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.
More Free Steering Wheel Locks!
The City has a free steering wheel lock program. I got a couple and distributed them. But I keep getting requests for more, and for vehicles other than the original list. So…
- Bad news, the City won’t give me anymore. Boo! 😀
- Good news, they will give you one! 😀 If you go to the Police Station. And the Chief says they have opened up eligibility to other makes of automobiles! Hurrah!
So… if you want a free steering wheel lock, head over to the Police Station 21900 11th Ave S, Des Moines, WA 98198 and pick one up before they run out!
City Manager Stuff
City Manager’s Report September 6, 2024
Apart from the Sporting News:
- Good news. The Fieldhouse Playground equipment now appears scheduled to open October 11, 2024.
- Bad news. The 24th Ave. road project will not be opening until 2025.
Fall programs
- There will be an open house at the Field House for fall programs on September 11.
- And in one of those, “It’s the little things that count”, details:Registration for all City programs is now at an easy to find link: desmoineswa.gov/registration
SR-509 Stage 2
The virtual open house for SR-509 Stage 2 is now open. Check it out. If yer short on time, here is a direct link to the info most Des Moines residents will want to see: SR 509/24th Avenue South to South 188th Street – I live in, work in, or travel through Des Moines, SeaTac, and southern Burien
If you have questions or concerns about construction at any time, you can always contact our team at our 24-hour hotline, 206-225-0674, or SR509Construction@wsdot.wa.gov.
This Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda). I should feel bad that their web site has been down for two weeks. But since it hasn’t affected flight ops one little bit? I don’t. 🙂
Wednesday September 11 7:00pm: Key To Change Studios (Des Moines) Open House! Get your kids into the violin and viola!
Thursday September 12 4:00pm Transportation Committee
They will vote to move forward a 50% discount on traffic impact fees for developers of Early Learning Centers. This is one of those things that sound great, but is in fact not because the discount is given to the developer, not the parents. In all likelihood this is just an $85k discount to one person. I have asked my colleagues to vote hard no. BTW, lest you think me some ‘child-hater’, read the packet. Our dev rates are already at the low/mid-market. This is low-hanging fruit in tough budget times.
Thursday September 12 5:00pm Environment Committee We’ll get an update on the Poverty Bay Shellfish District. (Look at the maps for background.) We’ll also get an update on the SWM 6-year capital budget. A nice touch, is the addition of a summary page which shows just how much moolah it takes to keep all these drains flowing.
Thursday 6:00pm City Council Regular Meeting Agenda
Highlights:
- We’ll vote to approve renewing Peter Philips ferry consulting contract. I have many concerns. One that it is being re-branded as not coming from the General Fund. It is coming from the Lodging Tax fund, on which Mr. Philips was sitting as of December, 2023. I do not believe it is appropriate. It is also being branded as general economic development work (since we no longer have Michael Matthias as economic development director. It has been re-jiggered from a ‘pilot program’ which wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars, now continuing to pay Mr. Philips and another consultant to lobby King County to create such a program? And then there is the small matter that the whole thing has always been, and continues to be, insane.
- We will re-visit the ARPA re-allocation we did not decide on last week. I’m not sure what good it will do unless someone pulls a fast one. This is the last $614,000 of a $9,000,000 tranche that was meant to ‘build back better’. We used it to plug budget holes.
- There will be a presentation on a fairly straightforward item discussed in the Finance Committee to raise business license fees. Spoiler alert: our rates were lower than other cities. This just brings them more into line.
Des Moines Creek West ‘Tract C’ LUA2013-0036
But the biggee is a Public Hearing to approve the purchase of a little sliver of land necessary to expand the Des Moines Creek Business Park West. As far as I can tell, it’s been laying dormant since about 2016.
In my opinion, the public should feel blind sided here as this has not been on the city’s Futures report, or discussed in any committee. The public notice sign (asking for comment) does not even reference the permit number. I was only aware of it because the Port discussed it back in July. (Ironically, they are often waaaaaaaaaaaaay more transparent than we are.)
On the plus side? It’s $690k in one-time money. Which we desperate need. Other mitigation programs (like Barnes Creek) are tied into it–although that agreement doesn’t thrill me either.
I’ve always tried to vote pragmatically. But regardless of how it may look to some, opposition to Des Moines Creek Business Park was and is always pragmatic. It was the neo-liberal, ‘trickle-down economics’, ‘If you build it they will come’ rubbish we all used believed in without question for 25 years. It has never served Des Moines well.
For decades we’ve been permanently surrendering valuable land, the life blood of any city, to tax exempt entities, in exchange for one-time money. That has been our ‘economic development strategy’. I’m sick of it.
If you care about this development? Read the packet starting on page #122 carefully.
One reason for supporting Katherine Caffrey was strong her background in economic re-development, ie. obtaining higher yields from existing properties. Cool. But is it too much of a buzz kill to note that one needs land to re-develop?
Last Week
Tuesday: Met with State legislators on City environmental agenda. This is a funny thing. The SAMP is coming, the biggest airport expansion since the Third Runway… and we have zilch-o preparation.
Tuesday 6:00pm: Executive Session. This was the ‘de-briefing’, ie. a private discussion on the four finalists.
The weird thing for me? And I want to spend a sec here. There was literally no discussion. Now I’m about 100% certain that many of you will consider that a good thing. “Well, duuuh, that means there was one ‘obvious’ choice. Great!” I disagree. In my world, it would be required to provide at least a cursory steel-man defense of each final proposal n any large project. Even if everyone comes into the room with their mind made up, you talk through the pluses and minuses for at least a few minutes. You paid a ton of money to get those four to the top.
(If you read our packets, all cities do that on every Agenda Item on every Agenda item. They have a recommendation, but they at least take a whack at providing a ‘pluses/minuses’.
That’s the hedge. The final check. The public hand washing surgeons now do before opening you up. It’s a hygiene thing that systems analysts like me have proven over and over with thousands of organisations. Regardless of any single result, if you do not do that finale check, over time mistakes increase. I used the surgeon metaphor intentionally because surgeons were the most challenging to fix. They have godlike status in our society, don’t like to be told what to do, and so… they often did not wash their hands. Just adding a check list before surgeries has prevented thousands of deaths.
Wednesday: I had a meeting with several local airport activists to discuss the upcoming Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP). Because the Port of Seattle’s Port of Seattle SAMP Study Session. The most important meeting of the year you probably won’t hear about. The SAMP is the kick-off for the next airport expansion. The SAMP will increase flights, and alter the trajectory of this City as much as the Third Runway And without ratting anyone out, I’ll tell you why most people don’t care… including my colleagues. They don’t believe it. But the Third Runway is the single biggest reason Des Moines never achieved ‘lift off’.
Wednesday 6:00pm: King County International Airport Part 150 Wait! Wasn’t there just a Part 150 here? Yes there was. For Sea-Tac Airport. People forget that we share the air space with KCIA. And they add over 200,000 flights to that airspace every year, in addition to our 450,000.
Thursday 5:00pm: Public Safety/Emergency Management Committee
I strongly encourage everyone to watch this first presentation by Chief Boe. I hate to gush, especially because I was not a fan of his hiring process, but this is one of the better PSEM meetings I’ve watched in my 4.7 years. And it’s his first week! Curses! So much for my management theories. 😀
Great info on the value of data analysis.
OK, gush over. The Police Chief will always be the second most important politician in Des Moines. Points for selling the value proposition of a crime analyst. Something I wanted for a long time and fully support.
Thursday 6:00pm: City Council Study Session – 05 Sep 2024 – Agenda – Updated
City Council Study Session Recap
Public Comment
There were several comments that tied ‘budget’ into ‘new City Manager’. More below.
New City Manager!
We voted unanimously in favour of making Katherine Caffrey leave Texas and move her entire family to Puget Sound. And also to be our next City Manager. 🙂
I thanked the community panels, staff panels, and citizens advisory committee for their comments which I thought were very good.
I also thanked the four applicants. Their comments about us were highly instructive and remarkably consistent.
So, we fairly consistent in who we wanted, but they were also consistent as to what they think we need.
Budget Presentation
I struggled to keep from vibrating. And not in a good way. 😀
People occasionally tell me I take too long to get to the point. Fine. I have two points I wish to drive home:
- That presentation was a poor substitute for a process that should have happened six months ago.
- Even if the Tax Levy had passed (or passes in November) we’re kinda screwed.
Direct enough? 😀
The Finance Director put up a 5-year forecast showing the anticipated red ink if the tax levy does not pass in November. I also wish he had put up a version if it passes. Here is just such an A/B from the June Finance Committee meeting. It’s not identical to our last meeting, but it’s close, and it is apples to apples.
The only way we break out of that red ink is unknowables. Eg. the Marina Steps or an electric ferry create a miraculous cash flow boom; a developer rolls up with another bag o’ one-time money for the ‘Innovation District’, Corliss demolishes the Masonic Home and throws up a ton of multi-family housing as he’s done in South Hill; the State lifts the property tax cap, as our Mayor lobbies for in Olympia every year–despite being told ‘Hell No!’ by voters about five billion times; etc.
I totally believe in the power of prayer. However, I do not use it as a variable in financial modeling. So, like the Finance Director, I’m conservative in my assumptions. And assuming none of those (x) factors occur, we are in trouble. Again.
Like the Des Moines Creek West sale above, my opposition to the Tax Levy will seem counter-intuitive. It is not. I want people to understand that even when we give up the one-time money (to make others wealthy), even when we tax ourselves, we’re still under water.
This happens with regularity every 7-10 years. And unlike our last City Manager I am sick of using fancy pants expressions such as ‘exogenous macro-economic forces’ to explain them away. They are just another way of saying ‘Shit happens, Gomer.’
I was a systems analyst; not an economist. But one doesn’t need to be a specialist to consider that if one periodically has one’s lunch taken, even by completely different bullies, one might consider that it may not entirely be their fault.
I’ve maxed out my word count for this week. And I occasionally get comments like ‘All complaint. No solution!’ Actually, I have some very specific comments on that Budget Presentation which I will publish shortly.
Your talent is wasted in this Peyton Place. I wrote you in for one of the state races that had idiots running….which were quite a few.
I’d like to see this weekly blog and your analyses of the garbage being debated in Olympia…but it would be bad to lose your outlook locally!