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
I guess we’re back to PDFs. The floating dock was removed at Redondo, which for me is the real end of summer. On a positive note, the Field House slide is almost ready to go. Epic!
City Manager’s Report October 4, 2024
SR-509 Stage 2
The virtual open house for SR-509 Stage 2 is open. 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 contact their 24-hour hotline, 206-225-0674, or SR509Construction@wsdot.wa.gov.
The SAMP
The Sustainable Area Master Plan (aka ‘the SAMP’) is starting. On October 21, the 45 day official comment period will open. What is the SAMP? It is the environmental review for the airport’s next major expansion–which has already begun and will increase flight operations as much in the next ten years as they have in the last ten years.
If you’re concerned about Des Moines Creek West? That’s actually a (tiny) part of the SAMP. How can Sea-Tac Airport grow that much without a new runway and why should you care? Our friends at Sea-Tac Noise.Info created this two minute explainer to answer those very questions.
On October 21, we will all have 45 days to provide official comment on an $8 billion process that the Port has been working on since 2012. (2012 is gonna come up several times in this article.)
Here is another explainer on how this process works and how YOU can comment!
The City is about as prepared for the SAMP as the people who woke up one day and found out they had 30 days notice on Des Moines Creek West. If you have thoughts on how to get the City more engaged? Please call me. (206) 878-0578. That’s not a joke.
Contest Winner
We have a winner on last week’s contest. (actually there were two.)
A couple of people noticed that salaries are the big part of the budget and that they jumped a lot between 2022 and 2024. That was all I was looking for. One person questioned whether the entire budget had jumped as dramatically, or if certain areas might not be more ‘inflated’ than others. That was a fabulous question and was the tie-breaker. One Tuscany Pie, coming up! 🙂
This Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda) Highlights:
- The Port Commission will vote on an order concerning North Sea-Tac Park. This is a biggee.
- There will also be a completely new South King County Fund. This was a $10,000,000 grant program (now expanded to $14,000,000) funded by your property taxes. It was originally meant to compensate us for the negative impacts of the airport–especially the loss of trees from projects around the airport–like the Des Moines Creek Business Park. Unfortunately, only twenty percent of the money has gone for environmental work. Every year, more and more of it gets spent on ‘economic’ grants and program nowhere near Des Moines. And check this out: trees planted: 650. Look, if your local group gets some money? So cool. But this is greenwashing, pure and simple, and an absolute pittance compared to the negative impacts of the airport and the Port’s development projects.
- There will also be a discussion on the Economic Development Budget. From a revenue perspective, ‘The Port’ is an airport with a delightful little seaport on the end. But it also has a fairly massive Real Estate empire (including Des Moines Creek Business Park) which people do not talk about often enough. They all work together. The Port’s argument has always been that they do developments like DMCBP to benefit communities like Des Moines. But until our City Council (and residents) tell them ‘please stop trying to benefit us so much’, they will keep doing it. Again: we have asked them to do these projects.
Wednesday: The City has graciously acceded to my request and invited the founder of Artemis Ferry to visit City Hall. Given that he will already be flying in from Belfast for the Ferry Conference organised by our ferry consultant Peter Philips.
Thursday 5:00pm Environment Committee. The are no City items. I’ve invited members of the Burien Airport Committee and StART to discuss that upcoming SAMP.
Thursday 6:00pm City Council Meeting. (Regular Meeting Agenda) The highlight will be a discussion over the November 14 Mission meeting. At the risk of being a wet blanket, I did not want this meeting until after the first of the year. And, we are paying an outside consultant to run the meeting which just feels wrong given the current budget issues. But as with the whole FIFA thing below? I would love to be proven wrong.
Last Week
Tuesday: Southside Seattle FIFA Stakeholder Meeting. This requires some explanation. There’s this game you Americans play, involving a nut-shaped leather ‘ball’. And then there is football, the game watched every week by like 10X more people than any Super Bowl ever. You need a tax attorney to figure out how FIFA schedules work. But fwiw, two games of the 12026 FIFA World Cup 32 (the ones people care about) will be played in Seattle in July. Four other ‘group stage’ ones of interest mainly to the hardcore will be in June. All will be at Lumen Field. Without some form of divine intervention, almost no locals will get seats–unless your name is perhaps Harrell or Inslee, etc.
However, there may be several practice events in surrounding cities like Renton, and of course, a ton of tourism for those weeks. So Southside Seattle–a regional chamber of commerce we belong to, is organising meetings to consider how each city might get in on some of that gravy. There is a chance that some small portion of said gravy may come our way. And hopefully, having a World Cup within the same county will incentivise the new Light Rail Station to open on time. We also hope that it will mean that our hotels will be booked solid. But if anyone starts talking about how it’s going to bring thousands of whatever here? Or that we should spend even more money on ferries and whatnot to promote the City? Please ask for the evidence. 🙂 That said, I’ll keep attending these meetings. As with the Mission meeting above, I would love to be wrong on this one!
Wednesday: There was a meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee. The highlight was a presentation on the budget and a Q&A. However, as far as I can tell, it was not live-streamed or recorded or promoted in any way by the City–including any mention on Facebook or in the City Manager’s usually thorough Weekly Reports. I hope to be proven wrong, but this feels like a total fail to me, on the part of the City, the committee members, and the CAC members We all talk about wanting better ‘public engagement’. But when we have a ‘Citizens Advisory Committee’ that only about two dozen people know know about? Total fail.
Thursday: Speaking of total fails. I attended the second meeting of the Commercial Aviation Workgroup (aka ‘the second airport committee’). As I keep saying, there will be no ‘second airport’ around here in anyone’s lifetime. I tell people that not to lapse into despair, but rather to get people to stop dreaming and work together to dial back on Sea-Tac Airport
Thursday: Finance Committee
Highlights: The Finance Committee approved a warehouse tax. See last week for details, but this is something I’ve been yammering about for years. It will bring over $600,000 a year. That is not a typo. We just ‘found’ over $600,000 a year in new, structural revenue. This is money we should have been collecting since the business park first began leasing space seven years ago.
There are other missing pieces left to go. One is something known as Leasehold Tax (LET). LET is a tax charged to tax-exempt property owners who rent out their property. We pay it ourselves since we rent out boat slips at the Marina. But the Port of Seattle currently makes millions in revenue from those rentals at the business park, and pays no property tax. Due to a small detail of the tax law the City gets only a pittance of LET.
The other item we discussed was to start charging Water District #54 the same rate we charge to the other utility districts. I am a customer of WD54 and I supported this because it simply puts them into parity with rate payers in the other special purpose districts. That’s another $90,000 a year.
The moral here is simple: By having a Finance Committee, and by doing some research, we just ‘found’ more than $700,000 in structural revenue. These are monies we could have (should have been) collecting all along. I believe we are making these improvements because of the current fiscal issues. And I am also certain we can (and should) find other efficiencies before going to the taxpayers for more money. Nobody likes to hear it, but necessity really is the mother of invention!
Thursday: Public Safety Emergency Management Committee
GREAT SHAKE OUT – OCTOBER 17, 2024 AT 10:17AM
DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW/COMMAND TEAM
CRIME STATISTIC OVERVIEW REPORT
SCORE OPERATIONS OVERVIEW
Thursday: City Council Study Session
The agenda consisted of one item: The Budget. Mea culpa: it was surprisingly tax levy free. Well done. But it also avoided the most important (and toughest) discussions because they suck to discuss. Namely payroll.
2025-2026 Proposed Preliminary Budget
The winning contest entry noted how much payroll jumped between 2022 and 2024. But more than that, both correct entries noted what a large percentage payroll is in our city-typically over sixty percent of our General Fund. It’s the reason I dislike the City’s comparisons with other cities’ budget issues. For example, we are not like Edmonds in that police funding is only about a third of their general fund (also they’ve been having serious accounting issues–oy.)
I’m not saying that payroll shouldn’t be almost thirds of our general fund, but I’m also sure that it didn’t used to be that high. And I’m also sure there is a percentage that it should be, based on how much revenue we take in. ie. the optimum percentage working with what you have to work with. There have to be at least some independent metrics and ways for the Council to know what is best practice–besides being told what to do by current staff. We tend to only make these adjustments when new staff come on board.
I understand how ‘snippy’ that may sound to some. And I’m always skeptical whenever anyone agrees with me. 😀 But the new Director of Public Works unveiled a new policy regarding vehicle purchases that I’ve asked about since I first took my seat. In the past, the police asked for ad hoc vehicle purchases every year. Two here. Three there. The Chief would say that each was a great deal and represented how frugal we were in only asking for what we needed. I was always skeptical because I walk by the maintenance yard all the time and see a big queue of vehicles waiting for service. I would wonder why we weren’t using a more structured fleet replacement fund. Apparently, we’re going to adopt that approach, and over time, it will save us a lot of money. Great!
So again, at the risk of sounding snippy, this is like the warehouse tax (see Finance Committee). It’s another idea we could have been doing all along. So (again) the moral is, you can either wait years for a ‘fiscal crisis’, or a new department director, or you can adopt an approach which constantly questions assumptions and seeks out process improvements. That is a part of the Council’s job. Oversight.
We discussed lots of ‘smaller’ items that I know people care about–like City Currents and Animal Control. But there will be several other budget meetings. The new City Manager will show up in a few weeks. And there will be an election. That last thing will either give the City more of your tax dollars or give the City even greater incentives to find ways to generate revenue and obtain greater management efficiencies that we just couldn’t seem to get to until now. 🙂
So, since I’ve hit my word count, I’ll just say this: nothing is cast in stone. Don’t worry. And don’t take every ‘cut’ that is discussed today as gospel. A lot can change before the end of the year. We’ve made a great deal of progress and there can be a lot more.
1Technically, it’s the men’s world cup. But until the ladies start getting paid real money, the rest of the world will continue to stick with ‘world cup’. No letters, please. 😀