Call to order and pledge
Mayor Matsui: At this time, I would like to call the May 14th, 2026 Des Moines City Council meeting to order. Council Member Jeremy Nutting will lead us in the pledge. Please stand if you are able.
[Pledge of Allegiance]
Mayor Matsui: Thank you. Please let the record show that all council members are present.
Proclamation — National Police Week
Mayor Matsui: We’re going to start today with a proclamation. Is there a motion?
Council Member Nutting: I move to approve the proclamation recognizing May 10th through May 16th, 2026 as National Police Week.
Council Member Des[mone]: I’ll second that.
Mayor Matsui: Moved and seconded by Council Member Des[mone]. All in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
[All:] Aye.
Mayor Matsui: The motion passes seven to zero.
Whereas in 1962, President Kennedy proclaimed May 15th as National Peace Officers Memorial Day and the calendar week in which May 15th falls as National Police Week.
Whereas the dedicated women and men of the City of Des Moines Police Department dedicate themselves to protecting the lives, property, and rights of our residents, upholding the law with courage, integrity, and professionalism.
Whereas these officers serve as guardians of our community, responding to emergencies, fostering public safety, and building trust through their commitment to justice and compassion.
Whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the duties and responsibilities of their police department, and that members of our police department recognize their duty to serve the people by safeguarding life and property, defending them against violence or disorder, and guarding the innocent against deception and the weak against oppression.
Whereas our police department has grown to be a modern and well-respected law enforcement agency which unceasingly provides a vital public service.
Whereas US flags should be flown at half-staff from May 15th for Police Officers Memorial Day in honor of all fallen officers and their families.
Now therefore, the Des Moines City Council hereby proclaims May 10th through the 16th, 2026 as National Police Week. Signed this day, Yoshiko Grace Matsui, Mayor.
And I understand that Assistant Chief Benny is here to accept this today.
Assistant Chief Benny: We appreciate the time for the recognition. As an agency that has lost an officer in the line of duty, I can tell you that the men and women of the police department are very appreciative of the time for the council to take the time to recognize this Police Week. On behalf of the police department and all of law enforcement in Washington state, thank you for the proclamation.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you.
Correspondence
Mayor Matsui: Is there any correspondence not previously received by the council?
Staff: No, Mayor.
Public comment
Mayor Matsui: Now it’s time for comments from the public. We ask that you keep your comments respectful. When I call your name, please come up to the podium and you’ll have three minutes to speak. Please state your name and your city of residence.
Today I have Judy Grand[an]dy.
Judy Grand[an]dy: Hello everyone. My name is Judy Grand[an]dy and I’m a resident of Des Moines. I will first talk about Flock Safety and then about a moratorium on warehouse detention facilities.
I have asked numerous people if they know what a Flock camera is. Most do not know what an automated license plate reader camera is. Some think it is the traffic infraction camera. It is not. It’s a separate camera that records license plates, make, model, color, bumper stickers, and dents that can be searched quickly thanks to AI.
Last time I was here, I asked if the city council members had had a chance to find the 15 cameras in Des Moines. I hope by now you’ve had a chance to see for yourself whether or not we’re in compliance with SB 6002.
The Des Moines Police Department has a contract with Flock Safety. Flock Safety, not the Des Moines Police Department, has complete control of the data from the 15 cameras. How can the city confirm that Flock Safety is in compliance with SB 6002 when the city does not see the inner workings of Flock Safety? Flock Safety can tell us whatever they want, but you have no way to verify that. If someone from another state asks Flock Safety directly for Washington information, we have no way of verifying that Flock Safety did not share that information.
ALPR cameras are a form of mass surveillance. I urge the city council to vote to deactivate the Flock cameras.
Now I will shift to talking about requesting that Des Moines adopt a six-month or a one-year moratorium on warehouse detention facilities. Thank you, Chris De Rosa, for sending the city council and city staff a recent email entitled “Public testimony defending Des Moines land use against federal detention conversions.”
Chris references why a moratorium is needed so that businesses and federal agencies cannot go around the current Des Moines city zoning laws. Neighboring cities like Tukwila and Seattle have recognized their zoning shortfalls and have enacted moratoriums against federal detention centers.
I get the impression from communications with city staff that Des Moines does not want warehouse detention facilities. Please enact a moratorium so you can tell residents that none of the many available Des Moines warehouses will become a detention facility. Thank you for this time to speak.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you. Next I have Christie.
Christie: Hello. My name is Christie and I am a Des Moines resident. I have lived here for over 20 years. I’ve also worked at the Highline School District as a teacher for almost 20 years. Gaining the trust of young scholars can be heartwarming as it can also be heart-wrenching.
I had a kindergarten scholar tell the class the other day that ICE may come and kidnap her because she is brown. This student is an American citizen who was born here. The fact that her family is talking about this at home shows me they are concerned about detention centers.
We have school buses that run up 216th Street and over to 24th right by all those warehouses. Could you imagine the cruelty that we would inflict if one of those gets converted to a detention center and kids have to drive by it daily? Let’s try to be proactive and ban detention centers in Des Moines. Zoning laws have loopholes. Rather than chance any nefarious actors by corrupt parties, let’s just fully ban them now.
Seattle has signed a one-year ban. SeaTac, Tukwila, Renton, and Kent just passed moratoriums to block these as well. Let’s make Des Moines the next on the list and ban warehouse detention centers in Des Moines. Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you. And I have Chris.
Chris De Rosa: Hello everybody. Chris, Des Moines resident. I’ll follow up a little on what was already presented about the warehouses.
It is true that the city manager says that we have zoning codes, but zoning codes aren’t enough for ICE and CBP. They are not following the law. They can find loopholes into the contracts that we currently have. So it’s important to follow the rest of the cities that surround us right now. We’re the low-hanging fruit. We have several warehouses where they fit the size requirement that ICE is looking for to create these detention camps.
On May 1st, CB[RE], a company that rents out to ICE and DHS, withdrew some of their leases already down in Tukwila because of the pushback that people in Tukwila have done. Amazing work. So we’re just asking that you be proactive. I know some of you folks on the council here do not want our warehouses for this, because you have zoning codes already in place. Be proactive and grant a six-month moratorium so we don’t have to see any kind of big protesters out on our streets, because it’ll come to that. We’re seeing it in other cities. I sent an email just in case you didn’t receive it. I’m just going to pass it on over. I appreciate it and thanks for hearing us out.
I wanted to make a note because people don’t know this. On Mother’s Day, last Sunday, we had a 20-year-old abducted up at the Harbor Freight — car window smashed, handle busted, pulled out of the car, taken on Mother’s Day. This is the world we’re living in. We need to put protections in place. We need to show the neighbors that are afraid to come out, to get groceries, to do normal life, that people in authority, white people, will protect them, will stand up for them, the best I can until we get the administration that’s in place right now out. It’s happening every day. Renton just had another kidnapping. It’s mind-blowing what’s happening. Got to do something. Thank you.
Council items of interest
Mayor Matsui: We are currently running committee of the whole meetings. However, council members do serve regionally on other committees. Do any council members have any items of interest to the public or to the council? Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: Thank you. I attended Wednesday’s Emergency Management Advisory Committee meeting and everything — it’s all FIFA all the time. An item of interest to the city is that they are putting together a shared document to the public on all of the traffic impacts not only in the area but regionally, and they are profound. It’s amazing how much traffic is going to be impacted — highways, freeways, surface streets, link light rail, even around the airport. It’s really hard to get it all in one place, and that will be the goal in the next few days. That’s it.
City Manager — detention facilities zoning
Mayor Matsui: Time to pass the mic over to City Manager Katherine Caffrey.
City Manager Caffrey: Mayor and council, I don’t have any items planned for tonight, but I do want to address the comments that our speakers are making, because we have all received emails and this is an issue the city does take really seriously. Ahead of this, we actually asked our city attorney to again look at our existing zoning code versus a moratorium and provide us with some guidance. I’m going to ask Tim to give a briefing on that.
City Attorney Tim George: Thank you, City Manager. I just want to say I guess that we’re ahead of the game, because detention centers are not allowed in the City of Des Moines. The council could certainly declare a moratorium and not allow any applications to come in for a period of time. If an application were to come in now, we would deny it based on our zoning code. At the end of the moratorium, the question would be asked to the council: do you want to allow them or do you not want to allow them? Well, we already don’t allow them. So the question is, if we’re going to do a moratorium, is that to consider allowing them, which I don’t think the council wants. I don’t think that’s what the citizens want.
There’s a lot of misinformation out there. They are currently not allowed under our zoning code. That’s not going to stop any actions that ICE is taking in the city, but there will not be one built based on our current zoning in the city. So that’s where we’re at. Thank you, Mayor.
Mayor Matsui: Were there any questions to the council? Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: As I sent to the city manager, I intend to put — I’m just asking for the council support. I think the city attorney framed that extremely well, and I’d like to place that on the city website. I think what the planning director did was admirable, but it could be far more concise. My only question, and this is a direct question: does this mean that if somebody applies and is denied, the city will continue to defend that position?
Tim George: Absolutely. Just like we would with any other use, if it was not permitted, we would defend that position. I also want to clarify: when I said that you can’t build one, you also can’t convert an existing building into that use. The use is prohibited in the City of Des Moines.
Council Member Harris: I think the public has this notion that somehow zoning or permitting does not have any force of law — that it’s some sort of thing that can be overridden all the time. I appreciated the letter you wrote, because zoning and permitting is the law. I hope the council will support just putting something a hundred words or less on our website.
Tim George: We can discuss updating our statement that we put out in March about this issue. How does that sound?
Council Member Harris: Thank you.
Consent agenda
Mayor Matsui: Let’s move on to the consent agenda. Item one, approval of vouchers. Item two, approval of minutes. Item three, surplus property vehicles. Item four, collective bargaining agreement Teamsters Local Number 763. That concludes the consent agenda.
Council Member Nutting: I move to approve the consent calendar as read.
Council Member Steinmetz: Second.
Mayor Matsui: Seconded by Council Member Steinmetz. Would any council members like to pull an item? Seeing none, all those in favor of the consent agenda as read, please raise your right hand until I call your name. Deputy Mayor Achziger, Council Member Steinmetz, Council Member Harris, Council Member Des[mone], Council Member Nutting, Council Member Bloss, and myself. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much.
Unfinished business — Vision Zero presentation
Mayor Matsui: On to unfinished business. Our first item is a presentation, and I hear that Principal Engineer Kai Le will be presenting today.
Kai Le, Principal Engineer: Good evening, Mayor, council members, City Manager. Kai Le, Principal Engineer. I’m here tonight with Chris [Lecombe] from Transpo Group to give a presentation on the Vision Zero resolution.
For tonight’s presentation, first we would like to go over the background — a road map of staff effort on establishing a safety framework for the city. Then we’ll talk about what Vision Zero is. Then we’ll provide an update on the Washington State collision data and why Vision Zero is important. Then we’ll talk about what the Safe System Approach is and how it is a tool for the city to achieve Vision Zero. At the end, we’ll give an overview on the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan and the upcoming next steps. At the end of the presentation, we’ll provide a motion for the council to vote on.
In 2024, the city established its long-range transportation planning horizon through the transportation elements of the 2024 Comprehensive Plan and the 2025 to 2044 Transportation Improvement Plans. During that process, the public engagement results showed very strong interest from the community in improving roadway and pedestrian safety. With that goal and the focus on the safety framework, staff has been working with Transpo Group on developing various road safety plans and looking out for different grants.
Back in March of this year, we presented to the council the 2026 Local Road Safety Plan and a grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation called the Highway Safety Improvement Program.
For tonight’s presentation, we’ll be talking about Vision Zero, and we plan to go back to council to present on the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan in August of this year. The ultimate goal is to have the Vision Zero resolution and a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan in place, so that staff can be on the lookout for various state and federal safety grants in the future.
With that, I’d like to pass this on to Chris to go into more detail.
Chris [Lecombe], Transpo Group: Good evening, council. Thank you very much. Chris [Lecombe], Senior Transportation Planner with Transpo Group. As Kai mentioned, we’ve been helping the city look at safety issues and crashes throughout the city. We produced the Local Road Safety Plan. The next thing we would like to do is take that and translate it into a broader document that goes deeper, called a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan. One of the key pieces is a Vision Zero ordinance or commitment to safety.
Vision Zero is internationally recognized as a systematic approach to looking at safety, instead of isolating incidents and looking at spot locations. You look system-wide and try to establish patterns and trends and look at how the entire system works for all users using all modes. What you can see up here is a comparison between the traditional approach and the Vision Zero approach, which is essentially what’s considered best practice these days. As I mentioned, it’s based on the Safe System Approach.
It’s proactive versus reactive. You don’t wait for things to happen. When you look systemically at a transportation system, you’re looking at things that might have happened in one location that may have similar characteristics to another location where something hasn’t happened yet, and you can be proactive and try to do something there. So you don’t have a collision or something bad happen and somebody get hurt.
We identify patterns. We look for where crashes have happened. We identify what’s called a high-injury network as well as a high-risk network. This approach has been adopted by the Washington State Department of Transportation in the Strategic Highway Safety Plan. You’re probably all familiar with the term Target Zero. That’s the Strategic Highway Safety Plan. The state has had that in place for many years. They’ve taken it a step further now. They’ve adopted the Safe System Approach. They’ve adopted Vision Zero. This has also been adopted by the Puget Sound Regional Council, and in 2025 PSRC passed a Regional Safety Action Plan. The City of Des Moines’s Comprehensive Safety Action Plan will be built off of all of these.
Why are we doing this? There’s been a trend over the last 10 years, and right around the COVID period, we watched this increase in collisions. This is statewide, from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. It’s been a problem across the state in all the cities that we work in. Des Moines isn’t alone. We’re trying to drive these numbers back down. Despite the commitment that the state has made with Target Zero, we’re seeing this increase in fatalities and serious injuries. It’s critical that we take some additional steps and try to be more systematic about how we go about this.
We want to adopt the best practices that are being used across the board. Another thing this will do is establish a policy basis for future safety efforts that could include things like automated traffic safety cameras for enforcement purposes. One of the hardest things to do when it comes to trying to prevent collisions is deal with speeding and human behavior issues — driving under the influence, distracted driving, other things. Really, you have to have some way to deal with that. Automated enforcement allows the city to save resources and deploy those limited resources in other places. There are also proven safety countermeasures that reduce speeding and make the system safer for vulnerable users across the board.
As I mentioned, the Safe System Approach is the internationally recognized system being adopted and incorporated into all of the state and local systems around Washington state. Up in the right corner, you can see that unlike the rest of the country, Washington State DOT adopted “safer land use” as an additional element into the Safe System Approach. This is critical because when we develop a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan for the city, this is something we want to help the city do: identify key, integrated land use and transportation approaches to addressing how people move about from place to place. That has a lot to do with land use — that’s what generates trips to begin with.
The Safe System Approach looks at all these things on the screen. The very top one is a commitment to Vision Zero. What the city is saying essentially is that fatalities are not acceptable. We’re going to set a goal to try to drive those down. Same with serious injuries. I’m not going to read them all. You can get more information both on the state Strategic Highway Safety Plan as well as this with the link there.
In terms of what we’re trying to help the city do, we will take the Local Road Safety Plan and add these elements to what is already identified in there, and point to other plans such as the existing comprehensive plan that you’ve just adopted. All the public engagement from that plan will be helping to inform this safety plan, and all the public engagement from the Puget Sound Regional Council plan as well. In addition to that, the safety analysis that was done in your Local Road Safety Plan will become the foundation for us to move forward and come up with a new prioritized list of safety projects that the city will be able to focus on. As Kai mentioned, it will allow us to go after or be on the lookout for other opportunities for state or federal grant funding.
There’s a resolution in your packet. We’re working right now to help the city develop this Comprehensive Safety Action Plan. As Kai mentioned, later this summer we’ll come back to you, present that plan, and if you adopt it, that will be the document that’s pointed to in state and federal grant applications. I can tell you that right now, even though it’s not technically required by some of these agencies, they’re already asking the question: does your jurisdiction have a safety action plan to base your grant application on? If you have one, you will be more competitive for grant funding.
Here is the motion to council that Kai mentioned.
Mayor Matsui: Council, do you have any questions? Questions only at this time. Council Member Nutting.
Council Member Nutting: Thank you, Kai, for the presentation. My question is, is this solely going to be based on Kai’s department to come up with — once the action plan’s in place — traffic calming or anything like that? Or is it going to be in partnership with the police department?
Kai Le: We’re definitely going to take in feedback from the community, feedback from the police department, combined with the priorities that we identify from our TIP plans, to present the priorities to the city council.
Chris [Lecombe]: I’d like to add to that real quick. That’s a fantastic question. The answer is it will primarily be Public Works that’s implementing the plan, but it will be a broad-based multi-departmental approach to looking at the entire system, including land use, including police enforcement, and other things going on in the community. So it really is a way to bring different city departments and perspectives together into looking at a different way to treat the safety issue.
Council Member Nutting: My next question would be: the assumption would be that some of the grants that could be gone after would shore up some of those departments that might have to add extra time or add extra FTEs to help implement that plan?
Chris [Lecombe]: Grants are typically for capital improvements, meaning major construction projects, but there are some out there that can help programs the city might be running, and it may do what you suggested by saving FTEs and things like that. There’s definitely a lot that goes into this.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you. Council Member Steinmetz.
Council Member Steinmetz: I really like the goals and everything involved here, especially setting us up for more grants down the road. That’s a very good approach. Is there any mechanism built into this plan for regular updates where you come back in front of the council and report on how things are going?
Chris [Lecombe]: Another great question. Yes — one of the most important things about a safety action plan is what you’re doing to track and monitor progress. Over time, the city will go back and look at the trend of safety collisions and locations. The great thing about having a plan like this is you’ve got a framework, and then all you really need to do is update the actual data, redo the analysis, and have a rolling window of crash trends. You can report on that yearly or every couple of years as you update the plan, about the same time you’re doing your six-year TIP work.
Council Member Steinmetz: And you would be open to coming back on a regular basis?
Chris [Lecombe]: I’d be happy to come back.
Council Member Steinmetz: I think this is a good idea. Demonstrating on at least an annual basis how this plan is working would be wonderful. Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: Kai, maybe I misheard, but did you use the acronym CPTED?
Kai Le: I don’t believe I mentioned that.
Council Member Harris: Okay, then I misheard. Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Bloss.
Council Member Bloss: I support this Vision Zero, so thank you for giving the presentation today and for working on this. My question: is this solely on land-based transportation? Do you also look at marine-based? We have hundreds of boats in the marina. We have a boat launch in Redondo. There’s potential for collisions and injuries there. Are you looking at that at all?
Chris [Lecombe]: Not in this particular plan. It’s something the city could certainly do as another initiative, but this is specifically about surface transportation, particularly vulnerable users and vehicles.
Council Member Bloss: Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Anyone else before I go back to Council Member Nutting? Council Member Nutting.
Council Member Nutting: I move to approve draft Resolution Number 26-00003 adopting the Vision Zero goal and timeline for the City of Des Moines, and to apply the Safe System Approach to achieve this goal.
Council Member Bloss: Second.
Mayor Matsui: Seconded by Council Member Bloss. Any discussion? Council Member Steinmetz.
Council Member Steinmetz: I’d like to amend the motion briefly. At the end of the phrase “timeline for the City of Des Moines,” comma, “with annual reporting back to the council.”
Mayor Matsui: I have a motion to amend and a second. Any discussion on the amendment? Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: That’s fine. In fact, I was going to ask offline if there were some sort of more specifics, because — am I speaking to the amendment now? I am. I would like some kind of definition of what that update might entail. I’m in favor of the broad strokes, but this all struck me as a little abstract. An annual update is a great idea. I would just like it to provide some kind of metrics or detail.
Kai Le: When we bring back the next step in August, we can include those details.
Mayor Matsui: Any other discussion about the amendment? Should we restate it just so we make sure we have it?
Council Member Steinmetz: Yes. I am moving to amend the resolution to insert just after the phrase “timeline for the City of Des Moines,” and report back to the council on an annual basis, comma. So inserting.
Mayor Matsui: All in favor of amending the motion, please raise your right hand. That looks unanimous. Deputy Mayor Achziger, Council Member Steinmetz, Council Member Harris, Council Member Des[mone], Council Member Nutting, Council Member Bloss, and myself. 7-0.
Let’s move on to the amendment itself — I mean, the amended motion. Is there any further discussion? I’m going to call for a vote. All in favor of the amended motion, please raise your right hand. Deputy Mayor Achziger, Council Member Steinmetz, Council Member Harris, Council Member Des[mone], Council Member Nutting, Council Member Bloss, and myself. Passes 7-0. Thank you very much.
Photo enforcement program update
Mayor Matsui: Moving on to our second item. We have an update on the photo enforcement program given by our city attorney, Mr. Tim George.
Tim George: Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Tim George, city attorney. Feels like it’s been a while since I’ve been at this podium. Tonight we are going to have a photo enforcement update. Just to clarify, this is for our traffic safety cameras. We’re not talking about the Flock cameras tonight. Next week, Chief Bo will be giving a presentation on the Flock cameras and any compliance issues with the new state law.
Tonight I am very happy to introduce, from Verra Mobility, Alexandra Yacoub. She is their regional account executive, and she’s going to walk through some of these slides about what Verra provides to the city. Come on up, Alex.
Just as a note, we inserted the first three slides that you’ll see. They’re new slides we got from Verra. Those are not in the packet right now, but we’ll update them after this. They take the place of the first slide that I put together. These ones look a lot nicer.
Alexandra Yacoub, Verra Mobility: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, council members. Happy to be here. Before we get into the slides, on behalf of Verra Mobility, I want to thank the city for the long-standing partnership and the continued support for improving traffic safety. Our presentation ties in very well with the previous item, your Vision Zero plan.
Going into the slides — as the city attorney mentioned, the first three slides cover some information about who Verra Mobility is. We are the industry leader in automated enforcement solutions. We are currently partnered with approximately 300 customers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. We currently operate over 12,000 live systems, providing various types of solutions from speed enforcement to red light, school zone, school bus, and bus lane enforcement.
I have the clicker busy map here. This is who we serve in North America. All the states in green are states where we have a presence, and the list shows partnerships that we have with various communities within those states. The symbols next to the city names are the types of enforcement provided for each one of those jurisdictions.
Specifically for Washington, we’ve been in the state for nearly two decades and we have nearly 30 partnerships here that go back quite a long time in the state. One of the longer partnerships is with the City of Des Moines as well.
Some information about the program that is here in the state and has been in place since 2011. The program started with school zone enforcement. The first two cameras were installed in 2011, followed by two additional cameras for school zone enforcement in 2012. The program further expanded in 2016 by the addition of seven red light enforcement locations, and then further expanded in 2024 by the addition of four speed cameras within the park zone. Des Moines is the first city in the state to enforce speeding in a park zone.
As far as program performance, I’ve gathered some stats to show how the program has evolved and how it changed behavior throughout the years. The top line shows monitoring in 2025. For the total of the 14 locations, vehicles traveling through the enforcement locations totaled over 18 million. There were about 22,000 citations issued, which translates into a very small percentage of citations issued versus the significantly high traffic counts that have been observed.
As far as reduction: I did a comparison from 2017 when your program was fully operational for red light enforcement, compared to 2025. There has been a 78% reduction in citations issued. For school zone, from the beginning of the program in comparison to 2025, there has been a 67% reduction. For your park zone, which is the most recent enforcement type, I compared 2024 with 2025, and there is already a 33% reduction in citations.
Additional statistics: in the beginning of the program, looking at this graph — in about 2012, the percentage of citations issued to residents was significantly higher compared to 2025. In 2012, about 32% of the citations issued were issued to local residents of Des Moines. Fast-forwarding to 2025, that has dropped to only 10%, meaning your citizens are complying with your safety laws and the program is protecting your citizens against transient traffic through the city.
Similarly, looking at 2024 when your program was fully built out including the park zones, there was a higher rate of recidivism — people that received three or more citations. That percentage was 3.8 in 2024. It decreased in 2025 to 2.7 percent. People in general are starting to comply more and more, and the recidivism rate keeps going down.
As far as program expansion: we were informed the city is further considering additional expansion for 24/7 speed enforcement and potentially additional park zone enforcement. We’ve done speed surveys at various locations over a three-day period, monitoring a total of about 16 to 18 locations. We gathered traffic flow through those locations along with potential violations. The speed threshold was set at six miles over the posted speed limit. So what we see as far as total potential violations are numbers of vehicles that were going six miles over the posted speed limit in those areas.
We then took that data and translated it into potential volumes expected should systems be installed there. With this table here, we took the speed survey results at six miles over the threshold and translated those into monthly volumes. To give an understanding of the expected volumes once the systems go live and are in place for quite some time, we only took 5% of the speed surveys to give an understanding of the number of events that would be captured by the cameras. Furthermore, there is a certain throughput — not every event captured by the camera ends up being an issued citation. So the last column there shows potential number of citations issued from each of those locations.
As far as implications for additional expansion: similar to what has been done in the past, any new locations would not bear any upfront cost to the jurisdiction. We would continue to collaborate with the city to confirm viability of the new locations to make sure there is good justification and safety benefits from additional enforcement at those locations. Then we would collaborate with the city attorney to work on a contract amendment. I’ll let him take over.
Tim George: I’m going to take over for one slide here. As far as next steps go on the city end and on the city council end: we are preparing an ordinance to bring forward to the council that would authorize what are essentially known as general speed cameras. These are new, authorized by the state legislature. Based on our population, we’re allowed three — you get one per 10,000. So we’re qualified for three.
They’ve put in a lot of requirements for locations, and some of that information is detailed in the packet, but there are certain studies the city has to do to bring forward to have approved, involving equity issues, speed, and all that. That’s why we’re here tonight following the Vision Zero — that Vision Zero is part of it. The council also heard about the Local Road Safety Plan in February, which looked at these sites that we studied. All of this is being integrated into essentially a report that the council will approve that will meet all of the new requirements of state law, to say that we didn’t just choose these locations because we wanted them there — they were chosen because they meet the requirements and there are legitimate safety issues. That’s been the basis for this whole buildup to where we’re at now. We’re almost there, and we’re going to be bringing that forward to the council soon. We’ll also be bringing forward the contract amendment with Verra to install the cameras like what was just mentioned.
In your packet, Attachment 2 shows the map with the locations we studied. If I just jump back here — all of these sites had a lot of infractions, and if you were to multiply these by fines and all that stuff, it’s a serious issue. There’s also a serious financial piece involved. But we can’t put cameras at all these locations because we only have so many that we can do. What we looked at is our three most severe sites. What we’re going to be coming back with is the recommendation at Pacific Highway northbound — that was one of our biggest sites. Also 24th, in the business park leading up to the new freeway entrance. We believe that we can do northbound and southbound on that. So that would be our three general location cameras.
We have also identified 220th and Kent–Des Moines Road as having a serious speeding issue, and that shows up as one of the top ones too. That one we’ve actually classified as a school walk zone because it’s within a mile of the schools right there. We’re going to be doing some final analysis on that just to confirm that we have students walking to and from. That puts us under a different prong of eligibility just like our school zones and our park zones. So that one won’t be only while lights are flashing, because it’s not a school zone — it’s a school walk zone — so it’ll be 24/7.
In the same vein, we’re looking at 16th Avenue in front of Woodmont, activating those 24/7 as school walk cameras. During the drop-off and pickup, the lights will flash, the speed limit will lower. During all other hours, the cameras will be active at the 35 or 30 or whatever it is out there.
We’re looking at about six or seven total camera locations — five new cameras and two activating 24/7. That’s what we’re currently working on and what we’ll be bringing back to council for full approval. We’re also looking at these other sites to see if maybe they can qualify under something else, but for now that’s the general recommendation from staff that we’ll bring forward shortly.
This is the fun part. This is where Alex gets to tell you everything about what her company can do but we’re not necessarily allowed to do in Washington state at this time. I’ll turn it back over.
Alexandra Yacoub: I am not the technical expert in technology, but high level — I do understand that there is some interest in technology for noise detection. Verra Mobility does provide that solution, and we actually have it live in the state of Hawaii. Hawaii is the first state that has adopted noise enforcement as a statewide initiative. They started with a pilot program that consisted of two locations. With the last legislative session, they passed a law that makes noise enforcement legal, and they’re looking to start adding, with the first phase, 10 new locations for noise detection.
The way the technology works — I have a picture of it here — it includes multiple Class 1 microphones along with an LPR camera and a high-resolution video camera that provides a 1080p video. The evidence captured by the noise enforcement system is the same as it is for your current automated enforcement program, meaning you would receive still images and then a video triangulating the offending vehicle. The system is fully configurable to detect whatever level of decibels is desired for enforcement. For example, Hawaii does detection at 95 decibels. And I believe, if it plays, I have a sample video for you of a noise violation.
[Video plays]
This is in Waikiki Beach. A lot of noise violations in that area. The state was very happy when they were able to pass legislation.
Additionally, another technology that I understand might be of interest is point-to-point speed detection, or average speed detection. The way this solution works is actually our traditional fixed system that can detect both red light and speed. There are two systems installed within a corridor — one at a point of entry and one at a point of exit. It calculates the average vehicle speed traveling through that enforcement corridor. That’s how we obtain distance over time, and that’s how we obtain the vehicle’s average speed.
In the US, there are no live systems because there is no supporting legislation anywhere yet. But this system is very popular in Europe and other continents, and it is popular on highways and freeways — longer corridors. Same evidence is captured as your current program: still images, the crop of the license plate, and a 12-second video. Then we can answer questions.
Tim George: I do want to mention that, on the noise cameras, Alex and I have been talking, and with others at Verra, we’re exploring the ability to do a pilot program here in Des Moines. It would be something that obviously wouldn’t issue infractions because we can’t do that. It also wouldn’t do the back-office stuff — it wouldn’t notify people — but it would collect data that I think could be helpful in advocating with our state representatives. There may be a cost to the city for that. We’re in discussions on that. So that’s something we can pursue.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you very much, Alex. This is an update, a program update, so we have time for questions and discussions. Council Member Bloss.
Council Member Bloss: Thank you. Tim, are we limited on school zone cameras — the number of school zone cameras we can have?
Tim George: Not on number. But every camera we put in, we have to justify with the data.
Council Member Bloss: Because I’d be in favor of having more automated enforcement cameras by all the schools. My son goes to North Hill, and there’s definitely speeding there, and it doesn’t look like it captures any of the data. I would be in favor of having something there and really in front of every school and every daycare. Would that be included in the school zone? Daycares or not?
Tim George: Not daycares.
Council Member Bloss: Okay. Then every school at least getting the data to see if we should install them in front of all of them.
Tim George: Yes. Verra is very good about helping us out on those studies.
Council Member Bloss: And then the little radar units with the speed — there’s no cameras, but we can take that data and see how much infraction we have, right? So that data is already there for some of these that captures it.
Tim George: Yes.
Council Member Bloss: Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Steinmetz.
Council Member Steinmetz: Very nice presentation in terms of helping us really understand at least to some degree how all this works and the value of it, which is really clear by some of the studies you’ve done. You made a mention of point-to-point cameras. My impression was that they have point-to-point but they’re based upon plates in the ground right now. Is that not the case in Washington state?
Tim George: I think the question we got about point-to-point was more over longer distances. The plates you’re referencing are, I believe, only like 20 feet apart, and that was some of the early technology that we used. So it was all caught on the same camera. This would be multiple cameras over a longer distance. The plate-to-plate is much more expensive to install than what we’re talking about in the point-to-point — it’s just using an electronic beam.
Council Member Steinmetz: Correct.
Alexandra Yacoub: I think you’re talking about the differences in technology. The earlier versions of speed enforcement technology was done with loops installed in the ground. The newer technology talks about radar enforcement. There would be two different radar systems installed at a specific distance throughout a corridor that would monitor vehicle speeds.
Council Member Steinmetz: So it would be done with radar. Lastly, I really appreciated the statistics over time that show the reduction in the number of citations. Having been responsible for donating to the city coffers through those devices on a number of occasions, earning my nickname of Larry Leadfoot from my family — it really does change behavior. I’m glad to see particularly that citizens of Des Moines are the ones really changing their behavior. I think this is a good program.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you. Deputy Mayor Achziger.
Deputy Mayor Achziger: Thank you for the presentation. Just for clarification, on the noise cameras: the state House did approve last year the noise camera system, but it did not pass the Senate and it did not come back. They’re already in the process and they’re already aware of the process.
The second thing, on the point-to-point: the Washington Traffic Safety Commission has conducted a study, and that report has gone to the legislature, and I believe it is recommending point-to-point for the state. So it’s not like we’re starting from ground zero. Some of the stuff is already in process.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: Thank you. First of all, do you have any general sense of how we compare with other cities in Washington or across this great country? In other words, are we more or less scoffy than — no, it’s a real question. Are we more of a problem, average, or less? Are all cities having a similar issue?
Alexandra Yacoub: For Washington specifically, and for speed specifically — unfortunately, this is a statewide problem as far as speeding. You are not the leader, for sure.
Relative to the rest of the country: 24/7 speed enforcement monitoring became legal last year. Before that, only school zone speeding was allowed by the statute. Since last year, we are seeing more and more jurisdictions enabling 24/7 speed, and their initial volumes are pretty high, but we’re counting on what you’ve seen for statistics for your other types of enforcement — that automated enforcement systems will change driving behavior. That’s why when we did those assumptions for potential number of events and citations, we looked at nationwide reduction. From speed surveys to about 10 to 12 months into a program, it’s expected that 95% of the initial speeding observed is reduced.
Council Member Harris: On this noise thing — does it find motorcycles in any way challenging? Can it do motorcycles if they are allowed?
Alexandra Yacoub: It detects sound, right? Level of sound.
Council Member Harris: No, that’s not the problem. I’m saying because you’ve got the teeny tiny license plate because it’s so small.
Alexandra Yacoub: It would, yes, because it does it for your regular red light and speed enforcement.
Council Member Harris: Is there anything on the horizon, since you mentioned Europe, regarding crosswalks? I’ll take that as a “never mind.” If somebody invents a crosswalk detector, that’s a major thing.
Tim George: One of the other programs that Verra offers is stop sign cameras, which are usually associated with crosswalks. But again, that’s not something authorized in Washington.
Council Member Harris: I didn’t know if it was technologically possible. Thank you.
Alexandra Yacoub: It ultimately is the same technology. As the city attorney mentioned, the threshold for detection for speeding would be set at one — meaning if they didn’t come to a complete stop at a crosswalk or at a stop sign, the technology has the ability to detect any speeds, even if it’s just one mile. So the technology is available. It’s a matter of what is allowed for automated enforcement.
Council Member Harris: Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Anyone else before I go back around? Council Member Bloss.
Council Member Bloss: I’m wondering on those cameras that are on the border — cameras on the border of Kent and Des Moines. Do we work with Kent? Do we share revenue with Kent, or do we look where the car is at when the picture is taken? How does that work?
Tim George: We don’t share revenue. It’s where the infraction is occurring — that’s the jurisdiction that’s handling all of it. We do have multiple cameras at the Kent–Des Moines and Pacific Highway intersection, and at least one of those is Kent. That operates independent from our programs. It’s where the camera is located, where the infraction occurs.
Council Member Bloss: So if it’s a stop bar and you’re driving through, or a red light, we would look at the jurisdictional boundaries.
Tim George: Yeah, it’s where the infraction occurs. They would set the line up right to make sure it’s within their boundary.
Council Member Bloss: In the presentation, you mentioned automated school bus cameras. Are these on the school bus themselves? And is that allowed in state law?
Tim George: That probably would be a Highline School District thing anyway, but yes, those are allowed — that would be something the school district would do.
I just want to remind the council that these are great. They do an amazing job. They allow us to enforce traffic laws without officers involved, and make the most of our resources. But every camera has an impact on our court staff and our prosecution and our levels of staffing. As we look to add more cameras, it’s a team effort to make sure we have the staff and the buildup, and even on the officers, because a police officer has to review every ticket manually and confirm there was actually a ticket. The cameras are great and they do an amazing job — safety is increased, infractions go down — but there’s also a lot of staff working on it.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: Tim, my only thing about bringing in new cameras: when they are proposed, if we could somehow quantify — I’m thinking back to when the original ones were done, and it really was quite a thing for the court initially. If there was a way to provide the cost or the staff time in processing those, because we see the top-line revenue, but somehow it might be — anyway, moving on.
Are all of the proposed ones north-south?
Tim George: For the most part, because you’re going to get your commuters — people speeding to and from work, unfortunately. That’s where you get your highest traffic levels. Kent–Des Moines Road — that might say north-south, but that one’s really east-west because you’re connecting the highway.
Most of the complaints from the public are people going down 220th or 223rd, 272nd. There are certainly some areas, but a lot of those have less traffic. You’ll have some outliers — a vehicle going very fast, one an hour — and then on these north-southbound routes you’ll have 10 an hour or 20 an hour. That’s really where we looked.
I’ll tell the council: to select these seven locations or 14 locations that we studied, we used data from the police department for infractions and their known speeding locations, and we also used accident history from engineering staff. We were able to combine those to find these locations. Certainly everyone knows a location where they’ve seen speeders — there are problems everywhere — but these were our seven highest.
Council Member Harris: And last but not least, regarding signage: if you convert a school zone to 24/7, my concern would be it’s now a dual-purpose thing. Is there some way we could do the signage so that it makes it clear, because I can see people getting a ticket at 7:00 p.m. and going, “What’s the deal here?”
Tim George: Traffic engineers have a whole book on what signs need to look like and for what reason. There are very specific signs that we would have to install, and there are periods that they have to be up for. We would meet all of those, because if someone were to challenge it in court and we didn’t meet that, they would all get thrown out. So yes, there are specific signs. They would have to be very clear, and we would put those in.
Council Member Harris: Thank you, sir.
Mayor Matsui: I had one more on the general location speed cams. Could you go over again who sets the limit on how many we can have per city and what that is based on?
Tim George: Yeah, the state legislature authorized that in recent law. We are allowed one camera per 10,000 residents. For now, we’re allowed three. In a few more years we’ll get our fourth, maybe.
Mayor Matsui: Just to clarify, the number of cameras is different depending on its function and where its placement is.
Tim George: Absolutely.
Mayor Matsui: It could be tempting to generalize and say, oh, if we can have an unlimited number, or a camera at every school, then why can’t we have them everywhere else?
Tim George: We are limited by state law to that three per 10,000.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you very much for the update. I appreciate it.
Have we determined the jurisdiction on First Avenue? Is it shared jurisdiction with Normandy Park, or is it solely their territory or ours?
Tim George: I’m looking at Tommy and trying to read lips. [Reads:] Park.
Mayor Matsui: Normandy Park.
Tim George: First Avenue is totally Normandy Park.
Mayor Matsui: Great. Thank you.
Public hearing — 2027–2046 Transportation Improvement Plan
Mayor Matsui: The purpose of this next agenda item is to go into a public hearing on the 2027 to 2046 Transportation Improvement Plan, also known as the TIP. I will now open the public hearing.
We will begin with a staff presentation with City Engineer Tommy Owen.
Tommy Owen, City Engineer: Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Tommy Owen, city engineer. This evening I will be presenting the city’s 20-year update to the Transportation Improvement Plan.
What is the Transportation Improvement Plan? I’ve given this presentation three times in the last six months now, so it’ll be very familiar to most of you. It’s a prioritized list of 89 planned transportation projects. This list is not financially constrained. And the prioritized list — I want to be very clear on this — whether a project is listed as 10 or 60, staff is always focused on looking for grant opportunities, partnership opportunities, any way to make those projects happen. The reality is we have about seven or eight annual projects typically funded by city funds, but beyond that, most all of our transportation improvement projects are partially funded by grants, partnerships, and other opportunities that we can partner with. That’s really how our projects come to fruition: finding partners and bringing those projects forward.
A little bit more about the list. It is derived from the Comprehensive Transportation Plan, which is a long-range transportation plan of about 20 years that sets the policies, goals, and strategies to help guide decisions for transportation systems in all modes of travel. It also defines a manageable network of arterial roadways, pedestrian networks, bicycle networks, and transit services to support the city.
How do projects get into the TIP? They get in the TIP from the Comprehensive Transportation Plan, which has safety, capacity, pedestrian and bicycle needs, and also supports transit. It’s also from the analysis of the city’s own transportation system, whether from traffic engineering studies or citizen input and concerns. We’re always listening. Whenever a Fix-It Form gets sent in and we see there may be a safety issue around some area, we can analyze that and potentially bring that into a project.
It’s also from interagency and utility coordination — some examples are with other cities, Sound Transit, WSDOT. A good example right now is our partnership with Midway Sewer District, who is currently working on 16th Avenue. It’s very torn up right now, but we partnered with them in an interlocal agreement so we could maximize some of the paving. The sewer district was going to pave mainly the east side of 16th, and the city was able to partner with them to pave the remaining portion of 16th Avenue. Unfortunately, due to weather, the paving of 16th was pushed back to next week. We were hoping to get some asphalt down yesterday, but that’ll be pushed to likely Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, weather-dependent.
How is the TIP used? It provides direction to staff for development of our capital improvement plan. It’s for planning and coordination with utilities and neighboring cities. It is required by state law to submit annually by the end of July. We also report it to WSDOT and the Puget Sound Regional Council. And it positions projects for future grants and loans.
Some of the discussion and process for the TIP. About two months ago, I presented the draft TIP to the Committee of the Whole. Since then we gave public notice in the Seattle Times for tonight’s public hearing. There’s the opportunity for public comment at tonight’s hearing, and to date we have not received any public comments.
Looking back at some of the accomplishments and highlights, especially over the last year: right now we have the Barnes Creek Trail project on 240th between 16th and 20th. It’s under construction. That project will wrap up likely in spring of next year for the final paving. Most of the improvements will likely be done this year, but due to weather conditions I can see the final paving of that early next year. Right now we’ve completed the water line, which was another partnership with Highline Water District, and next week we’ll be starting the joint utility trench for more utility work.
Priority 9 is the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program. This was a formal program adopted last year. We brought a contract to council, I believe, late last year for construction of a pilot program for some speed bumps throughout the city. Those are in five locations, and I’m happy to say that the first one will be constructed next Monday as the start of those. You’ll see that going on in the next couple weeks.
Priority 12 is the 24th Avenue improvement project. This is the next segment of the 24th Avenue improvements, for which we received a $5 million grant from WSDOT. The design of that — we’ll likely bring that to the council later this year.
Some revisions from previous years. These first three projects have all been completed over the last year: the 24th Avenue improvements project, the Sound Transit light rail, and the WSDOT SR 509 Gateway and 216th Bridge.
The other proposed revision is to create a new project for the Marine View Drive downtown corridor, which would revitalize the downtown corridor. I mentioned when I brought this project at the Committee of the Whole that we are likely going to be in some discussions with WSDOT to turn over the Marine View Drive downtown corridor to basically city ownership for maintenance in the future. I think this would position us well to have an improvement project we can use for negotiation purposes at least.
Last December, staff was directed to investigate including a last mile project into the TIP. We’ve brought that forward as Priority 23 for last-mile transit service. Really it’s to improve the last-mile services within the southern portion of the city. There are some limited areas which are beyond one mile by road to existing transit routes, which you can see in the red highlighted portions on the south end of the city. That’s why we’ve included it in this year’s TIP update. Regardless, we will continue to promote the existing King County Metro and Sound Transit options.
That concludes my presentation, and I’ve left you with the motion.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you. Now it’s time for the public comment portion of this public hearing. We ask you to keep your comments respectful. Did anyone sign up?
[Staff: No.]
Is there anyone who didn’t sign up who wishes to speak? Second call. Third and final call.
Now it is time for your council questions. Council, do you have any questions? Questions only, please. We’ll start with Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: Thank you, as always. As Dan used to say, I ought to be good at it by now — I’ve done it four times. This is a real question. The city uses the term — capitalized — “complete streets.” That has a formal definition I assume that I can look up. If I see “complete streets,” should I know what that means?
Tommy Owen: Typically that would include curb, gutter, sidewalk, any multimodal uses.
Council Member Harris: Like a bike path?
Tommy Owen: Yes.
Council Member Harris: Are bike paths — another idiot question — is there anything precluding bike paths on both sides of a street? Is there a certain type of road where you can?
Tommy Owen: Really, we would go back to our Comprehensive Transportation Plan. In that plan, which we updated a few years ago — it’s probably due for another update — we identify routes that would be future bicycle routes. That way we have a plan for a priority bicycle network. When we do improvements on those streets in the future, we already know that yes, this is a route that would have bicycle lanes.
Council Member Harris: I just meant: is there any formal thing where, like, a road that is just a two-lane thing shall have a bike — because I’m always struck by how a bike path will be on one side of the street for a couple of blocks, and then it just kind of goes over there, and then it turns this way, and it doesn’t look like there’s any coherence to it sometimes. I was just asking if there’s a formal protocol to that at this point.
Tommy Owen: A lot of that typically goes back to frontage improvements with developments. You may have a development where they were required to build up to the current standard. The current standard may show a bicycle lane in front of their frontage, so they would put in place those improvements. Whereas down the street, that parcel has not developed, and so those frontage improvements don’t exist.
Council Member Harris: Okay. So this is something a council could consider, just sort of having some kind of standard for —
Tommy Owen: We have all that in our street standards.
Council Member Harris: You do? Okay, good. I will ask you about it often. Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Steinmetz.
Council Member Steinmetz: Tommy, good list. I do appreciate the addition of downtown and your strategy with that. I think that’s a great idea. Probably a decade or more ago, the council got pretty proud of themselves because they had finally built in regular repaving of the streets. Is that something that would fit in the TIP, or is it just a budgetary issue to be addressed as we can?
Tommy Owen: That is number one in our TIP currently — our annual paving program. It is funded in our CIP on an annual basis of around, I believe, a million dollars. Sometimes we utilize those funds for other projects, such as our Barnes Creek Trail project. We may not be doing necessarily an overlay project this year — and honestly, we don’t have the staff resources to do that right now — but we can put some of that paving money into those projects, so that we can do more paving than we originally anticipated.
Council Member Steinmetz: I think it’s always good to reiterate that’s a real high priority to try to get that done, because it slips by. If you can do it in the Barnes Creek Trail — there’s a significant part of the street that’s being torn up — I assume that’s where we might deploy some of those funds. Any plans on 16th?
Tommy Owen: What area of 16th?
Council Member Steinmetz: The part south of the bridge over Saltwater State Park.
Tommy Owen: That was paved about three years ago basically from 250th to 260th with our paving fund.
Council Member Steinmetz: Okay, maybe I’m confusing the street because it just got torn up for the pipe.
Tommy Owen: From 240th to 250th — north of the bridges, yes. The funds we used in partnership with Midway did come from the annual paving program.
Council Member Steinmetz: Great. Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Deputy Mayor Achziger.
Deputy Mayor Achziger: Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any time frame on the next segment of 24th — the segment from 223rd to 216th?
Tommy Owen: Yes — that is the one we received the $5 million grant for. We will be going to design hopefully by the end of this year. Beyond that, as far as actually proceeding to construction: design and right-of-way acquisition would take about two years before we could get to construction.
Deputy Mayor Achziger: Okay.
Tommy Owen: Construction is anticipated to be 2028, 2029, about a two-year process.
Deputy Mayor Achziger: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Des[mone].
Council Member Des[mone]: Thank you for the presentation. I had a question about Priority 9 — those were the “slow zones” — I forgot the language. Traffic calming. That’s why I forgot it. I was wondering if those places were chosen kind of from the presentation we were just talking about, the places where that needs to be more safe, or were those areas already decided?
Tommy Owen: Those are really decided already, and as part of our traffic calming program it’s a program based on community feedback. The locations picked were based on input from the community. Our staff would go out there and do a traffic study of those areas, then it would get ranked in a list, and we chose those as the top five locations throughout the city.
Council Member Des[mone]: And is the list somewhere, or is that a secret?
Tommy Owen: Yes, we can provide it to you. We’ve been featuring it in the last few city manager reports. Have you seen that? I can also give you the full list.
Council Member Des[mone]: Okay, thanks.
Mayor Matsui: We will now close the public hearing. Is there a motion?
Council Member Nutting: I move to approve draft Resolution Number 26-039 adopting the 2027 to 2046 Transportation Improvement Plan for the City of Des Moines.
Council Member Steinmetz: Second.
Mayor Matsui: Heard a second from Council Member Steinmetz. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving draft Resolution Number 26-039 — please raise your right hand and say aye until I call your name. No, I’m just kidding. Just raise your right hand until I call your name. Deputy Mayor Achziger, Council Member Steinmetz, Council Member Harris, Council Member Des[mone], Council Member Nutting, Council Member Bloss, and myself. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much, Mr. Owen.
New business
Mayor Matsui: Now it’s time for some new business. Number one is, almost always, agenda items for consideration — new agenda items. This is a time for proposing new business items for discussion on a current or future agenda. Any recommendation will simply need a hand raise or a nod from three council members. Do any council members have new business they would like to propose?
Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: Thank you. Talking about what we already talked about — I would like the council to consider Mr. George’s fine memo to the city council be reduced down to about 50 words and placed on the city website. I think it would help the public understand the city’s position. People obviously have deep concerns, which I certainly share. The statement the city put out is formally great, but it’s a bit dense.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Harris, I want to make sure — you mean about the current zoning that doesn’t allow detention centers or facilities?
Council Member Harris: Correct.
Mayor Matsui: We did agree to that earlier in the meeting.
Council Member Harris: The city manager asked me to raise this, so I’m — but we already in this meeting said yes earlier.
Mayor Matsui: You’re shaking your head up and down. Okay, good. Then go for it.
Executive session
Mayor Matsui: Let’s move into executive session to discuss pending litigation under RCW 42.30.110(1)(i) for 25 minutes — which will take us to about — let’s do, actually, can we ask for a five-minute additional break before we go into executive session?
Council: Sure.
Mayor Matsui: Let’s do 30 minutes total, and we will come back here at 7:58.
[Question about council member reports.]
Mayor Matsui: Council member reports after.
[Break and executive session.]
Council member reports
Mayor Matsui: We’re returning back from executive session. No formal action will be taken on that. Now we’re moving into our council member reports, which are limited to four minutes. Let’s start with Council Member Nutting.
Council Member Nutting: Thank you, Mayor. I have nothing this evening.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Bloss.
Council Member Bloss: Thank you, Mayor. I have nothing to report this evening.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Steinmetz.
Council Member Steinmetz: Had a great time at the opening of the voting season, and had a good meeting with the city manager. That’s it.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Harris.
Council Member Harris: Thank you. It’s always — I wish — our comments and their comments are at the opposite ends, and nobody sticks around, but I appreciate the people who show up to speak about the thing with ICE. I am fortunate enough to fit in, but when I first came to this country I did not. What is going on now is horrifying, and it comes off as flip to people who are not impacted. It’s terrifying to me.
And the same thing with Flock — part of entitlement is basically like, hey man, if you ain’t done nothing wrong, you got nothing to worry about. That’s entitlement, just by definition. A lot of times people will get 99% of the details right, but that don’t mean their concerns are not legit. I appreciate them putting something straightforward on the website about that detention thing.
I attended the last airport meeting. There’s this thing called the Overton window in politics — things move in a certain direction, and even after you change, there’s no going back. I watched the last airport meeting, and people were still talking about a Third Runway usage agreement that never happened. If you have to pay people to relearn things every two years or so, of course you’re going to screw up continuously.
Cities that care about certain things — we don’t make mistakes when it comes to land use and the things we really care about. That TIP thing — that’s the magic wand that should be in every department. And it is interesting to me that the state makes us do six-year magic wands for the departments that really matter to people. You have to have a plan for certain things. The things you don’t are things that you obviously do not care about.
Regardless of what happens with the airport over the next couple of years, the best thing that could possibly happen would be to have some kind of system in place where people four or five years in the future don’t have to reinvent the wheel — because what you’re calling the SAMP is actually phase one. There’s an LTP coming in 2032, and that’s where the real fun begins, and we haven’t even — we talk about it — this is just phase one. That’s about it for now. Thanks.
Mayor Matsui: Council Member Des[mone].
Council Member Des[mone]: I have nothing to report.
Mayor Matsui: Deputy Mayor Achziger.
Deputy Mayor Achziger: Nothing to report.
Mayor Matsui: Thank you very much, you all. I wanted to highlight a couple of things that have come up recently.
Thank you to all the folks who were able to join us for my chat with the mayor. I think it turned out to be Breakfast with the Mayor, Pizza with the Mayor, and Pad Thai with the Mayor, which was actually really fun. I’m wondering if I should just do pizza at different locations throughout the city when we do this again perhaps in the fall, or next time. It really was a very nice opportunity to have some more in-depth and personal conversations with residents about some of their concerns. Thanks to those restaurants — Alina’s, Tandoori Slice, and Emerald Thai too — for hosting us. Thanks to Bonnie and others for helping me put those on.
We have some really important ribbon-cutting-type activities coming up in the future, including the reopening of the Redondo Pier. You’ll hear more about that coming up very soon, but please keep your eye out for celebrations around that coming up in mid-June.
I had the privilege last night — and I know Council Member Bloss was there as well — to go attend the Des Moines Dollars for Scholars reception for scholarship awardees and recipients down at the yacht club. This is a program that is heavily supported by the yacht club, First Mates, by Rotary, Recology of King County also sponsors a scholarship, and some families in the area including the Sn[ure] family, the Milh[ousler] family, and some other organizations and Legacy Foundation, as well as the city.
We have a scholarship that we were able to award dedicated to Officer Steven J. Underwood — it’s the memorial scholarship — and I want to say congratulations to Morelli Diaz for receiving that award. It was a really nice occasion to hear students talk about their plans for the future — folks who want to go into immigration law, folks who wanted to become pediatric nurses, folks who wanted to go into aeronautical engineering, and another student who I believe is studying abroad at Tokyo University in Japan. It was really an awesome opportunity to hear about their passion, all the activities they are participating in in their local communities, and to see all the proud families that were there as well. I’m hoping we can continue to support regional scholarships like this and maybe even invite some students to come in and talk to us about it in the future.
Adjournment
Mayor Matsui: Thank you very much. We are at the end of our meeting. Our next meeting will be a regular city council meeting on May 21st, 2026. I am looking at Council Member Nutting for a motion to adjourn.
Council Member Nutting: So moved, Mayor.
Council Member [Second]: Second.
Mayor Matsui: All in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion passes and we are adjourned. Thank you.