Some bits of business…
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.
We’re doing a six month trial without standing committees, instead doing a monthly committee of the whole. Unfortunately, as the year goes on, items for consideration are veering away from each committee’s planning calendar. But for what it’s worth, each committee’s planning calendar are here. 🙂
City Manager Stuff
The City Manager’s new weekly report format is viewable here.
City Manager Report – July 3, 2025
SR-509 24th Ave is now open and it’s free!
Well, temporarily. Drive north on 24th Ave and before you get to 200th, on your right (east side of the street) you’ll see a new exit onto the first mile of SR-509, which will take you directly to I-5. It will be tolled – but not yet! So take the next month and stick it to da man! WSDOT has promised free GoodToGo cards, but I haven’t seem ’em yet. Stay tuned.
Redondo Parking – get a pass!
Speaking of having to pay, Redondo Paid Parking is now paid. You can get an annual pass by contacting the Marina. 🙂
Restaurants!
There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.
News Flash! After five years of being only ‘98198’, TakeOutDM is expanding its list to include establishments people think (or wish) were in Des Moines. For example, if you like Fr I really like Peyrassol West in Normandy Park across from the QFC.
This Week
Thursday
This week’s City Council meeting will feature a Committee of the Whole meeting at 5PM. And every time I hear the City refer to the ‘COW’, I just have to smile re. complaints that Citizens Advisory Committee had to be changed to create a more dignified acronym.
Regular Meeting – 10 Jul 2025 – Agenda – Pdf
The C.O.W.
Surface Water Management Utility Tree Preservation Program
The City and our environmental consultant have compiled city-wide canopy data. Apparently they found 29% canopy citywide – which matches the Port study from 2017 so not sure if they did a new survey or what. Whatever.
But only 16% of that is on City-owned land (which makes up 5% of Des Moines). And the City has identified “stormwater-beneficial trees” (e.g. Tree clusters and forests).
Back in the dim mists of time, the City’s Environment Committee was more of an ‘environment committee’ and considered trees, water, wetlands, and even air sometimes in a more holistic fashion. In recent decades, it kinda withdrew into being ‘the stormwater utility’.
In my tenure as chair of the committee, I have tried to shift it back towards that broader vision.
State regulations are also now nudging us in that direction – to conserve and enhance tree canopy where it connects with all that stuff. Since we have staff and consultants who have those environmental chops this is good news. Eg. our consultants also work with us on the Beach Park and other interfaces like the Shoreline Master Plan and salmon recovery.
It will cost money. Some of it will come via a small rate increase. And some of it we can obtain through more grant funding. But as I’ve been saying for-evehhhr – we have a fortune of environmental riches, which cost a fortune to maintain. 🙂
Implementation of WA Department of Commerce Grant for Economic Analysis of the Electric Water Taxi Pilot Program
See below….
Regular City Council Meeting
Investment Policy Update, Credit Card Policy Update
I guess these go together as ‘accounting’ things, but they’re kinda not. They’re the latest in a long string of long overdue policy refreshes.
It’s hard to overstate the previous ‘transparency’ problems. There is an ongoing defensiveness/denialism about this (all’s well that ends well! and great job!) which I find troubling. Call it the ‘Jewish’ part of my soul. But when you don’t acknowledge past mistakes, you can be sure that, sooner or later, they will come back. And what makes it come back is the pearl-clutchy “How dare you!” Of course I dare. 😀 It takes almost no time for people to forget. (See anti-cruising ordinance below.)
Redondo Fishing Pier Construction Bid
The City received a bid under the budgeted amount! So, it looks like we’re a go for $5,811,000! In fact, this is the second bond-related bid that has come in under. In this case, ‘value engineering’ seems to have done the trick.
But, lest you think I can’t find the cloud on top of every silver lining, I remind readers that in 2023, we approved the same project for $3,600,000. Now, you may say, “Darn that inflation!” But another way of looking at this is, “Darn, if only we’d had some money in the bank!” or “Darn, if only we hadn’t had to use all that ARPA money for salaries!”
Some won’t care — they just want the thing built. But all of us will have to suck up this sixty percent premium over time, simply because we couldn’t afford to pay cash. Get it? By having to put it on the credit card the premium is 60%. That was enough money to build an entirely new park.
City Council Protocol Manual Update and Adoption
I will vote ‘no’. It’s been heading in the wrong direction since I’ve been watching.
Anti-Cruising Ordinance
Speaking of how quickly people forget. I know how upsetting this issue is for people in neighbourhoods like Redondo. In 2021, the Council proposed an anti-street racing ordinance and improved signage – both of which were supposed to help. At the time, we discussed at length how difficult it is to enforce anything like this because the legal standard required a police officer to not only witness the event(s) but also see the face of the driver.
Unless the legal standard has changed, I want to level-set expectations. I’m not a fan of ordinances unless they can actually do something. We’ve passed several ordinances and automations. One made money (speed cameras). We like money. 🙂 But actually reducing poor behaviour is challenging without a police presence.
Consultant services contract on ferry economic impact study – presentation by Dan Eernissee
If Mr. Eernissee’s name sounds familiar, he was one of the finalists for the job of City Manager. Apparently, the new City Manager hired him to run this study. Mr. Eernissee does economic development work for the City of Everett, which has no ferry. (However, their Port district – a separate agency – was a key player in the recent state effort to create a new ‘Mosquito Fleet’.)
I urge you to read this agenda item carefully. The City continues to promote any number of Pants On Fire statements that the 2022-2023 Ferry Pilot program was a ‘success’ and continues to publish the same truly misleading and inaccurate financial information as the previous regime.
This goes beyond cynical. My colleagues, and the City, continue to talk about how ‘someone else will pay for a ferry’. If so, why are we continuing to host ferry vendors? Why publish this nonsense story rather than an objective re-assessment? Hell, why did we even apply for this study? Why does the scope of work mention our continued involvement? If it’s supposed to be about ‘environmentalism’, why does it ask us to consider if we’re interested in a fossil fuel vessel if an electric one is unavailable?
The very unscientific study we did after that program says:
- 76% indicated they arrived at the Des Moines ferry in a passenger vehicle.
- 76% were 55 years of age or older, and 5% were under 35 years old.
If King County is supposed to be running this? Why aren’t they doing this work? Who ‘studies’ something unless they intend to ask their tax payers to foot the bill? We already know the answers to all this stuff. This is a final kick in the you know where by the same people who brought you the same disastrous financial policies we will be digging out from for years to come. Because it looks cool.
Telecommunications Franchise Agreement with HyperFiber
This may pass by unnoticed, but as a big fan of electrons-I would note that Des Moines has taken a decade too long to obtain fiber. So much so that a former colleague wanted the City to attempt to establish its own utility. It’s gotten ‘better’ in the sense that we went from zero in many neighbourhoods to where there may be as many as four throughout the City in the next two years. However: anyone who has traveled to places like Japan and South Korea and any number of places in Europe will know how woefully behind the entire region is. Public 5G cell service in Seoul is faster than most people’s in-ground fiber here. Which is insane-o given that we’re supposed to be this ‘tech hub’.
Last Week
Nothing! (Well, nothing ‘official’.) But since I did take a brief detour to the 51st State (too soon? 😀 ), this gives me a shameless opportunity to display to plug Spud, one of my fave beavers of all time in celebration of Canada Day! (That’s not AI, btw, courtesy of Mike’s Beavers in Splendid Saskatchewan!) 🙂