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.
About the Cover: Women’s History Month
Lynn Conway was a mentor, a hero on several levels, and also something of a cautionary tale. She has absolutely nothing to do with Des Moines per se–except to the extent that everyone person on the planet who owns an electronic device owes her a debt of gratitude.
When I met Lynn, if I’m being totally honest, I thought she was just this quiet, modestly attractive, ‘woman of a certain age’ as they used to say, with a low voice and slightly weird teeth–possibly 1British. 😀 The only thing ‘unusual’ was that she radiated intelligence in a way some pro athletes radiate their skills–just by walking into a room, not by doing anything in particular. But, since she was so low-key and informal and I had many other fish to fry at the time, I did not inquire further regarding said radiance.
So, I had no idea just how impactful she had been to ‘the world’. Basically, almost no one at the time did. But it’s not an over-statement to say that she was a key pioneer in the development of every frickin’ ‘chip’ we all now use in every frickin’ device. She was far too fine a person to say this, but unless you happen to use acronyms like VLSI on a daily basis, you have no idea how totally she got screwed on career, credit, and money.
And then there’s this… She was also a pioneer of quite another kind, having ‘transitioned’ years before we met. Almost nobody I’ve talked to from that time had any idea. Apparently, she kept it totally on the down low–and not because she wanted to.
She built a life at Michigan, a loving husband, a farm. She started taking small steps towards coming out long after I moved here, but only really became what you’d call an ‘activist’ a few years before she passed away in 2024. There was a cascade of long-denied accolades– including an apology tour from former employers like IBM (but notably not the United States government where she did really important work for DARPA.)
After I heard, I felt terrible. It’s great that she found a way to be happy. But there are two problems with the narrative some people have used in telling her story, which we both agreed on, and which I think about often.
As a person, how do people who are not all-world minds cope when they get screwed like she did, on so many levels–just for being themselves? It’s easy to call her a ‘pioneer’. But she was the first to say that, in reality, she just kept her head down. Frankly, she had the resources and strong incentives to ‘pass’ as well as to present. What you want are people who have the courage (and support!) to expect fair treatment; and speak up if they don’t get it. But again, how many of us get any of that? How many of us even have the resources and resilience to do so? We all like to talk about ‘freedom to be yourself!’ Honestly, how many of us are willing to speak up about anything?
And as systems engineers, we both agreed that it was massively wasteful. I’ll go further and say that her story represents a loss for society. Sure, she added value mentoring hundreds of people like me–and I am eternally grateful. But (sorry) relatively speaking there are a lot more excellent teachers than all-world inventors. She had a track record of multiple all-world discoveries.
Today, everyone in the field knows of her technical achievements and there are a dozen articles and videos of her life story. But I like this video of her on her farm just talking.
My actual work-life consisted of about, oh zero of any of the technical junk we worked on. 😀 But almost forty five years later, it surprises me how much I think about her story. Who she was, and also what she might have been…
City Manager Stuff
City Manager Reports! March 13, 2026
This Week
Wednesday
King County Metro Regional Transit Committee 20260318-RTC-packet
There will be two items of interest for Des Moines
- Improvements to the Rider Dashboard, one of my fave topics 🙂
- The King County Transportation District.
This requires a bit o’ ‘splainin’. King County is a ‘county’, but it is larger than at least ten states. Back in the day, a lot of KC, including Des Moines (North Hill, Redondo, Zenith) was unincorporated. So, it had a bajillion special purpose districts that slowly came under the umbrella of ‘King County’. One way to imagine it would be if Des Moines bought all five of our water and sewer districts but still had to keep them separate.
In this case, the county has a transportation district, just like Des Moines with our ‘TBD’ on your car tabs. But King County charges a tiny amount to sales tax which everyone in KC has always paid. And that is what irritates some people–the Mayor mentioned it at the last meeting, however only the people left in unincorporated King County get the benefit. (If you live in unincorporated King County, you may think it’s a great idea. 😀 ) At one time it was an equitable distribution. Now that there is very little left of ‘unincorporated’ KC, the question is: how does one take back money from a county that is larger than ten states? Discuss. 😀
Last Week
Monday
4:00pm Airport Advisory Committee Meeting Agenda. The committee revised its work plan and seems to have an interest in expanding StART participation.
Wednesday
King County Emergency Management Advisory Committee. We keep doing these security exercises on FIFA. Unfortunately, if you’ve been following the news, there’s this thing called a ‘war’, and it seems to have put the vice grips on interest in ‘world travel to America’. It did not help that one of the scheduled games was with Iran. Oops.
Puget Sound Clean Air Agency Advisory Committee. I am not a member of this. But someone from STNI attends every meeting as they are the regulatory and monitoring arms for both Ecology and the EPA. As some of you know we are getting an air quality monitor at Steven J. Underwood Park and will need to coordinate with them. It’s hard to believe, but there is literally no representation for airport communities on this committee.
Thursday
March 12 City Council Meeting Recap
Public Comment
Des Moines Yacht Club invited everyone to opening day on May 9th.
Rus Higley from MAST touted the new Sixgill Way signs (ie. Redondo Way)
There continue to be commenters against Flock Cameras. The challenge for me, said it before, say it again, is that people can get all the details wrong and sometimes still be right. (It’s like that with the airport as well.) Concerns over data privacy are not misplaced. The State just passed SB 6002, which attempts to address some of those concerns.
Another commenter talked about the plans for the Beach Park renovation and made an excellent point. Far too often we say we have public comment. But it happens after the real decisions are made. My world, and welcome to it. 😀 That was certainly the case with the Marina Steps.
In the case of the Beach Park. There has always been strong interest in using the Beach Park for concerts, weddings, events, etc. But the redesign has to do with salmon recovery and climate change. That is what the grant funding to pay for it will be about and frankly that should be the sincere interest to protect the future. We will have to surrender some of the existing land in order to protect the area from flooding and give the salmon a real chance (which they don’t have at the moment with the current system. Anyhoo, in my opinion, the current proposal is an excellent compromise. It looks great and will also solve for the ongoing issue of how we all take our lives in our hands with the poor pedestrian access from Fifth Ave.
In my tenure as chair of the now defunct environment committee, one thing I’m most proud of is that I was able to obtain (so far) the only animated rendering of any design project in City of Des Moines history. Which seems nuuuuuts in 2026. And anyone who says it’s expensive or ‘hard’ is selling something. It’s what everyone expects, today, if they buy a house. It is deeply disappointing to me that, even with new management, we haven’t done this for any of the projects we’ve voted on since–like that Christmas tree. This kind of video should be standard equipment on everything we do and the fact that anyone thinks it’s rocket surgery (while their kids are using Tik Tok) tells me what a cognitive disconnect we still have here tech-wise.
Presentations
- Explore Seattle Southside overview of preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will include 6 matches at Lumen Field between June 15 and July 6. Regional strategy focuses on: Local watch parties and “fan activations”
- Local idea: Des Moines may host a community viewing event at the Des Moines Theater for the USA vs Australia match (June 19). Event would be free; theater handles operations while the City handles promotion and licensing.
- South King Housing & Homelessness Partners (SKHHP) Regional housing fund distributing $3.94 million across several affordable housing projects in South King County. Des Moines share is $31,264 contribution from SHB 1406 housing tax revenue. I voted no. 1-6, because, as I said last week, in the 6-7ish years we’ve been involved in SKHHP, we have never used it to build a single new housing unit here.
- Marina Steps Project Update Construction began January 2026 and is scheduled for completion in December 2026.
- There was a discussion of Public Art, but no budget for public art at the moment.
- The big item idea was to use the Marina Steps contingency fund, the money set aside in case of unexpected issues, for a $150,000 artificial Christmas Tree. In a “Why not both?” moment, the Council voted 4-3 to fund $10-15,000 to provide some small changes to the cement to accommodate a future tree. Also, the City is telegraphing that the real tree behind the Harbormaster Office is going away. Frankly, that’s what this has always been about. The OG ‘steps’ project called for removing that entire area. My assumption is that the City is carrying on with Michael Matthias’ ‘vision’. Just doing it ‘one piece at a time’ — as the song goes.
Unfinished Business
- Seven appointments to new Planning Commission seats.
As I said during the discussion before the vote, I pushed to restore the Planning Commission from day one. Ironically, former Mayor Buxton did not support that for a very long time. And now she will be one of its members. But that’s fine. Nobody wanted it when I got on the Council. Part of it was the Council’s all-in support for our last City Manager and his team. And the staff did not want one. The other part of it is that you don’t know what you don’t know. I had to explain to a ton of people what a PPC even is and that every other city has one because we’d gone without one for so long most people couldn’t remember it. IOW, people assume that all cities work the same. They don’t.
The fact is, though. The old PPC made some terrible decisions. That being the case, why on earth would I want to revive it? Because I really do believe in giving people a shot at something called ‘democracy’.
So here’s my caution: the job of the planning commission is unlike every other local committee. Other committees are mostly about the present–like arts, events, human services, etc. All very important, but mostly about now. The PPC is a bit like the City Council. Done well, it’s really about the long game.
Realistically, many people who serve on a PPC will never be around to see the fruits of their work because something like zoning takes a decade to bear fruit. But, just like the Council that’s hard for two reasons: first people have massive present biases. We like to think we’re ‘objective’ but we’re trying to get something done. But the really hard thing is that what you think is great now is not gonna be great 25 years from now.
Think back to 2001. What part of the world, or Des Moines, or even that year turned out as expected?
- Sixgill Shark Commemorative Street Name. Cost $500.
- Salary Commission Ordinance (1st reading)
The Council voted to create yet another resident committee to decide pay for electeds, which has not increased since 1999. I voted against: 1-6. Every ‘committee’ takes staff time and spends public money. The Council should simply have had the courage to give itself a raise (perhaps 3% which is a sort of municipal employee standard atm?) if it wants to, and save public money. 🙂
- $10 Car Tab Fee Increase
We voted unanimously to raise car tabs (see above re. King County Transportation District.) We will now be at the State max of $50. It should be another cautionary tale. We need to find other ways to pay the bills instead of these constant, never-ending ‘fees’, which now cover over a third of our budget. My fear is that the Council has become inured to the notion that ‘this is just how it works.’ That was certainly the case with the last Council. But when you go in with that mindset how can you make the changes you need to make?
1jk.