Categories Policy

Happy New Year

No, it’s not Des Moines. This image is from the Seattle Times Pictures of the Year 2022. So. What. This is my fave image of the year. I’ll tell ya why and I’ll tell ya why I’m tellin’ ya why.

I like this image because, gotta be honest, after a few years in public life I’ve seen enough perfect sunsets over the Olympics and people hugging their kids and just gushing over their pets to last a lifetime. I generally do not get weak-kneed over 1animals. Or babies.  Or row upon row of masts and docks in the moonlight. 😀

But this guy? He is just crazy about his new wife. Now that’s my kinda guy. Almost nothing jazzes me more than seeing adults, friends, spouses, show genuine, over the top, affection for one another. And I strongly recommend scheduling at least one equally embarrassing romantic gesture in 2023. 🙂

I’m tellin’ ya this here for two reasons:

  • Because this picture demonstrates the kind of youthful, positive, almost giddy energy that should be more of our city’s future. I am not kidding. For me, this piccie is a serious policy discussion we should be having in Des Moines.
  • Also, during my tenure I’ve heard a certain amount of (cough) ‘criticism’  which centers around being ‘against change’. And nothing could be further from the truth. Frankly? Often the most transformative thing one can do is to avoid making bad decisions. As my father-in-law said (about a billion times 😀 ) “You cannot help people if you don’t have any money. So don’t waste it.”

For being considered such a ‘middle of the road’ city, over the past sixty years, we’ve made some extremely impulsive decisions when it comes to economic development. And as a result, we’ve made some absolutely terrible mistakes. But they’re hard to talk about for several reasons:

  • First of all because the place was/is so stonkin’ blessed that we could screw up and it was still a great place to live.
  • Second, there’s no ‘undo key’ on these kinds of big decisions so why complain, right?
  • Thirdly, unless you’re an urban planner, you probably don’t even notice that they are mistakes. You move here and see the place ‘as is’, not ‘what it might have been.’
  • And finally, because many of us know one another, it always seems impolite to ‘disagree in public.’ We’d rather ‘go along’ than stoke public division. The amount of nonsense we’ve tolerated just to get along is pretty impressive.

But now, things are more serious. And we simply cannot tolerate any more major mistakes. The world is fundamentally changing and whether you like it or not there is no going back. We really do have to ‘move forward’ on a lot of issues that we’ve been avoiding for a very long time.

  • Property crime was something we (somehow) just learned to ‘accept.’ And now the violent crime is back. And yet, we have a third fewer police officers than just fifteen years ago.
  • We have major storm events now all the time. Fall and Spring. They will continue to be an increasing burden on our City in terms of cost and public safety. But we keep acting like they’re ‘hundred year events’ and keep kicking the can down the road on infrastructure.
  • We have airport noise and pollution now that was not even imagined when the Third Runway opened in 2008. Those aviation-specific health impacts are hurting your children and will likely lower your life-expectancy. And yet we’ve received not one dollar of relief from the Port in thirty years. In fact, they have unmet promises left over from 1996! We should be collecting on those now. Instead, a long time ago we adopted a policy of ‘cooperation’ hoping that it would create some form of ‘economic boom’ in this town. It did not happen with the Des Moines Creek Business Park and it will not happen at the Marina. Rather, we should simply insist that they pay what they owe. But the topic isn’t even on our Legislative Agenda.
  • We have a public school system that was in the top 10%. It is now in the bottom 10%.
  • We have a housing crisis that largely comes down to the fact that the mortgage payment on my four bedroom house is less than the rent on a one bedroom apartment. And you can rent out that four bedroom house for three times a mortgage payment.
  • And yet for all the dramatic increases to property assessments, Des Moines has to jack up utility taxes to the max just to keep the lights on. Again, we’ve tolerated a deeply unfair tax system for far too long. Unfair to you. Unfair to the City. But the topic isn’t even on our Legislative Agenda.
  • We used to have 40% tree coverage. Now it’s 29%. And falling. Again, a lot of that is on the Port of Seattle and their economic development. But the topic isn’t even on our Legislative Agenda.
  • We have far fewer parks and rec programs than we did ten years ago. In a City with so many kids, that is unconscionable. We haven’t built a significant park in the south end of town since those areas became part of Des Moines. But the topic isn’t even on our Legislative Agenda.
  • We talk about selling off a piece of the Marina in order to entice a developer to build a hotel nobody wants. Residents say, “Build it on Marine View Drive!” The City cannot make that happen. But no one seems to ask a basic question: If a developer could make money with a hotel anywhere, don’t you think they would have proposed it already?
  • There is a constant drumbeat about ‘economic development’ which comes down to the same issues as parks and rec: more restaurants, more amenities, more entertainment. And yet we’re a City without a dedicated business recruitment or development department. The only campaigns we’ve sponsored seem to be for the ferry pilot.

The counter-argument

My colleagues  are definitely responding to some of this, most notably with the ferry and hotel ideas. But a lot of it they simply reject, and some of their efforts have been simply optical.

But when it comes to economic development? I understand their impatience. Truly. But the lack of ‘progress’, whether real or imagined is what stokes that impulsivity I spoke of before. (We actually had a fairly good  start on a small business environment in 2007–it generated almost as much sales tax as in 2019! What we failed to do was support it through the Great Recession.)

The Marina

Fundamentally, I disagree with my colleagues on the current Marina Redevelopment proposals. But not because I’m against doing something and people who want to frame the discussion as “doing nothing” are gaslighting. I fully agree that we need to take action now.

It’s just that the ‘somethings’ my colleagues have proposed are, once again, all impulsive. And if they had been rolled out in a transparent way, I believe that everyone else would have realised long ago that ideas like a ferry and a boutique hotel simply do not hold up to scrutiny. And then I could be more like that guy in the picture. 🙂

However, we do agree on a lot; more than enough to keep the City fully occupied while we formulate a better plan.

  • We all agree on updating the docks
  • We all agree on finishing the update to the seawall
  • We all agree that the basic concept of a Marina Steps is good.
  • And we all agree that the parking lots are severely under-utilised and have been for over a decade. All that asphalt space sits largely empty most of the week. Brings in no money. Terrible for the environment. Lose, lose.

Where we disagree is on what to do with all that space. That will be the discussion for 2023; not “do or not do.” (Which kinda sounds like Yoda, right? 😀 )

Age before beauty…

But I’m gonna drop the bomb here as to the real issue concerning long term economic development in Des Moines–and the reason I led this article with that piccie. This is one of those very touchy ‘conversations you cannot have’. It’s Age. We’re all too damned old. (No, not you. You’re fine just the way you are. You look great, by the way. Have you lost some weight? 😀 )

It’s your government and your management. We think ‘old’. We’re stuck in a time-warp. The average age of our residents is thirty nine and dropping. We’re a typical ‘family age’ and typically diverse community.

But consider almost everything the City tends to focus on–including every aspect of the current Marina proposals. The Ferry Pilot was overwhelmingly used by Seniors. The boutique hotel concept? Face it, it targets ‘people of a certain age.’ And why not? Most people who pay for moorage now are members of both DMMA and AARP, if you know what I’m sayin’ :D. We tend not to think like or cater to the majority of people who actually live here now and will be our community’s future. And that matters. We’re say we want to be a ‘destination’. But everything we’re actually doing seems to be designed to keep attracting the same energy we’ve always had. Just more of it. If that is what voters want? Cool. But…

If you want a truly thriving Des Moines, you have to figure out what attracts that young couple and that kind of energy to Des Moines.

The Des Moines Theater

When it opens, it will be very interesting to see the kinds of acts the new Theater will book. In fact, I would use the Theater as the weather vane for all downtown development. If they are as successful as we expect? That will be great information, with very strong signals as how best to tailor our entire marketing program. And in fact, I would encourage my colleagues (and the City) to wait for those signals before doing anything further at the Marina besides replacing the needed infrastructure (seawall, docks.) Let the market tell you what to do.

Me? I’m a happy clam. I got my 25 years in of sailing and cavorting all over Puget Sound–back when fishing was great and traffic was manageable. I’ve had more than my share of over-the-top romantic gestures. 😀 It’s the next generation I’m thinking about.

Accomplishments? What Accomplishments?

During 2022 I proposed a good deal of legislation. It was detailed, well-researched, but given the current climate, not much of it went anywhere. Shocking, right? 😀

But these are good ideas and this is a long game. We need a Council that can listen and compromise–not just with me, but also with you. Our job is to lead, but it’s also to be responsive and follow the data.

Here is the short list of ideas I have proposed to address the issues I have raised above. I will continue to work on them, on your behalf, in 2023:

  • A new mobile-first web site with…
    • Dedicated public safety, animal control and customer service apps.
    • Public calendar, not just of City events, but for all items of interest
    • Neighbourhood-specific stats on crime and economic performance
  • Transparency and Public Engagement
    • Regular reporting from all our advisory groups
    • Reinstate a Citizen-led Public Planning Commission
    • Reinstate the Council Marina Committee
    • Reinstate the Council Finance/Administrative Committee (which would provide oversight of both the web site and administration policies)
  • Economic Development
    • Create a Business development/recruitment/marketing position. This person would develop a cohesive marketing strategy for recruiting new businesses and helping our existing businesses thrive.
  • A new director-level position of Environmental Strategist. This person would manage our negotiations and lobbying on all issues pertaining to the airport and all agencies regarding trees, air, and water quality. On a practical level, as far back as 1976, the Port of Seattle has promised real revenue sharing, sound insulation and air quality improvements. The most transformational thing we could ever do for Des Moines would be to hold them accountable for those promises–not continue to ask for tiny one-time grants or make huge mistakes like the 2Des Moines Creek Business Park.

I would have to say that my biggest accomplishment(s) in 2022 was getting you engaged in the process. More people showed up for meetings and started speaking out on more issues than have done in a very long time. And given how hard the City has made it for residents to participate? You deserve a round of applause. Well done, Des Moines!

As I said, often the most transformative thing you can do is to help government avoid making big mistakes. Being patient is not the same thing as being against moving forward. You need to get it right the first time in local government because there are very few do-overs. (And anyone who tells you otherwise is probably suggesting something that might need a do-over. 😀 )

I posted my legislative ideas because I’ve seen how successful you have been in 2022. So I’m asking for you help. If you think these are good ideas, you will get them over the line.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. 🙂

1Well, except for these guys, but you know, just once in a while. 😀

2Talk about impulse control, we started negotiating that major give-away while we were suing the Port over the Third Runway! That was the beginning of the “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!” school of trickle-down economics.

Share this:

Share on SMS