Some bits of business…

The SAMP

The three cities have dipped their toes in the water re. objecting to the increasing expansion of the airport. At the risk of being self-serving, by far the best coverage you will receive is at STNI. Frankly, I’ve become increasingly alarmed at the declining quality of discussion. It’s like vaccines. People get to say whatever they want, with no evidence. But the only reason we have not gotten to a better place with the airport is low information and politics. We can’t seem to get past what one Burien resident said about the Third Runway 30 years ago. He called it a ‘religious war’ between two small factions. One side says, “Don’t like it, move!” and we end up with nothing. The other says ‘Fight!’ and wastes millions or gasses on endlessly about ‘the planet’, and again we get nothing to help our immediate situation. That leaves most people, who have lives to lead, indifferent. Whether you care about the noise, the pollution, and the fact that the airport has been a true negative economically, the City has left over $30,000,000 on the table by being just plain stupid. Hopefully this year will be better. But if all that sounds like gibberish? I totally get it. We’ve been doing things wrong for so long, I don’t expect it to make sense. But whether you care about the City’s finances or the noise or the pollution or your kids’ education, there is something in it for you, so subscribe to STNI.

Burien, Des Moines, SeaTac file petition to review SAMP

Light Rail

The new stations will open this Saturday. Regardless of your feelings about the waterfront, this is far more likely to be the real game-changer for Des Moines over the next 5-10 years. I hope you will show up for the grand opening Saturday and read these two excellent articles from the Seattle Times which describe what the new stations are, and what they mean for us. This is the real strategery.

• Your guide to three new light rail stations in South King County | The Seattle Times
• Light rail’s push to Federal Way gives students, workers front-door access | The Seattle Times

Strategery

The City is taking community input on the first Strategic Plan since our founding in 1959! Take this ten minute survey and let us know what your long term vision is for Des Moines. There will also be a town hall at Des Moines Elementary on December 9. Deets to follow soon. But for now? Fill out the survey!!!!

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Reports – November 28, 2025

This Week

Thursday

6:00pm City Council Meeting

Regular Meeting – 04 Dec 2025 – Agenda – Pdf

Keen-eyed observers will note that the first meeting of the month would normally be a COW followed by a Study Session. This is one of those load-balancing issues I go on about all the time. If you haven’t had enough meeting discipline, you get to the end of the year, and ‘stuff’ just piles up which requires a ‘regular’ meeting to tackle it. To be clear: this has nothing to do with meetings taking too long, as my colleagues say. It’s simply that there is always more stuff to do than we’d like. In other words, we keep trying to pretend that we’re this ‘small town’, while the workload keeps trying to tell us: Sorry. Doesn’t work that way. So what? When you pile too much work into meetings, you end up with unnecessarily bad decisions.

Highlights:

5:00 PM – 5:50 PM COW

Item 1: Wesley Master Plan Introduction – In case you hadn’t noticed, Wesley has been rebuilding and expanding the entire campus over the past decade. This is the next phase.

Item 2: City Currents – The Council will hear about shifting the quarterly magazine from print to digital, with possible options to maintain print copies on request. I have favoured this for a very, very, VERY long time. It saves money, eliminates waste (go to the post office and see the dozens of unused copies left strewn about the place) and most important, offers the ability to reach many more people with better content. Go back to my archive of City Currents. Back before we got all fancy pants, the information was better.

6:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Regular Meeting

City Manager

3rd Quarter Financial Report. I tend to hate these because they trigger something I know is important, but will sound petty. Look at this graph. There are eight of them and they all go up, Up, UP! Which looks fantastic, right? Who doesn’t love a graph that does that? But they go up because it’s the third quarter. They’re supposed to go up, Up, UP as the year goes on. But read the teeny, tiny print, which says that the YTD amount is 8.8% less than expected.Maybe it’s a blip. But it’s been blipping all year. Should I care? Who knows? What I really care about are long term trends, which have nothing to do with a Q3 report. And of course, not getting visually distracted by a graph that takes up half the page. See, I told you it would sound petty? 😀

I cannot wait for 2025 to be OVER. And I hope you feel the same. Because this is the chart I’m thinking about. I can’t stand feeling broke and having to make excuses. Whether you realise it or not, it’s been that way since I’ve lived here and I’m sick of it. If you’re happy about the fishing pier or the steps or whatever? We confuse two steps forward and one step back as ‘moving forward’. The objective ‘high point’ for the City, since I’ve lived here? COVID! Seriously that was the most discretionary spending we’ve ever had for all the services people ask about. Life, she is ironic, no? 😀

Consent Agenda

• Item 4: Co-Living Housing Ordinance – 2nd Reading
• Item 5: Adoption of 2026 City Council State Legislative Priorities
• Item 6: Collective Bargaining Agreement – Police Guild – the agreement seems to give us three more years, which is good, because it’s felt like one bargaining session after another since I’ve been on the Council. Because public safety is always over 50% of the budget, we need some kind of ongoing certainty if we’re ever going to get more officers.
• Item 7: Boundary Line Adjustment with Normandy Park — Check out the maps. When you visit the Beach Park, I bet you didn’t know that you’ve been ¹trespassing on Normandy Park land all these years!

Public Hearing

Item 1: Planning Commission Ordinance – 1st Reading – I’ve wanted this since it was abandoned in 2012-2013. Now that it’s ‘back’ I’m a bit wistful given that we’re doing this (like so many things) in the wrong order. My sense is that it will be tough to know an effective scope of work until we have the Strategic Plan in place.

Item 2: Amended Transportation Improvement Plan (2026-2045) – this item is to add more support for ‘ferries’ writ large. The supposed idea is to make it easier to apply for grants. I’m so sick of the topic. I see no reason for the City to put in any effort on behalf of any other agency until they demonstrate a clear plan. In other words, even if it’s ‘free’ it takes our energy away from working on things we can control.

Unfinished Business

Item 1: City Council Compensation Framework and Survey Discussion — I will likely vote no on this unless it is heavily amended. See essay below.

New Business

Item 1: Animal Control Discussion Regarding Potential Contract with Burien CARES – this is the much-desired ‘return of animal control’. It never completely left. But it has been terrible. IMO, this simply brings it back to a passing grade. However, I want to remind readers why it went away: our budget. And so far, DocuPet, which is supposed to provide some of the dough, does not seem to be delivering. Here’s the deal: We stopped actively collecting seven years ago. And when you don’t collect? People stop paying. It will take a while to get the woid out and make people understand: everyone needs to license their doggies and kitties!

Item 2: Creating a Public Safety Sales Tax Fund – 1st Reading – speaking of which, this is the other piece of the funding pie for Animal Control and GPS Monica long-term. We’re going ahead as if it’s a done deal, but as of this writing, there is still some question as to whether our implementation plan, which requires state approval, is a go. Hope so. 🙂 😀

Executive Session

Pending Litigation RCW 42.30.110(1)(i) – 10 Minutes. I can’t tell ya what it’s about without being sent to hell without an electric fan, but it may or may not have to do with a four-letter link in this article. 🙂

Last Week

I hope your holiday was all you could wish for. Someone on Facebook asked if Happy Donuts would be open on Thanksgiving and I wrote them, “I like your style!” 😀 For many, the stereotypical ‘holiday’ is still that Norman Rockwell painting–maybe with a big screen TV in the background so people can scream at the Dallas Cowboys? But if you get out a bit, a ton of people in Des Moines have a very nice time every year at Tuscany; then Mandarin Kitchen at Christmas. Me? A lot of the time we do a seafood boil–then watch this movie about a suicidal college drop-out, who thinks some homeless guy named ‘Clarence’ is an angel.

Other than that, I wrote my first ‘essay’ in a long while concerning three things I think mattered for 2025 and what is coming in 2026. You can read the whole thing here. But because we’ll be discussing one of those topics (pay raises), here is that first section.

City Council Pay Raise

It used to be the custom that mayors held the gavel, but avoided proposing legislation. I agreed with that approach. It worked better. Outgoing Mayor Buxton introduced this a while back, perhaps because anything to do with ‘pay’ is a touchy subject and it was easier than asking other sitting Cms to do so. To be clear: no sitting Cm will benefit from it. Pay raises only apply to new people because the law says you can’t vote for your own raise.

My colleagues talked about how we haven’t gotten a raise since 1999 and compared us to other cities. They point out that the proposed dollar amounts are small. Both are true.

I do not support this for the same reasons I voted no on the other pay increase (see below.) COLAs and comparables are important factors in compensating staff and working people. Leadership is something else. Every city is different, but more than that, I believe you reward leaders based on success–not on any formula.

What does success look like? The Council’s last pay raise was a very long time ago. Various versions have done some very nice things since then. However, we’ve also gone through so many financial crises you probably think they are just ‘normal’. Many of my colleagues will tell you so. They will tell you that they are inevitable. I tell you they’re not. But if you keep telling people that being so poor you can’t even afford animal control is normative? Well… 

Regardless, things will likely be even tougher for the City in 2026 than 2025. For me, the timing and optics are poor. If we expect to be paid more, we should at least provide some evidence that ‘this time will be different’. If you say “it’s just an employee COLA,” remember: a lot of people are not getting anything these days.

But more importantly we are not employees.

It said clearly in the packet that COLAs are illegal for elected officials. And yet that was brought up by my colleagues anyway. One of many uncomfortable features of our government is that electeds show up, and whether or not they are prepared, or how much effort they put in, they get the same check. I know you’re shocked. Shocked. But if you want better decisions, you should expect and encourage leaders who are prepared to make those decisions.

Councilmember Mahoney seemed to want to limit education money.

“The tendency has gone to just one or two where we could allocate it fairly and give everybody opportunity.”

I believe he meant that only one member of the Council has taken advantage of educational opportunities in recent years. Guess who? But nobody was ever limited. In fact, the total amount the City has spent on any training in recent years has been almost trivial. and that should be the real concern. Where I come from, we encourage people to pursue professional education. Because it makes for better decisions.  I am only an outlier in Des Moines. Many other cities have multiple electeds with similar credentials.

Another point raised had something to do with our low hourly wage. Again, more employee-think. But the good news? At the request of our new City Manager, the Council voted to end our standing committees, saving both staff, and the majority of the Council from any workload beyond Thursday meetings. My hourly rate has skyrocketed this year. 😀

However, the notion of effort is valid–and completely unrecognized in our current system. Many colleagues complain about putting in extra time and they are right to do so. Again, unlike other cities, we get a flat fee for Thursday night meetings and zero for anything else.

It should be a simple matter to allow for reimbursement. If you attend regional meetings, if you attend various events (see below re. Port meetings) or airport conferences as I do (which ain’t cheap), you should be able to submit an expense report. That is equitable. And it shouldn’t matter whether I care about airports and environment or you care about something else you are doing to sincerely improve the City. That makes people feel like the added effort matters.

We are all different. Some of us will have more time. Hopefully we will represent a range of interests. The Council benefits from the widest variety of talents. But if you put in more effort, it should be reimbursed.

However, automatic raises based on formulas, during a financial crisis, with no recognition or compensation for added effort? I know how ‘old guy’ this will sound. But frankly, that sounds a lot like what I encountered in the Soviet Union, pal. 

We ended by moving the discussion to the December 4 meeting. Frankly, it’s not the money. It’s the mindset.

To address all the concerns I heard, I will propose an amendment to maintain the current pay rate, but provide a $500 annual reimbursement (equivalent to a 4.5% increase) for every Cm, to be used only for training and education. If you don’t use it, you can roll it over into the next year.

Some bits of business…

The election…

I wrote about the election last week, but one recurring piece of inaccurate information I keep reading is ‘low voter turnout’. Actually, voter turnout in Des Moines was close to 40%. Not as good as Sweden and Australia, but higher than in most recent elections which are typically in the mid 30s.

As of November 14 Election results

The Promenade?

At our last meeting I learned something I had totally spaced on! On our Capital Improvements plan, project MCCP0030, aka ‘the Marina Steps’ is actually called the Marina Steps & Promenade. I honestly was confused as to what the promenade part was, because when the Marina was originally built, the ‘promenade’ referred to the walkway in front of the docks and then ‘promenade’ was used to describe the 223rd Green Streets thing. I was so curious, I asked ‘the AI’ to search meeting videos and I could only find one person speaking about the zigzaggy thing as a ‘promenade’ — back in 2023. Of the thousands of times people have talked about the project, since 2017, in every other case its talked about as ‘the Marina Steps’. No promenade. Anyhoo, probably everyone else got the memo on this. 😀 But given its architectural prominence, maybe we shoulda called it the Marina Promenade… with Steps?

WD54

I get asked this a lot. Water District #54 has been in a sort of holding pattern for a while. They had a boil water notice in 2023, necessitating a shift to purchasing all their water from Highline Water District. Then their manager was assaulted by an extremely troubled person while on rounds and never returned to work.

Returning to the well water supply you see on 11th Avenue would require some very expensive new equipment. But having to purchase water from Highline takes so much money, they struggle to find money to do so. Despite having grants for some of that work, they are not close to being fully funded.

Traditionally, their Commission has been extremely reluctant to raise rates. Good for their small number of customers, bad for long term viability.

On top of that, the office manager — one of my favourite people in Des Moines and her dog — are retiring next month with no replacement.  The Commission has been trying to figure out a path forward and the obvious option is to become a satellite of Highline — which surrounds WD54 on all sides. What will that mean for retaining one of the last remaining well-water services in the State? Ya got me.

It has probably been inevitable for a long time that some form of consolidation is necessary. The giant tower, reservoir, and the land on 219th are now essentially taking up precious land that could be put to better uses.

What I’m basically saying is that I walk by there all the time and I’m hoping there is a way to build some houses for young families to live next to the park. 🙂

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Reports – November 14, 2025

Strategery

The City is taking community input on the first Strategic Plan since our founding in 1959! Take this ten minute survey and let us know what your long term vision is for Des Moines. There will also be a town hall at Des Moines Elementary on December 9. Deets to follow soon. But for now? Fill out the survey!!!!

This Week

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting – Sea-Tac Noise.Info The Port will finalise their budget. As I said last week, there was a very good discussion on the Tax Levy. To summarise it’s been two years and they have not fixed a single Port Package using the Tax Levy funds as promised and no matter what people say, the amount of funding for community grants available for cities like Des Moines has plummeted.

Wednesday

Regional Transit Committee  (11-19-25 RTC Agenda) As I said at the last meeting, the King County Council is instituting a big push for transit public safety.

7:00 PM Des Moines Historical Society: The DMHS is hosting a presentation from the Port of Seattle on the History of Sea-Tac Airport. 728 225th Ave. More details here:

Last Week

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting – Sea-Tac Noise.Info They passed their budget forward. There was a very good discussion on the Tax Levy. It was an odd thing — the staff discouraging the Commissioners from raising rates! Again, this should signal people how well they are doing — and how increasingly out of touch Commissioners are with airport communities.

It’s been two years and they have not fixed a single Port Package using the Tax Levy funds they promised. And second, the amount of funding for community grants continues to increase–which they will crow about. However, the actual amount available for cities like Des Moines has plummeted.

I attended a Veterans Day ceremony at Sunnyside Elementary, with the Des Moines Memorial Drive Preservation Association. Yes, there is a ceremony at SJU. I’ve been attending this one for a decade now, and it’s become routine. I support their work because trying to reduce traffic on DMMD, create and improve the Lake to Sound Trail, and make all of it as beautiful as possible have always been worthy goals. 🙂

Wednesday

Emergency Management Advisory Committee. Not specific to this meeting but it’s that time of year when I nag people to create an emergency preparedeness kit and sign up for King County Alerts. Both are super-easy and both could save you and your family’s lives. 🙂

Thursday

City Council Meeting Regular Meeting – 13 Nov 2025 – Agenda – Pdf

City Council Meeting November 13, 2025

Regular Meeting – 13 Nov 2025 – Agenda – Pdf

This meeting was super-action-packed and really hit on the direction of both the Council and the City. Rather than do a recap of the meeting I’m working on my first ‘essay’ in a long time which I will publish separately. I’m sure you’ll be refreshing your browser every 30 seconds to see that. 😀

Some bits of business…

I don’t feel tardy

This article was delayed by… life. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket. The 80’s called and want all their catch-phrases back. They can’t have them. But these meetings are so action-packed, its still worth a read.

The Election

November 2025 General Election Results – King County, Washington

• In Des Moines, congratulations to Gene Achziger (unopposed), Robyn Desimone (unopposed), Harry Steinmetz and Pierre Blosse.
• Our new King County Councilmember District #5 is Steffanie Fain (two ‘f’s 🙂
• Girmay Zahilay is the new King County Executive
• Sen. Tina Orwall (unopposed)
• Edwin Obras House Rep. Position #1
• Blaine Holien Highline School District #5 (unopposed) In fact, all incumbents were re-elected.
• Highline Schools Levy passed by 60%

Overall, it looks like Fed Way will trend a bit more conservative–for us that has meant a steadying decline in interest on airport concerns. Jim Ferrell re-elected. Burien shifts more progressive. SeaTac as well. Caitlin Konya showed an interest in airport issues during her campaign.

Burien’s Public Safety Property Tax Levy was defeated, but it was closer than ours in 2024.

All three Port Commissioners ran unopposed.

I want you to look at something regarding two campaigns.

First, the 33rd race. Here is the campaign spending from the PDC. If this is correct, both campaigns raised over half a million dollars. (See both the campaign fund and the PAC money for and against.)

I know people were offended by the really negative campaigning on both sides. I agree 100% But the money is also offensive. What has not quite happened here (yet) are massive campaign spends, but many area council races are now routinely spending $50-80k even $100k. And, not to sound snippy, but it ain’t like all that money makes for higher quality electeds.

Then there was Peter Kwon v. Steffanie Fain for KC Council #5. Despite being outspent more than 2-1, Mr. Kwon bested five other candidates in the primary by knocking on so many doors you wouldn’t believe it. And still it wasn’t enough to win the general.

Look at the featured image of this article. Despite what I heard in the election about Des Moines being a ‘young’ city, that is not true of the people who vote. Voting in general is in decline, but worse, it’s becoming more concentrated into a single demographic. White. Senior. Water.

And IMO, if one cares about such things, one can take a couple of basic positions:

• Passive – Hey, I voted! If they don’t care? Sad, but don’t try to guilt me. Hopefully education will improve. Hell, it might even be better if only people who care vote.
• Active – It’s bad whenever the turnout is so mismatched with the broader electorate. It’s a bit like income inequality. It’s undemocratic. And it leads to poor governance.

Like most things, it’s complicated. But the number of truly competitive elections is declining. Forget the money, at every level of government, I see people trying. But more and more, they simply have more than they can handle–because government (including Des Moines) keeps getting more complicated. So we just shrug and pat each other on the back for doing our best. This may sound harsh, but doing our best is not the same as delivering. You want a system that makes great (not passable) outcomes the norm, rather than the exception.

It may be that we want something no longer possible: put out yard signs, wave at people for a couple of days, say a few standard things at a campaign forum (there was one this year at a senior living center viewed by about 50 people before ballots dropped) and call that ‘democracy’.

On the other hand, if you are pleased with the candidates who won, this all sounds exactly like small town democracy. Perfectly fine. 🙂

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – November 7, 2025

Strategery

The City is taking community input on the first Strategic Plan since our founding in 1959! Take this ten minute survey and let us know what your long term vision is for Des Moines.

DocuPet

Sign up your pet with DocuPet. It’s easy. Even the part where you have to upload proof of vaccination. Spend $10 and get a custom tag (the City gets 20% 😀 ) The new program will bring in significant money to restore animal control and help make sure all our pets are vaccinated and findable. It’s easy to do and I encourage you to share this link with everyone.

The Shutdown

City Manager Caffrey put out a special City Manager Report to provide some sort of guidance, which I very much appreciate.

Resources for Employees Affected by Federal Government Shutdown – November 5, 2025 Special Edition of the City Manager Report

Now that the longest shutdown in American history seems to be ending (well, at least for about a month? 😀 ) I have no idea what to think. I seem to be in old guy mode more than usual this week, but…

Sonny, when I got to America we were #1! 😀

I’ve watched us squander some of the biggest advantages of any nation in human history. We shoot ourselves in the foot so often now, I’m not sure how we even get back to where we were last year, let alone move the ball down the field.

This Week

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting – Sea-Tac Noise.Info They passed their budget forward. There was a very good discussion on the Tax Levy. It was an odd thing — the staff discouraging the Commissioners from raising rates! Again, this should signal people how well they are doing — and how increasingly out of touch Commissioners are with airport communities.

It’s been two years and they have not fixed a single Port Package using the Tax Levy funds they promised. And second, the amount of funding for community grants continues to increase–which they will crow about. However, the actual amount available for cities like Des Moines has plummeted.

I attended a Veterans Day ceremony at Sunnyside Elementary, with the Des Moines Memorial Drive Preservation Association. Yes, there is a ceremony at SJU. I’ve been attending this one for a decade now, and it’s become routine. I support their work because trying to reduce traffic on DMMD, create and improve the Lake to Sound Trail, and make all of it as beautiful as possible have always been worthy goals. 🙂

Wednesday

Emergency Management Advisory Committee

Thursday

City Council Meeting Regular Meeting – 13 Nov 2025 – Agenda – Pdf

This will be the initial presentation of the second year of our first biennial budget. Got all that? 😀 It’s a truly action-packed agenda. But here are some highlights…

• B&O Tax Model Ordinance Update – 2nd Reading.
• 2025 Neighborhood Traffic Calming Project – Contract Award
• Sea-Tac Stakeholder Advisory Round Table (StART) Reappointment
• 2026 Property Tax Levy – 2nd Reading
• 2025/2026 Biennial Budget Amendments – 1st Reading
• Land Use Application Abandonment Ordinance – 1st Reading
• Co-Living Housing Ordinance – 1st Reading
• 2026–2031 Capital Improvements Plan
• Interlocal Agreement for Coordinated SAMP Review and Legal Services
• City Council Compensation Framework Discussion

• Executive Session – Performance of a Public Employee (40 min) — this is the City Manager’s for realz annual review.

A couple of these are worth noting.

• The Budget Amendments are interesting. It is no secret I have not been happy with our financials, both the budgets and the reporting since for-ehveeehr. However, I want to acknowledge some small, but meaningful improvements. On the moolah side, we’re ending about $600k less than original projections and nowhere close to our reserve targets. ow, Ow, OW! But in 2026, the City proposes $50k for a ‘contingency fund’. In a perfect world this should not be necessary. Ideally, you want enough money in the bank to buy whatever. Back here on planet earth, this is something I mentioned at a Finance Committee meeting last year, so whether it’s coincidence or not, I approve. For now. On the reporting side, be still my beating heart: footnotes! 😀 There are now explanations for some key adjustments. These may seem like little things, but they matter. You want people (or rather me) looking at each line and wondering, what happened here. 🙂 Why I’m still not a happy camper? NO FORECASTS! At some point, we need some way to look beyond 1-3-6-9-12 months. When I used to complain about this, the last City Manager would say, “Unfortunately, I left my crystal ball at home.” I’m sure that joke continues to kill–wherever he now is.
• The property tax thing is just the standard 1% — about $13/avg taxpayer.
• The B&O tax thing is to accommodate a new law on service businesses, not a rate increase on existing businesses. We’re required to do this by the State. Rates are another (upcoming) discussion. Since it’s new there’s no way to know yet what difference it will make.
• The City Council Compensation Framework,  means pay raises for Cms. (No letters, please, it’s outgoing Mayor Buxton’s idea. 😀 ) Either a fix dollar amount or some form of automatic annual percentage increase. I will vote no. What we should have, which got cut last year, are stipends for education, and city-related events. For example, I pay out of pocket to attend airport events that electeds in other cities (and the Port) get reimbursed for. How can we hope to get anywhere with the airport (or anything) if we don’t give electeds the incentives to participate?
• SAMP ILA. This was covered by Sea-Tac Noise.Info and I urge you to read their article. I, along with so many of you want the City to not only oppose airport expansion, but also work towards reduction and compensation for the current harms. 110%. But this agreement is really not great. And what has stymied us, decade after decade, are doing ‘something! anything!’ rather than the right thing.

Last Week

Monday

4:00pm Redondo Fishing Pier rebuild begins – a groundbreaking achievement. 🙂

If all goes to plan, it could be ready in 2026. There will be occasional use of pile drivers at the beginning of the project, but the City has promised to provide notice as much as possible.

Thursday

Audit Exit Conference. This is where the State tells us the result of the 2024 audit. Why are we finishing our 2024 audit in November 2025? Don’t get me started. 🙂 But you can look at some of our financial data, and compare it with other cities, at the State FIT Tool. The challenge (for moi, anyhoo, is that the state’s accounting categories aren’t quite the same as our budget book, which makes apples to apples comparisons challenging.)

Saturday

For the second week in a row I was in town! And at the Des Moines Historical Society, which is open the first Saturday of each month from 1pm – 4pm. Rooting around for old videos. On the City web site there are currently videos going back to 2005. But the City installed its first recording system somewhere in the 1990s. Turns out the DMHS has copies of at least some of that material.

City Council November 3, 2025 Recap

Since it’s the first Thursday of the month, we’re having a COW at 5:00pm, followed by a Study Session at 6:00pm.

For this meeting, Councilmember Nutting was away. No, I mean really away. 😀 Like, an excused absence for his 50th Birthday. Congratulations. I hear it’s the new 40. But after ten years on the Council, it may also be the new 80. Or at least, that’s how I feel finishing my sixth.

Study Session – 06 Nov 2025 – Agenda – Updated

Committee Of The Whole

• Discussion of 2026-2031 Capital Improvements Plan

6:00pm Study Session

• Community Development Code Amendments Overview
• Transportation Benefit District Funding Considerations
• Commercial Parking Tax
• Discussion of 2026 City Legislative Priorities

One change I asked about was to put some real effort into historic preservation — I mentioned the old Des Moines Elementary School. Yes, it belongs to Highline School, but with the current problems with the Masonic Home, it feels to me like we have to start taking the few remaining buildings in town seriously. I’ve talked with several groups who would kill to start using the building.

Some bits of business…

Clocks?

I know you set all your clocks back one hour because all your clocks are digital. Soulless machines that do not feel the darkness like a good ol’ analog clock. But just in case–it’s one hour earlier than you think it is. Discuss. 😀

Who is running?

You got your ballots? That’s not enough! Since I believe the airport and environment are the most important issue the City ever faces, here is a two-fer article from Sea-Tac Noise.Info, with their take on the races and a great survey from the Defenders of Highline Forest!

King County Council

For the first time in a dozen years, we will also choose a new KC District #5 Councilmember. This is a big deal! People often get confused what the County Council does (zero control over police, Sea-Tac Airport, land, etc.), they have a lot to do for us concerning grants for parks, public health and human services. For example, they provided significant money for Midway Park and storm water upgrades. Watch this video to decide on Peter Kwon or Steffanie Fain.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – October 31, 2025

Two down, one to go! The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

DocuPet

In ‘bad news/good news’, one of the kids is moving to Europe temporarily. And leaving me the dog? WTF? Is there any good news here?

Well… it did give me a chance to try the City’s new pet licensing system, DocuPet. Here is my 4-star review. It’s pretty easy. Even the part where you have to upload proof of vaccination went super-smooth. However, it gets one star off for insisting that 98198 is in Seattle. I hate that! It also tries a waaaay too hard to upsell. But… if you get elected, you will find yerself spending the extra tenner for a custom-branded tchotke. 😀

The Shutdown

I wrote City Manager Caffrey last week asking her to consider ways the City might help affected residents. I don’t know what that looks like. It’s not like we’re flush with cash atm. But that’s why she makes the big money.

But this is no joke. This shutdown will affect at least 10% of residents. I think we should do ‘something’, but I have no idea what that even means and I generally despise symbolic gestures. I started by asking what we might do to update our community services page on the web site and include contact info to a wider variety of resources. I know a lot of private organisations and individuals are trying to step up, but at a minimum, I’m hoping the City, which has a much larger communications reach, can help direct people to the right places.

There is also a very surreal quality to all this, which has echoes of our ongoing politics here. By the time you read this, we’ll be nearing the record for longest shutdown in American history. It is all optional. It all comes down to an inability to compromise. What kills me is the absence of genuine outrage.

Government is not working. And yet the stock market continues to go up, Up, UP! And even if the switch gets flipped tomorrow, SNAP benefits (among other things) will still be disrupted for several weeks. FAA employees are getting checks for zero dollars. It’s literally not worth the paper it’s printed on. I cannot imagine what that does to morale at some of the most important public safety jobs in America. You thought it was difficult getting new air traffic controllers before? Good luck with that going forward.

At the University of Washington — which runs the air quality monitoring and health work for airport communities, one of their budgets was slashed.

Our City does not shut down, but there has been a similar stubbornness on our Council for years. You just don’t see it because we tend to gauge how well our City is doing by how ‘agreeable’ people seem at the dais on any given night. But the overall situation did not spring up over night. It is the result of years of bad behaviour that has metastasised into something really not great–and difficult to fix for any new Council.

I am very happy with progress we’ve made this year on a lot of surface issues (like the City Manager mailing list I mentioned.) We’re re-building some projects like Redondo. Great.

However, the long term challenges the City faces in terms of finance are also no joke. But until your services are cut, or ‘flowers’ stop appearing on MVD, people don’t see how strapped we are. And, like the shutdown, no matter what anyone tells you, these issues did not spring up over night. Most of them, not kidding, come down to a lack of ongoing cooperation and pettiness between seven part timers. In that way, we’re just like the real politicians.

This Week

Monday

4:00pm Redondo Fishing Pier rebuild begins – a groundbreaking achievement. 🙂

Tuesday

Vote. I don’t even care who you vote for because, newsflash: I am not on the ballot! jk. 🙂 But I do care that you can find a drop box. Here they are.

Thursday

Audit Exit Conference. This is where the State tells us the result of the 2024 audit. Why are we finishing our 2024 audit in November 2025? Don’t get me started. 🙂 But you can look at some of our financial data, and compare it with other cities, at the State FIT Tool. The challenge (for moi, anyhoo, is that the state’s accounting categories aren’t quite the same as our budget book, which makes apples to apples comparisons a bit challenging.)

City Council

Since it’s the first Thursday of the month, we’re having a COW at 5:00pm, followed by a Study Session at 6:00pm. For some reason, this week’s agenda packet was delivered in separate files so… Study Session 20251106

Committee Of The Whole

• Discussion of 2026-2031 Capital Improvements Plan

Study Session

• Community Development Code Amendments Overview
• Transportation Benefit District Funding Considerations
• Commercial Parking Tax
• Discussion of 2026 City Legislative Priorities

One change I would like to see in that last item is to put some real effort into the old Des Moines Elementary School. Yes, it belongs to Highline School, but with the Masonic Home, it feels to me like we have to start taking the few remaining buildings in town seriously. I’ve talked with several groups who would kill to start using the building.

Last Week

Monday

Our annual City Manager performance review was due. My form was sort of an ‘incomplete’, which may provoke a frowny-face from some. But it shouldn’t. There is a lot of revisionist history going on now. If you read my colleagues’ reviews of Ms. Caffrey’s predecessor, they were all stellar. Until they weren’t. The majority members now telling you how much happier they are now would have been fine having Mr. Matthias continue onward.

Things are better now. As I wrote above, the communication, in particular, is an order of magnitude better. But cutting expenses and catching up on service requests (basic management) is painful and difficult, but not particularly challenging. Again, it’s just that we’ve gotten so used to things being, well, not ideal, that anyone doing what is normal elsewhere would look like a rocket surgeon.

The real challenges, the ‘strategery’, will come next year. We’ve been a ‘small town’ with low expectations and no strategy (other than to be ‘the premiere waterfront yadada’) that it’s difficult to predict how things will go. Especially before November 5. 😀

But I will say this: As much as I appreciate the strategic plan, I think that is being oversold a bit. Most of the big decisions have been made. Feel me? It’s not like that discussion will reveal some huge insights previous Councils did not have. For the past decade, the Council majority chose ‘waterfront’ and ‘placemaking’ (steps, ferry, etc.) The question is: will the next Council have the will to consider something different?

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission Meeting. This was a biggee, concerning their plans for the SAMP at the State level next year. Details at STNI.

Wednesday

October 29 Citizens Advisory Board meeting

I encourage you to watch and read the transcript as the Q&A with Finance Director Jeff Friend was interesting.

Video and transcript

Some bits of business…

Who is running?

You got your ballots? That’s not enough! Since I believe the airport and environment are the most important issue the City ever faces, here is a two-fer article from Sea-Tac Noise.Info, with their take on the races and a great survey from the Defenders of Highline Forest!

King County Council

For the first time in a dozen years, we will also choose a new KC District #5 Councilmember. People often get confused what the County Council does (zero control over police, Sea-Tac Airport, land, etc.), but this is a big deal! Their biggest impacts for us generally concern grants, usually parks, public health and human services. For example, they provided significant money for Midway Park and storm water upgrades. Watch this video to decide on Peter Kwon or Steffanie Fain.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – October 24, 2025

Two down, one to go! The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

This Week

Monday

Our annual City Manager performance review is due. My form is sort of an ‘incomplete’, which may provoke a frowny-face from some. But it shouldn’t.

There is a lot of revisionist history going on now. If you read my colleagues’ reviews of Ms. Caffrey’s predecessor, they were all stellar. Until they weren’t. The majority members now telling you how much happier they are now would have been fine having Mr. Matthias continue onward.

Things are better now. The communication, in particular, is an order of magnitude better. But cutting expenses and catching up on service requests (basic management) is painful, difficult, but not particularly challenging. It’s just that we got so used to things being, well, not ideal, that anyone doing what is normal elsewhere would look like a rocket surgeon.

The real challenges, the ‘strategery’, will come next year. We’ve been a ‘small town’ with low expectations and no strategy (other than to be ‘the premiere waterfront yadada’) that it’s difficult to predict how things will go. Especially before November 5. 😀

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission Meeting. This is a biggee, concerning their plans for the SAMP at the State level next year. Details at STNI.

Last Week

Monday

Senator Tina Orwall convened her annual meeting to discuss airport policy for the next legislative agenda. This time it was at a taco joint in Burien. 🙂

Tuesday

Preserve Landmark On The Sound As you may have heard, a large group of citizens organised an appeal of the demolition permit. If you wish to learn more about that, go to: Preserve Landmark on the Sound. The hearing on their appeal was Monday and Tuesday. I tried to check in to see what was up, though the Council has no part in this process. Nevertheless, its over and now it’s simply a waiting game to hear the decision.

Wednesday

5:00pm StART, coverage from STNI.

5:30pm Airport issues Candidate Forum in Burien: Port of Seattle, 33rd LD, coverage from STNI.

Thursday

City Council Meeting: (Agenda) This was a biggee. Recap below…

October 23, 2025 City Council Meeting Recap

Regular Meeting – 23 Oct 2025 – Agenda – Updated

Public Comment

There was one comment praising the City’s improvements in ‘transparency’, from a member of our Citizens Advisory Board (good) but who has become a paid consultant for Harry Steinmetz’s campaign (not so good.) We have a rule against any ‘campaigning’ during public comment and I felt like this really got close to the edge. Maybe I’m wrong. Watch the video and let me know what you think.

Committee Reports

King County Metro Regional Transit Committee. We discussed their performance dashboard. Be still my beating heart. 😀 This has been something near and dear to me and I was pleased to see others now praising its usefulness.

Since nothing is ever good enough, I am now pushing for some metrics on shelter maintenance/upkeep. That sounds like a ‘detail’, but until now, all their public data focuses on riders and drivers. But many people (the majority) see Metro as they drive by. They’ll see a messy shelter, scream about it (along with 100 others) and not realise that it’s on a regular schedule. Some stops have more issues than others. But they are constantly working on it. Like everything, it comes down to funding.

City Manager Stuff

Burien Airport Noise Letter Discussion

The Council voted 6-1 (Mahoney against) to sign onto a letter the City of Burien recently sent to the Port of Seattle Commission expressing real unhappiness on the lack of progress on Port Package updates. Since this is an issue I’ve worked on for nine years with STNI, this is good news and I want to thank both the City of Burien and our own airport committee for their support.

Marina Steps Project

The Council voted 4-3 to move ahead with this, but it required seven individual motions. This created a lot of public confusion. The total cost is about $13M. But the $8.5M mentioned in the Waterland Blog was ‘only’ the bond money we have to repay. The rest consists of money we’re taking from other funds and a $1M State grant. Timeline: Construction begins January 2026, completion January 2027

There were two proposed amendments, both had speeches you should hear and both failed.

I kicked things off by saying I thought it should be held over until the next Council (January) but I’d vote for it if we removed the play area and spray pad — the two features I think are least helpful – and save $1.4M (enough to fund the boat storage which actually would bring in some money.)

Achziger followed up by explicitly asking to reschedule the vote for January. His argument was also that this was too consequential to be left to the last minute.

And I resented some of my colleagues asking the City to weigh in on whether or not it was a good idea. It puts staff in an awkward position. I was also not thrilled that the City provided an option to exclude those two items I mentioned. But then failed to even provide a picture! Why? Because it was not the recommended option. Leading the witness, yer honour! Not. Cool. And eerily reminiscent of the previous regime. Staff should really try to stay out of these discussions. Questions only, not opinons!

2026 Property Tax Levy

(Public Hearing): $5.92M total levy. This is something of a non-event. Every city is allowed 1%. And everyone takes it. 🙂 I asked the City to put up the one slide I think matters: The new cost to the average taxpayer will be a whopping $13.

Ferry Study

I’ve begun called this issue Ferry Krueger. Get it? Because no matter how many times you think the nightmare is over… he’s back.

The Council voted unanimously to approve helping King County conduct a study of ferry service between Des Moines and Seattle. Since it’s grant funded, I guess it’s OK? The scope of the study sounds far more legit than the obviously rigged private study we did in 2019 which kicked off the whole $700,000 waste of money known as the Pilot Program.

But we’ll see. As with the Marina Steps, my trust level on any of this has been below zero for a long time. Certain people will always think that doing something, anything is a win. And since they won’t have to pay for it, of course they’re right. 😀

New Utility Taxes

The Council voted 6-1 (Grace-Matsui against) to create an ad hoc committee to renegotiate franchise agreements with three utility providers (Highline Water, SW Suburban Sewer, Midway Sewer) or allow 5-year extensions.

Increasing the current 6% franchise payment even 1% generates $150k additional revenue per SPD. You are over-taxed, but this isn’t one of them. We’re at the low end of the spectrum–well, on this at least.

Regardless, I hate these agreements. And here’s something you don’t often hear me say: I agreed with former Mayor Dave Kaplan who wanted to convert each agreement to one unified utility tax years ago. He got screamed at back then, and I was one of the screamers, because, as with the property tax levy last year, the City proposal made people think rates could potentially increase to 16%. And without trust, residents automatically assumed the worst. Nevertheless, having one modest, uniform, utility tax, rather than five separate agreements is the only fair way to go. Will we do that? Of course not. 😀 Because even after all these years the same trust problems have not been addressed. (sigh)

8.08F

As the months have passed, I have heard increasing grumbles concerning Councilmember Nutting’s presence only by Zoom for almost the entire year. He has mentioned, it in passing, to the rest of the Council, but has not indicated when he will be back ‘live’. As a group I have heard no objection.

This goes back to our new Council Protocol Manual and there’s a bit of a story here. However, from 1959-2023 the Council had essentially one set of rules that got tweaked every year or two. As far back as I can recall, it limited remote participation to one telephone meeting per year.

In 2023, a committee chaired by Buxton, with Steinmetz and Mahoney, was appointed to re-write those rules entirely. I felt then, as now, that the entire process was unethical. One of the changes concerned remote participation (Rule 8.08F.)

As I read it, the language has some loopholes. We may disagree on ‘unanticipated’, but I see no actual limit</em on remote attendance–only on whether or not the Cm will be paid (which is up to the discretion of the presiding officer?) I don’t think the rule is clear. And considering that one of the committee members is a lawyer, this does not thrill me.

Needless to say, I objected to the entire process. It’s sprinkled with dozens of things like that. And at the risk of sounding whatever, of the 1-2 rules like this that people notice, there will be dozens of others you won’t. That is why I grouse so much about trust.  Because every meeting agenda is like 300 pages of this kind of detailed ‘stuff’.

And what gets on each agenda — including when and how we change those rules — is chosen by the Mayor. Eg. we recently did have a ‘two-year update’. The Mayor chose to limit each Cm to five items for consideration. This wasn’t even in my top five. Discuss. 😀 Also, there is no such limitation in the rules. She just chose that limit. Also something new.

Politics is politics is politics. There are rules like this at every level of government. But complaining is usually a fool’s errand. These are so ‘in the weeds’ the public never notices. Until they do. 🙂

I just want to make it clear that I find the current language in Rule 8.08 ambiguous. I honestly do not know if the Council could remove anyone at the moment, simply for abusing remote attendance. And I do think the ambiguity should have been addressed.

But I have no idea what Councilmember Nutting’s situation is. Should he have voluntarily mentioned it to the Council? I think so. Zoom is fine once in a while–especially for committees. But he isn’t required to. Again, this comes down to social norms.

However, it was a moot point until recently because we had no remote access. 😃 Get it? The Council chose to dump Zoom as soon as the pandemic was over. It is interesting to me, however, that it began ‘working’ reliably when it became useful to the majority.

I’ll leave it here. Who wants to be the elected to make a stink about it? Besides, almost every time I’ve watched our Council try to shame a fellow elected, it’s been for truly awful reasons. I do not want to add to that nonsense.

Even if I had–and by some miracle the Council chose to act–nothing would have happened until after this election. Get it? The Council polices itself. And unless or until you have a majority (or are willing to compromise) addressing stuff like this reasonably will remain nigh on impossible.

But as the saying goes, elections have consequences. We’ll see what happens in January. But understand that there is more to everything than just how it ‘looks’.

Some bits of business…

Who is running?

You got your ballots? That’s not enough! Since I believe the airport and environment are the most important issue the City ever faces, here is a two-fer article from Sea-Tac Noise.Info, with their take on the races and. a great survey from the Defenders of Highline Forest!

King County Council

For the first time in a dozen years, we will also choose a new KC District #5 Councilmember. People often get confused what the County Council does (zero control over police, Sea-Tac Airport, land, etc.), but this is a big deal! Their biggest impacts for us generally concern grants, usually parks, public health and human services. For example, they provided significant money for Midway Park and storm water upgrades. Watch this video to decide on Peter Kwon or Steffanie Fain.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – October 17, 2025

Two down, one to go! The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

This Week

It’s all airport all the time, baby. 😀

Monday

Senator Tina Orwall is convening her annual meeting to discuss airport policy for the next legislative agenda

Wednesday

• 5:00pm StART register here.
• 5:30pm Airport issues Candidate Forum in Burien: Port of Seattle, 33rd LD. Register here.

Thursday

City Council Meeting: (Agenda) Highlights:

Burien Airport Noise Letter Discussion

Discussion of whether Des Moines should send a similar letter to the Port of Seattle regarding failed noise insulation packages. Burien’s letter addresses the Port’s failure to repair/replace residential noise insulation installed since the mid-1980s.

Marina Steps Project

This is basically seven individual motions to move forward on the Marina Steps. Most of my colleagues don’t bother voting ‘no’ on items that have support and I understand. I certainly hate wasting time just to vote ‘no’ seven times. But there have been certain issues over time that truly mattered and this is one where I feel Cms should tell the public where they stand. This, like the Ferry below, is one.

• Construction Contract: $8.5M with Bayshore Construction
• Construction Management: $924K with Psomas, Inc.
• Engineering Services: $638K with KPFF, Inc.
• State Funding Acceptance:
  • $970K from 2023-25 capital budget
  • $999K from 2025-27 capital budget
  • $560K Stormwater Ecology Grant
• Total Project Budget: $12.9M
• Timeline: Construction begins January 2026, completion January 2027

Finance

2026 Property Tax Levy (Public Hearing): $5.92M total levy. This is something of a non-event. Every city is allowed 1%. We take it. 🙂

Telecommunications Franchise

Second reading of franchise agreement with Forged Fiber for fiber optic facilities in city right-of-way. 10-year term with $5,000 one-time fee

Ferry Study

I’ve begun called this issue Ferry Krueger. Get it? Because no matter how many times you think the nightmare is over… he’s back.

We got a grant to study the worthiness of running an electric ferry. In the meantime. We could never afford this. So we’re partnering with King County to help them do a study so they might provide a water taxi? Water Taxis are total money losers. They only make sense when you can guarantee over 100 passengers per run. Which we never will. This has gone through so many permutations I have no idea what it’s about anymore. My colleagues always thought anything with the word ‘ferry’ in it was worth doing. Electric. Bunker Fuel. 12 passengers. 150. Who cares, so long as it floats? We’ve wasted over $700,000 on this and it remains insane.

New Utility Taxes

Council must decide by mid-December whether to renegotiate franchise agreements with three utility providers (Highline Water, SW Suburban Sewer, Midway Sewer) or allow 5-year extensions. Increasing the current 6% franchise payment even 1% generates $150k additional revenue per SPD. I hate these agreements. And here’s something you don’t often hear me say: I agree with former Mayor Dave Kaplan who wanted to convert each agreement to a straight utility tax.

We know you hate being nickeled and dimed. And the following is super-wonky. But we have five SPDs, each with separate agreements. Every time we have to expend resources to renegotiate a separate agreement there is another argument over ‘fairness’ — how one SPD is different from another. And the reality is this: Utility taxes will likely soon become as large (or larger) revenue sources than property tax and the only sustainable (and fair) thing to do is to have one utility tax and no more ‘negotiations’. Will it happen? LMAO.

Vehicle Purchase

Approval to purchase one 2024 Ford F-150 for Police Detective division ($55K). I only mention this because I’m dying to know where you can get any fully-equipped truck for that price. 😀

Last Week

Tuesday

Wesley Candidate Forum. There were about 60 people present to hear four candidates for our City Council, and both candidates for the 33rd State House seat. The League of Women Voters filmed the event, but darnit, they haven’t released the video. If you are unsure of who to vote for I strongly recommend holding off until it is released and you have a chance to watch!

Wednesday

King County Metro Regional Transit Committee. We discussed their performance dashboard. Be still my beating heart. 😀 This has been something near and dear to me and I was pleased to see others now praising its usefulness.

Since nothing is ever good enough, I am now pushing for some metrics on shelter maintenance/upkeep. That sounds like a ‘detail’, but until now, all their public data focuses on riders and drivers. But many people (the majority) see Metro as they drive by. They’ll see a messy shelter, scream about it (along with 100 others) and not realise that it’s on a regular schedule. Some stops have more issues than others. But they are constantly working on it. Like everything, it comes down to funding.

Some bits of business…

Who is running?

King County Council

For the first time in a dozen years, we will also choose a new KC District #5 Councilmember. People often get confused what the County Council does (zero control over police, Sea-Tac Airport, land, etc.), but this is a big deal! Their biggest impacts for us generally concern grants, usually parks, public health and human services. For example, they provided significant money for Midway Park and storm water upgrades. Watch this video to decide on Peter Kwon or Steffanie Fain.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – October 3, 2025

The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

This Week

Wednesday

Emergency Management Advisory Committee. We’ll be discussing Infrastructure & Transportation

6:00pm Port of Seattle SAMP webinar

Thursday

City Council Meeting (Regular Meeting – 09 Oct 2025 – Agenda) Two highlights:

This will be the opening presentation of our budget process, which is a bit weird. It’s the second year of our first year of having a biennial budgeting system. Confused yet? 😀 I voted to shift to the new system. But that was when we had a Finance Committee. If I had known my colleagues would choose to scrap all committees I would have been a hard no. This is a mistake.

We will also finalise our agreement on a management contract for the Steven J. Underwood ballfields. It seems reasonable, but it will be a change having so much more activity there. If you have concerns please let me know.

Last Week

Tuesday

Part 150 Workshop at Parkside Elementary School. If that doesn’t make any sense, or if you couldn’t make these events, STNI did a very good article on how it all works here.

Thursday

Study Session – 02 Oct 2025 – Agenda Recap below.

Friday

University of Washington Ultrafine Particle Workshop. This was a gathering of researchers and a few electeds such as Senator Tina Orwall, SeaTac Cm Peter Kwon and moi to discuss the status of research and to consider future studies. We took several polls. One bit of good news: the air quality monitoring station we’ve been planning looks like it is under budget and on schedule for installation by the end of the year!

October 2, 2025 Study Session Recap

Study Session – 02 Oct 2025 – Agenda

Cm Grace-Matsui was not present and was excused. As has become a custom, Cm Nutting was remote. Very remote. 😀 I believe he left the meeting around 7:15-ish.  There were no public comments.

Technically, this began as a Committee of the Whole Meeting, moved into an Executive Session then followed by a Study Session. But just between you and me, girlfriend? As expected, these first of the month meetings have all turned into One. Big. Cow. I defy anyone to distinguish one from the other.

Executive Session: We did a ‘third quarter review’ of the City Manager.

Planning Commission: We finished our discussion. There will be seven members, one of which will be a business owner and they are not required to live in the City. We groused back and forth on what the duties of the group might be. I honestly don’t know if it matters. As I say with so many things: this is an experiment. If done well, it could be a tremendous asset to the City. If done not great (which frankly was the last one in 2013) it could actually make things worse.

Public Safety Sales Tax: The Council voted unanimously to move forward on this. I am fine with it for several reasons.

• It will bring in $450,000 a year.
• Unlike last years’ property tax levy, it will be monitored more clearly by a state audit system. It must be used for public safety.
• Which means, officers (particularly GPS Monica), the court, and animal control.
• It’s one tenth of one cent per dollar, and only on taxable purchases in Des Moines. The City’s graphic was actually kinda depressing. It pains me to ask this but honestly, how many places are there to buy shoes in Des Moines? 😀 How much of your annual taxable purchases are made here? Probably not that much. Remember: food is not taxable.

Easy Formula: Estimate the total amount you spent on taxable purchases all last year, in Des Moines. Multiply by .001. For me it was less than a cup of coffee.

I get how people hear the word ‘tax’ and reach for a blood pressure pill. But it will provide a lot of help to police. It will be audited. And as a practical matter, I do not see this as having a major impact on residents.

Legislative Agenda: We had our initial discussion. The airport piece, near and dear to my heart, is noticeably better. With one glitch.

• We will continue to advocate for more state effort to help recruit more police officers. Absolutely. 🙂
• We actually dropped support for raising property taxes by as much as 3% Woo hoo!
• Support State funding for a City-led, independent airport community impacts study to evaluate the ongoing impacts of the SAMP. Excellent, Wayne. 🙂
• Support further enhancements to SB5955 and RCW53 to provide more opportunities for sound insulation repair and replacement, and to also allow unconstrained funding for mitigation of the public health impacts of airport operations. Most excellent, Garth. 🙂
• We removed explicit support for the joint StART Airport Community Legislative Agenda. Outstanding!
• Support historic preservation funding opportunities in Des Moines. You bet! It shoulda started with the Masonic Home 🙂  (sorry, that leaked out.)
• Ferry Development. In the one real downer, the City Council backed away from endorsing electric ferries to support for any kind of ‘passenger ferry’ — including fossil fuels like the one we used in that stupid trial. Totally predictable. So much for ‘environmentalism’. If the current Council weren’t changing, I could see us also going back to having the City pay for the service and lose more hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Like the Marina Steps it was never about facts. It was more like a religion.

Some bits of business…

Who is running?

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – September 26, 2025

The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

There is also a new Community Survey. Yes, we did a parks survey and a communications survey just a couple of years ago, but well… new management, right? 😀 This one also asks for your ideas on a broad range of stuff like event planning and programs for kids and seniors and it”s all great. 🙂

And… since you can never take too many surveys, this is my personal fave, this concerning some big improvements at the Beach Park. Take the Beach Park survey!

Light Rail Opens December 6, 2025!

https://www.soundtransit.org/southkinglink

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

This Week

6:00pm Tuesday: Part 150 Workshop at Parkside Elementary School. If that doesn’t make any sense, or if you can’t make these events, STNI did a very good article on how it all works here.

Thursday: Study Session – 02 Oct 2025 – Agenda Highlights:

Planning Commission: We will finish our discussion on a Planning Commission. Where we left it was having seven members, people who actually live here. My suggestion was that it consist of people not on other committees.

Legislative Agenda: This is similar to previous recommendations, but the airport piece, near and dear to my heart, is noticeably better. Most I support, some I do not.

• We will continue to advocate for more state effort to help recruit more police officers. Absolutely. 🙂
• We will continue to support allowing cities to raise property taxes by as much as 3% (not 1%). I will continue not. 🙂 This is one tax we should sell to voters.
• Support State funding for a City-led, independent airport community impacts study to evaluate the ongoing impacts of the SAMP. Excellent, Wayne. 🙂
• Support further enhancements to SB5955 and RCW53 to provide more opportunities for sound insulation repair and replacement, and to also allow unconstrained funding for mitigation of the public health impacts of airport operations. Most excellent, Garth. 🙂
• Support the joint StART Airport Community Legislative Agenda. I do not support this.
• Support historic preservation funding opportunities in Des Moines. You bet! It shoulda started with the Masonic Home 🙂  (sorry, that leaked out.)
• Ferry Development Electric passenger-only ferries. I fully support electric ferries that are paid for and run by someone else. 🙂 As I previously reported, Tacoma is working on a $4,000,000 pilot program. Great. If they make it work, we should absitively and posolutely piggy back on that.

Friday

I’m attending the University of Washington Ultrafine Particle Study group.  This began several years ago to help researchers discuss a strategy to address community impacts around the airport.

Last Week

Sunday

I attended the 50th Anniversary of the Mt. Rainier Pool. OK, technically I stood outside and talked with three residents. 😀

But my point is this: They saw the door was closed and were too polite to walk in. 😀 That’s Des Moines! But any time I get a chance to schmooze with residents is a good time.

Two people spoke about their use of the pool for therapy. My niece (in a wheel chair) benefited from that and ADA stuff is always good to hear about.

The pool is already (technically) at end of life so in addition to the celebration, it’s now time to figure out its successor. 

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission Meeting covered grant funding to cities and non-profits (among other things). Coverage from STNI here. One tiny detail I found interesting: the Port Commission openly discussed FIFA World Cup more as a cost rather than a revenue opportunity. The notion being that it may require significantly more public safety/security, while the benefits will likely go elsewhere (Seattle.) To which I say, “Now you know how it feels.” 😀

Wednesday

2:30pm Highline Forum (Agenda)

6:00pm Citizens Advisory Board meeting. Agenda, video and transcript

Thursday

6:00pm City Council meeting. 6:00pm Regular Meeting – 25 Sep 2025 – Agenda – Pdf Recap below…

September 25 City Council  Meeting Recap

3:47:22 of side-splitting entertainment for the entire family.

Regular Meeting – 25 Sep 2025 – Agenda – Pdf

We had a proclamation declaring October Domestic Violence Awareness month. As many of you know, my wife was very active on that issue years ago in Burien. My only note is that we provide support for only a handful of women and we should be able to do more. It’s one of those costs you don’t see for being constantly broke.

Public Comment

We had one comment re. Redondo public safety which I wanted to mention.

City Manager Report (Public Safety)

We had the most in-depth discussion of policing in my tenure. And the first discussion in my tenure mentioning service levels instead of officers per thousand. I don’t want to pay for a study. But I would like to get a sense of officer well-being.

There was a presentation on Animal Control, something I, and so many of you are super-concerned about. Some options are presented in the packet, which you should read carefully. Bear in mind, we may not have the money for all this. But the new pet licensing program DocuPet looks like 30 grand more than last year so there’s that. 🙂

I have asked the City to investigate a hybrid option – ie. a way to have a Des Moines staff member or group of partially-tasked staff to provide local services with broader coverage than CARES.

Consent Agenda

We voted to spend $425,000 to purchase 16 acres of land near Redondo, mostly with a conservation grant with a match from the Storm Water Utility Fund. This is kinda ‘phase one’ of DPW Slevin’s plan to create a comprehensive tree management plan throughout the City – something I fully support.

Short Term Rentals (second reading)

The Council voted to approve a short term rentals ordinance. This was distinct from the Amenity Rentals discussion. My contributions to the discussion were to get better noise language and to obtain language to make the minimum stay at least one night. It may have seemed overkill, but my concern was that people would ‘pay for a night, but use by the hour’.

As I said last week, this is an experiment. We could have done nothing and that would not have been a ‘ban’. People are already doing this and the City would have had to create a law to prevent that. The practical effect of this law is to bring in more revenue. 

But on the other hand, as with marijuana, people may still continue to provide the product without creating a legit business.

My concern is that the feedback I’ve heard is clearly from people in separate bubbles. There are people working hard to do their AirBNB who just assume every other purveyor is just as great. Then there are people adamantly opposed to anything — because they haven’t met the people who do it right.

Revenue Enhancements

And last, but certainly not least, we discussed ‘Revenue Enhancements’. I tried to hint that this was being teed up last time with this image. 😀

As I said last week I felt this was backwards. We should have been presented with the expected budget shortfall first. That said, apparently, the shortfall is about $2,000,000. Even after the new warehouse tax. Oy.

The one final decision we made was to raise our sales tax by a whopping one tenth of one cent which will be dedicated to public safety. A State law passed a few months ago authorises this and I’m fine with it because apparently the City took my suggestion and put a practical example in the presentation…

Another one I supported was a $10 increase in car tabs. This is sort of a hill to die on for me and one of the only taxes I suggest you support. Why? Because it’s fair. It’s $10. It’s only for people who drive. And it’s only to fix roads. It does exactly what it says on the tin, and we have a ton of roads to fix.

There were several other proposals to add more speed cameras and the deal with speed cameras is that the money from them is severely constrained. You can only use it for traffic calming, not police officers, not even road repair. And frankly, there’s only so much traffic to calm.

Then there are proposals to increase utility taxes. I am not jazzed at all for the simple reason that, over time, we have negotiated different agreements with each of the five special purpose districts.

Some bits of business…

Who is running?

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – September 19, 2025

The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

There is also a new Community Survey. Yes, we did a parks survey and a communications survey just a couple of years ago, but well… new management, right? 😀 This one also asks for your ideas on a broad range of stuff like event planning and programs for kids and seniors and it”s all great. 🙂

And… since you can never take too many surveys, this is my personal fave, this concerning some big improvements at the Beach Park. Take the Beach Park survey!

Passenger Ferry in Tacoma?

Since a lot of people are interested in a passenger ferry. This is an article about Pierce County’s interest in the same vessel we’ve looked at for the past couple of years. A 24 passenger demo vessel is real. Many members of the Council took a test drive. However, check out the price tag for their ‘pilot program’. And a 150 seater is still not in production. At some point, this tech will be a great idea. But someone else will need to fund it.

Light Rail Opens December 6, 2025!

https://www.soundtransit.org/southkinglink

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

This Week

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission Meeting will cover grant funding to cities and non-profits (among other things). Coverage from STNI

Wednesday

2:30pm Highline Forum (Agenda)

Thursday

6:00pm Regular Meeting – 25 Sep 2025 – Agenda – Pdf

Highlights?

At my request, the City will be providing a general report on how public safety is going.

There will also be a presentation on Animal Control, something I, and so many of you are super-concerned about. Some options are presented in the packet, which you should read carefully. Bear in mind, we may not have the money for all this. But the new pet licensing program DocuPet looks like 30 grand more than last year so there’s that. 🙂

We’re voting to spend $425,000 to purchase two parcels of land near Redondo, mostly with a conservation grant with a match from the Storm Water Utility Fund. This is kinda ‘phase one’ of DPW Slevin’s plan to create a comprehensive tree management plan throughout the City – something I fully support.

Short Term Rentals (second reading) The Council will vote on the short term rentals ordinance. This is supposed to be distinct from the Amenity Rentals discussion. There are some redlines which are improvements (the noise level language is very good). But I confess, as of this publish, I have not read every syllable. But I intend to and I encourage you to do so as well.

My concern is not that we get everything right first time out. This is an experiment. My concern is that the feedback I’ve heard is clearly from people in separate bubbles. There are people working hard to do their AirBNB who just assume every other purveyor is just as great. They’re not. Then there are people adamantly opposed to anything — because they haven’t met the people who do it right. Somehow, I can’t help but think that this is the kind of deal that should be worked out in the Planning Commission. Although I know that causes eye rolls at the City. 😀 But this is a deal that should be worked out by residents. We as Cms just don’t have the lived experience to evaluate this stuff.

As an example, having been a ‘long-term landlord’. The notion of short term rentals never held any appeal for me. But some people love doing it. I wish we could get everyone together to figure this kind of thing out. I also believe in world peace, an end to hunger, and de-caf that tastes as good as the real thing… 🙂

Speaking of which, we will discuss the restoration of a Planning Commission (known previously as a Public Planning Agency until it ended in 2013).

Revenue Enhancements

And last, but certainly not least, we will be discussing ‘Revenue Enhancements’. I tried to hint that this was being teed up last time with this image. 😀

One thing we will need an immediate vote on is to raise our sales tax by a whopping one tenth of one cent which will be dedicated to public safety. A State law passed a few months ago authorises this and unless I learn some last minute ‘thing’ I will support it. My most pressing concern is that our human services officer aka GPS Monica is grant funded. Not. Good. All our officers should be FTEs — especially that position. It’s a values thing with me.

As to the other stuff? Read it for yerself. I made it clear to the City Manager that regardless of the merits of any of them, I think this discussion is backwards. We haven’t seen a proposed budget for 2026, we haven’t presented a proper Marina Capital Plan since… well… forever.., or conducted our strategic planning discussion. This is putting the cart before the horse.

Last Week

Monday

Visit to North SeaTac Park Air Quality Monitor station. This is the model for an upcoming air quality monitoring station here in Des Moines. Did I not look thrilled to be there? I wasn’t. 😀 That was my third visit. It’s an important project, but I’ll describe why when it happens.

Tuesday

6:00pm Burien Airport Committee. The group discussed their letter objecting to the current really terrible Port Package Update program. They also kinda dropped the ball. They are about to experience some unpleasant tree cutting via the Port of Seattle. But the group was unable to decide what to do.

Wednesday

King County Council Regional Transit Committee (Agenda). We’re considering Metro-Flex for next year. This is an on-call program to get people to bus stations and light rail in areas with no bus service. Notice something missing? Des Moines!  This is my number one transit issue atm. What is the point of having new Light Rail at 240th and 272nd if you can’t get to the stop? Here’s the problem: Your city either has to score very differently on their system in order to qualify or you have to be willing to pay a partnership fee. Somehow we need to make proximity to the Light Rail a consideration – as was the case when we created the 635 Shuttle along 216th. What we need is that equivalent for the south end of town.

Some bits of business…

Who is running?

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – September 12, 2025

The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

There is also a new Community Survey. Yes, we did a parks survey and a communications survey just a couple of years ago, but well… new management, right? 😀 This one also asks for your ideas on a broad range of stuff like event planning and programs for kids and seniors and it”s all great. 🙂

And… since you can never take too many surveys, this is my personal fave, this concerning some big improvements at the Beach Park. Take the Beach Park survey!

Light Rail Opens December 6, 2025!

https://www.soundtransit.org/southkinglink

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

This Week

Monday

Visit to North SeaTac Park Air Quality Monitor station. This is the model for an upcoming air quality monitoring station here in Des Moines.

Tuesday

6:00pm Burien Airport Committee

Wednesday

King County Council Regional Transit Committee (Agenda). We’re considering Metro-Flex for next year. This is an on-call program to get people to bus stations and light rail in areas with no bus service. Notice something missing? Des Moines!  This is my number one transit issue atm. What is the point of having new Light Rail at 240th and 272nd if you can’t get to the stop?

Last Week

Monday

4:00pm Des Moines Aviation Committee (Agenda). Coverage at STNI, including agenda and video.

6:00pm JFK Airport Community Roundtable (there are airport roundtables all over the place. 🙂 ) and as a member of Sea-Tac Noise.Info we take turns checking ’em out to find out how we can improve our situation.

That’s how I got so anti- ‘consultants’. The JFK group just hired the same aviation consultants we had for a couple of years. Airport communities are currently at about the same place cancer patients were 30 years ago — before there were some real breakthroughs. Everyone used to try the same therapies that were excruciating, expensive and did not work. That’s what desperate people do, of course. Thankfully, people did not just give up and today there are much better options. That’s where we should be here at Sea-Tac.

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission Meeting. The highlight was where the Port Comms voted to further dilute what used to be the Airport Community Ecology Fund and is now basically just another ‘economic development grant’ program. Shame.

Thursday

City Council meeting (Regular Meeting – 11 Sep 2025) Recap follows.

City Council meeting recap

Regular Meeting – 11 Sep 2025 – Agenda – Pdf

Zoom…

One highlight: this was supposed to be the return of Zoom participation for the public, which ended in 2023! Unfortunately, no one showed up! Well, except that now we have not one, but two Cms, so it’s getting stress-tested. 😀

But seriously, we’re so out of practice with true community engagement, it will take a while to get the public on board. And to grease the wheels of progress…

FCS Financial Analysis

Another highlight was the long-awaited FCS Financial Impacts Study

I had previously seen their work in Burien. This was not at all ‘comprehensive’ but still it was very valuable. Especially because of all the Marina nonsense, I urge you to read it carefully. Personally, I give it 50/50 on the bullshit meter. That has nothing to do with FCS – again, I am a fan. They do what they do with (x) dollars. My concern was and is us. Does the Council have the will to act decisively. Plus the fact that it doesn’t take into account so much either the Marina or the Airport – the two biggest impacts on city finance for decades. Literally acting as though they don’t exist.

It’s like not having a plan for dealing with the SAMP, and choosing not to develop numbers on a dry stack (or any other capital projects at the Marina) simply because “We don’t know which direction the Council wants to go in.”

There’s this old joke about the man searching for his car keys under a lamp post — instead of where he lost them. “Because the light’s better over here.”

Steven J. Underwood Park Management

There is also a proposal to outsource management and maintenance of SJU to a firm that organises baseball and softball. I am not saying it’s a bad idea on its face. I’m just saying that I wish we didn’t have to do it — especially given some previous attempts in other contexts (Wesley).

The place has recently been used more and more for soccer and I am hopeful that we maintain the ability to schedule that kind of thing as the game has become so much more popular with Des Moines residents.

Mt. Rainier Pool 50th Anniversary

Has it really been fifty years?  Yes, yes it has. Which is great. Unfortunately, it is also time to start thinking about a new pool – for the same reasons we need to replace the docks and roads and everything else we don’t realise need replacement every generation or so.

Skate Park

There was also a ceremony thanking Legacy for funding the new skate park murals. They do look fantastic. But IMO, the spotlight should have been almost solely on Benji Pierson. This has been his project and I hope both he, and other local artists, get more opportunities to do their thing throughout the City. Public art like this can look great, be extremely creative, and not cost a fortune. Again, I’m grateful to Legacy for funding this. But on the other hand, this is the kind of thing our City should be able to do, on our own, and without years of back and forth.