Call to Order
Mayor Traci Buxton: The July 24th, 2025 Des Moines City Council meeting is now called to order. Is Councilmember Nutting out there? Councilmember Nutting is actually going to lead us in the flag salute tonight and he is online. Please stand if you’re able.
Councilmember Jeremy Nutting: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Mayor Buxton: Well, that worked out just fine. Thank you, councilmember.
Okay, to all of the public who are joining us tonight, welcome and thank you for taking the time to come out and be with us. Appreciate you being here. For those watching online or on channel 21, please understand that we cannot attend to our phones from the dais. So, if you have any technical problems while viewing the meeting tonight, please email cityclerk@desmoineswa.gov.
So, let the record show that all council members are present and that both Councilmember Nutting and Councilmember Grace Matsui are joining us remotely on Zoom. We can see them up there. Do we have any correspondents not previously received by the council?
Staff: No, mayor.
Mayor Buxton: All right. Thank you very much.
Public Comments
Mayor Buxton: So, now it’s time for comments from the public. We ask that you keep your comments respectful. As a special note, it is campaign season and we cannot receive comments that could be viewed as promoting candidates. When you do come to the podium, you have three minutes to speak. So, please state your name and city of residence. And we do have some guests tonight that will be presenting. I’m going to take the individual commenters first and then we’ll have the presentation. Okay. So, first up I have Corey Cox.
Corey Cox: Hi. My name is Corey Cox. I live in Des Moines here in Huntington Park and I wanted to just address the council. I have been in contact with Harry Steinmetz asking about if the police department and city have a policy that indicates that they will or will not assist ICE should they be coming into the city to enforce any type of immigration action.
And Harry was kind enough to send to me the police chief’s letter that openly talks about that Des Moines police will not actively assist. They’ll be there to keep the peace. It’s in their city, keep the citizens and everyone else safe. And I want to say thank you for that. I appreciate it.
My concern comes from looking at even as geographically close as Pierce County where the sheriff of Pierce County has wanted to enter into a 287G agreement with ICE and that there’s a lot of controversy apparently going on about that in Pierce County now. But my comments are that please keep up the good work and don’t allow our police folks.
I have 42-43 years in public safety communications. I did the last 20 years of my career running the 911 program out of the police academy in Burien. Before that, I had many years in public safety communications as a dispatcher, as a supervisor, and I’ve worked on national committees. I’ve chaired national committees that set national training standards for public safety communications. So, I have a strong public safety background.
And I just ask that the city keep up the good work and understand where their citizens, where the hearts of their citizens really lie because I do believe most of us do not think it’s a respectful and decent way to treat immigrants going on right now in the country and I’m gratified that the city of Des Moines isn’t participating in some of that. Thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you.
So before we have our presentation, is there anyone who came to the council meeting tonight wanting to give public comment but not realizing that you needed to sign in to do so? All right.
Presentation – Des Moines Legacy Foundation
Mayor Buxton: So I’m excited to receive our presentation. So could the participants come on up?
Pierre Bloss: Mayor, council members, city manager, and city staff. My name is Pierre Bloss and I’m the vice president of the Des Moines Legacy Foundation. I’m joined today with other members of our board. If you could stand up so I can introduce you as well. We have Patrice Thorell, our president, Rachel Waldin, our newest board member, Ruth Ballard, Oscar Solano. In the back, not a board member, but our local friend and artist, George C. Scott.
We are here today to thank you for your partnership and support in helping make our fourth annual Waterland Kids Festival such a great success. This event was held last Friday at the Fieldhouse Park. We estimate over 1,000 community members attended this fun-filled afternoon. It would not have been possible without the incredible teamwork from the city.
The Legacy Foundation was proud to serve as a lead organizer and contributed over $5,000 to fund the event. The CDA provided the park space, advertised the event through all their channels, and provided an army of volunteers from the Camp Chaos staff, public works, community enrichment services, and police department. So many public employees stepped up, not just behind the scenes, but also out front, helping around activities and making sure everything went smoothly. Our very own chief of police was even there blowing up balloons for the kids.
We also had fantastic support from many local partners including Mountaineers Pool, the King County Library System, the Des Moines Area Food Bank, the Des Moines Yacht Club, Wesley Des Moines, Millennials Dance, Print Play, Sound Security, Northwest Karate School, Red Robin, Rotary, The Waterland Block for Culture, Destination Des Moines, and all our amazing volunteers. Thank you all.
On Saturday, the next day, the Camp Chaos team also helped us lead the Waterland Junior Parade. Please extend our thanks to Kelsey from Camp Chaos for giving the campers and their families such a special experience and to the Marina Police and Public Works Department for helping manage traffic and street closures.
And finally, we also want to thank the city for partnering with the Legacy Foundation on our summer youth recreation program at Midway Park. This free program provides recreation services for low-income children in the Pacific Ridge area and runs Monday through Friday all summer long. The Legacy Foundation has dedicated $10,000 to reimburse the city to pay the salaries of the recreation program staff and to purchase the supplies necessary for this program.
It’s so exciting to see what we can accomplish when the city, our local organizations, and community members all get together. We’re proud to be a part of that and we’re looking forward to even more collaborations in the future. And with that, I’d like to share a short three-minute video highlighting some of the joy and energy from this year’s Waterland Children’s Festival. The video was put together by our other board member who was not here today, Constantine Kamaras. Thank you again for your support.
[Video played]
Mayor Buxton: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
So, I’m sure some of us will have comments, but we’ll need to do that during our councilmember report segment. So, thank you so much.
Regional Committee Reports
Mayor Buxton: Next up on the agenda, we have regional committee reports. And because we are piloting a committee of the whole model right now, we’re not operating our traditional committees, but councilmembers do serve on regional tables. And so this is an opportunity to share out if there’s any subjects that we participated in or advocated for around the region that our city of Des Moines residents might be interested in. This is the time for that. So, do any council members have anything to report out during this segment?
Councilmember Matt Mahoney: Thank you, Mayor. Yesterday we had the July meeting for the Highline Forum. Of course, next meeting is going to be in Des Moines that we’ll be hosting. So, I’ll be working with the team on that. Just a couple quick highlights. They just reviewed FIFA, or however it’s pronounced, the soccer world cup and what’s going to happen there. They talked about the workforce development in the Highline area that the Port of Seattle and other players like Highline College are doing in unison. Got a quick update. It was really one of the lightest meetings I’ve had in there. But good to get together and I’m excited for our city to be the host in September. Great.
Mayor Buxton: Anyone else?
Well, that kind of reminds me. I did attend a Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board meeting. We received several briefings and I didn’t bring any notes with me tonight, but the one thing that stuck out, we had a briefing from, same thing, a FIFA briefing in regard to the incredible impact that’s going to have in our region, 750,000 people over a period of weeks. But the Port of Seattle also gave a briefing with Commissioner Ryan Calkins and Executive Director Steve Metruck. And one of the things that stood out to me, $33 billion will be generated in revenue for the Port of Seattle just this year. And that’s a lot of money. And I know they have big expenses, but I think it still is an inspiration to see if we can figure out a way to knock on their door for some mitigation dollars, some economic support dollars from the port. I mean, we’re a small city. We have high impact and they could lose the amount of money that we would like them to give to us and not even feel it or notice. So, anyway, that was my inspiration from the day.
City Manager Report
Mayor Buxton: All right, I’m moving on to the city manager report. I’m going to hand that over to City Manager Katherine Caffrey.
City Manager Katherine Caffrey: Tonight, mayor and council, we have a presentation from King County Metro. So, I’d like to invite—I don’t know what order you’re going in, but we have Genevieve Jones, Amanda Pleasant Brown, Christina Gonzalez, and Ryan Miller here. So it’s a real tag team presentation. So I’ll let you all take it away.
King County Metro Presentation
Amanda Pleasant Brown: It is. Thank you so much. So we are here from King County Metro and happy to be here. Amanda Pleasant Brown—I do government relations for Metro and we’re here to talk about the restructure of the bus network around the extension of the Link to the Federal Way Link extension. So we’ll talk at a high level about what’s going on, what we’ve done in the project, how we’ve conducted engagement, what that looked like, and then we’ll zoom in to Des Moines and we have some follow-up answers from the last time we were here. So I’ll hand it to my team for quick introductions and we’ll kick off our presentation.
Christina Gonzalez: Thanks. Hi everyone. Christina Gonzalez. I use she/her pronouns. Very excited to be here. Senior community engagement planner with King County Metro. And I will share a little bit about what our engagement has looked like and how all of you can help support as we continue to create more accessible transportation for South King County.
Ryan Miller: Hi there, my name is Ryan Miller. I use he/him pronouns. I am a service planner at King County Metro and am the network development lead for our South Link Connections mobility project. So I can move us on to our next slide.
So in terms of what this is, this is a large restructure of bus service in southwest King County around that is supporting the extension of Link Line 1 to Federal Way adding three new stations. This our project scope is 10 all-day routes as well as 12 peak-only routes, two of which are currently in operation and the other 10 of which have been currently suspended. This project area includes 10 cities and parts of unincorporated King County. This is the area that we’ve been focusing on for our community engagement and equity analysis as well as the restructure.
In working with the community, we had them prioritize in our first phase of engagement which needs we should be really focusing on as we restructure bus service. Those needs are greater transit service, improving early morning and nighttime service, faster travel times both within and beyond our project area, improving east-west connections, and increasing weekend service especially on Saturdays where we heard from community there’s a strong need on those days.
We are currently in the third phase of our project. In our first phase, we went out to community to understand transportation needs. Our second phase was when we took those needs, priorities, came up with an initial draft network. We’ve now taken the feedback we heard on that draft network and made some changes. And we’re at our next service proposal which we’re currently soliciting feedback on and we’ll make some probably final small tweaks to it before going to the King County Council in spring of 2026 with an implementation target for these large service changes in the fall. I’m going to hand things over to Christina.
Christina Gonzalez: Quickly, phase two engagement. You can see our online engagement responses. We’ve also worked—we’ve outreached to over 200 organizations and we’ve partnered with some specific organizations to help us support our culturally and geographically relevant engagement. We’ve been to city council presentations, farmers markets, we’re at bus stops. We wanted to make sure we got feedback from our bus operators. So, I’ll leave it at that.
In Des Moines, riders that use routes 156, 164, 166, and the RapidRide A Line, from this jurisdiction, we sent multilingual text and email alerts. We have four mobility board members that either live, work, or travel frequently through Des Moines. You can see some of the locations where we were and some of the areas where we were talking directly to riders at bus stops and we were here in February.
In terms of what we heard in our phase two outreach, which is when we presented our first network, the really top level result is that when we went out to community folks approved of our network in almost a 2:1 ratio of folks who overall approved rather than disapproved of our network with an even higher response within our priority populations, people of color, low-income folks, people who speak a language other than English at home and people with disabilities. In terms of we had a similar level of response of positive response on how well this network met our overall network priority needs.
Speaking specifically to the routes that serve Des Moines, we can see we got a very high level of positive response for the route 164 and 166 which are one of the key points of our larger network restructure along with the RapidRide A Line and the route 156 which are also in our project area scope.
So taking that feedback and—you know, received a lot of feedback beyond just those high level positive, neutral, negative responses—and so we took that feedback and our overall network approach is that we are using resources from peak-only buses that are currently suspended, haven’t been running since 2020, and reinvesting those resources in frequent service on two east-west connections, new weekend service across all of our network as well as making service easier to understand both in this area and also especially in west Federal Way where things can be a little bit confusing for folks and having as well as making service consistent on Saturdays and Sundays.
In terms of what that means is that for most of our project area routes, we’re seeing a 47% increase in trips during the weekday period, a 61% increase in trips on the Saturday period, and twice as many trips on Sunday. In order to fund those all-day, all-week connections and off-period connections, we are going to be removing nine suspended peak-only routes and two in-service routes, the 162 and 177.
What changed based off of our phase 2 engagement? Based off of what we heard in phase two, we are proposing even more service on those all-day, all-week routes, 77 more trips throughout the week with increased frequency on five routes and earlier and later trips on eight routes compared to our phase 2 network. We’ve also made adjustments to our MetroFlex services in Auburn and Federal Way. But in order to fund those improvements, we also are removing an additional peak-only route, the route 162 which duplicates an all-day route as well as Sounder service into downtown Seattle.
Unfortunately, we are not able to address every comment we heard. We did hear in our phase 2 engagement a desire to retain that peak period bus service between our project areas and downtown. Unfortunately, as the South Link Connections project is a cost-neutral project, difficult trade-offs have to be made. We heard from the community how important all-day, all-week connections within the project area are to folks. We also know that we’re going to be able to leverage the all-day frequent connection from our project area into downtown Seattle using Link. So we made that decision in line with our mobility board and based off of feedback we heard to prioritize taking resources away from those peak-only routes and into the all-day, all-week network that we heard a need to prioritize from our mobility board.
We also heard about a desire for additional coverage including new bus route proposals. Again in a cost-neutral sense, we needed to be really tactical about where we were able to increase bus coverage. The main way we increased coverage through this network is through our two proposed MetroFlex zones and we’re using our fixed route resources to increase service on existing fixed routes with some minor modifications to those existing routes with our cost-neutral budget. If we were to try and create new bus routes, it would have meant removing service improvements that we really heard were important to the communities in this project area.
All right, speaking specifically to Des Moines. So, we will start with the RapidRide A-Line on the next slide. This route is one that we’re not actually proposing any changes to. Now, we did hear both in this body and elsewhere a desire for this route to serve Star Lake Station. We looked at this. We assessed the benefits of that increased coverage against the cost of serving that. And unfortunately, from a pure dollars and cents standpoint, it would have cost between two to three million dollars a year for us to extend the route to serve Star Lake Station and would have required us to really scale back all-day, all-week investments elsewhere. For riders who want to connect to light rail using the RapidRide A Line, northbound riders will be able to connect at Angle Lake Station and SeaTac. Southbound riders will be able to connect at Kent Station.
Moving on to our next one, we are also changing the route 156. This route goes between Highline College and Tukwila, serving a number of communities east-west. We are really increasing service on weekends and increasing the span of service, meaning the hours that that bus operates. One of the main things we heard is about providing access to the airport for shift workers who oftentimes are starting very early in the morning or their shifts end very early in the morning and start pretty late at night. So we made sure to increase those hours of operation to align with that feedback we heard around meeting shift times. We also simplified the routing through McMicken Heights in the SeaTac and Tukwila area.
The other major changes are the route 164 and route 166. Route 164 is a new frequent all-day route between Kent Station and Highline College—sorry—and Green River College down in Auburn. This is basically doubling the frequency of this very important and high ridership connection east-west. This splits the existing route 165 into two different routes. This will allow—that route was very long and had service reliability issues. Splitting it into two pieces is going to increase service reliability. That said, for existing Des Moines riders, this route will be through-routed. So every 166 trip, which is the other half of this service, will turn into a 164 trip. So that one-seat ride will still be preserved for current Des Moines residents.
We’ll move on to the 166. So this is the other half of that route. We’re also investing in additional peak period service. We heard from this body and from others about the desire to maintain peak period frequency and coverage. So, we’ve added additional peak period trips onto this route so that folks can use the 166 and then connect into either Link light rail or the RapidRide H for that connection into downtown Seattle. We also are adding based off of feedback we heard here additional stops on South 240th Street to help improve access from southern Des Moines. We looked at deviating this route further to the south. Unfortunately, that would have been a very costly reroute. It would have cost us about a million dollars a year to make that service reroute. And based off of the ridership we saw on the routes that were previously served that area, the 121 and 122, which only generated like one or two riders per trip, the impact to through-routers and to people who would be riding the 166 as well as that deviation, the cost of that deviation had us move away from looking at that.
Now we’ll talk about phase three engagement. I think we’re almost at our time. So next slide, please. We are wanting your feedback. Are these changes terrible? Are they wonderful? Is there something that we missed? Our website is the same, southconnections.com. Our engagement period is through August 31st. The survey is very short. And we have flyers. Our website and our survey is available in the 15 languages that you see on your screen. Recognizing that our communities are very diverse. And we will continue to be out in community connecting with our riders. If you all know of any events that would be helpful for us to engage in, we have flyers, we have rack cards, we have all the things to help share information.
If you go to the next slide, we do have two virtual information sessions coming up in August. One at 12 and one at six o’clock. And if we go to the next slide, I’d mentioned earlier that we have formal partnerships with community-based organizations to make sure we are conducting culturally relevant feedback. And for this period, we have two new groups that are circled in green there. African Careers and African Young Dreamers Empowerment Program International or AYDEP are helping us to engage with our community members.
And your role in this is critical. So both in sharing the information with your residents and taking the survey yourselves please and letting us know about certain events that we can come and table at so that we can reach more folks and we hope that everyone here also takes the survey. So please do share it. Please share on your social media. We’ll send you a social media toolkit so you have those resources available to you. And then really appreciate the support of Tommy on our partner review board. Thank you so much for his comments and feedback. They help shape the network and we are always here for you. So if you need any additional help, you can reach out to myself or Genevieve Jones. And that’s it. We’re happy for questions.
Questions and Discussion
Mayor Buxton: All right, Councilmember Mahoney.
Councilmember Mahoney: So first of all, my congratulations on more effort for the east-west routes rather than the north-south to complement Sound Transit. One route I noticed you missed is 635, which I use three times a week and then I take the light rail and it’s worked excellent and so forth. Obviously before we—the same thing we’ve always commented about is the Woodmont and Redondo communities still don’t have bus service and there’s never been there so I’m not sure where you’re talking 240th—it’s so far north of where most of the populace is. I would just encourage you in the future if we could even get something like 635 that does some kind of route through Redondo/Woodmont to Star Lake and maybe serves a portion of Kent as well. I think there’s a need for it. It’s never been served. So, I’m not sure how you can figure out, you know, like a demand there, but I think if you had it, there’s going to be a lot more multifamily housing coming in and those kind of things. I can get the A-Line, you know, because you want to keep it going north-south because that works. And you’re right, it can hit, but how we can get them there or get them to Star Lake is the key. So, I still think that’s missing. But I think you guys have done strong work in the rest regards. The rest of Des Moines—the north side, I guess, north of 240th is very well served. For the most part, but we’re missing that opportunity. So, thank you.
Councilmember JC Harris: Thank you. I attended the last RTC meeting and I didn’t report it out because you know I didn’t want to duplicate but there were a couple of slides there that were not here and the A Line was the first of the—and it was not an overnight success like not at all. But what was striking to me was that whoever did the graphs—it recovered from COVID faster than any of the other things. It’s already back at, you know, full strength and more. So, you know, I understand budgets being what they are. But boy, I don’t know how you build demand if you don’t invest in something that you know is gonna—there’s just going to take years to get that uptake. And I see Councilmember Mahoney’s point, but you have to get that baseline of service and then you can get the—we all want the analogous 635 for the south. And, but somehow you have to invest in that stuff even though it’s going to take years. And I’m being rhetorical here, but it’s just that message has to, you know, can’t be said enough. Thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Just a moment, councilmember. I cannot see Councilmember Grace Matsui. Oh, there she is. So, do either of you have any questions to offer? All right. Thank you. Councilmember Achziger.
Councilmember Gene Achziger: Yes. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I was just wondering, is there going to be any kind of an ongoing effort to encourage people to start taking the light rail system and all of that? And again, this ties into the question of the basically what’s a transportation desert in the Woodmont, Redondo area. It’s hard to get data when people don’t know that the availability is there. So do you have any program or anything that you’re looking at as far as literally getting people to encouraging people to start taking—you know we’ve got an investment of $2.5 billion in that light rail system. It’d be great to see it maximized.
Amanda Pleasant Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So I want to address a few things that I’ve heard today. So, Councilmember Mahoney, we absolutely hear you. We took those comments down and we keep a repository of if and when we get more resources and if and when we get our operators back up, then we can look at different services. We’re also tracking your comprehensive plans. We’re also including that in how we plan. So, as your city is changing, as you’re adding density, as you’re adding cars, we’re tracking those things so that we can think about, you know, we have a general sense of the profile of how and what and why people use transit and what it looks like. And people are using it more and more especially as we have more constraints on our roadway and more traffic that I’m sure that we sat in earlier today.
So we absolutely are doing that and then to build demand Councilmember Harris I always appreciate your comments. Yes, absolutely. I do think it’s interesting to build demand that we’ve talked about the tension before between you know how do we drive that? So do we build it first and then hope that people come? I think in a resource-rich environment that that’s certainly a strategy we can use. We’re not there right now. So, I think right now it’s how do we assess? We’re looking at the density. We’re looking at the land use. We’re looking at, you know, how are people—that’s why we do this process. We look at people’s data. We ask them where are you going? That’s the whole point of the engagements. Where do you start? Where do you end? Where do you want to go? Where do you wish the bus went? We ask them those questions so that we can start to assess where we might want to put routes.
And then Councilmember Achziger. As far as driving ridership, absolutely. We always have campaigns. So, we can’t speak to Sound Transit, but we know we work with their community relations folks all the time. Absolutely. They’re doing campaigns all the time. Over at Metro, we do youth campaigns because youth ride free. We have a free youth transit pass. So we do campaigns to get those folks on transit. We do campaigns. We do internships to so that we can build ambassadors too to get folks on the service. We also do regular, you know, ride transit. There’s going to be—Disability Rights Washington also started a week without driving campaign to get people used to experiencing what it’s like to maybe live with a disability that impacts your mobility, vision, sight to start riding transit. So we’re always having campaigns. We have staff that can come out. We have school curriculums to get people to learn how to ride transit. So if you ever want those resources, please reach out. We’re happy to teach people how to ride transit.
Deputy Mayor Harry Steinmetz: And just kind of to pick up on what we just said about the interaction with Sound Transit. I don’t know if there is any way to track where the ridership of Sound Transit, particularly the cars in the parking garages are coming from because that might give you some sense of hey these cars could be replaced with an east-west route. And so there may be some data there. I don’t know if you have any way to do that or if there’s been any outreach to Sound Transit about trying to figure that out.
Ryan Miller: Yeah, so that’s a really great point and idea. I know in the past there have been some license plate studies that Sound Transit has conducted around parked vehicles. There are limits to that kind of data. I don’t know of any plans that Sound Transit has to conduct further studies like that into the future, but it is a great potential source for information. And we’re always looking for ways as we plan services to understand where that latent demand is.
Councilmember Harris: Thank you. So, I’m just going to repeat the same little annoying data thing that I asked Genevieve and every—you’ve got this fabulous dashboard now. Okay. It’s really great. You like it? It’s way better. No, it used to not be. It’s really good, but it’s only like A Line. Yeah. Okay. And what I keep nagging about is it would be swell if you could provide some kind of little graphy thing that essentially showed each stop. I made the point about 2010 because that line snuck up on people. And I think if you just showed people how, hey man, people are actually using this stop, this stop, it gets people more comfortable and it makes just—it’s just getting people to that first ride.
Amanda Pleasant Brown: Truly, thank you. Yeah, always appreciate it. And I did pass on your comments about the dashboard, so I’m glad that you like it better now. And so I hear that. And I also I just want to make a point about tracking people and tracking information and tracking data. And so if we make that available and we let people know how many people are there at what times and what stops, I do think that we always have to balance, you know, how much to share and how much not to share. I believe that we’re sending you some information about the stop level ridership and so you will have—so we will share that with you. But as far as like making that publicly accessible, I’m willing to take that back again. But I just want to make that note.
Councilmember Harris: No, I just want to encourage people that it does grow over time and just seeing that it grows over time encourages more people to get into it.
Amanda Pleasant Brown: Well, and our best ambassadors are our riders. When people talk about the positive views on systems, when people communicate that they had a positive experience on transit, that is really how you do it. So, yes, I think that that can do it. Most people don’t go to our public dashboards, but you are the best advocates. I mean, our riders are our best advocates. So, if you had a good time on transit, letting people know is really how you get people there. There’s so many negative stories about what happens on transit, but we’re moving over a million people a week with a relatively low incident rates. I think it’s remarkable. So, sharing those stories is really powerful, too.
Councilmember Achziger: Yes, thank you. There was some talk about a possible land swap with the Federal Way School District and the Redondo Park and Ride and I was wondering if that is still in play and if that parking—if the intention is to keep that available for people that they’re—we’re probably going to have an overflow at the Star Lake station as far as parking and to have the Redondo park and ride available and people can just take the A-line straight up to the Angle Lake station would be helpful. So, has there been any movement on what’s going to happen with the Redondo park ride?
Amanda Pleasant Brown: Okay. I think we’ll have to follow up on that one. I don’t have that information tonight.
Councilmember Achziger: Thank you.
Amanda Pleasant Brown: Of course.
Mayor Buxton: Right. Just double checking with Councilmember Nutting and Councilmember Grace Matsui. Oh good. And see she’s there. Oh, no. Okay. So just some clarity for me in regard to the 635. So it wasn’t mentioned tonight talked about. Is that in a different bucket? Is that part of your research and I know this was South Link Connections and I wondered if the community connections just changed its name or so if you could clarify.
Ryan Miller: Yeah, I can clarify the distinction there. So, route 635 is not part of the scope of our South Link Connections project. Okay. It was originally a community connections project as you correctly pointed out. I worked on it myself many years ago. And I am pleased to say that it has moved from being a pilot to being a sustained service. It’s just a part—it’s now just a DART route like any other DART route in our network. We are still of course welcome any and all feedback on the 635 and we’ll use that to inform changes as part of our regular course of business of evaluating services and making sure that we and making changes based off of both demand and resource availability.
Mayor Buxton: Okay. Yeah, I was just curious why it wasn’t included in any of the maps. So, all right. That was my only question.
All right. Well, it looks like we’re good on questions. Thank you so much.
Metro Team: Thank you for having us.
Mayor Buxton: Yeah. Thank you for having us. And I have to say, as you were talking about the Sound Transit, I realized I introduced you all as Sound Transit. I’m really sorry. I know you’re King County Metro. Hopefully that is not the first time somebody has—
Metro Team: Won’t be the first. Wasn’t the first. Won’t be the last.
Mayor Buxton: Okay. No, everyone thinks we’re the same, but we’re different.
Metro Team: You are different, but you’re both important and you’re King County Metro.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you want this off?
All right. So, that’s all for the city manager’s report.
Consent Agenda
Mayor Buxton: Next up is our consent agenda. Could the city clerk please read the consent agenda?
City Clerk: Item one, approval of vouchers. Item two, approval of minutes. Item three, anti-cruising ordinance, second reading. Item four, telecommunications franchise agreement with Hyperfiber, second reading. Item five, 2025 Department of Ecology local solid waste financial assistance agreement. And that concludes the consent agenda.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you so much. Do I have a motion? It looks like I do.
Councilmember Nutting: I move to approve the consent calendar as read.
Mayor Buxton: Second?
Councilmember Mahoney: Second.
Mayor Buxton: Is there an item that a councilmember wishes to pull?
Councilmember Achziger: Yes. I’d like to pull item three.
Mayor Buxton: Right. Thank you. Any other item? All right. With no other items pulled, we will now be considering consent items one, two, four, and five as read. All in favor raise your right hand. That’s unanimous. 7-0. Thank you very much.
Item Three Discussion – Anti-Cruising Ordinance
Mayor Buxton: So I will now pass the discussion to Councilmember Achziger to address item number three.
Councilmember Achziger: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I’d like to propose an amendment. I move to amend section four of draft ordinance 25-065 to add a subsection six to read as follows: “any vehicle taking part in a city sanctioned cruising event.” And then also to amend subsection two of section two of draft ordinance 25-065 to add the following: “Designation of the chief of police under this subsection shall expire after 30 days unless terminated earlier by the chief of police or by adopted motion of the city council.”
Mayor Buxton: Okay. So, that’s a motion for an amendment. Do I have a second?
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: Second.
Mayor Buxton: Second from the deputy mayor. Discussion?
Councilmember Achziger: Yes. Always when you have, you know, we present legislation, there’s an opportunity to come back and see if we can, you know, make it better. And in this case, putting the information about allowing sanctioned events sends a message that there are—we do have groups in the community that have vintage cars and they hold sometimes authorized, sometimes unauthorized cruising events. And this would be an opportunity for them to come in and be sanctioned and to know that you know there is a process for them to be able to legally not run afoul of our anti-cruising ordinance. And then the second thing is simply a matter of putting a limit on the power of the chief of police as far as determining whether or not a no cruising order is proper and I think that’s part of the responsibility of the council at least after 30 days that we should weigh in on that sort of thing. So those are my comments for proposing these.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. Deputy Mayor Steinmetz.
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: Yeah, I also support these amendments. One for the sanctioned events because that’s going to encourage sanctioning. And you know, sometimes those are fun things. I remember we had a motorcycle club that came through town once that was actually pretty spectacular to see them all come through town once and they did a circle around the town. So, it could potentially fall into the ordinance. So, I think there’s a reason to want them to contact the city and have that sanctioned. Two is the 30-day limit. As much as I like Chief Boa and I can’t imagine him ever abusing power, you don’t write for individuals. You write legislation that could be enacted by any individual somewhere down the road. And it’s always a good idea to put limits on the power that you grant people. That’s just good drafting of amendments. And so, you may recall that I had proposed two council meetings. That was a little awkward for most and would have created a very difficult timeline. And so I think that the 30 days probably just makes it clear how long the chief can propose an area to be anti-cruising without some action from the city council and I think that’s an appropriate limit to put on that. So I wholeheartedly endorse this amendment.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. Councilmember Grace Matsui.
Councilmember Grace Matsui: Hello. So, I just wanted to say I’ll also be supporting this amendment and I want to say thank you to the other councilmembers who proposed the amendments because I think they do enhance the ordinance and we’ve had the opportunity to take a look at it because of the two touches and I think that it’ll be a better product because of that process. So, thank you very much to your work on that.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you, Councilmember Achziger.
Councilmember Achziger: Yes. And I just want—we mentioned this at the last meeting is to you know caution as with regard to people’s perception that this might be you know enforced draconianly or anything. We are sorely pressed for resources and so it’s—I view it as just another tool in the toolbox should it be necessary for the police to deal with some of the other problems we’re having. And so but not to you know this—it’s a tool it’s not a panacea here. So thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. In short, we hope that there won’t be Facebook posts that say, “There’s a law. How come they’re not enforcing it?” And so it but it is a tool. And so I think our police officers are going to be able to have some great discretion and appreciate the opportunity. Okay. Any other comments before we take a vote on the amendment?
Pardon. Did we read? I thought we had a second. Deputy mayor got the second. Sorry. So, all in favor of the amendment, raise your right hand. Councilmember Grace Matsui, Councilmember Nutting, Councilmember Achziger, Councilmember Mahoney, Deputy Mayor Steinmetz, and myself. All opposed?
Councilmember Harris: Opposed.
Mayor Buxton: Motion passes for the amendment. And now we have a motion for the ordinance itself and pardon. Yeah, as amended. So since the amendment has already been—Okay, go ahead if you want to.
Councilmember Achziger: I move that we that the council pass on second reading draft ordinance 25-065 as amended.
Mayor Buxton: Do I have a second?
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: Second.
Mayor Buxton: Deputy Mayor Steinmetz for the second. Any further discussion or comments?
Councilmember Harris: Thank you. And I do appreciate the second touch and for the opportunity to vote no. It is unenforceable. People will complain because for that reason and you know until we have the resources to enforce it this is simply something that will stay on the books and then when there is automation it will likely go to a bad place. But I completely am very sensitive to the concerns that people have in—it’s just having another ordinance. You know, it’s putting the cart before the horse and I’m hoping that next year we can provide the actual human beings that will provide the things that people want. Thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Any other comments or discussion? All right. All in favor, raise your right hand. Councilmember Grace Matsui, Councilmember Nutting, Councilmember Achziger, Councilmember Mahoney, Deputy Mayor Steinmetz, and myself, all opposed.
Councilmember Harris: Opposed.
Mayor Buxton: Motion passes 6-1. All right. Thank you very much.
New Business – Citizens Advisory Board Ordinance
Mayor Buxton: Next up is new business and the item number one under that is citizens advisory board ordinance and looks like we have a presentation from Terravon.
Terravon (Legal Department): Yes, good evening. Thank you, council. Mayor, deputy mayor, Terravon from the legal department here to present the first reading of draft ordinance 25-062.
So a little bit of background with the newly created airport committee and planning commission, there are nine appointed committees in the city. So in order to reduce the need for staffing each of those as well as to make the best use of the members of those committees, the city council has elected to make the human services, senior services and arts subcommittees of a citizens advisory board renamed such from citizen advisory committee.
So this is the old organization. Part of this draft ordinance would repeal the arts, human services, and senior services ordinances. And the new organization of this would look like this. With those as subcommittees of the citizens advisory board.
As for the structure of the board itself, council wanted to continue with the 12 neighborhood seats, which includes the nine neighborhoods and two business owners and a marina tenant. We also have it structured that it would allow up to 11 at-large seats. The number 11 comes from the fact that that is what council approved. There are currently 11 at-large members. We would like it to read up to that number because we believe going over that number could reduce the efficacy and efficiency of the board.
For the structure of the subcommittees, we’re proposing a minimum of three members, a maximum of nine members. We believe this would maintain efficiency but also allow them to accomplish the goals and the duties of those subcommittees.
For terms, we’re proposing four-year terms, up to two four-year terms, but with initial terms of two and four years. That way we’re not having to replace all of the members on the board all at once. That would reduce the requirements of staff and it would ensure continuity on the board with some people understanding what’s already going on.
It’s already in the city code under DMMC 2.24 for the appointed committees, but we reiterated again in this draft ordinance that you can serve two consecutive terms and then you must remain off for at least two years before you can reapply for the board. We’re not proposing any term limits for subcommittees. We believe that the term limit for just the regular board is sufficient to limit terms on subcommittees.
And given this new structure with subcommittees, we are proposing a workflow where subcommittees would meet independently as needed. Then report to the board who could then either adopt the subcommittee recommendations or draft separate recommendations to relate to city council. The board when needed would elect a member at their meetings to take their recommendations to the city council.
And as I mentioned, this is just the first reading. So the motion would be to move it on to a second reading, but I’m happy to take any questions.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. Councilmember Harris.
Councilmember Harris: And forgive me if I’m being sloppy, but who selects the presiding officer of the committee as a whole?
Terravon: I believe the presiding officer would be the mayor.
Councilmember Harris: Okay. And no, I think that’s it.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you, Councilmember Achziger.
Councilmember Achziger: So, could you clarify right now there are three members of the council sit on the CAB and is that going to remain? And it is a change though that the presiding officer right now is the deputy mayor and this will now change to the mayor being the—
Terravon: No technically as it is written now it is the mayor. I think she’s given those duties to the deputy mayor. So it there is no change for this ordinance with regard to that.
Councilmember Achziger: Okay. Okay. So, there will be still be three members of the council that are—
Terravon: Yes. Chapter 4.24 requires three council members for each appointed committee.
Councilmember Achziger: Thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Right. Any—I cannot see councilmember Nutting. Either of you have any questions? Okay. Councilmember Harris.
Councilmember Harris: So you know some of the existing committees human services and such recommend grants typically to directly to—does this envision that recommendation from the new subcommittee would then go to the full CAB committee.
Terravon: Right. Correct. And then the CAB committee would make that recommendation to the city council.
Councilmember Harris: That’s correct. Okay. So that’s not ambiguous. I mean, I’m just making sure we all understand, right? That’s the proposed workflow is that subcommittees would report to the CAB and then the CAB would take recommendations to the council.
Terravon: And one last thing, again, I may be lazy, but what—Okay. So, how I’m just—No, I think—No, I think that’s it.
Mayor Buxton: Questions or discussion? I would like to propose an amendment that the presiding officer for this committee is the deputy mayor. And here’s why. We have moved to a system of committee of the whole which means now councilmembers do not basically do not preside over committee. So there’s no—they don’t have that opportunity of leadership there. And so that means the COW which we call it is—I preside over that. I preside over the meeting or the mayor—the mayor presides over that and now the mayor presides over this as well. And I think it’s a good leadership practice to give opportunity to the councilmembers for things like this. So I don’t see and it’s not a—it’s not super complicated. There’s not a lot of tension or possibilities for liability. I mean, there’s just a lot of good reasons that it would be I feel it would be fine to hand the baton over to the deputy mayor. So, that’s I would like to offer that amendment up. So, I move that amendment for that amendment.
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: I second it.
Mayor Buxton: Second. So, I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on that?
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: Yeah, I just think it’s great the deputy mayor has something else to do besides chair the meeting if the mayor gets in an accident. It just creates something else that is specific to that position. And I think it’s—I’ve enjoyed and I’ve appreciated you know the fact that the mayor has asked me to preside over those meetings and I think it is everything that she said it’s a good opportunity to learn. So thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Right. Any other discussion or questions? All right. So, we have a motion and a second to amend for the deputy mayor to preside over the CAB. All in favor raise your right hand. Okay. Councilmember Grace Matsui, Councilmember Nutting, Councilmember Achziger, Councilmember Mahoney, Deputy Mayor Steinmetz, and myself. All opposed.
Councilmember Harris: (Opposed)
Mayor Buxton: Motion passes 6-1. So, so that amendment goes forward in then it’ll appear for the second reading.
Terravon: Yes.
Mayor Buxton: Okay, great. Pardon? No, it’s—Oh, that’s right. It hasn’t been voted on to move to the—Okay. So, do I have a motion for the—
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: Yes. I move to pass draft ordinance number 25-062 as amended to second reading on September 11, 2025.
Mayor Buxton: Who said second?
Councilmember Mahoney: Second.
Mayor Buxton: Councilmember Mahoney for the second. Any discussion?
Councilmember Harris: I will vote no on this. It basically—it’s well intentioned but as it is set up it turns the—into something political. And it goes against my goal of trying to create a broader range of participation throughout the city. Even though it sounds counterintuitive, but by increasing it to 23 potential contestants, it will have the exact opposite effect in that regard. I just that’s just what it’s going to be. So, thank you.
Councilmember Mahoney: Getting this reinstated back when I was mayor was important and being on the citizens advisory committee now citizens advisory board I found it a great opportunity for and well structured to give all neighborhoods a chance at representation and the at-large bids I wouldn’t call political I would call it opportunity for expertise to also enter in for an example I know the human services board. Some of those members are very well qualified in particular aspects of evaluating charities and the funding and so forth. So I think it gives a great opportunity to get neighborhood representation and business representation and then bring in some expertise and it’s been a good fold. It was—it’s worked well. It continues to be refined and worked better and I think it accommodates a little bit less staff time which is important as well. So I’m going to support it.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. Deputy Mayor Steinmetz.
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: Yeah, I’m obviously supporting this in addition to increased representation, but also take having the ability to take advantage of some of the expertise of the people that do exist in the city and invite them into this advisory process. I think what’s really important is that the committee itself as it has existed before this ordinance has been involved in the process of giving its feedback and advising on that for two to three meetings and this has been as we’re trying to get started again this year. exactly what we’re trying to do and make sure that you know those that really want to be involved have that voice. And this is a voice for the community to be involved not only at the neighborhood level but there are some at-large members that you know have shown up shared we’ve invited past members to participate in the discussion and share their views. We’ve invited current members and then we will—it’s been a constant process of refinement and that’s really a good process and there may be some more refining that we do later on but this is the legislative process. This is how these things work and this is a good step forward as we are determining how it is that we want to formalize citizens advice to the council in these matters. Thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Okay, Councilmember Nutting or Councilmember Grace Matsui checking in with you. All right. I think it’s a fabulous opportunity even if it doesn’t work right. You know sometimes people you look at a problem in front of you a problem can be a gift and I think that this is a grand opportunity for more people to come in become involved in this process and it’s an educational opportunity for everybody who participates. It’s eye-opening for them to people from the community come in. So whether it works perfectly or not, whether it’s clunky or not, as to echo Deputy Mayor Steinmetz, there’s plenty of opportunity to amend it and tweak the system and how we’re doing it moving forward. And all those voices will have an opportunity to do that. It also it’s so interesting is to give all of those participants the experience of being on a panel when people disagree and how to work through that and move through it and for them to feel what it feels like to be up here and it breeds empathy and compassion for the process. So I love it and I love it even in a way if it doesn’t work well because that’s a learning experience as well and so yeah I’m looking forward to it looking forward to the future system.
So looks like that’s it. So all in favor raise your right hand. Councilmember Grace Matsui, Councilmember Nutting, Councilmember Achziger, Councilmember Mahoney, Deputy Mayor Steinmetz and myself all opposed.
Councilmember Harris: (Opposed)
Mayor Buxton: Motion passes 6-1. Great. All right.
Council Member Reports
Mayor Buxton: So, next up, moving toward the end of a pretty short meeting tonight, is Councilmember reports. First up is Councilmember Nutting.
Councilmember Nutting: Thank you, Mayor. I have nothing.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Harris.
Councilmember Harris: Thank you. As I said, I attended the regional transit committee meeting as part of SCA. I also attended the King County Flood Control District, which I didn’t report out on because we’re having another meeting in a couple of weeks and then there will be something to mention. I also attended the Highline forum along—in person and there was an excellent public comment from the vice chair of the Burien airport committee and apparently the Burien city council is formally objecting to the port sound insulation program and is considering some kind of alternative. It’s an excellent idea. As the mayor said, the port can certainly afford it, out of the pocket change in their slacks. But, you know, the thing he didn’t mention is that the city of Des Moines has almost three times as many port packages as Burien. And we’ve got more than our share of issues.
The other thing I wanted to mention from that is that the city of SeaTac—two notable things they are rebuilding their civic campus and it’s going to be at least $120 million and the fact that they can finance $120 million should tell you something about the inequity. And beyond that, they are also working out a deal with the Port of Seattle to finance purchase of North SeaTac Park. And you know, the Port of Seattle is going to end up paying for it. And so there to tag on to something the you know the mayor implied—the city of SeaTac did not—they weren’t given anything. They worked on these kinds of agreements to benefit their city from the airport and they worked on it for 40 years. It’s not because of an accident of geography or God or anything like that. They kept pushing every year. The port would say no to various things. But over time you work at it and you get something. The challenge for the Burien airport committee and I’m sorry that Mr. DeLacey left. Our airport committee has always been figuring out what is possible and then asking for it and having a continuity where you keep coming back every year until you achieve something rather than just standing up an ad hoc committee every couple of years and then, you know, walking away with disappointment. This is a very long game thing. But the fact that SeaTac is just killing it right now should be something that we’re taking note of and that’s why I appreciate going to the Highline Forum. Thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you, Councilmember Achziger.
Councilmember Achziger: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. All I can say is with the events of last week is wow. It was really encouraging and very motivational to see the cooperation between citizens, social groups and the city in trying to bring some entertainment to our kids. But I think also lifting the spirits of the entire city going forward. We’ve got some challenges coming and when you feel when you feel good about yourselves then you know that goes a long way to fostering the cooperation that we’re going to need in order to proceed to address some of the serious questions we have financial questions.
To the legacy foundation I—I’m a member of the board so this is I hope this doesn’t sound self-serving. But you know the dedication to making the you know being a positive force in this city and helping you know those that are not necessarily able to help themselves is truly inspiring. Every session now for more than 60 years we’ve had the destination Des Moines project which is waterland and stuff that brings the city together to really make this this feeling of family and all of the associated groups and then having the city you know chime in and you know participate on all these events. There’s nowhere to go. I mean, it’s, you know, inspirational that we’re going to figure things out and we’re going to proceed. And I just want to thank everybody for their participation. I’m sure that some of my remaining commenters are going to have some praise for the whole situation, but I’m incredibly impressed and thank you. Thankful.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Mahoney.
Councilmember Mahoney: Thank you, Mayor. I unfortunately missed last weekend. I would have a good reason. I took a bucket list trip to the Galapagos Islands where I got to dive and see hammerheads and whales and dolphins and wonderful incredible things much like what our waterfront offers here. But I want to thank the deputy mayor here because I attended the parade meetings and helped to try to give my logic. If anybody knows I was one of the ones that facilitated the parade for several years and it was good to see some of the passing of the torch and knowledge. My advice was my biggest strongest advice was get a drink at the end of the event because you’re going to need it. And I think they all found it as anybody who puts on events knows they’re not easy. It’s very few volunteers. It’s a lot of effort. But the return particularly the parade itself and of course this kids event was it continues to grow it really shows you what the community mix and make is and that’s awesome and I and I’m thrilled.
I do will compliment the city. You have done an excellent job from the drone show which we forgot to really mention on the 10th. I’ve realized that after all the way up and through this event and it’s the leadership that has been embraced it and I want to say thank you to you as well as the organizations that help put it on and the citizens. I will encourage some of the residents if you do have critique about the events please become part of the committees and every time I ask that the voices go away. So, I’d like to see some of them come forward because if you’ve got great input or energy, these organizations could sure use you.
The Six Gill Shark Capital World continues to gain momentum. Next week on Wednesday, I’ll be doing an interview with Highline College. And on Friday, Russ Higgley and I will be doing diving and an interview with Channel 13 to continue to promote the event. And so I’m excited about what that brings. And I’ll be down at the farmers market on Saturday with a few with the mayor and the deputy mayor. And so come by, say hi, chat with us. And looking forward to the rest of the summer. Oh, and don’t forget, Blues and Brews, you got to get your tickets. August 23rd, Rotary’s putting it on.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you, Councilmember Grace Matsui.
Councilmember Grace Matsui: Thank you very much. I would say ditto and double what everyone has said so far about all the events that we have seen in the month of July which has been a tremendous lift for our community for our city staff and organizations and so thank you to everyone who participated everyone who was an organizer volunteer it’s been like Gene said very or councilmember very uplifting to see the participation and how many folks got involved. I know that I’m looking forward to having an August that’s a little quieter and I have a feeling that the city staff will as well. But again, thank you so much for your support. I think that many of us felt like this year would be a community building and a bridge building year and I think these really have shown in the way that the city and how the community have turned out in these events. So, thank you.
Mayor Buxton: Excellent. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Steinmetz.
Deputy Mayor Steinmetz: Yeah, it’s been a busy July, that’s for sure. So, you know, we’ve had the farmers market, which is just growing great guns and compliments to the farmers market board and staff of volunt—well not staff, they’re all volunteers that are really running. I had the opportunity to go to two other farmers markets recently, both in one in Tacoma, one in West Seattle. I think ours is much better. Not only is the layout much better, you know, it’s just it’s a different vibe and having it down by the water makes it much more of a community event rather than just a get in, get out and go. So, really you’re doing a wonderful job.
I do want to note Shark in the Park was a fabulous success as part of the Six Gill Shark Capital. The Redondo community really really came through and I want to compliment everybody on that from you know getting out there with you know cleaning the sidewalks and picking up all the trash and really cleaning out Wooten Park and making it look wonderful and beautiful to you know the various booths that were down there. You saw in the video some of the legacy booths that were down there. A lot of different things were there to make it a very successful event and I think it really exceeded expectations. I don’t know how many were there but it was hundreds literally hundreds and that was really amazing.
One of my favorite things is yoga on the deck. This is at Sound View Park. We have that beautiful deck out there every other Saturday during the summer. We have yoga on the deck at 10:30 and I would highly recommend it if you’ve never done yoga before. It’s kind of a fun place to go do it. If you have done yoga before, you’ll get a pretty good workout in. And so it’ll be out there. I think it’s this Saturday one more time.
We also had the official ribbon cutting for Second Love Coffee which is a new coffee shop in town. It is in the theater. It is wonderful coffee. They’ve invented—well they’ve introduced me to something entirely new called a coffee tonic. Which is great and now I’m thoroughly addicted to it. But you know welcome to the community. I’m glad they are now a brick and mortar business and not just a popup or a farmers market regular.
I attended the South Sound Alliance meeting, which is a group of—well, I’m on the policy side of that, which is a group of elected officials here in the South Sound that all get together and talk about economic development policies and making sure we’re not stepping on each other’s toes, talking about where we’re going with that. And it really is a great interchange of ideas and boy, everybody’s getting really excited for FIFA because this is going to be a lot more people coming into into our city.
Circling, you know, I got to thank Councilmember Mahoney for suckering me into the parade. My little piece of the parade was to get the VIPs all lined up and you can imagine that’s cat wrangling would be the reference and a constantly changing set of cats. But it was ultimately we pulled off—the Des Moines Yacht Club provided six boats four of which were classic wooden boats super comfortable, super nice, just a joy to ride in. The other two were also comfortable and nice and you know not to diminish that but you know and they were pulled through. They got drivers for the trucks. It was really just a great job and I really want to thank the Des Moines Yacht Club for helping us put all that together.
Of course I talked too long. I had a meeting with the city manager. I went to the good eggs breakfast put on by Peter Reicher. We saw the state treasurer Mike Pellicciotti there and got a good update on the state finances. And then of course we’ll be doing council chat at the market. But I do want to echo this has been a really busy July and the staff has come through amazingly well and I just want to give my compliments to everybody. It’s so much appreciated. It makes all of these events and with these community groups function so much better and it has been a really uplifting thing for the city. And so everybody involved including and especially the staff know that your part that you’re playing in this is really important to make it all work for the city. So thank you all very much.
Mayor Buxton: Thank you. Well, I am floating on the thankfulness. I’m loving it so much. Not only up here tonight, but out in the community. This was more my ending comments, but it’s just such a good segue moment. Out on—I just hope it becomes in vogue to be thankful instead of clamor to see who can come up with the criticism first out on social media. It was incredible to go out on the socials and see the thankfulness for the activities, especially this weekend. And you know the refrain and then the courage of certain citizens actually to step up and go toe-to-toe with a little bit of negativity out there just inviting people like Councilmember Mahoney said inviting people to go ahead and volunteer and how much all of the things that happen in our community that are fantastic like this it’s all volunteer power and so yeah I mean, same thing. I mean, I want to join in with the with the popular thing to do tonight is to be thankful for DDM and Legacy and the print place for printing everything for free. It it’s lovely and my heart is encouraged. I hope that this rides the wave here.
I participated in a gajillion things in the last few weeks. For the sake of brevity, just I’m hoping that you’ll all catch the mayor’s minute. I put it out twice a month. It’s like a photo album of things that I—people I meet and talk with and all that. And you can subscribe to get that. But some of the highlights are I had the pleasure of meeting with some Wesley folks a couple times in the last couple weeks. I just appreciate them so much. I also visited this really cool business in town called Ages and Stages. And a lot of people think it’s a daycare, but it’s a preschool. And it was so fabulously organized as a school for littles. I mean, there were alphabets on the wall and all sorts of organized things to touch and learn from four months up to four years. So appreciated that opportunity to see that really great little school in the middle of our town.
Music in the Park has started and it is so fun. I mean, people spend a lot of money and to travel a long ways to be in a venue like that to look at the water and sit on the grass and listen to music and have food and drink so close. I mean, there are concert venues where you’d have to walk for a half an hour to get the food and they even have the band themed hamburgers. Every week they are going to have a special hamburger dedicated to the band of the night. So, I just super impressed with music in the park.
Gosh, I’m just feeling thankful. So, to the staff, to the community, to my colleagues, and so with that, I hope I didn’t forget anything. That would be just like me. But, this concludes our meeting for the evening. So, our next meeting date will be August 7th as it will be a regular city council business meeting. Please remember to pick up after yourself on your way out. And Councilmember Nutting, do we have a motion?
Councilmember Nutting: Yes, Mayor. I move that we close the meeting.
Mayor Buxton: Have a second?
Councilmember Mahoney: Second.
Mayor Buxton: All in favor say aye.
All Council: Aye.
Mayor Buxton: Looks like it’s unanimous. 7-0. Thank you so much.
Meeting adjourned
This is a machine-generated transcript generated on the fly by Google/Youtube/AI. Accuracy totally not guaranteed. Provided only as a convenience and to help people with disabilities. Caveat lector!
1This is a machine-generated transcript generated on the fly by Google/Youtube/AI. Accuracy totally not guaranteed. Provided only as a convenience and to help people with disabilities. Caveat lector!