On August 18, 2016, the Marina District was so overrun with visitors that your City Council decided to take immediate and decisive action!
But then, only a month later, the City asked them to, ya know, maybe re-think that? It was all to do with one of these newfangled phone app games that all the kids were playing called Pokémon GO. In the words of then Harbormaster Joe Dusenberry :
...By the end of July there were large crowds in the Marina every day and many of them played the game well into the early morning hours, ignoring the 10:00 pm closure for the Beach Park and the Marina parking lots. Early attempts by the Police Department to clear the lots resulted in many of the trainers moving their vehicles to Anthony's parking lot and walking back into the Marina to continue playing. While there was not a noticeable increase in vandalism, graffiti or property damage, the large crowds were noisy and did generate more litter than normal. Because the game requires the players to move around while looking at their mobile device the biggest public safety issue was the large numbers of trainers wandering around the parking lots and traffic lanes staring at their phones or pads and not paying attention to surrounding traffic. Additionally, there were some vehicle drivers distracted by their attention to the game. As a result of the large crowds, police resources were redirected to the Marina to insure safety and orderly conduct. Based on these issues and citizen complaints, the City Council voted on August 18, 2016 to direct staff to contact Niantic, Inc. and "opt-out" all City property and right of way for the game Pokemon Go.
My friends and I watched all this from the docks or having a g&t at Anthony’s and more than one wag said words to the effect,
Well. Now we know what would happen if Des Moines really became a “Destination! 😀
Which was very true. How both the public and the City Council reacted to having so much new ‘activity’ is worth watching the first video (below.) Councilmember Nutting’s explanation of how the game works–and later his feelings as to the purpose of the Marina, is probably his longest speech from the dais ever. But it’s also worth watching the City’s response a month later, basically saying that basically everyone may have over-reacted. Just a leeeeetle, tiny bit? 😀
Destination Des Moines
When people used to wonder why Des Moines was not a “Destination” the reason is simple, a majority of voters (and electeds) chose Quiet over Destination. Without going into the weeds, twenty years ago, the tax system was completely different, such that the City did not need a lot of visitors. And since the traffic was so much less, I had an office in Queen Anne which I could drive to every day in about 25 minutes. (Really. Why are you laughing? 😀 ) My wife and I did not care if there was nightlife here because we could get to a bajillion super cool things other places. Traffic was the real game changer.
Today we get literally millions less in revenue sharing from the County and State as we used to. Today the traffic sucks. But today we need to start rebuilding the docks, the most expensive capital project in City history. Perhaps $50,000,000.
So, we also need to ask “Where does the money come from?” Because one more fact is this: the City does not have the money to pay for the docks. The money the Marina was supposed to set aside for updates over the past 50 years is not there. We can argue about ‘why’, but arguing won’t change the fact that it is not. Moving on.
The landside must pay for the waterside
The City’s position all along has been that economic development will fund dock replacement and not your tax dollars. The City used the phrase “the landside must pay for the waterside.” That is, paying visitors to the Marina/Downtown (the land) will pay for the docks (the water.)
OK, fine. That means retail sales. Restaurants. Shops. Hotels. Entertainment. The ‘Destination’ many people here have longed for.
A couple more factlets:
- The entire retail sales tax receipts of the City in 2021 were about $3,000,000. Restaurants. Shops. Lodging. Entertainment.
- The bond payments on dock replacements will be $2,000,000 – $3,000,000 per year.
So, the City’s plan requires doubling our sales tax revenue. And that means visitors. That is the reason the City has been willing to lose sooooo much money to subsidise a Ferry. SR3. Farmers Market. The Quarterdeck. A hotel. Drawing tourists here to spend money will (eventually) reap huge rewards.
It is a very convenient argument because those are all fun and popular things. It’s always great to hear that the foods we enjoy are also good for us.
But even if you believe in that (and I am not convinced) I want to ask every tax payer a very simple question:
Have you considered how much traffic (by that I mean not just cars, but also people) it would mean to double those retail taxes Think about who we really are here. We’re a town that has, traditionally rolled up the streets around 8:00PM. We’ve never really had ‘nightlife’ to speak of. One of the major complaints about Pokemon Go was that kids were playing after 10PM.
I don’t have to guess. I saw it. And so did everyone who was anywhere near the Marina in 2016 during Pokemon Go. And… They did. not. like it.
So much so that the City Council voted unanimously to put a stop to it.
Forcing the issue…
See that’s the big problem with Des Moines: short term memory. We have such a high turn over of residents now that it is very likely you were not here five years ago. So you didn’t just miss Pokemon Go, you missed the only other real ‘community meeting’ on the Marina, which was in 2017. That meeting also featured stickers with “hotel” or “park” or “ferry.” The only difference? The 2017 meeting was on a cruise ship.
At last week’s community meeting, the City changed major elements of the proposal, without providing notice to the Council. It simply announced it was changing direction. But note that there were no real choices. The City simply told people what it was planning to do. And there were no stickers for “traffic”, “litter”, “crowds”, “public safety”, and “funding”.
Because, in short, the City has already chosen for the entire community: “Destination” over “Quiet”. This is not about a few buildings at the Marina.
Their ultimate goal is (and must be if the goal is to increase sales enough to pay for the docks) will dramatically increase traffic throughout the downtown.
The City has created a complete “vision” for “Destination Des Moines”–without describing either the financing, or the impacts to quality of life, or even giving you a choice in the matter.
Enough.
Moving Forward
It’s time to have the real discussions we should have had many years ago. Not just about the pluses and minuses of the current plan (which the City has demonstrated it can change at any time without your say-so), but also what we actually want Des Moines to be. Just this once. Pretty please?
Last year the Council passed my proposal to create a $25,000 fund to create a professional town hall presentation, including 3-D “fly through” so that people could see from their POV what each design would look like. I knew things would be changing. A lot. Here it is:
And yet, for the first community meeting since 2019, and only the second since the project was born, the City chose not to use money it had already budgeted to do that. They made every effort to keep the meeting as uninformative as possible, limiting audience questions to about twelve minutes.
I’m asking for your support to fulfill that proposal. Now. Write my colleagues on the City Council and insist that we enact a real redevelopment outreach program, before moving forward.
We budgeted the money, so let’s do it. Now. We all need that kind of information and public outreach to make such important decisions.
Pokemon Go (Motion by Musser/Nutting to remove from Marina. Game off!)
A couple of quotes from the City Council discussion at that time: “The lawsuit is going to come when a mother watching her phone and not her two year old, swimming in the incoming surf, gets carried out and dies, in our beach park or our waterfront. I’ve witnessed and I’m certain that everyone in this room that has been down there has witnessed this as well and that’s where the lawsuits are gonna come.” And then this, “I put a post on a community page a couple of weeks ago and there was an overwhelming response saying it’s hurting our park. There were maybe three people said they’re just kids let ’em have fun. But I would say dozens of people said… their feelings wouldn’t be hurt…”