On this week’s Agenda, in the Consent Agenda, will be an item to give the City Manager a 5% increase.
My initial reactions upon reading this weeks’ package were:
Such an item should never be in the Consent Agenda, which should only be for items that are truly routine. And regardless of one’s feelings on the matter, this is a decidedly non-routine item.
The background language for the item is…
The City Council has been provided the opportunity to complete a formal written performance evaluation. Based on the outcome of this performance evaluation, the City Council can consider approving a 5% pay increase consistent with the an annual increase percentage that eligible staff members may receive upon a successful performance evaluation.
As me gran might say, “I feel so honoured!” 😀
Some history…
2014
Mr. Matthias was hired in 2014 as both Economic Development Director and Assistant City Manager.
2016
In January, Mr. Matthias’ predecessor, Tony Piasecki, announced he would retire that August to coincide with his 20 years of service.
Despite what you may have heard, Mr. Piasecki did not ‘blindside’ anyone. He, in fact, conducted a very deliberate transition process, including preparing a number of documents to help forward his institutional knowledge to both his successor and the Council. He
As part of that transition, as early as April, Mr. Matthias was given control of the final budget process, which made punters think he was the designated successor.
An independent firm was hired to do a selection process and Mr. Matthias put his hat in the ring. The top three were brought in for meetings with the previous version of the Citizens Advisory Committee. Mr. Matthias was ranked fourth by the search firm, but for some reason was also included in those CAC interviews.
The top selection, by both the search firm and the CAC was offered the job. Mayor Pina called him to offer congratulations. But shortly thereafter, the winning applicant called back to say that he had changed his mind.
The Council met to discuss the situation. They could offer the job to the other top candidates or begin a new search process, with the possibility of leaving the CM slot temporarily open. Instead, they offered the job to Mr. Matthias, on an Interim basis, which he accepted at his existing salary of $153,000. He continued on as EDD.
2017
After a sort of trial period, in 2017 the ‘Interim’ was dropped. Mr. Matthias retained the dual role of City Manager and EDD and did not appoint an Assistant City Manager.
From that point on he has been given a series of fairly large raises because the Council felt he had been initially sort of ‘short-changed’ and partly because he was doing ‘double duty’–and best-in-class double duty at that.
2020
I joined the Council in January, 2020 and the question of his raise that year was indeed a full agenda discussion, with the full contact and pay increase from January 23, 2020 City Council Packet. It was one of the most informative discussions in my time on the Council and I urge everyone to watch it.
During that vote, there were two motions worthy of note.
That was the last meeting of Vic Pennington who (surprise!), from the dais, offered a motion to extend Mr. Matthias’ severance package from six to eighteen months of pay should the Council choose to terminate his contract. Essentially a poison pill. His quote I remember most was:
“If we lose (Michael Matthias) we lose this City.”
Traci Buxton made a motion to change the review process from twice a year to once. That was actually voted down. Because Mr. Matthias’ contract does specify not one but two reviews every year.
(Note that the Mayor soon thereafter announced he was changing parliamentary procedure to prevent such motions.)
And… in my three years on the Council we have never done that second (mid-year) review. Why? Because neither Mayor Pina or Mayor Mahoney has The Mayor simply doesn’t put the mid-year one on the agenda. And I mention this because that is the abuse of power people don’t see…
In Des Moines, except for issues required by State law, the Mayor can avoid many issues by simply refusing to put them on an agenda.
And the City Manager can also avoid executing on an item the Council has approved (like that Virtual Marina Town Hall we desperately need) because he also has a say on what items go on the agenda.
Get it? The Council can go so far as to vote for something, but if they don’t want to actually, you know, do it, the Mayor or City Manager can simply not put it on the agenda. And there is nothing the minority can do about it–because it takes a majority vote to override that malarkey.
That may sound similar to Congress–where many bills are introduced but never become law because the majority controls what bills come up for a vote. Not quite. The difference here is that once a law is passed at the State and Federal level, the government has to, you know, actually do it.
In the case of Mr. Matthias mid-year review, it’s already ‘law’. It’s in the contract, right now. We don’t do it and no one notices because… “Out of sight, out of mind.”
2021
At the beginning of 2021, Mr. Matthias announced he would not ask for a raise during 2021.
However, in December 2021 we voted to go up to Step E–another 5%. And again, by far the most enthusiastic speech in support came from Councilmember Buxton.
Mr. Matthias’ current salary is about $236,000 plus over $20k in various benefits. The proposed raise would add $13.5k and bring the base salary to basically $250k.
The blunt instrument…
For what it’s worth: I have had and continue to have many issues with Mr. Matthias performance, but that package was never one of them. If I thought the performance was as good as my colleagues, I would have no problem with that dollar amount.
But it’s not.
So I vote against these raises for the same reason many people of conscience vote against various taxes. Sometimes, it’s not about the money. Sometimes, voting no is the only way to say “Enough.”
It’s a blunt instrument. You’d much rather have a scalpel, but sometimes a hammer is all you’ve got.
Get get that 3rd COVID Booster (the new ‘bivalent’ model.) Now. Deaths are slowly rising. Again, again, it takes about a month to achieve full efficacy. They’re doing walk-ins now pretty much everywhere. 🙂
Barring that lahar we’ve been expecting here for about 300 years, this should be our last meeting of the year. As has become the norm, almost everything is on the Consent Agenda. Highlights?
City Manager 5% increase
223rd Street project
Massey Creek Pocket Estuary
Court Room Audio system
There will also be a Public Hearing on that 216th zoning moratorium so many people are puzzled by (including moi.)
Last Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle (Agenda) The Commission gave final approval to their 2023 budget. Here is a letter I wrote to the Commissioners summarising my feelings on their first year together.
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) (Video) Highlights included:
City Manager Report
The City Manager Report featured three items of note. All had elements of ‘surprise!’… Have I made it clear yet how much I am not a fan of ‘surprises’ in local government? 😀 The Mayor sets the final agenda for every meeting. So if you take away nothing else from what I write, it is this:
This is tactical. Everyone knows that ‘the element of surprise’ gives one an overwhelming advantage in many situations.
JAN 26 Marina STUDY SESSION Announced
The City Manager announced a Council Study Session on January 26th to continue the discussion about the Marina. A Study Session is a Council Meeting and not the Town Hall so many of you have requested. Surprise! 😀 Also, no information was provided as to the format. Recognise that there have been exactly three public meetings on the Marina in five years and they’ve all been terrible. There’s no other accurate way to describe them. I take grief from my colleagues about comments like this and my reply is this:
The City has never acknowledged any problems with public engagement on the Marina, quite the contrary, they have insisted that there has been ‘extensive’ public engagement. And when you’re that consistently stubborn, harsh treatment is fair treatment. I continue to urge residents to write the Council and demand we execute on the Virtual Marina Town Hall the Council voted for in September, 2021.
Bond Retirement
The Finance Director reported that the City had just paid off the last tranche of Marina GO Bonds from 2012, which is a good thing because it improves our credit rating slightly so that we can… get out there and grab us some more Marina debt! 😀 But seriously, I was not quite as “standing-o” as my colleagues for two reasons:
Bonds are (or should be) a routine part of the City’s business. You don’t have a party when you pay your mortgage. It’s time to move past celebrating when we do something normal.
Also, it took the City a decade to pay off that $2.5MM. Get it? Even two million is a heavy lift for us. Aaaannnnd… the docks will cost about $50MM.
In other words, it’s nice. Truly. But save the champagne.
Ferry Update
Our Ferry Consultant (who is also the publisher of the City Currents) gave the long-awaited Ferry Update. We were given a presentation which again declared the program a complete success.
To which I have the following short reply. Page #21.
That is one page from a report from the firm the City hired to do the actual program setup, delivered to the City Manager over a year ago. Over a year ago, it provided some (but not all) the answers the Council should have received before we voted to begin this entire process. (Let that sink in for a moment.)
It projects that a six month trial will lose between $1-1.5MM dollars. That is why we did not see it until after the trial. And after my colleagues voted for a second round in Spring 2022. More below.
Consent Agenda
The Consent Agenda included a contract renewal and pay increase for three more consultants:
A City engineer who retired in 2013 and has been kept on as a private contractor for 10 years. I am not using his name because I have no issue with his work. I voted no because, I was a consultant. 😀 And I don’t like long term contractors unless I get to see the contractor and ask them about their projects every once in a while. For a decade this person has played a lead role on several very controversial/high profile jobs including:
Sound Transit
Des Moines Creek Business Park
SR-509
The transfer of WSDOT surplus property (the ‘forest’ along 216th) to the Port of Seattle.
Peter Philips, the above ferry guy. I think you can assume that I would not favour raising his monthly fee from $3,000 to $5,000 a month.
The Marina consultant guy. His resume includes the Harbor Steps in Seattle, which is very nice. But again, the Council has not bothered to discuss the cancellation of last year’s aborted RFQ or this year’s surprise hotel. We need to stop everything Marina-related until we have a better plan.
New Items For Consideration
I proposed to restore the Public Comment Form and put a clear public comment policy on the City web site. Voted down 5-2. The Clerk insists that one can find all correspondence from the public in every packet. I asked for a procedure and was told “It’s all there.” Great. Show me.
Executive Session
Regular readers will note that I get bitched at for ‘loose lips’ about ES. But once again it was my colleagues who ‘spilled the beans’ from the dais that it was the City Manager’s Review. But not me, nope. 😀
‘In the room’ was, as usual, a little ugly, and a whole lot of pointless. And I feel bad for the staff members who have to endure it. Councilmember Achziger proposed limiting the participants to just the seven CMs. I seconded it only to make a point: I have never done an employee review where the employee was in the room for the entire deal. Yes, the employee is present for ‘feedback’, but there is always (at least on the planet I inhabit) a section where management has a chance to discuss the performance of the employee alone. In my time on the Council I have never been at a table with my six colleagues without the City Manager.
A couple more details to express the pointlessness:
The City Manager’s contract provides for two reviews every year. We only ever do one. The mid-year one just never gets put on the Agenda. That’s the Mayor’s call and that’s #327 on my list of reforms.
The City Manager provides a public Accomplishments document. The Council provides their review notes, which are also public documents. But this year, we did not see each other’s comments until we got into the room. Just like that ferry report, we go in blind. That is also the Mayor’s choice and it is also by design. #328.
This is Page 21 from Ferry Demonstration Project Scoping and Reconnaissance Report dated 08/31/2021. To my knowledge this has not been brought to the Council or any Committee. It does not appear on the City web site until Friday, December 2, 2022.It predicts that a six month ferry program will lose between $997,000 and $1,450,000. But that small bit of information was not included in the information the Council had before voting on any point of the Ferry Pilot program. And for that reason alone you should not be happy.
Same thing happened with the Diedrich RPM Demand Study in 2019. We paid for it, but it took me doing a public records request in 2021 to see the results. The Council voted to approve the project without seeing those results. (We also did not see the 2015 King County and 2021 PSRC Studies–both of which see no future in ferry commuter service here.)
I cannot say for certain, but in this case, it looks as those the City did not want to have to explain why it wanted to move forward with such a dire forecast and simply avoided that problem by simply not mentioning that the report even existed.
And the City Manager made it clear that the reportwas available. He chose to provide the report after the meeting. And I’m glad that cat is finally out of the bag. Not providing data to the Council until after the meeting is a strategy.
As soon as the presentation ended, and even before taking questions from the Council, the City Manager asked the Council to move to create a second ferry ‘trial’ in the Spring, with no budget. And my colleagues seemed more than eager to act on that. They just want it.
Some specifics…
And we were also given a lot more information we had never received.
We were told that the program had come in at less than 50% of the original contract, woo hoo! But in my world that is not a good thing. If one’s cost estimate is that far wrong, explanations are warranted. We received none. (Seriously, if you contract with a company for a new roof at $20,000 and then they hand you a bill for $10,000 wouldn’t you have questions?)
We were also told (silly!) that the Ferry was never intended to be sustainable (ie. to cover its own costs.)
In fact, we were told that covering 40% of costs was better than expected performance. (Not to beat a dead horse, but we were never informed that 20% was considered ‘normal’.)
We were told that the overwhelming number of riders arrived at the dock by automobile.
We were told that the ridership was mostly seniors so there was no way to know how well it would do with commuters–which is another reason why we need that second trial! (Actually, there’s a very good way to know–just look at the previous for realz studies done by both King County Water Taxi 2015 and the PSRC in 2021. They both indicate that commuter demand will not be great–if it were, they would have considered adding Des Moines to their list of stops. Again: we already know that there is no great demand for commuters in DM.)
At Crazy Eddie’s, how do we keep prices so low?
Circling back to that final cost. How did the City get such a deal, a steal, the sale of the century? I asked. Got nothing. But here is a slide from the Presentation compared to the contract we approved in July:
Ta da!
Original Contract July
Final Report 12/01/22
Vessel
174,000
74,840
Fuel
93,600
83,532
Moorage
14,300
35,030
Ops Management
47,840
?
Marketing
70,600
?
Mobilization
60,500
?
Project Report
9,200
?
Total Costs
470,040
220,402
Revenues
89,345
89,345
Profit (Loss)
(380,695)
(131,507)
Since the Council didn’t actually see, you know, the books, here’s what it looks like to me at the moment.
Somehow we got two months for the price of one. (Is that a one-off, was the estimate crazy-wrong or will we continue to get that kind of a ‘bargain’ going forward?
Annnnnnnnnnd… we simply did not include all those (very real) marketing/management charges on the presentation (note the little asterisk.)
Also, nowhere do we include any ferry consultant fees ($5,000/mo) and our various advertising and other ferry consultant fees (yes, we’ve had multiple consultants.)
But no matter how you present it, the thing is a big money loser. The only question is how much. And the fact that we have chronically felt the need to hide information, dissemble, and even fiddle the numbers to make it look better than it is, should be alarming. One thing you can take to the bank is this: it loses money. And the longer we run it, the more money it will lose.
It’s not a puppy!
If one reviews the mountain of PDFs the consultant provided, most of it involves how happy people are about having a ferry. They like riding it. They like seeing it come and go. I get it. But only one or two pages are concerned with the finances. And that is because that part of the story is simply not very much fun. Yeah, you can spin it as ‘better than expected’, but that’s like saying a D+ is not as bad as an F-. Neither are passing grades.
I have to admit that I’ve been as frustrated by residents who support the ferry as by my colleagues.
That over-eagerness feels to me a whole lot like when yer kids bring home that stray puppy. They want it. And so their strategy is to, by hook or by crook, keeping it around as long as possible, whether it makes sense or not, so that little Barkley becomes a part of the family.
Aside from the fact that I’m an extremely fun person, this has nothing to do with the fun in riding a ferry. Cruel truth: The money we’re spending on this ferry is money that we’re taking from core functions (public safety, parks, roads, programs for kids, seniors, etc.) Sorry, Brenda, but if we keep that St. Bernard, we can’t fund your college fund. Awwww, gee whiz, Daaaaaaad. 😀
The dream that makes it all OK…
The only way one might justify this spend would be if one could demonstrate that it will eventually bring in more revenue long term. But read carefully:neither the City or the highly paid consultant has provided any evidence to support that notion. It is all a dream.
The City claimed that ‘many’ businesses had received a noticeable uptick in business. But the Council only received one letter to that effect. And of the 111 Passenger Ferry Comments included with the report, none are from businesses.
However, I’ll leave you with one small stat…
Over seventy percent of the riders originated in Des Moines, headed to Seattle and took a return trip. Which means (duh) that less than thirty percent of the ridership will be coming to spend money here. And the vast majority of riders originating here are discount fares, who will take up parking we do not have and spend money at very nice places in Seattle.
Get it? The ferry can never be a revenue driver for Des Moines. It is impossible. (However, it can compete for scarce parking resources.)
Still insane, man…
I wrote back in June, This is insane. The City Manager asked me to reconsider that assessment in light of the final report and my reply is: Still insane, man.
Frankly, we don’t seem to care–on multiple levels. We don’t seem to care whether a program like this was evaluated in a transparent fashion, we don’t care whether it works or not, and we don’t seem to care what the long term consequences will likely be. It really does strike me like that puppy your kids want you to keep. They just want it.
This is Page 21 from Ferry Demonstration Project Scoping and Reconnaissance Report dated 08/31/2021. To my knowledge this has not been brought to the Council or any Committee. It does not appear on the City web site until Friday, December 2, 2022.It predicts that a six month ferry program will lose between $997,000 and $1,450,000. But that small bit of information was not included in the information the Council had before voting on any point of the Ferry Pilot program. And for that reason alone you should not be happy.
Same thing happened with the Diedrich RPM Demand Study in 2019. We paid for it, but it took me doing a public records request in 2021 to see the results. The Council voted to approve the project without seeing those results. (We also did not see the 2015 King County and 2021 PSRC Studies–both of which see no future in ferry commuter service here.)
I cannot say for certain, but in this case, it looks as those the City did not want to have to explain why it wanted to move forward with such a dire forecast and simply avoided that problem by simply not mentioning that the report even existed.
And the City Manager made it clear that the reportwas available. He chose to provide the report after the meeting. And I’m glad that cat is finally out of the bag. Not providing data to the Council until after the meeting is a strategy.
As soon as the presentation ended, and even before taking questions from the Council, the City Manager asked the Council to move to create a second ferry ‘trial’ in the Spring, with no budget. And my colleagues seemed more than eager to act on that. They just want it.
Some specifics…
And we were also given a lot more information we had never received.
We were told that the program had come in at less than 50% of the original contract, woo hoo! But in my world that is not a good thing. If one’s cost estimate is that far wrong, explanations are warranted. We received none. (Seriously, if you contract with a company for a new roof at $20,000 and then they hand you a bill for $10,000 wouldn’t you have questions?)
We were also told (silly!) that the Ferry was never intended to be sustainable (ie. to cover its own costs.)
In fact, we were told that covering 40% of costs was better than expected performance. (Not to beat a dead horse, but we were never informed that 20% was considered ‘normal’.)
We were told that the overwhelming number of riders arrived at the dock by automobile.
We were told that the ridership was mostly seniors so there was no way to know how well it would do with commuters–which is another reason why we need that second trial! (Actually, there’s a very good way to know–just look at the previous for realz studies done by both King County Water Taxi 2015 and the PSRC in 2021. They both indicate that commuter demand will not be great–if it were, they would have considered adding Des Moines to their list of stops. Again: we already know that there is no great demand for commuters in DM.)
At Crazy Eddie’s, how do we keep prices so low?
Circling back to that final cost. How did the City get such a deal, a steal, the sale of the century? I asked. Got nothing. But here is a slide from the Presentation compared to the contract we approved in July:
Ta da!
Original Contract July
Final Report 12/01/22
Vessel
174,000
74,840
Fuel
93,600
83,532
Moorage
14,300
35,030
Ops Management
47,840
?
Marketing
70,600
?
Mobilization
60,500
?
Project Report
9,200
?
Total Costs
470,040
220,402
Revenues
89,345
89,345
Profit (Loss)
(380,695)
(131,507)
Since the Council didn’t actually see, you know, the books, here’s what it looks like to me at the moment.
Somehow we got two months for the price of one. (Is that a one-off, was the estimate crazy-wrong or will we continue to get that kind of a ‘bargain’ going forward?
Annnnnnnnnnd… we simply did not include all those (very real) marketing/management charges on the presentation (note the little asterisk.)
Also, nowhere do we include any ferry consultant fees ($5,000/mo) and our various advertising and other ferry consultant fees (yes, we’ve had multiple consultants.)
But no matter how you present it, the thing is a big money loser. The only question is how much. And the fact that we have chronically felt the need to hide information, dissemble, and even fiddle the numbers to make it look better than it is, should be alarming. One thing you can take to the bank is this: it loses money. And the longer we run it, the more money it will lose.
It’s not a puppy!
If one reviews the mountain of PDFs the consultant provided, most of it involves how happy people are about having a ferry. They like riding it. They like seeing it come and go. I get it. But only one or two pages are concerned with the finances. And that is because that part of the story is simply not very much fun. Yeah, you can spin it as ‘better than expected’, but that’s like saying a D+ is not as bad as an F-. Neither are passing grades.
I have to admit that I’ve been as frustrated by residents who support the ferry as by my colleagues.
That over-eagerness feels to me a whole lot like when yer kids bring home that stray puppy. They want it. And so their strategy is to, by hook or by crook, keeping it around as long as possible, whether it makes sense or not, so that little Barkley becomes a part of the family.
Aside from the fact that I’m an extremely fun person, this has nothing to do with the fun in riding a ferry. Cruel truth: The money we’re spending on this ferry is money that we’re taking from core functions (public safety, parks, roads, programs for kids, seniors, etc.) Sorry, Brenda, but if we keep that St. Bernard, we can’t fund your college fund. Awwww, gee whiz, Daaaaaaad. 😀
The dream that makes it all OK…
The only way one might justify this spend would be if one could demonstrate that it will eventually bring in more revenue long term. But read carefully:neither the City or the highly paid consultant has provided any evidence to support that notion. It is all a dream.
The City claimed that ‘many’ businesses had received a noticeable uptick in business. But the Council only received one letter to that effect. And of the 111 Passenger Ferry Comments included with the report, none are from businesses.
However, I’ll leave you with one small stat…
Over seventy percent of the riders originated in Des Moines, headed to Seattle and took a return trip. Which means (duh) that less than thirty percent of the ridership will be coming to spend money here. And the vast majority of riders originating here are discount fares, who will take up parking we do not have and spend money at very nice places in Seattle.
Get it? The ferry can never be a revenue driver for Des Moines. It is impossible. (However, it can compete for scarce parking resources.)
Still insane, man…
I wrote back in June, This is insane. The City Manager asked me to reconsider that assessment in light of the final report and my reply is: Still insane, man.
Frankly, we don’t seem to care–on multiple levels. We don’t seem to care whether a program like this was evaluated in a transparent fashion, we don’t care whether it works or not, and we don’t seem to care what the long term consequences will likely be. It really does strike me like that puppy your kids want you to keep. They just want it.
There is currently no vehicle for electronic public comment. Some may want to argue that point (and why wouldn’t we, in an era when people can’t seem to agree on much of anything.) But my definition of “public comment” is…
“Communications meant to address the City Council as a body and where both the person or organisation making the comment, and the contents of that comment, are placed into the official meeting record such that they may be viewed in perpetuity as any other business of that meeting.”
I believe that is what the public expects. They want to know not only that their message has been received, but, just as importantly, they also want a way for the rest of the City to hear their voice, whether or not they can be present for our meetings.
Currently, that is simply not the case. When you send an email or a letter to the Council, it is definitely seen by the Council and City Clerk, and it is considered ‘public information’. But one would have to do a Public Records Request in order to access that information, to even be aware of those communications.
Therefore, if you are not ‘on camera’, no one but yourself and about ten people at the City (seven CMs, clerks) are aware of what you wrote.
It is arguable that emails may not fully pass muster as ‘public comment’. Emails offer no bona fides as to the speaker’s identity or their location. And social media? Don’t get me started. However when one signs up to speak at the podium, we see you, and you asked to provide one’s name and address.
During the pandemic, the City performed an update to the web site, which included a Public Comment Form that addresses most of those concerns. One was asked for that same name/address information.
Apparently, the form was disabled when the City’s Emergency Proclamation ended, considered no longer necessary, once in-person meetings resumed.
I disagree. For many years the City would include letters from the public in each packet. I know this because I can see them in previous packets. So this feels like an unnecessary step backward in terms of transparency and community engagement.
Proposal
At our December 1 Meeting I will propose restoring and formalising that Public Comment Form system based on my understanding of the current software.
I understand that the staff has tried several approaches since the start of the pandemic to place those comments into the meeting packets and they have all been, to one extent or another, time consuming.
But the current web site has features to help automate the process, plus we can hire a developer to further improve the work flow.
Regardless, it is my belief that there must be a vehicle for people who cannot attend our meetings in person to have their comments placed into the public record. The status quo seems to be “Trust us, everyone saw your email, but now that the pandemic is over and we’re not required to do that stuff, we’re onto more important things.” That is not what the public expects and it is not a good look.
If this is a question of resources, let’s quantify the requirements and then allocate them as needed. But heading into 2023, electronic public comment is not optional. We should develop a standardised system to do this which is convenient for staff and acknowledge that any absence was a mistake.
Get get that 3rd COVID Booster (the new ‘bivalent’ model.) Now. Deaths are slowly rising. Again, again, it takes about a month to achieve full efficacy. And the number of people who have had all four injections is now below fifty percent. Football, Thanksgiving. Christmas. I think you know where I’m going here. They’re doing walk-ins now pretty much everywhere. 🙂
This Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle (Agenda) The Commission will give final approval to their 2023 budget.
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) Highlights include:
The City Manager Report will include the long-awaited Ferry Update.
The Consent Agenda will consider contract renewals of three more consultants, including the Ferry guy, the Marina consultant guy, and the engineer guy who helped us with the Des Moines Creek Business Park.
Executive Session (to review a public employee.) Spoiler alert: there is only one employee the Council is allowed to review. I can’t tell ya who it is, but the job title may or may not rhyme with Scarlet Tanager. 😀
On the Consent Agenda will also a bunch of sidewalk repairs. If you’ve seen the white chalk around town that’s them. I want to point out that the City tries hard to inventory all those cracks and so on, but you have to report them!!! Using the handy Fix-It Form. 🙂
Last Week
Monday: We handed in our annual City Manager Evaluation (which is supposed to be a semi-annual evaluation, but hey, whatever.)
Thursday: The turkey was dry. Not. For which I was (and am) extremely thankful. This is the first time in over two years I felt un-self-conscious about being at a ‘gathering’. Even watching that ridiculous game you all call (cough) ‘football’ was a total blast. (And besides, by watching that one game a year, I always collect just enough buzzwords to sound credible for the rest of the year. That Prevent Defense? Amazing! 😀 )
City Currents Magazine
The Winter City Currents Magazine is out and, as always, I encourage you to read it carefully. And when you do, please take another minute and look through at least one of the back issues.
Even though most of them are strictly black and white, I much prefer most of those older City newsletters, for several reasons.
First of all, the older ones just tended to be more informative. You take away all the advertisements from the ..er… ‘current’ version (which are fine, by the way) and there’s just less there there.
Also, the lack of ‘there’ reflects the fact that we’re just not doing as many programs as we used to. A decade ago there was a whole other ‘Rec and Roll’ magazine-inside-a-magazine (which was upside down and backwards to drive that point home for some reason) chock full of activities for kids and seniors.
But the biggest difference in recent years? Politics. Over the past 2-3 years, the magazine has been used by the Mayor not simply to recount various activities, but more and more for the explicit purpose of selling a particular vision. And you definitely should not want this.
Imagine…
City Currents Magazine, Spring 2021
Last year, Deputy Mayor Mahoney did a two-page article in the Spring 2021 City Currents to shill for a Ferry Pilot program. He asked residents to “imagine” a ferry program which had not been voted on or financed and in fact bore only a passing resemblance to the sixty day ‘pilot’ the City put into place this past summer at a loss of several hundred thousand dollars meant for long-term capital projects.
This year, Mayor Mahoney again asks the public to use their imagination, telling the public that we need to show “leadership and courage”, embrace “public/private partnerships” and make the Marina and City “more attractive to private developers.” I have absolutely no idea what any of that means or why it would be to your benefit to support those statements, because they are not proposals. Rather, they again describe a dream and a philosophy. I was elected to propose, and vote for, real things, not support dreams–or ideologies.
(Ironically, the most successful project the City has ever undertaken had no private investment whatsoever. You may have heard of it, it’s called The Des Moines Marina.)
We have indeed spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money on ‘planning’ the Marina Redevelopment ($225,000 alone in grants from the Port of Seattle.) It’s been five years now and I have to ask, do you see anything that looks like a for realz plan?
In November 2021, the Council voted to enter into an ‘exclusive negotiation’ on Parcel A–a hotel at the foot of 223rd.
Yet everyone gets blind sided September 27, 2022 with a totally new proposal for a hotel blocking the north end of the Marina.
Beyond the tiny problem of (almost) no one seeming to know what is actually going on (including yours truly) it seems to me that all of us are being asked to sign on, not to a specific plan, but rather to a particular philosophy and a totally unsupported dream. And whether or not you buy into that dream, it is simply inappropriate for the Mayor or the City Manager to use the City Currents to try to sell that dream.
What makes a proper city publication?
The City Currents is undoubtedly the most powerful public platform in the City of Des Moines. Despite living in the age of “the interwebs” it is still, by far the most widely distributed piece of ‘news’ about Des Moines–because it is the only print piece that is sent to every address–residential and commercial. Every address receives one, not just the 5,000 or so people who are active on various social media platforms. And a four-colour magazine sent to over 15,000 addresses expensive to produce–which means we only get to do it 3-4 times a year. For those reasons alone its contents should be chosen with great care, both in what we choose to include, but also in what we choose to leave out.
We have the practical obligation to fill every issue with as much useful information as we can.
But even more importantly, we have an obligation to avoid using any inch of it to promote any political agenda–and certainly not to try to sell the public empty dreams.
Get get that 3rd COVID Booster (the new ‘bivalent’ model.) Now. Deaths are slowly rising. Again, again, it takes about a month to achieve full efficacy. And the number of people who have had all four injections is now below fifty percent. Football, Thanksgiving. Christmas. I think you know where I’m going here. They’re doing walk-ins now pretty much everywhere. 🙂
This Week
Monday: We hand in our annual City Manager Evaluation (which is supposed to be a semi-annual evaluation, but hey, whatever.)
Beyond that? Not much. Except to say that this is what I’m having for Thanksgiving. Go ahead, judge me. 🙂 If you have any other things you wanna talk about? Marina, airport, roads, public safety, education, dry rub vs. brine? Real football vs. that strange game you play with that bean- shaped object? (206) 878-0578. Regardless, have an absolutely wonderful holiday weekend!
Last Week
Tuesday: 6:00PM Des Moines Housing Action Plan Open House at Highline College. See what we have going on with land use planning!
Wednesday: Highline Forum (Agenda) Updates on StART, Sound Transit, WSDOT SR-509. Highlight? The Port Noise Office announced that it would now officially encourage all airlines to voluntarily avoid reverse thrust on landing. Woo hoo! Not. (Note to newcomers, the reason I always sound snarky is because to sound measured and explain stuff in detail takes 5,000 words. In this case, pilots have, since forever, come in a bit too ‘hot’ and used reverse thrust to compensate. Ninety seven times out of a hundred it’s totally unnecessary, but the airlines leave it to ‘pilot discretion’ for the sake of safety. It’s loud as hell for residents, especially in Burien, and since about 1970 they’ve begged the airport to ‘do something’. After 50 years? This is the something; a strongly worded letter.
We got a presentation on the SMAP (pronounced Ehs-map) where the Dept. Of Ecology asks the City to pick a key drainage area to focus on water quality improvement. And our engineers picked? My neighbourhood. Psyche! 😀
The interesting thing (for me) is that the main technique for improving storm water quality is plants. You strategically plant certain species in the swales and they do the ‘filtering’. They remove all the goop we put into the storm drains before it gets to Puget Sound. What our crews will do is re-plant new species in these swales which are more efficient goop digester/filterers.
There’s actually a good example of a related principle, at the town home development on 216th and 14th Ave. The detention pond is lined with grass. The thing doesn’t work without the plants.
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) (Video) (more info below.)
Friday: South King County Housing & Homelessness Partners (SKHHP)
November 17 City Council Meeting
City Manager’s report
We got our first (and only) report on the Human Services Advisory Committee. I have no quibbles with the grant selections or the committee members, but the whole ‘advisory committee’ system needs an overhaul.
For one thing, this year we got the amount to a whopping one percent (uno, eins, singular) of our budget and considered that to be ‘success’. But it took that one-time ARPA money to get to that level.
For another, as I said, this is our only look at the program all year. And all the other programs we fund are no better. We get almost no look at Senior Services, Destination Des Moines, SR3, Farmers Market. But if one asks? How dare you! The thing is, we used to get four reports from each of these orgs every year and their work was on the web site so the public could see for themselves what’s going on.
Public Comment
I want to applaud the four people who provided public comment on the Marina Redevelopment. They all had different things to say, but all were extremely thoughtful.
The only problem? There were only four. The Council received close to fifty (50) very heartfelt emails on the subject and I know a bunch of people on social media said they were gonna show up. And…. only four people showed up. So let me say this clearly for people in the cheap seats.
If you want to change something big in local government, you definitely can do it, but…YOU. MUST. SHOW. UP.
This is physics. It is not subject to ‘compromise’. It just is.
You can whine about the unfairness of life or how things should be. But this is how things are in the same way there’s no point in getting upset about gravity. It only takes 15-20 people to change the Council’s direction, but it does take 15-20 people. You can social media yer ass off. You can write passionate letters that would make Shakespeare jealous. But unless you show up? Nothing will change. So whatever you’ve got going on? Sick dog, had to work late, fear of public speaking, soccer practice, hot yoga, those are the stakes in play. You’re asking the City to change direction on a ton of money. It takes effort to do that–and showing up is the work you need to do. So, if you don’t get what you want? Basically, It’s your fault for not getting 15-20 people to show up. I’m serious here. I want you to succeed, so I’m telling you how things are so you do. Let’s get cracking, here. 🙂
Consent Agenda
I asked to pull two items:
Flock Cameras, which silently read license plates as people drive by them. It’s a lot like a speed camera–basically, a computer finds that the associated driver has an outstanding warrant and then pings the Police Department. The PD is super-jazzed about the program as a force-multiplier. I had/have two concerns:
PrivacyIt’s just a matter of changing the software to do a lot more than just look at license plates. And, unlike most of you, I’ve actually been to true surveillance states (like the Soviet Union) many times and so I am that nervous nelly.
Efficacy Although the Chief promised to remove them if they are not successful, we have no specific reporting process in place to define what that is. I am all about providing specific metrics before starting any project. After watching the recent Ferry Pilot , with absolutely no measurable definitions of ‘success’ I am now even more skeptical of everything.
I also pulled an item which provides an ongoing consulting contract to train our staff on using our new accounting softwares. Having been a training consultant, I have to admit: I tend to be skeptical of training consultants. 😀
Public HearinGS
As we get near the end of year, we jam as much ‘stuff’ into each meeting. So this time we had not one, not two, but three public hearings. And since we don’t advertise them properly, no one shows. Careful readers will recall that the Mayor moved the meeting schedule around in order to accommodate a high school football game.
Property Tax Levy: I did something I almost never do, I voted for Rule 26a (to pass the ordinance in a single reading) because there is this weird deadline which would have cost us money if we hadn’t done so. However, that is no excuse for scheduling it this late in the year. This artificial emergency brought to you courtesy of high school football.
2022 Amended Budget: Why we’re finalising the 2022 Budget in November? Oh, like I’m supposed to know. 😀 (That was supposed to be a joke.) Actually, this is a normal part of the process. Your budget never lines up perfectly with actuals.
2023 Budget Second Reading: I voted no for a couple of reasons: This was the first year in my memory where no time was allocated for CM Amendments.
New Business
Suspending restriction on use of one-time money for operational expenses the third year in a row.
I voted no. And the City Manager chose to do that, when there was that ARPA money right there–which was meant for recovery.
The ordinance preventing the use of one-time money for salaries/ops dates to 2012. The Council rightly said that we had become addicted to using one-time money and were never saving for anything.
But… the Council wasn’t quite as brave as all that. They phased it in over five years. So realistically, we’ve only ever saved for future capital spending maybe three years out of the last 30. And now we have three years returning to same bad ol’ habit.
Frankly, this is my take on Des Moines. Traditionally, for a waterfront town, we’ve had very low taxes (really) which everyone likes. But since we annexed Redondo in ’96, there has been some ‘catastrophe’ here every 5-10 years… 9/11, Great Recession, COVID. And no matter who is ‘in’ we always seem to use the emergency du jour as an excuse to raid whatever savings account is handy. Over the years many of my colleagues like to say how ‘conservative’ they are. Maybe. But in reality, we’re just not great at saving. And that is why we never seem to have our own money for docks or busted fishing piers or a community center.
Legislative Priorities.
I was restricted from asking our lobbyist questions. My comment was that we’re tasking our lobbyist to spend time advocating for a second airport, which is a ridiculous use of City time/money. I was told that Senator Keiser and Rep. Orwall wanted it. And… love ’em both to death, but sometimes, even yer best friends are just plan wrong. And friends can tells friends that.
We also learned that the Chief really wants that Blake decision over-turned, which I found surprising. Because in all the talk about the much-hated police reforms, the overwhelming amount of press coverage was about pursuits–you know, where suspects simply drive away from officers. The Chief admitted that those were not as big a deal as has been advertised. What was not on the official agenda is something very much favour: clawing back some of the sales tax to Cities–specifically for public safety.
New Items for Consideration
I requested that the Council send flowers to Mr. Eric Clarke, the Manager of Water District #54 who was so brutally attacked while on duty last month. I hope he is doing well and I want him to know how much he is valued in this community. If you also would like to pass on your best, please contact the District here.
Executive Session
I can’t tell ya the details, but there may or may not have been a group of colleagues criticising me for my use of 1Pig Latin last week. Here’s the deal. If you think things are petty on the dais, just imagine what they might be like behind closed doors, where one is not allowed to even report the subject of the meeting.
It’s no accident…
As of this writing , there is no longer any way to send a public comment in writing, even though, until Friday, there were still multiple hyperlinks on the City web site to a non-existent Comment Form. (The ones I monitor have now been removed.)
I have written to my colleagues that we need to remedy this immediately and I will propose a system at our next (1, December) meeting.
Although this article begins with public comment, it is not about public comment.
404s
Despite my reputation for crankiness, I notice broken links (referred to as ‘404s’ in the web world) and usually do not speak up. How do I notice them? SPACE MAGIC! Actually, there’s an automated gizmo anyone can use to be notified when a web site has broken links. So I ‘saw’ when the City’s Public Comment form stopped working.
What I used to do was immediately report/nag/complain when I found a ‘404’ and… get eyerolls and heavy sighs about how hard everyone is working and stop being a pain, etc. And then I got in touch with my inner chakras and realised that I don’t have to find them. Because eventually, residents will. All I have to do is give them a reason to look. 🙂
No microphone
On September 27 the City had that Community Meeting with this slide. And among the dozen or so unethical and scary legal concerns, from one of the presentation slides it looks as though the SURPRISE! hotel extends over where the new $1,000,000 restroom is placed. I mean the cement hasn’t even cured it’s so new. And sure enough there is a new building labeled ‘RR’ which looks like ‘relocated restroom’.
So I post about it and I get all this ricketa racketa. I’m told by the City “Of course we’re not moving the new bathrooms.” The tone is obviously patronising. Like: How silly of you to assume that we’d do something like that, JC!” OK, I’m silly.
OK, I’m silly…
So I fire up a totally amateur program, Google Earth, to check. And sure enough, the hotel does plow through the existing bathroom. Silly my ass.
And… I get screamed at by the Mayor. This time, for not getting permission from the City first.
It’s not on the agenda…
In the past week I’ve received over fifty (50) emails from residents just furious about this new hotel location. So I tell residents to show up to speak at the last three meetings of the year. And then apparently the City just happens to to on social media to remind residents that “the marina won’t be on the agenda until 2023.”
But of course neglecting to mention that anyone can comment on anything the like at any meeting.
So like ten people call me the next day to tell me they don’t want to show up if they won’t be ‘allowed’ to speak.
Defensiveness
It does not bother me at all when people make mistakes. It does not bother me when the votes do not go the way I’d like. But we should never get defensive when residents point out bugs or mistakes.
And for anyone to get annoyed and say “Trust us… you’ll see” on large projects indicates a lack of regard. It would be like displaying the wrong price tag and then getting upset when the customer asked to pay what was clearly listed on the tin.
I get stroppy about it because most residents are so uninformed. They tend to take everything at face value because they do trust that the City runs as expected. It’s actually a compliment.
Priorities
In fact, we actually had a system whereby residents could simply put “Public Comment” in the subject line of an email. Or they could fill out the form and then the staff would cobble together a PDF, deliver it to the Council and then upload to web site. But, like Zoom, it created extra work for the staff.
The bottom line is that all this stuff (web site, public comment, outreach, etc.) takes up City resources. Staff have a certain number of hours/dollars to work with and perhaps they feel they can better serve the public using those resources in other ways, eg. public safety, roads, processing permits, etc.
Priorities
However, shorting things like public comment, Zoom, the web site, public engagement all just happen to lead to less transparent government. And so do all the tiny mistakes that, after a while, stop looking less like mistakes and more like a strategy.
Transparency, but its very nature, is meant to slow the process. And if you happen to like the direction the train is moving, whether consciously or not, you are simply not inclined to do things that might tend to reduce its speed.
Summary
You do a public meeting with no microphone… followed up by a private meeting with a proper sound system (which you do not want recorded!)
You put up a poster clearly showing a new hotel crushing into the new $1MM bathroom (and a clearly indicated ‘Relocated Restroom’).
You dump the electronic Public Comment system with no notice.
You make hundreds and hundreds of tiny mistakes over time, all of which tend to reduce public engagement.
You do all these things (and many more) and in every single case get defensive, dismissive, patronising and condescending when people notice?
It’s no accident.
1It may or may not have had to do with olicePay egotiationsNay.But lest one think I am some snitch, we generally have only two Executive Sessions a year. One to discuss a certain ‘Employee Review’. (Spoiler Alert: there is only one employee we are allowed to review. You can torture me and I won’t spill the beans, but his job title rhymes with Scarlet Tanager.) And… we only have two contracts to review, which are either the Teamsters or the Cops. So stressing about this stuff is ridiculous. How ridiculous? The last time we had an Executive Session on anything else, my colleague CM Achziger announced the subject from the dais. I have yet to attend one of these things that was of any use to the public. Or…. maybe I did. I’ll never tell! 😀
As of this writing , there is no longer any way to send a public comment in writing, even though, until Friday, there were still multiple hyperlinks on the City web site to a non-existent Comment Form. (The ones I monitor have now been removed.)
I have written to my colleagues that we need to remedy this immediately and I will propose a system at our next (1, December) meeting.
Although this article begins with public comment, it is not about public comment.
404s
Despite my reputation for crankiness, I notice broken links (referred to as ‘404s’ in the web world) and usually do not speak up. How do I notice them? SPACE MAGIC! Actually, there’s an automated gizmo anyone can use to be notified when a web site has broken links. So I ‘saw’ when the City’s Public Comment form stopped working.
What I used to do was immediately report/nag/complain when I found a ‘404’ and… get eyerolls and heavy sighs about how hard everyone is working and stop being a pain, etc. And then I got in touch with my inner chakras and realised that I don’t have to find them. Because eventually, residents will. All I have to do is give them a reason to look. 🙂
No microphone
On September 27 the City had that Community Meeting with this slide. And among the dozen or so unethical and scary legal concerns, from one of the presentation slides it looks as though the SURPRISE! hotel extends over where the new $1,000,000 restroom is placed. I mean the cement hasn’t even cured it’s so new. And sure enough there is a new building labeled ‘RR’ which looks like ‘relocated restroom’.
So I post about it and I get all this ricketa racketa. I’m told by the City “Of course we’re not moving the new bathrooms.” The tone is obviously patronising. Like: How silly of you to assume that we’d do something like that, JC!” OK, I’m silly.
OK, I’m silly…
So I fire up a totally amateur program, Google Earth, to check. And sure enough, the hotel does plow through the existing bathroom. Silly my ass.
And… I get screamed at by the Mayor. This time, for not getting permission from the City first.
It’s not on the agenda…
In the past week I’ve received over fifty (50) emails from residents just furious about this new hotel location. So I tell residents to show up to speak at the last three meetings of the year. And then apparently the City just happens to to on social media to remind residents that “the marina won’t be on the agenda until 2023.”
But of course neglecting to mention that anyone can comment on anything the like at any meeting.
So like ten people call me the next day to tell me they don’t want to show up if they won’t be ‘allowed’ to speak.
Defensiveness
It does not bother me at all when people make mistakes. It does not bother me when the votes do not go the way I’d like. But we should never get defensive when residents point out bugs or mistakes.
And for anyone to get annoyed and say “Trust us… you’ll see” on large projects indicates a lack of regard. It would be like displaying the wrong price tag and then getting upset when the customer asked to pay what was clearly listed on the tin.
I get stroppy about it because most residents are so uninformed. They tend to take everything at face value because they do trust that the City runs as expected. It’s actually a compliment.
Priorities
In fact, we actually had a system whereby residents could simply put “Public Comment” in the subject line of an email. Or they could fill out the form and then the staff would cobble together a PDF, deliver it to the Council and then upload to web site. But, like Zoom, it created extra work for the staff.
The bottom line is that all this stuff (web site, public comment, outreach, etc.) takes up City resources. Staff have a certain number of hours/dollars to work with and perhaps they feel they can better serve the public using those resources in other ways, eg. public safety, roads, processing permits, etc.
Priorities
However, shorting things like public comment, Zoom, the web site, public engagement all just happen to lead to less transparent government. And so do all the tiny mistakes that, after a while, stop looking less like mistakes and more like a strategy.
Transparency, but its very nature, is meant to slow the process. And if you happen to like the direction the train is moving, whether consciously or not, you are simply not inclined to do things that might tend to reduce its speed.
Summary
You do a public meeting with no microphone… followed up by a private meeting with a proper sound system (which you do not want recorded!)
You put up a poster clearly showing a new hotel crushing into the new $1MM bathroom (and a clearly indicated ‘Relocated Restroom’).
You dump the electronic Public Comment system with no notice.
You make hundreds and hundreds of tiny mistakes over time, all of which tend to reduce public engagement.
You do all these things (and many more) and in every single case get defensive, dismissive, patronising and condescending when people notice?
This was done with Google Earth Pro (GEP.) GEP is very rudimentary and I have the drawing skills of an 8-year old. But GEP does allow one to draw boxes to scale. So all the ‘buildings’ are about 35ft high (the zoned limit.) I actually started this project to see if the September 27 Skylab Presentation does or does not block the new bathroom we just built for $1MM. (See the ‘RR’ in their drawing? That means ‘relocated restroom’.)
#1. This is a flyover from the North Entry.
Former Mayor Don Wasson’s house is now the Beach Park lawn nearest the north entry. The Cliff House and Mariner condos are across the street (in white.)
#2 This is in front of the Quarterdeck looking NW towards the proposed hotel.
And… the hotel does cut into the new $1MM bathroom (which is why it is marked as “relocated” in the Skylab drawing.) So…does that mean a smaller hotel? Or does it mean the bathrooms really would need to be moved?
#3. Now we fly up again to take in the Adaptive Purpose Building
The initial cost estimate of the APB is $4MM. It will replace the sheds and provide dry stack storage.
In addition to the dry stack storage, 27 September presentation calls for tearing down the harbormaster’s office, moving SR3 and the farmers market into the APB, and if there’s room left, possibly some office space or shops or whatever. Hence the name ‘adaptive purpose’.
An example of indoor dry stack boat storage
#4. Flying up to take in the view against the South Shores condos on 22rd and Cliff Ave.
#5. Here is from a more southerly vantage point so you can see both the empty space behind CSR and then SR3.
Now: what to do with those two empty spots?
The consultant report talks about the potential of up to four restaurants. But those spaces could also be used for a second dry stack storage–and dry stack storage is not a “maybe it will pencil out, may it won’t” deal. Dry stack is, like in-water moorage, a true moneymaker.
#6. And finally pulling out to take in the entire area.
By the way, the green in the east bg was the originally planned site for SR3 on 223rd and Sixth Ave. It’s just there for reference.
The Blank Canvas
I know this is so ugly it will drive some people nuts. I’m not trying to be anti-anything. I just want people to understand what goes where and most of us seem to ‘get’ visuals like this about 1,000% better than long text descriptions. And again, the City has already budgeted for a professional to do an aesthetically pleasing rendering so you can ask them to get on the stick. 🙂 Marina Redevelopment Town Hall ARPA Proposal.
What I really wanted to be able to do was see a blank canvas. As I’ve written before, it drives me nuts that we’ve been building things one piece at a time, ie. we’ve committed to Quarterdeck, SR3, and now the new bathrooms. And that is making the architect have to work around all this ‘stuff’. Imagine what could we do if we just had a clean sheet and could design exactly what we want! And then it occurred to me: We could do exactly that, because we own all this! We don’t have to work one piece at a time. We don’t have to sell off anything. Instead, we could create a single, unified design.
There are other details I did not talk about, eg. the blue line along the south edge of the Marina Floor. That’s the south seawall, which will soon need to be replaced–just like the north seawall this past year. More cranes! More permits! More $$$$ 😀
As we get more details, and when I can find an 9-year old to help me learn Google Earth one year better, I’ll add in the complete animation so you can ‘fly around’ yourself.
If you spot any errors or have any questions, please let me know, so I can make corrections. (Eg. In the latest Skylab drawing, the Adaptive Purpose Building has been split into two pieces, basically covering the same area. My drawing skills have not progressed to where I can split my ‘APB’ into the two separate things. Maybe tomorrow. 🙂 )
There has been a lot of concern recently concerning Marina Redevelopment and the master sums up my feelings about the situation. Plus, listening to a great song always helps calms me down when I’m upset about things like this. 🙂
If, like me, you are not happy with things, below you will find:
Policy Solutions (the things the City can do to move things in a better direction) and then
Your Action Items: the things you can and should do to make that happen.
Two Issues
But before we get to that, to answer one very popular question, according to the City Communications Director, the new bathroom will not need to be moved. (Even though the September 27, 2022 Skylab Presentation clearly shows that happening.)
But for me that raises two issues…
The presentations we’ve had so far are so confusing and filled with conflicting ‘stuff’ that you cannot tell what’s what.
Why on earth are we building this, literally, “One piece at a time.”?
Say you find your little bit of heaven—your DREAM property? Who builds the bathroom first and -then- starts building the other rooms? No one does that. Instead, you’d get the architect to come up with your complete DREAM DESIGN to go with your–dream property. You’d get the entire thing together -before- you started building. Johnny’s song is no joke. You build any big project one piece at a time and you get what you deserve.
SOLUTIONS
The solutions are really, really simple. They’ so simple, I fear you won’t believe me.
Just get twenty people to go to City Council and demand this: “Stop all landside development until the City does three things.”
Immediately implement the Marina Town Hall we already voted for in 2021 https://jcharrisfordesmoines.com/marina-town-hall-arpa-proposal/
Reinstate the Public Planning Commission we had until 2013 to give residents a seat at the table on all land use.
Reinstate the Marina Committee we had for decades when the Marina was first built.
All of these can be done now and implemented in January with no impact on the docks or the hoist projects. But we need this approach to create a Marina footprint that truly serves the interests of the public.
Why?
Each of the above has a very specific purpose. At bottom, this is all about zoning. And zoning has veeeerrrrry specific laws. You can’t go to the City and say “Don’t block my view!” or “Don’t build a hotel!” or “Build a hotel here, but not there!” Or, “I like everything except…” That’s really not how zoning works, and besides those are band-aids, not really solutions.
You’re not asking why we would want a hotel. Or if we even need a hotel. You’re not considering that a developer may not want to build in a particular spot or what impacts it might have on the entire area. Zoning is supposed to be the process that allows the entire community to answer those questions and plan for the future.
The fact that we’re the only city in the area without a public planning commission should tell you something about all our land use decisions.
The solution is to get back to having a fair process and let that get you where you want to go. That’s what those solutions will do. You can’t cut corners and expect things to work out right on such a long term project. Electeds come and go. City officials come and go. You need to ‘get it in writing’.
The Virtual Town Hall is a first step. It’s the method we should use for every important land use decision in the future. It lets everyone visualise the project in advance. And the really good news? We already budgeted for it over a year ago, so there’s nothing holding us back from doing it today.
A Planning Commission (PC), which every other city has, is the place where members of the public get to have input on the actual design of the City. The PC would organise the town halls, gather input from the public, advise the Council on what you want. And it would do it not just for the Marina, but for every planning decision. No. More. Surprises.
A Marina Committee, like our other Council Committees, brings everyone concerned about the Marina to the same table. The Marina is now the essential public square for the entire city. No more preferential treatment for any single constituency. No more ‘in-private’. No more uncertainty as to when or where you can engage with the City and the Council on issues of concern. A Marina Committee creates a single public place where all stakeholders can go, every month, to plan for Marina-specific issues.
I urge you to read the above, attend all of these and give public comment in support each of these ideas. If we get started now, we can have a better process started IN JANUARY, with no delay to -anything-. But you must start SHOWING UP and you must ask for these specific things…
Get get that 3rd COVID Booster (the new ‘bivalent’ model.) Now. Deaths are slowly rising. Again, again, it takes about a month to achieve full efficacy. And the number of people who have had all four injections is now below fifty percent. Football, Thanksgiving. Christmas. I think you know where I’m going here. They’re doing walk-ins now pretty much everywhere. 🙂
This Week
Tuesday: 6:00PM Des Moines Housing Action Plan Open House at Highline College. See what we have going on with land use planning!
Wednesday: Highline Forum (Agenda) Updates on StART, Sound Transit, WSDOT SR-509
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) (more info below.)
Friday: South King County Housing & Homelessness Partners (SKHHP)
November 17 City Council Meeting Preview
City Manager’s report
We will get our first (and only) report on the Human Services Advisory Committee. This is outrageous.
Consent Agenda
We’ll vote on Flock Cameras, which silently read license plates as people drive by them. It’s a lot like a speed camera–basically, a computer finds that the associated driver has an outstanding warrant and then pings the Police Department. The PD is super-jazzed about the program as a force-multiplier. I always have privacy concerns because a) it’s just a matter of changing the software to do a lot more than just look at license plates. And b) unlike most of you, I’ve actually been to true surveillance states (like the Soviet Union) many times and so I am that nervous nelly.
Public Hearing
As we get near the end of year, we jam as much ‘stuff’ into each meeting.
2022 Amended Budget: Why we’re finalising the 2022 Budget in November? Oh, like I’m supposed to know. 😀
2023 Budget Second Reading: I will vote no for one simple reason: There has been no time allocated for CM Amendments.
New Business
Suspending restriction on use of one-time money for the third year in a row. I will vote no.
Legislative Priorities. I was restricted from asking our lobbyist questions.
Executive Session
I can’t tell ya the details, but it may or may not have something to do with the olicePay ontractCay. And if this sounds a bit phoney baloney, please understand: My belief is that you, the residents, want more police. But there is simply no path to get there if we cannot talk openly about how to pay for it.
Last Week
Monday: Dept. of Ecology briefing on their upcoming plan to identify communities most impacted by pollution. and set up monitoring to move towards legislation which protects us. (Spoiler alert: I’m pushing for Des Moines. 🙂 )
Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda). The Commission approved their 2023 budget.
Tuesday: King County Flood District. Ditto. The group voted to approve our 2023 budget.
Friday: 11:00AM Veterans Day celebration by the Des Moines Memorial Drive Preservation Association at Sunnydale School in Burien. (Check out their web site for some great history on Des Moines Memorial Drive. 🙂
One piece at a time…
There has been a lot of concern recently concerning Marina Redevelopment and the master sums up my feelings about the situation. Plus, listening to a great song always helps calms me down when I’m upset about things like this. 🙂
If, like me, you are not happy with things, below you will find:
Policy Solutions (the things the City can do to move things in a better direction) and then
Your Action Items: the things you can and should do to make that happen.
Two Issues
But before we get to that, to answer one very popular question, according to the City Communications Director, the new bathroom will not need to be moved. (Even though the September 27, 2022 Skylab Presentation clearly shows that happening.)
But for me that raises two issues…
The presentations we’ve had so far are so confusing and filled with conflicting ‘stuff’ that you cannot tell what’s what.
Why on earth are we building this, literally, “One piece at a time.”?
Say you find your little bit of heaven—your DREAM property? Who builds the bathroom first and -then- starts building the other rooms? No one does that. Instead, you’d get the architect to come up with your complete DREAM DESIGN to go with your–dream property. You’d get the entire thing together -before- you started building. Johnny’s song is no joke. You build any big project one piece at a time and you get what you deserve.
SOLUTIONS
The solutions are really, really simple. They’ so simple, I fear you won’t believe me.
Just get twenty people to go to City Council and demand this: “Stop all landside development until the City does three things.”
Immediately implement the Marina Town Hall we already voted for in 2021 https://jcharrisfordesmoines.com/marina-town-hall-arpa-proposal/
Reinstate the Public Planning Commission we had until 2013 to give residents a seat at the table on all land use.
Reinstate the Marina Committee we had for decades when the Marina was first built.
All of these can be done now and implemented in January with no impact on the docks or the hoist projects. But we need this approach to create a Marina footprint that truly serves the interests of the public.
Why?
Each of the above has a very specific purpose. At bottom, this is all about zoning. And zoning has veeeerrrrry specific laws. You can’t go to the City and say “Don’t block my view!” or “Don’t build a hotel!” or “Build a hotel here, but not there!” Or, “I like everything except…” That’s really not how zoning works, and besides those are band-aids, not really solutions.
You’re not asking why we would want a hotel. Or if we even need a hotel. You’re not considering that a developer may not want to build in a particular spot or what impacts it might have on the entire area. Zoning is supposed to be the process that allows the entire community to answer those questions and plan for the future.
The fact that we’re the only city in the area without a public planning commission should tell you something about all our land use decisions.
The solution is to get back to having a fair process and let that get you where you want to go. That’s what those solutions will do. You can’t cut corners and expect things to work out right on such a long term project. Electeds come and go. City officials come and go. You need to ‘get it in writing’.
The Virtual Town Hall is a first step. It’s the method we should use for every important land use decision in the future. It lets everyone visualise the project in advance. And the really good news? We already budgeted for it over a year ago, so there’s nothing holding us back from doing it today.
A Planning Commission (PC), which every other city has, is the place where members of the public get to have input on the actual design of the City. The PC would organise the town halls, gather input from the public, advise the Council on what you want. And it would do it not just for the Marina, but for every planning decision. No. More. Surprises.
A Marina Committee, like our other Council Committees, brings everyone concerned about the Marina to the same table. The Marina is now the essential public square for the entire city. No more preferential treatment for any single constituency. No more ‘in-private’. No more uncertainty as to when or where you can engage with the City and the Council on issues of concern. A Marina Committee creates a single public place where all stakeholders can go, every month, to plan for Marina-specific issues.
I urge you to read the above, attend all of these and give public comment in support each of these ideas. If we get started now, we can have a better process started IN JANUARY, with no delay to -anything-. But you must start SHOWING UP and you must ask for these specific things…
