Weekly Update: 02/06/2022

Public Service Announcements

This Week

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting. The Commission will be considering its Local and Regional Policy Agenda for the year, which includes sound insulation. I will be testifying in support of the Port funding an Update or ‘second chance’ program, modeled on the Replacement Initiative program that has been working successfully at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Wednesday: Des Moines Marina Association Meeting

Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) Sign up here for public comment. Watch the meeting on Youtube here. There are some big issues;

1. This will be the unveil of the Dock Replacement strategy, ie. recommendations on the number of slips in various sizes. There may also be information as to whether or not coveraged moorage will be allowed. (Covered moorage is highly coveted by boat owners, however it is very difficult to permit now as it has detrimental effects on fish.)
2. We will be voting to approve a contract with an independent contractor to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) concerning the demolition of the Masonic Home. There’s nothing for the public to protest here, but this is getting real. If you care about saving the Masonic Home, now is the time to mobilise. And that means:
   
   1. Show up for Public Comment! (See the link above)
   2. Write the City Council! citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov
   3. Contact the Washington Historic Preservation Trust
3. We will discuss the process for selecting an appointee for the vacancy left by the recent resignation of Anthony Martinelli. This was at my request because the process has been handled quite differently over the years. The 2020 process, whereby Luisa Bangs was re-appointed being particularly fraught. The real problem for me was not so much the who, it was the process. (Then Mayor Pina all but demanded that every CM ask the same question and gave me hell for having the gall to want to ask questions tailored to each applicant. 😀 ) The funny thing about that is that Matt Pina was on the Council both for the appointments of Jeremy Nutting in 2013 (Video) and *Luisa Bangs in 2015. No such limitations. That’s why the Council should decide these processes and not the Mayor.

Last Week

Tuesday: SMART (Southside Seattle Chamber Of Commerce) I haven’t attended these in a while, but I try to check in to see what SSCOC has going on with Des Moines. My peers in Tukwila and SeaTac speak glowingly of SSCOC. I asked about a program that might provide backup power for local businesses.

Tuesday: First day of Black History Month. I’ll be attending a couple of events, but sadly not in Des Moines. Frankly, most of my family’ involvement in African American cultural events seemed to center around the Central District, which was kind of a nexus for the Black Community when we moved here in the 90’s. I keep trying to drum up more local interest. If you have interest, please contact me! 🙂 Here is an article on the influence of the American Civil Rights movement and Ireland.

Tuesday: Chief Thomas’ Police Advisory Committee. Since our last meeting, there has been a lot of activity in the State legislature. I was hoping the Chief would express optimism about the future. Eh… not so much. 😀 But he did offer a 2018-2021 crime stats comparison report, which you may find interesting. I’m hesitant to comment because it’s so high level I think it can be interpreted in several ways.

Wednesday: COHO Pen Delivery!

Thursday: MRSC Training on Tax Increment Financing (TIF). I’m learning about this because the City Manager and our lobbyist periodically mention it for big economic development projects. It hasn’t come before Council, yet but one wants to be prepared. 😀

Thursday: City Council Meeting: (Agenda) Watch the meeting on Youtube here.

02/03/22 City Council Meeting Recap

Consent Agenda

There was no Consent Agenda, something I cannot remember seeing before.

City Manager’s Report

The City Manager’s Report consisted of a presentation on the status of Pacific Ridge. The only new information is that there will be a couple of new fast food restaurants opening up near Waterview Crossing. There was a bit of info on the tree re-planting along the boundary wall.

Speaking of those trees: the fact that the City was offered 1,000 free additional trees–which could be planted anywhere in the City, as part of a community engagement project. But we only accepted 100. SeaTac received a similar offer and they took their allocation of trees. We could have taken the trees, put them some place for a couple of months and had the several local groups that care about tree cover figure out where they are needed and organise community plantings. Grrrrr…)

But the big thing to wonder about though was the reason to have staff prepare the Powerpoint and then take almost a half hour of the Council’s time on this ‘update’. In his opening remarks, the City Manager said he was responding to remarks made by one of the Council–apparently which he felt cast Pacific Ridge in a bad light?

Frankly, this is a City Council Meeting, not a City Manager Meeting. In my opinion, the presentation did not include enough new information to be worth either the staff’s or the Council’s time. I may agree or disagree with my colleagues’ opinions, but that’s for the seven of us to work out. It is never the City Manager’s place to rebut a Councilmember unless there is some obvious misconduct. People have asked me how/if the Council has improved this year? You’ll know it when/if anyone but myself notices this sort of thing and is willing to speak up.

New Business

There was one item of New Business, renewing our contract with Recology. We voted for a one year extension to the current contract in order to give the City time to negotiate a proper contract. That was one painful discussion.

First off, I’ve gotten dozens of gripes from residents about poor customer service from Recology. I tried their customer service line a few times and got an answering service with a five day call back. Look, it’s COVID, got it. But the public should have an opportunity to weigh in on this.

Now, the second option was to sign a new contract based on an elevent percent increase. And I got some notes like, “Sure glad we didn’t do that.” I hate to break it to y’all, but the rates for solid waste are already going through the roof in other parts of the country. We may look back on this and think, “Sure wish we’d gone for that.” Residents and businesses should be doing whatever they possibly can to reduce their trash and recycling needs. Not out of any ‘altruism’, but because the era of cheap garbage is coming to an end.

Comments

In Mayor Mahoney’s comments he remarked that ‘New Business’ was meant for introducing new items for a future agenda. The problem here is that New Business was introduced by fiat by former Mayor Pina–which was my problem with the idea in the first place.

Council Meetings can be pretty much whatever the Council wants them to be. In 2021 I complained about the difficulty in getting new ideas onto meeting agendas and then Mayor Pina made it happen. POOF! But by not codifying it, it can be taken away or modified at the whim of the majority.

The Mayor objected to my using that area to direct the City Manager to schedule items on an agenda. So… he modified the meaning of New Business.

And now we’re left with no place to ask questions.

The situation for myself and my colleagues has been, if the City Manager does not want to answer a question? He doesn’t answer it. Legally, the only place he is required to answer questions is on the dais. 99.99% of City Managers don’t take that extreme interpretation of the law and bend over backwards to cooperate with Councilmembers. But, as we’ve seen at the Federal level in recent years, a great deal of what people think is ‘the law’ is actually a matter of ‘convention’. At the end of the day, the law says that the only thing the City Manager has to listen to is: four votes.

A Dad Lecture on the Sea Wall

[02/08/22 Update] According to the City pile driving is now complete. There will be some intermittent noise for the next week, but the entire work to be completed by February 15. Congratulations to our engineering team, particularly Andrew Merges and Khai Le.

According to our City’s DPW, confidence is high that the noisy part of the work will be complete by Feb 15. I know it’s a drag, but this (should be) a once in 75 year project and I am breathing a sigh of relief.

And at the risk of ‘dad lecture’, the old sea wall was in terrible shape and needed to be replaced years ago. I made the following comment on Facebook:

Nobody wants to freak people out, but if that ‘Tsunami’ deal a few weeks ago had been for realz? I wouldn’t wanna be in one of those condos.

…and was told by a commenter that such a thing could not happen. I used to be ‘that guy’ and post research papers and citations, but it doesn’t look good to argue with residents on Facebook.

I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to have someone from the Department Of Natural Resources come in and do a talk once in a while. Because I’m certain a lot of the public does not understand risks like this.

I go on every once in a while because I’m not sure we communicated how essential that seawall is if one wants a Marina. It’s not a ‘nice to have’. It’s like the foundation of a house. And perhaps if people understood it like that they’d have a higher tolerance for the temporary construction noise. I don’t know. You don’t wanna freak people out, but you also want them to understand that the City didn’t spend $12MM of public money for entertainment value. That’s like half of one year’s General Fund! In fact, it drives me nuts that we had to spend the money on replacing the last wall–which barely lasted forty years. Plus, it took the City years just to get the permits to begin! So, woo hoo! we finally get our credit rating out of the toilet and what do we get to use it for? Repairs.

This drives me nuts. The video from the two meetings involving Luisa Bangs’ appointment in 2015 is apparently lost. That’s six years ago. We can’t even protect digital information for six frickin’ years!