Weekly Update 07/13/2025

Some bits of business…

City Manager Stuff

The City Manager’s new weekly report format is viewable here.

City Manager Report – July 11, 2025

SR-509 24th Ave and Veteran’s Drive open and 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 if you call customer service: 1-866-936-8246 now.

Redondo Parking – get a pass!

Speaking of not having to pay, apparently the Redondo Paid Parking did not go live as expected. So continue to park for free! And 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

Tuesday

UECNA Noise Summit. At my day gig, Sea-Tac Noise.Info participates in about fifteen community roundtables, both in the United States and this one in Europe. The European Union is years ahead of us in terms of various regulatory standards like curfews and air pollution. They are where we want to be because, in short, their airlines have been able to run profitably while treating their communities more equitably. (Don’t tell them that however. 😀 Everything is relative. But objectively speaking, EU communities are waaaaay ahead of us and we have a lot to learn.)

Wednesday

• Metro Regional Transit Committee meeting.

Thursday

• King County Flood District Advisory Committee.

Not posting agenda on either here because there is a flurry of activity – multiple meetings in the same month. Basically, the goal for both committees is to get the County budget passed. More soon.

Last Week

Thursday

This week’s City Council featured a Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting at 5pm, some major decisions, and some surprises. Here’s the recap…

City Council Meeting Recap

Regular Meeting – 10 Jul 2025 – Agenda

The C.O.W.

Surface Water Management Utility Tree Preservation Program

Conceptually, the City is proposing to transfer ‘ownership’ of all its trees to the Surface Water Management (SWM) Fund. This could (and should) be transformational for the City in protecting and enhancing our environmental footprint. Or, it could be a fairly elaborate accounting trick, which raises taxes slightly, and frees up some money in other departments. It will likely be a bit of both, but hopefully skewed heavily towards the former.

At the dais, I likened it to a corporation where each department has its own computers. At a certain point, it decides to transfer ownership and maintenance of all that stuff to a central IT department. It off loads all those assets to the IT department, which (the theory goes) can provide better service and save each department time and money. In this case, the assets are trees. For me, that accounting aspect really is the fascinating part. You’re going to have the SWM fund expanding its portfolio dramatically. To a certain extent this is great. But it also comes with a real risk of transparency. In 2017, the City moved a large part of what was ‘the Marina’ into a ‘Waterfront Zone’. I still hear from people what a genius move it was. But frankly, it was mainly an accounting trick – a way to borrow more money, and avoid the discussion of actually having the Marina make more money. It’s literally the same staff doing the same stuff as before, but it’s now more difficult figuring out where the money goes.

Regardless, it will cost money. Some of it will likely require a small rate increase. Hopefully, it will also help us obtain a lot more grant funding. But as I’ve been saying for-evehhhr – we have a fortune of environmental riches, which cost a fortune to maintain. 🙂

The City did a great job of making clear that this program is only about City-owned trees and wetlands. But of course, the Council likes to make everything about everything and talk about ‘overall tree canopy!’, which is the wrong discussion. Why? Because whenever you use some arbitrary ‘overall’ number, it gives politicians an excuse to do less, to say “We’re doing great, look at that overall number! No. You look at each project individually for opportunities to maximise environmental value.

One thing. In the years leading up to SR-509 and Link Light Rail, both Sound Transit and WSDOT offered thousands of free, high quality trees. We took zero. Sure wish we’d had a program like this then.

Implementation of WA Department of Commerce Grant for Economic Analysis of the Electric Water Taxi Pilot Program

This did not happen. Basically, the City talked about how they had been conversing with King County to see if they might be interested in doing this study. There was some vague notion of handing over to King County the $160,000 grant we received to do this rubbish study so they could do their own rubbish study. If someone offers you $160,000 to study the economic value of bird calls, who says ‘no’?

I asked if we might simply repurpose the money towards something real.

Regular City Council Meeting

Investment Policy Update, Credit Card Policy Update

These were bundled together as ‘code cleanup’, Cm Grace-Matsui spoke enthusiastically about ‘code clean up’. Which is great, but I see them as very different things.

On the plus side, it’s great that the Council is now getting regular investment reports. It’s hard to overstate how much that did not happen before.

At the risk (see what I did there? 😀 ) of sounding ungrateful, what I really want is to see on investment reports are comparatives — year on year.  If you’re going to manage investments, you need to have a clear idea of the returns you’re getting over time.

But what always  goes through my mind during these ‘code cleanup’ celebrations is this: somehow we seem to putter along just fine for years at a time out of compliance. Not just on this, but dozens of things (no exaggeration.) It is a reasonable question as to why one even bothers updating various codes when government seems to ‘work’ whether they’re in place or not. And that goes for our council ‘rules’. In other words, how often does one hear any elected or staff member say,

“Gee Bob, I have deep concerns about proceeding with (x) until we’re in compliance on DMMC 451.3.x! What do you think?” 😀

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.

City Council Protocol Manual Update and Adoption

Passed 5-2. I voted ‘no’ along with Nutting. It’s been heading in the wrong direction since I’ve been watching in 2008. But until more people run for office who care about good governance, it will likely continue to slide. There are simply too many incentives now for Cms to go in the other direction.

Cm Nutting voted ‘no’ over time. He thinks meetings go on too long as it is. He’s right in one sense, wrong in another. But this is an existential conversation the Council has been having for a very long time.

Frankly, the material is getting more and more complicated because cities, especially Des Moines are getting more complicated. Many of us simply do not study enough (sorry), preferring to simply follow the City recommendation and avoid all that pesky homework. If you trust the City, that’s an easy call. But frankly, that is how one ends up with the City going years without doing ‘code cleanup’. 😀

Cm Nutting has not appeared at the dais for several months. Many of us like to scowl about ‘wasting time’ – which is a proxy for ‘asking questions’. Either you elect Cms who value that diligence – including a willingness to put in extra hours, regardless of jobs and family, or you elect retirees like me, or you simply give the keys to the staff — and give up any pretense of the Council providing useful policy and oversight.

What I find offensive is that, in previous decades, Cms worked much harder. They just did. They had jobs and families and still made the time. Today, with all the conveniences we have (including remote access), electeds should have far less to complain about, and yet we complain more…

And in a bit of irony, the City put in the agenda packet a recommendation to move meetings from 6PM to 5PM — with no advance notice. The Council already voted to have a second reading for items of business. Having the City itself try to put something that meaningful through in one night was not a good look. Especially since we’ve already given up on committees – largely to reduce the workload. It did not pass.

As a sort of ‘consolation prize’, the City is talking about bringing back Zoom remote participation – something that should never have left in 2023. The fact is: Public participation actually peaked during the pandemic. Moving meetings from 7PM to 6PM caused a backslide. Ending Zoom means it will likely never come back. What people don’t get is that when you allow muscles to atrophy, it is many times harder to get back into shape. And that includes public participation.

What concerned me most is that none of my colleagues seem to get this. As a geezer who walks to City Hall, I’d be fine with meetings at three in the afternoon. In the summer, that would give me time to get in nine holes after. But it’s not about me. Or the Council. Or the staff. There is no way to get more people involved if we don’t make these things as easy as possible for them.

In view of the increased complexity, there is no way to have good government without the Council putting in a bit more effort. Sorry, not sorry.

Anti-Cruising Ordinance

Passed 6-1. I abstained – which counts as a ‘no’. Although I agree with the concept in principal, it is, for all intents and purposes unenforceable.

But the main reason to vote no is because this is a foot in the door towards surveillance. Having worked in the Soviet Union back in the day, this is something very personal to me. People will scoff, but in the past decade the world has made alarming moves towards that surveillance state. Super convenient; but convenience is not safety. The City already has a number of cameras throughout the City. But currently they can only be used to track a crime as it is occurring (photo enforcement).

All I asked for is that the monitor be confined to a designated human in order to prevent future automation (surveillance.)

By leaving the ordinance open-ended, it opens the door to a future City Council simply hitting the ‘on’ switch and tracking everyone in the City. I have already heard electeds talk about how much they favour that sort of thing and I’m not having it.

Actually reducing poor behaviour is challenging without a police presence. But this puts the cart before the horse. Let’s get the staff we need to do something real, then worry about ordinances.

Strategic Planning Agreement with Raftelis

Passed 7-0. I almost voted ‘no’ because, essentially, we’re spending $75k to hire a firm to do work we’ve already done, or could do, but cannot agree on. There I said it. 🙂

We spent $100k in 2023  on a communications study that did nothing.  The ‘outreach’ mentioned in the presentation, once again, ignores the majority of the community. We spent $10-15k on a Mission Statement last autumn that was supposed to be the goals we’re driving towards.

The financial analysis work the City Manager mentioned will be valuable. But why haven’t we done the basic work we can do — looking at the Marina – because it’s simply too politically fraught? And even worse, there was zero mention of the airport – although that has always been the single biggest driver of economic decline (not growth, decline) in our history.

My family used to have horses. Super-expensive. But since I wasted a boatload of money on… er… boats… I couldn’t complain. 😀

Anyhoo, ya know how horses (and cows) are always givin’ ya the side eye? It’s not because you’re suspicious (OK, you are, not me. 🙂 ) It’s because they don’t see what is directly in front very well. I referred to this at the last meeting as a scotoma. Except that it’s not some true ‘blind’ spot like glaucoma. Horses just see the world differently. Even though they’re missing a ton of visual information right in front of their noses (literally), to them the world looks entirely ‘normal’. They truly don’t know what they’re missing.

My concern with hiring any strategic planner: if they don’t have specific expertise with key issues like airports and marinas; if they follow our Mission Statement; if they continue to survey the same people we always point them to, they are likely to have that same kind of blind spot – through no fault of their own. But still, obtain the same rubbish conclusions prompted by previous rubbish studies.

Telecommunications Franchise Agreement with HyperFiber

I seemed to tax my colleagues’ patience, but I found this fascinating. We’re going from zero to one to two to potentially five choices for broadband internet in Des Moines just this year! And I’m curious to know why. Why now is Des Moines turning out to be profitable?

It’s worth asking because, back in the pandemic, it sucked for about 2,000 school children who had to use really dodgy ‘wi-fi hotspots’ in order to go to school.

Closing Comments

I try mightily to stay out of Federal politics – although I know it’s where 99% of your ‘political’ attention lies. But the passage of HR#1 ¹(One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025) is everything I hate about local politics, expanded to the Federal level.

As a Boomer, I am sick to death of watching my country lose sooooooooooooooooooooooo much money over and over and over. When I arrived here in the mid-1970’s I had no idea that might be the high point. Since then, it’s been a stair step of one step forward and two steps back on everything from the environment to jobs to building houses to transparency.

It’s time to look in the mirror and recognise how much our generation prioritised us — and how little we are leaving for the next generation.

See here’s the funny thing. Even with a national debt seventy (70!) times what it was when I got to America, and a city with objectively less than it had when I moved here, I basically haven’t been bothered much at all — besides the absence of some petunias and decorative cabbage on Marine View Drive. The City has definitely changed. But those changes haven’t made it the same value proposition for the next generation it should be.

The OBBBA will likely be fine for me. And despite whatever feelings you may have about the current administration, if you are retired and well enough off to live or own property, or live at any senior community in Des Moines, financially, it will likely be fine for you too. The bill offers some shiny penny tricks for lower-income people like tax-free tips. But the real winners are not ‘the one percent’. The real winners are us. 

But it will be disastrous for the environment, for public education, public health, and basically the entire future. That’s the really cynical part. All the painful bits, the trillions more in debt, start in a few years. It’s all about now.

I’ve watched a number of protests here in recent months and I am sympathetic. But this has been building for a very long time. Decades. No matter how bad the decisions, people applaud that ‘the system works!’ and assume you can just change direction every 2-4-6-8 years.

But that is not how government works and why I am so careful in my votes. If you do the wrong thing on a City Council vote, you may have to live with it for a decade. And it is the height of cynicism to say in a cheery tone, “If something isn’t right, we’ll fix it next year!” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

At the federal level, even if the entire political landscape changes in 2026 or 2028, future governments will be locked into a series of even worse choices. It’s a boat anchor, disguised as a promise of ‘growth’.

Sound familiar?

Most of the services your City provides beyond the bare minimum are grant based and only last a year or two. So every couple of years, we struggle to retain what we already have. We consider it a ‘win’simply to replace something broken. We have to completely max out the credit card to build a Marina Steps. We applaud when any local foundation helps the under-served now. But devote almost nothing to deal with prevention.

We constantly praise one another for what we’re doing now. But what is happening now, at the Federal level, and at your City Council, are inevitable when people spend decade after decade constantly prioritising me and now.

My kids are doing fine. But despite being smarter, prettier, and above all much nicer, they are nowhere near where I was at 40. Most kids – regardless of education – are not doing better than their parents, which was (I was told) the promise of the USA.

Two major wars? Who cares. Great Financial Crisis? Nope. COVID. Pshaw. The stock market, your 401k, and your property value always recover. Which should tell you what people actually care about.

I can’t do anything about the Federal thing. But I can tell you that I think we need an attitude adjustment at every level of government. It will require more work, not less, to flip that script. And it definitely won’t be about changing one person – either at the Federal level or here. Somehow we have to find a way to acknowledge what we prioritised, what we’ve lost, and why.

But I can tell you this. As I wrote before, once you lose any muscle function, you have to work harder, not less, just to recover what you lost.