and stayed. That’s a great thing. In fact, it could be an opportunity to revisit those values I mentioned on any number of issues. But I do sometimes wonder about institutional transfer.

(I can’t tell you the number of times Dale Southwick found some old bit of history for me I thought was lost–simply because he was there and remembered.)

There are some issues (like the airport) that rarely improve. But it’s not because they’re impossible. It’s because you need someone to care about the issue and to persist for many years in order to develop that institutional knowledge and be able to say, “That’s not right” when the Port (or whoever) makes a statement. Otherwise, you come into the situation and become immediately overwhelmed with all the airport lingo and that ‘received wisdom’. And that is why so many bad decisions keep getting made; over and over, decade after decade. It’s not ‘evil’. It’s that there’s no one on the team who has both the deep well of historic knowledge and is willing to look at the situation with fresh eyes.

Speaking of which…

Des Moines Creek West

I always say ‘everything comes down to the airport.’ And people hear is, ‘that guy has airport on the brain.’ But this is an example. Roughly eight years ago, the City was offered the piece of land west of the Des Moines Creek Business Park, which was owned by WSDOT, but which you think of as “that abandoned land that goes south into the des Moines Creek Trail.” Instead of buying it from WSDOT, we handed it off to the Port of Seattle to extend the Des Moines Creek Business Park further west, creating… er… Des Moines Creek West! There are two problems with this

First, the entire project known as Des Moines Creek Business Park has been spectacularly bad for DesMoines. As just a taster, here is the financial projection on this new area. The land cost was originally about $2.5M. The developer expects to make their money back in 18 months and then make $3.5M in annual revenue thereafter. But wait! The property is tax-exempt. Which means it brings in a butt-load of money for the Port of Seattle, but does almost nothing for Des Moines. Remember: we gave this to the Port.

The other problem is that, although the project has been in development for many years, until the required 30 day comment period notice went out last week, residents nearby had absolutely no idea that it would be up against them. Asking the public to absorb this and then ‘comment’ at this late stage is completely unfair to everyone –both residents and the developer.

Residents should expect to have a sincere public outreach before the train has left the station. And the developer, having complied with the City’s wishes, should have certainty that they won’t run into community opposition.

It’s awkward for me because Mayor buxton and former Mayor Mahoney were all in two years ago. And that is when the public outreach should have occurred.

Mayor Matt Mahoney and Deputy Mayor Traci Buxton testify at the July 12, 2022 Port of Seattle Commission in support of Des Moines Creek Business Park West

Further, this is what trickle-down economics looks like. The City keeps telling everyone that if we build projects like a ferry, or the Des Moines Creek Business Park, even if they do not make money, they will generate thousands of customers for local businesses. No. The DMCBP has simply removed hundreds of trees and hundreds of thousands in property taxes–with no replacement value, either for the environment or our economy.

That’s great, dude, but what do I do about it?

I’m already hearing from residents trying to figure out what they can do about Des Moines Creek West. If you’re one of them?

Please follow Sea-Tac Noise.Info. There’s no need for me to re-invent the wheel on issues like this. The following article has instructions at the bottom (SPOILER ALERT: provide a SEPA Comment before signing a petition or writing the City Council or whatever):

Port Commission approves last piece of Des Moines Creek West — (Sea-Tac Noise.info)

South King Fire FCB and ‘Municipal Air’

I have made it clear that I do not support the upcoming Property Tax Levy. But I will support the South King Fire FCB for a basic reason:

In addition to the ‘beauty premium’ I mentioned above, we also have so many tax-exempt or discounted properties (like Des Moines Creek Business Park) that we’ve now reached a point where we simply do not have enough taxable properties to properly fund the City.

This is an extremely awkward conversation.

If you created a map of Des Moines showing all the developed land (homes, businesses, institutions of all sorts, etc.) and marked all the properties that pay tax in green and those that do not (or are heavily discounted) in grey? You’d have a whole lot of grey.

I understand the sensitivities involved in this discussion. But all the Port of Seattle land–Des Moines Creek Business Park demonstrates the problem. When you raise property taxes, tax-exempt is still tax-exempt.

We must find a way to re-balance the load a bit. And South King Fire’s new approach, which factors service requirements into the mix, while still providing healthy discounts for various tax-exempt institutions, seems like a reasonable thing to advocate for at the State level.

It can’t be the case that we keep raising taxes on the same, relatively small, subset of properties to fund the services of a so much larger geography.

¹During most of Michael Matthias’ tenure we had no Assistant City Manager. Instead we had people who, like our Assistant City Manager, held two jobs at the same time, one of which seemed to be ‘second in command’, eg. ‘Chief Administrative Officer’ or ‘Chief of Operations’. Drove me nuts. 😀