This is a lightly edited version of my comments to the School Board on October 6, 2021. At that meeting I urged the School Board to restore the wonderful Design/Engineering program at Pacific Middle School, which had been cut at the last minute. My prepared remarks were about ‘equity’ and ‘the importance of the program to Des Moines’ and all that big picture jazz. But upon entering the meeting, I saw a big sign “Name Strength And Need”–the HSD motto. And after hearing a string of parents commenting on what a difference the program had made for their kids I realised that was the wrong approach and that instead my comments should focus on strength and need. Design/Engineering maps far better to the strengths of certain types of people. And it definitely fulfills an unmet need for hands-on learning. So I was basically winging it. 😀 I took this text from a transcription they do in real-time at the meeting. Here is a link to the original recording. And below is a 2020 City Council Meeting where the Design/Engineering Students present their Future Cities project.
Good evening. My name is JC Harris. I am a member of the Des Moines city council, but I’m just here tonight as me. And I’m about to improvise based on what I heard, so forgive me.
I’m from Ireland. I came to America with about a year left in high school. And there’s a point here. Things did not go well. So I quit. But it was my good fortune to go to trade school, and it was inspiring and transformative for me. And eventually that led to my going to college and obtaining a Masters of Science and Engineering. Thank you, State of Michigan.
And the reason I told you that is we have this kind of bias in American education where you go through the process–and I guess, the goal culminates in college. But if you find any aspect of it challenging, it seems that the preferred remediation is to double down on the very things that you are not finding thrilling to begin with.
OK. Thank God I found a venue for hands-on learning. And it changed my life. But it should not be the case that you have to wait until you’re eighteen or some random luck for that chance. Design engineering program has the same transformative power which changed my life. It changes people.
And the reason I told you I’m on the Des Moines city council is because it is one of the joys everyone looks forward to in joining the Council. Every February, you’re going to get to see that Future Cities presentation. And you can just see– I can–how those kids are heading in the right direction. You just go, “Wow, Yeah. This is going to turn out good.”
I did a little bit of research, because I am that kind of bloodless engineer guy, before coming here. And I could not find any kind of outcome research.
I respond to budgets, and not tears. It’s a tough thing you do (deciding what to keep and what to cut). But I’m just going to suggest to you that making decisions based on head counts, and moving these pieces around, and cost control. Not having that outcome data is preventing you from making
the right decision. Because the truth is that design and engineering has a greater transformative potential than any of the more immediately popular programs.
OK. So the right question to ask is, how many lives are changed? You know what I mean? When these kids get to be 35 and 40. I can just tell you it’s probably more than some of the remaining electives. So if you’re really talking about equity, think about it in terms of, “Yeah, it cost us these dollars and so forth. But this number of people turned out to be engineers and plumbers and so on…”
Because it doesn’t have to be a college thing. Success is success. That is the power of the program.
I avoided talking about the equity and the importance of Pacific Middle School to Des Moines (as I intended) and all of that because, as I listened to other speakers I realized that success is all that matters.
You should restore the program. But you should also consider your successors into the future. Spend a few bucks and start capturing that outcome data. Because I’m pretty sure the program would have sold itself if you’d had that information.
Thank you. And by the way. As a fellow part time elected, bless you. The public cannot understand. So Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Tuesday: State Legislative Redistricting Public Comment.
Wednesday: Highline School Board Meeting. (Agenda/Comment) Or call (206) 631-3070 I will be providing public comment in order to restore the much loved MS/Design Engineering program at Pacific Middle School. Here is an example of a presentation they do annually before City Council as part of the Washington State Future Cities competition.
Thursday: Public Safety Meeting (Agenda) The key items will be a discussion of the Body Camera Policy and the recent shooting on Pacific Highway.
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) This will be the first presentation of our 2022 Budget. It’s October and the City Council has received almost no financial information about the health of the City. At our ‘Budget Retreat’ (which was back in August) we received no numbers–it was all anecdotal. We spent our ARPA money at the last meeting with no context as to the current state of the City’s finance. If I sound snippy? GOOD.
Physics For Poets
Back in the day, us ‘science’ students used to call this approach “Physics For Poets”. At least where I went to university, there were always intro-level classes that attempted to explain things like Special Relativity or Calculus but without, you know, numbers? And they were highly popular with students of the Humanities. And in fact, these philosophy and anthropology majors would try to tell us that we were all haughty jerks because ‘all that math’ really wasn’t necessary. They understood things just fine. Why were we always making things so difficult. And we’d be like, “No, you don’t get it. The numbers are the real thing. All those entertaining anecdotes are useless in solving real world problems.” But they would go away very satisfied and continue to think we were jerks who would never get a date. Which was true. But regardless, the numbers really are the thing. Because without them, you can’t really know what is going on.
If you wish to provide oral public comment please complete the council comment form
Saturday: Sonju Park Cleanup
Saturday: 11:00AM McSorley Park Salmon Counting Training
Last Week
Tuesday: Police Advisory Committee. No, Hell has not frozen over. Out of the blue, Chief Thomas called me with an invite. I have no idea if that was a one-off or not. But apparently this was a ‘special’ meeting concerning the recent shooting at La Familia. There were several interesting things for me which I won’t comment on now.
But for what it’s worth, there were no ‘revelations’ regarding that tragic event. And from what I can tell, that incident isn’t really about ‘police’. By the time the police were called, the shooting was over. (Think about that for a minute.) The real problem started long before that particular event.
Thursday: Transportation Committee (Video) Mayor Pina was absent, but Deputy Mayor Mahoney and I soldiered on with a review of the Capital Improvements Projects. Quick review: We have a Transportation Improvements Plan (TIP) and then a Capital Improvements Plan (CIP). The TIP is aspirational. It lists all the identified needs in order of priority. But the CIP contains projects we’ve actually budgeted for–so those are real; we’re doing them. Sometimes, I ask rhetorical questions, in the vain hope that someone might be watching and take note. In this case, I kept homping on about how unpredictable these projects can. One factor is that we have so many partners–utility companies, etc. And coordinating their schedules and tasks is hard. Another is the fact that underground maps are so unreliable. It’s fascinating (or annoying) to me that with any project, they start digging and always find something unexpected.
A couple of quick notes:
The ‘Downtown Alley Project’ (between 225th and 227th) is supposedly getting paved by November. It will be tight to beat the cold weather. The above issues are key factors in why it takes forever to do any of that work. And it’s going to end up being a simple repave.
When it is rebuilt, the 216th Bridge over I-5 will be reduced to one lane for about a year. It will not shut down completely as the rumour goes.
The earlier drawings I showed you for the Redondo Fishing Pier are off the table. The Puyallup Tribe has insisted on a fully grated walkway (which lets more light down to the fish). No examples yet.
Thursday: Environment Committee (Video) Again, always good to review, our “Environment Committee” is really a “Storm Water Utility”. It should be an ‘environment’ committee, but for now, it is what it is. We had an update from our consultants on a couple of things:
There are new rules from Ecology that ask businesses to do a better job of waste water management. The problem has always been–how to do it and how hard to lean on businesses to do it. Our small businesses are burdened with ‘stuff to do’, but this has got to be taken more seriously.
The State is now mandating “inter-disciplinary” requirements in planning. This relates to my proposal to hire an Environmental Strategist. The State now recognises that all departments need to coordinate on every project so that environmental goals are considered at every stage. Apparently there is some formal process–which may just mean more paperwork. But the goal is absolutely correct. If we want to maintain tree cover, improve water quality, etc., do better on airport issues, those considerations have to become a meaningful part of every stage of every project–and not just some afterthought. More below.
The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing storm water rates. The consultants recommended that we stretch our 2021-2026 projects out to 2029, take $100k out of our General Fund every year, and raise your rates an average of $.75 a month. I reluctantly went along with that because Councilmember Bangs was absent and it woulda been a needless argument with the Mayor.
Four notes from two meetings
When I decided to run I spoke with some people I know on other Councils and they asked me “What do you want to do?” And I’m like, “I want to bring some oversight to the Council, baby!” And of course they laughed in my face. Because this is not As well they should have. What I was told was that the only way that works is if you can somehow get several people on the Council at the same time who also care. Which is hard. If you go it alone basically everyone will resent you because this is not academia. City Council incentivises for a lack of oversight.
But with all that self-pity, this is #328 on my list of things I wish more CMs took more of an interest in. Routine oversight.
A tale of two projects
Moving onto that Downtown Alley Project. Remember when the City sold the idea of transforming that road into a “Post Alley”? You know, to “drive economic development”? Of course you don’t; that’s ancient history (2017). 😀 But, like everything else, we sell stuff like that hard. Your City Council took multiple tours of Seattle to see ‘possibilities’. We were serious about it.
As of 2021, we’ve budgeted $540,000 dollars for that project, mostly to “underground” all the utilities. Undergrounding costs a fortune and it was not even a requirement for that project. But remember we’re doing it to “drive economic development.” And that is a bit confusing because, again, so far it’s just a simple repave in a commercial alley. The only foreseeable benefit (beyond an absence of potholes in an alley) will be unobstructed views for tenants above the new theatre. Could just be a coincidence, but I hope they appreciate it.
Now, let’s take a look at the 24th Avenue Schools project. That project did mandate undergrounding. In fact, according to our municipal code, all new road projects like that must be undergrounded. But you’ll be pleased to know that your City Council (well, most of us) voted to override that requirement in order to save the taxpayers $300,000. I hope you appreciate it.
Storm Water Rates and the price of a latte
As I said, we discussed your storm water rates at the Environment Committee Meeting. But the consultants actually presented two rate plans.
The recommended plan takes the critical projects originally on the board for 2021-2026, stretches them out to 2029, takes $100k out of our General Fund every year and raises your rates an average of $.75 a month.
Then there is a not recommended plan, which fully funds the critical projects on the board for 2021-2026, takes no money from the General Fund, and raises your rates an average of $2.00 a month. Again, that is the not recommended plan.
From one point of view, those consultants are some swell guys. They’re keeping your taxes low. Thank you consultant guys!
From another point of view, we’re taking $900,000 from our General Fund to save homeowners an average of $15 a year. Which is $1.25 a month. We’re also betting that we won’t have any more Woodmont Landslides (price tag $251,000) between 2027 and 2029.
Annexation City
The motto for Des Moines could well be “Annexation City” We started as eighteen blocks in 1959 and just kept adding neighbourhoods every few years until we kinda ran out of space in 1996. (Ironically, the one annexation opportunity we avoided? SeaTac Airport. No kidding. The one actual moneymaker coulda been ours. But that’s a rant for another day.)
Anyhoo, all kidding aside, various neighbourhoods did not vote to become part of our fair city out of some deep passion for “Des Moines”. Most people just wanted better services for less money. King County storm water rates are always high because they know that the pipes are old and they budgeted for replacing them. So one of the things people voted for was to avoid paying for that. King County was only too happy to pass the bill onto us. But now that bill is coming due and if you look at the meeting video, our rates are now approaching King County. How about that.
Enterprise Fund
Now, as a quick review we finance Storm Water, like the Marina, as an Enterprise Fund–meaning that it is supposed to be self-funded. The whole point of an Enterprise Fund is to pay for itself. Using the The General Fund defeats the whole purpose for reasons we’ll get to in two paragraphs.
But you don’t care about that. You want your taxes low. Same reason you wanted to be annexed. OK, setting aside all that “good government” crap, I hear you. But I gotta say, as benefits go that’s might picayune. A buck twenty five a month? As the Mayor rightly pointed out. It’s less than a half a latté. A month. Not even a good latté.
For the price of a latté
As the Mayor rightly pointed out. It’s less than a half a latté. A month. Not even a good latté. This reminds me of all those charity ads you see on TV. “For the price of a latté you could help a child in need.” Absolutely true. You could help a child in need right here in Des Moines.
$900k is real money that could be spent on something else. It’s a police officer. A road project. A park. At our last Spending Fiasco (aka the September 16th City Council Meeting) we voted to spend $100k of that juicy one-time ARPA money to increase our Human Services budget which has never gotten above $175,000 a year. What a bunch of great humanitarians we are ! This $900k would double that bonus. And for nine years.
Finally, at the risk of being Mr. Crankypants… is it just me, or do those “100 year events” now seem to happen every third Tuesday? I have no way of knowing when the next land slide happens but I’m not certain it’s going to wait for 2029.
Oversight and why I hate everybody who doesn’t get it
Dr. King used to say, and it never gets old, “Budgets are moral documents”. Meaning that people can say whatever they want, but they are what they are willing to spend money on.
When it comes to the Downtown Alley, we chose to spend a substantial and totally optional amount of money on a project which does not meet the stated goal. At the same time, we chose to avoid following our own ordinance when it came to providing the same benefit to school children. We worked really hard to do both things. That is who we really are.
(Also: You know those tours of Seattle I mentioned? That is the reason a fresh batch of stomach acid moves up into my throat every time I hear about another “Successful step towards a ferry!” It’s a pattern, folks. People here just lose their minds at every “economic development opportunity” because no one steps up to say, “Wait, haven’t I seen this movie before?”)
Same thing with the storm water. When it’s City money? We spend $900k in order to save ratepayers $1.25 a month. The only reason we were so generous in spending that ARPA money on human services is because it was someone else’s money.
You feel me on this? People can say whatever they want. But they are what they spend money on. And we value your $1.25 a month, dear rate payer, enough to kick the can down the road three years on critical infrastructure. We value the views from those new apartments more than school children.
The OG conservative…
Those choices seem wasteful and do not accord with my values. But the only reason I can comment is because I am aware that there are reasonable choices. Here are specific and better ways to spend the money we already have. That’s OG conservative, baby.
But I do not want to sound like I am singling out my current colleagues. Very few of our Councilmembers ever cared about oversight. Currently, our books are balanced and our reserve is healthy. Previous Councils often did not do that. You can do nothing if you don’t have any money.
What is absolutely maddening to me is when the public (and my colleagues) say, “We should spend more on whatever” while having absolutely no clue how to pay for it. People always assume that we can just “shift” money from “extravagant salaries” or some “non-essential program” and presto-change-o! Ten police officers! or A Community Center! or whatever magically appears out of thin air. We can’t. There is no frickin’ money. And people who say there is are “Physics For Poets”. They either do not understand the numbers or are just shilling for some candidate. Either way, I pray every night that they would stop doing it.
Grants and fish food
For years I’ve heard candidates go on about “We need more grants!” I did it myself because… well… we kinda do, but for another reason. But in general, grants are like sprinkling fish food into the tank. All the little fishies are competing for the same sprinkles. The only way to get off that treadmill is by either a) getting more structural revenue or b) doing better oversight.
Why?
We never do oversight. We always take the consultant or staff recommendation. It’s to the point that they get annoyed if anyone even suggests doing otherwise. We’ve all trained one another not to do it.
They actually do agree with the recommended policy
They fear offending the very people they’re supposed to be overseeing
They operate on blind trust (hey, it’s not my money.)
They don’t know what questions to ask (awkward)
I have no idea what is in anyone’s heart. Maybe all my colleagues do agree with every recommendation. Fine.
But if you want to do something different? You have to have the ability to recognise the alternatives and the will to push back. There’s never any need to be mean. But you can’t save money using some Ninja charm schools skills, either..
Practicality…
The reason I think more people don’t care about oversight is, ironically, because they somehow associate the term with ‘corruption’. I think people cynically assume, to one degree or another “the fix is in” and “You can’t fight City Hall.” Like dandruff… not life-threatening, but sort of inevitable.
The funny thing is that, in my opinion, oversight is mostly not about that at all. It’s mainly about letting you do more with what you have. I identified $1,200,000 in two one hour meetings that I’m pretty sure I could convince voters could be spent better.
You know how hard it is to get $1,200,000 in grants these days? To paraphrase the immortal words of Carol Burnett in describing childbirth:
Getting $1,200,000 in grants is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.
But I’m telling ya’, dear reader. Swear to God. There are opportunities like this at almost every meeting.
Summary
The law says that a councilmember has two essential functions: legislation and oversight. We almost never talk about oversight. I went through all this to demonstrate that oversight not only has practical value, it probably has far more practical value than legislation because, frankly, councilmembers do not do much routine ‘legislating’. Our biggest opportunities are often in figuring out ways to save money, not spend it.
My point is that at our last Spending Fiasco nobody else pushed back. And we should have because, as my old accounting prof told me way back in 1372,
When you misspend a dollar, you’re actually losing two dollars: the dollar you burned and the dollar you could have spent on something useful.
Spending money is a lot more fun for everyone–especially when it’s not your money. And oversight is work. So recognise that it’s up to you to demand that of candidates and electeds. Because the default position is always going to be to spend, not necessarily spend well.
But if you’ve ever been one of those people who wondered “Why is Des Moines the way it is?” That is the reason.
Frankly, it’s a lot to expect of part time legislators in a small town. But that’s your job. You, dear voter, have to expect better.
3,200 B.C. This is Newgrange which is sort of like the Irish version of Stonehenge. Trés cool, right? Now, the following will be a bit raw for Americans because most you have some very happy relationship with Ireland involving relatives, St. Patrick, drinking, uncomfortable sweaters, and so on. But all that “wearin’ of the green”...
Tuesday: South County Transportation Board Meeting (SCATBD) There will be an update on all regional transportation. I’d like to say that there are bus route improvements coming to DM, but probably not.
Tuesday: King County Clean Water Workshop. This is a venue for regional stakeholders to discuss system-wide challenges. Many cities are experiencing the same kinds of challenges we’ve had here with Midway Sewer and older systems that need updates.
Tuesday: Meeting with Tina Orwall and FAA “regarding the health impacts of aviation and how the knowledge of these impacts is influencing FAA actions and policies”
Wednesday: 5:00PM. Southside Seattle Chamber Of Commerce Candidates Night. I’m not sure it will be live-streamed, but a video will be available. This is likely one of the only chances you’ll be able to see all the candidates speak publicly (how sad is that, right?)
Saturday: Farmers Market. Last Saturday of the year! I’ll be there wandering around. (Actually, I’m usually skulking somewhere at the Marina. 😀 )
Last Week
Wednesday: Reach Out Des Moines. The main topic was the growing realisation that schools and medical systems are planning on living with the pandemic for the entire school year. Here is a plug for one of the great groups they sponsor Phenomenal She –which provides activities and mentoring for young women of colour.
There was an update on the Parks and Rec Master Plan which was helpful for me in that the consultant indicated that 2020 Census Data would be used in the analysis. As you know, there is an absence of parks in the south end of town. A lot of grant money is based on ‘unmet need’ and I’d like to get a much better assessment of who we are as a City neighbourhood by neighbourhood.
We also voted on HB1220–the new law insisting that we develop zoning to allow for homeless shelters and develop a more aggressive approach towards Affordable Housing and Emergency Shelters.Nobody cares more about property values and public safety than me. The whole reason I started going to City Council meetings twelve years ago was to defend my neighbourhood. But zoning is designed to make it as tough as hell to provide any sort of housing below ‘full market rate single family’. It basically paints every low income person with the same brush. If we want people to have shelter and realistically have a chance to get back on their feet we can’t just push it off into some corner of town. The ordinance is very restrictive on the where but leaves the management piece completely vague. That seems backwards to me. The important thing is to make sure that these buildings are accountable.If you watched the meeting, the issue is deeply personal for me. I am very happy to say that the battered women’s shelter (they don’t call it that any more, of course) my wife helped found is still in business to this day. It worked because it was convenient for clients and their children and did not make them feel like pariahs in the community.
But the highlight of the show, of course, was where we spent our $9M of ARPA Stimulus Funds. Councilmember Buxton described it as ‘incredible’ and we agree on that, for sure. 😀 Here is the City’s Press Release. I’ll be addressing the in a separate post. But for now I want to mention but one item on that Press Release to give you a sense of my feelings about the whole thing:
There is not $1,000,000 new money for parks. That money is to make up for a $934,000 loss in income due to COVID-19.
There is actually only $66,000 in new spending–for a new Parks employee. And that is for one year.
The specific justification for that employee was to respond to very legitimate requests by a bunch of parents who wanted to be able to park at Steven J. Underwood Park–which is currently locked except for rented events. However, there was no correspondence from the City indicating that the problem was about staffing. All the correspondence indicated that the parks were being kept locked in response to COVID-19. So… what happened to all the safety concerns?
I just want to point out that the parking gate for Steven J. Underwood Park is located about 500 feet from the Senior Activity Center. I would further note that there are employees already on the payroll, at that location, five days a week. And I would also note that those employees have a key to that gate.
I went through that little exercise because there is something like that on every line. Either it’s not new spending or the rationale sounds great, but when you dig down it’s like, “Wait a minute…” But when the mission is to spend $9,000,000 in 3 hours nobody quibbles over a ‘mere’ $66,000.That is why government spending is the way it is. And this is not me being cranky or some abstraction. $66,000 is three decent sized small business grants. It’s enough money to pay the utility bills for over 250 homes. It’s accounting software. A new web site. Playground equipment. Get it?
Friday: Meeting with Aclima. Aclima is a company that makes portable/mobile air quality monitoring gear. What I have wanted for years has been to obtain for air quality what you consider standard operating procedure with water quality: ie. ongoing measurements. Your drinking water is tested for purity at least four times a year. The air in Des Moines? Almost never. Seriously. With the help of Rep. Tina Orwall and partnerships with other Cities we have been able to hire UW DEOHS to do various ad hoc studies, but those only occur every few years. There is never anything that gets down to a neighbourhood by neighbourhood monitoring of how the airport is changing Des Moines over time.
Testimony in support of retaining the Newspaper Tax Preference
This is my public testimony today before the State Of Washington Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) in support of retaining the Newspaper Tax Preference. This is a tax credit benefiting local newspapers. Here is a background editorial by Seattle Times Editor Brier Dudley.
Good morning.
Sadly, I have no dog in this fight. There has been no local paper in Des Moines for almost a decade. We used to have two and both provided legitimate coverage of City Hall. I can vouch for many instances where they improved local governance.
But given the rapid decline of newspapers, those facts seems so unbelievable to me now that I may as well be telling you we used to have Space Monkeys.
Some stats…
Our City’s population has turned over by almost two thirds since the Great Recession. The average age of our residents is 39 and trending downward and 45% brown and trending upwards. However the average voter is about 58 and only getting older. And they continue to be overwhelmingly white.
Interestingly the number of voters stays relatively flat. The population changes, but it’s mostly the same type of voters from back in the day when we had newspapers. They just keep getting older.
Yes, we have a ‘Community Facebook page’ with over 5,000 members. But when it comes to local government, we are as uninformed a bunch of people as I’ve seen in my 26 years in the area. The sheer volume of posts about schools, lost animals, stolen cars and beautiful sunsets seem to make a certain percentage of residents feel ‘informed’ somehow. It’s as though what we used to call the Entertainment Section of a newspaper now is ‘the newspaper’.
For example…
Sea-Tac Airport is beginning a massive expansion–and though the airport impacts drive our residents nuts, at least 95% of them are completely unaware that waaaaaaay more flights might be on the way or what our government may or may not be doing about it.
Our City is embarking on a $50,000,000 Marina Redevelopment project–the largest capital project in our history. And again, almost no one in town has a clue, despite numerous City Council meeting where no one showed up.
Usually nobody attends our public meetings anymore unless I (and I mean Ipersonally) gin up some small demand. And frankly, governments in general don’t mind that one bit because meetings move a whole lot faster without a lot of pesky residents putting in their two cents.
The small town problem…
Functionally, that lack of public participation leads to an ever shrinking circle residents driving all decision making. By that I mean maybe forty or so. These are almost all extremely well-meaning and civic-minded folks, often who have been at it now for decades, and many of them do incredible work that the City would be lost without. But whether they understand it or not, they all have an outsize role in our City’s affairs and all have self-interests. And, not to put too fine a point on it, they are also overwhelmingly old and white.
In many ways, those elites (it sounds funny to put it that way, but that really is what we’re really talking about) conjure images of the best of small town volunteerism. However, in truth we are now a $100,000,000 corporation with 32,000 other residents. We are not a small town. And at a certain point, many issues that would be routinely discussed in an objective manner at a similar-size for-profit corporation become impossible when everybody knows everybody.
And there’s the rub: nobody, especially local politicians, has an incentive to address (or even acknowledge) any of this as problematic. Even if one is willing to pay lip service to “transparency”, all the real incentives lean towards getting along and away from calling attention to it. It’s just not in your interest to promote any changes that might lead to a reduction in your influence.
If by chance one of those forty heard my remarks, they could (or perhaps should) see themselves and may well take offense. But anyone who does not live here would recognize that this state of affairs, for all its good points, has some issues.
The Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval…
Our City publishes a very nice, four-color newsletter which is distributed to every address. That is, for the vast majority of the public, the only source of information they receive about Des Moines. And in fact, many people refer to it as ‘news’ even though it is City-generated content and almost always contains only the good news.
Also, every year your State auditors review our books and we often get very high marks. Like all cities, we advertise this loudly as some sort of Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval. Residents understandably find this reassuring. But, not to downplay the great work of our Finance Department, what the public does not understand is that the State is not auditing the quality of our governance. The purpose is to protect your money, not ours.
In short, the only story the public tends to hear about the City is the story the City itself wants to tell.
The cure…
The combination of an uninformed population, (mostly) benign elitism and few but highly biased information sources have been significant factors in creating a lack of equitable representation in towns like Des Moines. Those same factors also make the problems resistant to self-correction.
A local newspaper is the only cure I can think of. It does far more than inform the public. By being the only actor that stays truly above the fray, a newspaper makes it possible to address some embarrassing realities we cannot seem to do on our own.
The only way to make a small town with big money functionally democratic is to give everyone a reasonable chance to participate. And the only way to do that is by giving everyone a reasonable shot at being informed. And the only way to do that is with independent and objective local journalism. In short: good government requires a newspaper.
Who knew, right?
Again, I have no dog in this fight. I’m speaking today simply to keep that possibility alive for the future of my city and for all small towns. I urge you to retain this tax credit and to do even more to make it feasible for cities like Des Moines to provide independent and objective coverage of City Hall.
Thank you.
Postscript: Honestly, I thought when I testified that my comments would be just gilding the lily. I assumed that the committee members would be “Journalism! Fantastic! Approved!” Not so much. In fact, they were surprisingly hard-nosed about extending it. They expressed what seems some very reasonable notions when considering spending public money. If they weren’t at least questioning the idea, newspapers would come to expect it and get lazy in their efforts to help themselves. They applied rigor to the task and as a taxpayer I appreciated that.
This video is one of a series of public comments I made at City Council Meetings starting in 2017 asking the City to change direction on airport policy. I referr to the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) as ‘4a.’ That’s because it is the fourth major expansion for Sea-Tac Airport since 1961 (there is a ‘4b’ tentatively scheduled for 2027.)
At that time the City had unveiled a whole new department, Emergency Management. I was arguing that the SAMP required the same kind of planning and responses. I said that we should hire a management expert–someone who understands not only current technical issues, but also politics and history. Their job would be to develop, implement and maintain a best-in-class ongoing strategy to reduce noise and pollution and obtain compensation for our residents.
Since airport expansions are announced many years in advance, you might think that gives us some advantage. However since all communities tend to deal with them in the same way, using the same outside consultants and usually at the last minute, the results have always turned out badly.
Rewind the video to the speaker immediately before me, Barbara McMichael of SoCoCulture. She mentions that tree cover has been rapidly declining in Des Moines. Put that together with all the water quality, fishing and shoreline management challenges we face (and that was before the sewer district issues), the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me to expand this job to manage all environmental issues for the City. They are all very complex, often frustrating, long game issues involving many agencies and sums of money a City like Des Moines do not have. And they are *often inter-connected.
Not one, three ARPA airport Proposals…
So at the September 16th City Council Meeting, my proposal for creating the position of Environmental Strategist will be discussed and hopefully approved. I hope you will read it carefully and then give your support by signing up for public comment at our 16 September City Council Meeting at 5:00pm. Your comments may be either written or via Zoom.
Former Aviation Advisory Committee member Steve Edmiston has submitted another, fairly detailed, airport proposal which I know has received a number of letters of support. Deputy Mayor Mahoney has also submitted a proposal to set aside $300,000 for a legal fund. I am happy to see both proposals because it means that the issue matters to the public. However, since there are now three “airporty” proposals out there, I have had any number of people ask me:
“What’s the difference, JC? Give it to me in twenty five words or less!”
What every airport community does is fight the battles that cannot be won and when they lose, simply quit or move; while at the same time, completely ignoring the very significant opportunities that can be achieved with proper ongoing management by a true expert.
This is not a war that one wins or loses. There will never be a magic bullet for Des Moines. Not a second airport. Not electric aircraft. Not mass transit. Not some major shake-up at the FAA. Not some grand legislation or regional partnership. Nothing.
Instead, let’s start with two simple premises:
We’re on our own
So long as there is a Sea-Tac Airport, we will face the challenges we now face.
This is an ongoing chronic condition with serious acute phases every decade or so called ‘expansions’. One way or another, we have to live with this condition. But how well we live with it depends a a great deal on our own efforts to manage the condition. We should have been managing the airport in this manner starting in 1959. But it’s never too late to start.
Again, please support this proposal by signing up to attend our 16 September City Council Meeting at 5:00pm or by submitting a public comment.
You can also express support by sending an email to all members of the City Council: citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov
This is my public testimony today before the State Of Washington Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) in support of retaining the Newspaper Tax Preference. This is a tax credit benefiting local newspapers. Here is a background editorial by Seattle Times Editor Brier Dudley.
Good morning.
Sadly, I have no dog in this fight. There has been no local paper in Des Moines for almost a decade. We used to have two and both provided legitimate coverage of City Hall. I can vouch for many instances where they improved local governance.
But given the rapid decline of newspapers, those facts seems so unbelievable to me now that I may as well be telling you we used to have Space Monkeys.
Some stats…
Our City’s population has turned over by almost two thirds since the Great Recession. The average age of our residents is 39 and trending downward and 45% brown and trending upwards. However the average voter is about 58 and only getting older. And they continue to be overwhelmingly white.
Interestingly the number of voters stays relatively flat. The population changes, but it’s mostly the same type of voters from back in the day when we had newspapers. They just keep getting older.
Yes, we have a ‘Community Facebook page’ with over 5,000 members. But when it comes to local government, we are as uninformed a bunch of people as I’ve seen in my 26 years in the area. The sheer volume of posts about schools, lost animals, stolen cars and beautiful sunsets seem to make a certain percentage of residents feel ‘informed’ somehow. It’s as though what we used to call the Entertainment Section of a newspaper now is ‘the newspaper’.
For example…
Sea-Tac Airport is beginning a massive expansion–and though the airport impacts drive our residents nuts, at least 95% of them are completely unaware that waaaaaaay more flights might be on the way or what our government may or may not be doing about it.
Our City is embarking on a $50,000,000 Marina Redevelopment project–the largest capital project in our history. And again, almost no one in town has a clue, despite numerous City Council meeting where no one showed up.
Usually nobody attends our public meetings anymore unless I (and I mean Ipersonally) gin up some small demand. And frankly, governments in general don’t mind that one bit because meetings move a whole lot faster without a lot of pesky residents putting in their two cents.
The small town problem…
Functionally, that lack of public participation leads to an ever shrinking circle residents driving all decision making. By that I mean maybe forty or so. These are almost all extremely well-meaning and civic-minded folks, often who have been at it now for decades, and many of them do incredible work that the City would be lost without. But whether they understand it or not, they all have an outsize role in our City’s affairs and all have self-interests. And, not to put too fine a point on it, they are also overwhelmingly old and white.
In many ways, those elites (it sounds funny to put it that way, but that really is what we’re really talking about) conjure images of the best of small town volunteerism. However, in truth we are now a $100,000,000 corporation with 32,000 other residents. We are not a small town. And at a certain point, many issues that would be routinely discussed in an objective manner at a similar-size for-profit corporation become impossible when everybody knows everybody.
And there’s the rub: nobody, especially local politicians, has an incentive to address (or even acknowledge) any of this as problematic. Even if one is willing to pay lip service to “transparency”, all the real incentives lean towards getting along and away from calling attention to it. It’s just not in your interest to promote any changes that might lead to a reduction in your influence.
If by chance one of those forty heard my remarks, they could (or perhaps should) see themselves and may well take offense. But anyone who does not live here would recognize that this state of affairs, for all its good points, has some issues.
The Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval…
Our City publishes a very nice, four-color newsletter which is distributed to every address. That is, for the vast majority of the public, the only source of information they receive about Des Moines. And in fact, many people refer to it as ‘news’ even though it is City-generated content and almost always contains only the good news.
Also, every year your State auditors review our books and we often get very high marks. Like all cities, we advertise this loudly as some sort of Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval. Residents understandably find this reassuring. But, not to downplay the great work of our Finance Department, what the public does not understand is that the State is not auditing the quality of our governance. The purpose is to protect your money, not ours.
In short, the only story the public tends to hear about the City is the story the City itself wants to tell.
The cure…
The combination of an uninformed population, (mostly) benign elitism and few but highly biased information sources have been significant factors in creating a lack of equitable representation in towns like Des Moines. Those same factors also make the problems resistant to self-correction.
A local newspaper is the only cure I can think of. It does far more than inform the public. By being the only actor that stays truly above the fray, a newspaper makes it possible to address some embarrassing realities we cannot seem to do on our own.
The only way to make a small town with big money functionally democratic is to give everyone a reasonable chance to participate. And the only way to do that is by giving everyone a reasonable shot at being informed. And the only way to do that is with independent and objective local journalism. In short: good government requires a newspaper.
Who knew, right?
Again, I have no dog in this fight. I’m speaking today simply to keep that possibility alive for the future of my city and for all small towns. I urge you to retain this tax credit and to do even more to make it feasible for cities like Des Moines to provide independent and objective coverage of City Hall.
Thank you.
Postscript: Honestly, I thought when I testified that my comments would be just gilding the lily. I assumed that the committee members would be “Journalism! Fantastic! Approved!” Not so much. In fact, they were surprisingly hard-nosed about extending it. They expressed what seems some very reasonable notions when considering spending public money. If they weren’t at least questioning the idea, newspapers would come to expect it and get lazy in their efforts to help themselves. They applied rigor to the task and as a taxpayer I appreciated that.
Monday: Meetings with candidates for Port Of Seattle Commissioner. Can I share one of my frustrations? 😀 The big mistake all our Cities make in dealing with the Port is talking about the wrong things. Many of the things residents want the Port Commissioners to do, they legally cannot do. They’re not lying about their lack of control over various aspects of Sea-Tac Airport. You can grumble about the unfairness of life all you want, but that’s just the deal. The other side of the coin are my pro-Port colleagues who think that the Port is this economic fountain for Des Moines, while completely ignoring the environmental impacts. That too is ridiculous.
Candidates for Port Commission all basically have the same message. Jobs, economics. Progressive or conservative, they can talk all they want about ‘environment’, but the fact is that they all have to operate within a certain window. Also: the Port is like the City Of Des Moines. It has a very high complexity number. And a Port Commissioner is a part time job. They have no hope of understanding the issues and the corporation for several years.
What we should do is to educate every Port Candidate as to what they could be doing for us. We know what is possible. (And it’s significant.) But we never do. As I said, either the City gets hold of them with some minor economic pitch or the airport activists ask them to work on things they cannot do. The Port lobbies us. We should lobby right back.
Wednesday: Des Moines Marina Association Meeting. You can visit their web site for information on the Marina Redevelopment.
Thursday: I will be giving testimony at the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Committee in support of continuing to fund a tax credit for local journalism. No, we don’t currently have a newspaper in Des Moines. But hope springs eternal. 🙂 That tax credit is one of the few things keeping local papers in business and we must support it in order to keep the possibility of local journalism alive.
That’s it. The rest of the week is a black hole of emptiness. So give me a call and tell me what’s on your mind about Des Moines (206) 878-0578.
Last Week
Thursday: Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) Growth Management Board (Agenda).
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) (Video) One highlight was a presentation by Skylab Architects of Portland which did the original renderings for Marina Redevelopment. The Request For Proposal (RFQ) is also supposed to be unveiled–which will flesh out some of the details on the various building proposals.
The other issue was a first reading of our ordinance to comply with HB1220–the new law insisting that we develop zoning to allow for homeless shelters and develop a more aggressive approach towards Affordable Housing. This is another one of those policy issues that I know the public cares about, but which no one ever shows up for. Please watch the presentation and then show up for the second hearing in October.
Happy Labor Day!
I just realised: I’ve been a member of four unions: two for musicians, one for electrical workers and one for professional engineers I kinda forgot about.
I was required to join a union for a factory gig I had in college. Being a jerk, I kinda laughed at how seriously my co-workers took the union. But that was because I was ‘going places’. For them it was their j.o.b. I don’t know what it did for me except that, in spite of being around a lot of dangerous electricity I do not recall anyone getting hurt and I got paid slightly more than I expected. Today, that job would be done by a computer and a robot and both would have better attitudes.
When I moved to Manhattan it was a rite of passage to join the musicians union. It meant that you were making a (real) living wage in the greatest city on earth. Now? The few remaining union musicians are mostly in orchestras. Ironically, the biggest bargaining issue was also automation. We all knew we were being replaced by synthesizers and computers.
My last union vaguely optional. The idea was to organize professional engineers to negotiate contracts with the State Of Michigan as a single unit. At the time, I thought it was kinda cockamamie because despite any merits of the idea, its success depended on the willingness of a bunch of independent-minded guys to cooperate. Candidly, we were nothing like these women or any other model of solidarity. So we self-destructed. No robots required. I now realize that it was a very worthy goal and very much ahead of its time. Some of us did better without the union, some worse. But it would have simplified very useful things like health insurance and retirement planning for all of us–things you don’t pay attention to when you think you’re special and have all the time in the world. There’s a lesson there. Maybe. 😀
The older I get the more I see the benefits of organized labour. If you’re an employer (or a City) you’re not always thrilled to be on the other side of the table. But opportunities to spend one’s days productively and to be paid fairly do not happen by themselves. Sooner or later we may all get replaced by a robot. But if no one speaks up, you most definitely will.
Something I think about is how much I took for granted the stability on my street in Des Moines. It’s not at all a wealthy neighbourhood. But everybody seemed to have jobs they liked and that paid enough to get their kids through college. I’ve decided that it is that simple lack of anxiety that defines ‘the American Dream’ for me.
I hope your Labor Day has been relaxing. And I hope you enjoy your work. I hope it affords you the freedom to live the way you want to live today and the security to feel hopeful about tomorrow.
Hopefully you’ve already seen the Christmas In July post. I’ve submitted six ideas so far. Please send me yours by Monday September 6, 2021!
The writing critiques generally fall into two camps: “Too damned long” or Too damned short, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Over the next few weeks, I’ll be experimenting with ways to break the thing up into biter-sizes. The challenge is that some of you follow along but there are new readers who have no idea about many of the things I’m referring to. I’ve started using footnotes more. My newest innovation is to put background information into these clever things they invented called ‘boxes’ which you can skip over if you’ve already been reading along. 🙂
Public Service Announcements
This Week
Thursday: Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) Growth Management Board (Agenda).
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) The highlight will include a presentation by Skylab Architects of Portland which did the original renderings for Marina Redevelopment. The Request For Proposal (RFQ) is also supposed to be unveiled–which will flesh out some of the details on the various building proposals.
Last Week
Monday: Meetings with Port people, including Comissioner Ryan Calkins on the SeatacNoise.info Check Box thing.
Wednesday: Sea-Tac Airport Roundtable StART Meeting. This was the first ‘reveal’ of the Sustainable Airport Master Plan environmental review process. The funny thing (for me) is that basically nobody shows up for these things. But over 70 people showed up for this thing–thinking that there would be some big ‘reveal’. Not at all. The public has such a poor understanding of the process or what is possible I honestly don’t know what to do about it. However, well done to Vashon Island for getting organized! Most of the people who showed up were VI residents who want to be included in the discussion.
Thursday: Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (Video). Des Moines resident Steve Edmiston is a member of the commission and gave a passionate presentation on why health impacts should be a consideration in deciding where to locate a second airport.
And… as the official crusher of people’s hopes: Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Nope. A motion to add such language did not pass. And it’s easy to say that it was just the pro-aviation bastards, right? OK, but think about what you want, Des Moines.
If you really believe that a second airport might divert traffic from Des Moines, you gotta let people build a second airport. Airports are like any power plant. They’re gonna suck for communities; there’s no way to make them healthy. If you insist on pre-conditions to do so, I applaud your concern for your fellow man, but you’re also making it impossible to build a second airport.
Which is fine by me. As I keep saying, I don’t care one way or another. 1Because a second airport will never provide any relief for Des Moines.
My biggest challenge has been convincing you of that. Electeds and candidates and activists just loooove selling this as some ‘solution’ for the noise and pollution. And I wish they would stop doing that because it is not true. All the energy we spending on that canard should be better spent doing something that will actually help Des Moines.
Friday: I spoke with 30th District Senator Claire Wilson on the SeatacNoise.Info proposal The Check Box. And of course, the Senator just blew me out of the water. I’ve given this pitch a dozen times now and I still can’t get it right. The Senator distracts people with her stunning eye wear and then destroys them with a highly pointed question.
Look, all this is is ‘car pooling for planes’. When car pooling and van pooling started in the 70’s it was a total joke. You think people love cars now? Americans looooved cars back then. You could not deal with the problem of traffic (the ‘demand’) directly. So whoever thunk it up began with a totally voluntary program which nobody could be against because they didn’t really take it seriously. The only trick was getting someone to take it seriously enough to fund it, but not seriously enough that the auto industry would kill it.
But little by little it got people used to the idea of conservation. Same thing can happen with air travel. People have been using Zoom for a year. They don’t need to fly as much now. It used to be a treat. It’s only a mess because we do so much of it that we don’t need to.
The only reason it’s hard to pitch is because every organization does event planning and travel scheduling slightly differently. So you pitch the idea to someone and invariably they explain how “we have a different process here.” Same thing happened with car pooling. People argued endlessly about the small stuff. We’ll get there.
Senator Wilson and I also talked about the Fair Start legislation she got passed this Spring. As the pandemic has become endless I keep hearing this drum beat from parents about the need for more parks more activities and basically how damned expensive it is to raise a child.
Friday: South King County Housing and Homelessness Partners (SKHHP) Executive Board Meeting. There was a fairly devastating presentation by Tim Thomas from UC Berkley on what we can expect here from the coming eviction tsunami. I don’t have numbers to show yet, but the curve is ugly. And why you should care about that is because stability means community safety. Anybody who lived here during the Great Recession knows that a ton of house-flipping is something to be avoided.
Kent Mayor Dana Ralph made a good point: Some cities have instituted ordinances to lean on landlords when it comes to tenant issues like mold and poor appliances–common complaints everywhere. The tension is that any pressure you apply to landlords to improve housing also puts pressure on rents–and round and round things go.
Let’s pretend…
Out of the blue, I got a call from Councilmember Buxton asking me if I had questions about that SKHHP meeting. I asked her her impressions of the group and then gave her a couple of my thoughts.
I then gave her my obligatory “I object” speech which I now give to any Councilmember or candidate or community member who does not speak up and it basically goes like this (ahem):
“I object to the constant the preferential treatment the City Manager gives the members of the current majority and the terrible way he has treated both myself and Councilmember Martinelli. As much as I always appreciate hearing from any colleague or community member, this speech will be a part of every discussion we have until the Council establishes an ethical relationship with the City Manager where are all CMs are treated fairly.
I refuse to pretend or compartmentalize or otherwise normalize the bullying by calling it ‘just politics’. Dismissiveness and and victim blaming are unacceptable. Every Councilmember’s primary job is to provide oversight of the administration and that cannot happen when the City Manager and Council majority constantly discriminate against the minority and when members of the community do not speak up. Every member of Council deserves the protection of his colleagues and the full cooperation of the administration. To do otherwise is corruption pure and simple and we should stop pretending that it is anything else. It’s bad for governance and worse for the community. There is simply no excuse. Every person who does not speak up: elected or community member is an enabler.”
I don’t obsess about it; every week you see I work on all sorts of stuff. But I’m never going slide it under the rug either because it makes it harder for me to serve you when I do not enjoy the same cooperation that Councilmember Buxton takes for granted. And it needs to be constantly talked or it will never get solved. It’s become so normal here that most people think that this is how the world should work–which is just nuts.
Let’s Get Organisised
OK, referencing Taxi Driver is probably not a great way to open a topic on parenting, but I keep having these fascinating discussions about Public Outreach as part of things like the ARPA Stimulus, Marina Redevelopment and Parks Master Plan.
For long time, the City had a Citizens Advisory Committee. I guess it still exists. In theory. There’d be one community representative from each of nine neighbourhoods. It sorta ‘dissolved’ around 2017. Now you can say that ‘those uncaring people’ at the City stopped doing it and I half-agree. But you could also say that it became impossible because of all ‘those uncaring people’ in each neighbourhood. Frankly, often there weren’t community members who wanted to do it.
And that’s the thing: I hear all the time, “We need to do better public outreach!” and I 100% agree. The thing I struggle with is: how?
The push back from the City is basically, ‘ the public just doesn’t give a hoot’. On the other hand, I think the City has an ongoing responsibility to aggressively recruit residents. I keep saying it: more than half of the city has turned over in the past 15 years. New people keep coming here and they have no idea about a ‘Citizens Advisory Committee’ unless someone tells them.
There is also an uncomfortable little ‘secret’. There are still a few people in town who do organise for their neighbourhoods. And because you aren’t engaged, they basically have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much influence. They’re not doing anything ‘wrong’. They’re doing what democracy says is good: advocating for their interest. It’s like a teeter-totter. They’re on one side and you’re not on the other so they always get more attention.
So the question then becomes: Should the City put effort into getting more people to volunteer for groups like the Citizen Advisory Committee? Or at the other end of the scale should it simply acknowledge the fact that nobody has the time in 2021 and try to create other mechanisms to ‘find out what you want’?
One common notion is ‘the town hall’ or ‘open house’. Very cool. We’ve got one coming up next week for the Parks Master Plan. The problem with Town Halls is the same as Citizen Advisory Committees. The same people tend to show up and it can be difficult getting truly equitable results.
That said, the City has a Senior Advisory Committee to indicate our strong commitment to that constituency. However, the average age of Des Moines is now 39. We have an entirely new generation of families. And yet there’s no “Family Advisory Committee”. Maybe there should be. But it will only happen if… wait for it… enough ‘Moms’ get organisised to make it happen.
I see scoffs from some of my colleagues and staff, but at the end of the day, City resources are a zero-sum game. There is only so much money, and also only so much attention to go around. That’s why I’m constantly badgering residents to write the City Council, set up a neighbourhood group, generally… be a (nice) pain in the ass. That actually is democracy.
Every staff member will say that the City takes a completely technocratic and fair approach to all this stuff. And I agree–to a point. That approach also appeals to residents because it asks nothing of them. “Hey, if the City is doing everything fairly, I’m already getting the best possible service, right?”
THWWPTPPWPWWPWPWWPPWPT. (That’s my raspberry emoji. 😀 )
This is no slam against any staff member. But I ran customer service systems for a living. And no matter how even-handed an organisation attempts to be, the people who organise tend to get better results. It’s just a fact that’s been borne out by studies since the dawn of… er… dawn. So if you want more attention for “Mom’s” or “Traffic Calming” or “Racism” or whatever your deal is, you have to do your part. That’s the short term answer.
In the long term…
The City currently does very little in the way of organised community research. We can and should do reporting on police stats, business performance, customer spending, real estate and human service needs at a neighbourhood level of granularity. It’s not rocket surgery and other cities our size already do it. We just have to recognise that the out of pocket costs of such information gathering pay for themselves.
You can’t handle the truth…
Speaking of information. I am the most sympathetic mofo you ever met when it comes to your street. But the truth is that a lot of the time, Cities run studies on traffic or crime or whatever and it turns out that “people are constantly going eighty miles an hour!” is actually “people are constantly going twenty eight miles an hour.”
And that’s the kind of thing that makes decision makers a bit jaded.
The solution is actually more information–which is why I want all that survey data. If you respond to a resident concern with “Dude, it’s not that bad” it’s not gonna go over well. But if you communicate what the resources are city-wide and then can demonstrate where the needs actually are, it makes the medicine go down a lot easier. Theoretically. 😀
One minor detail…
No matter what you do, the squeaky wheel does get the grease. It’s supposed to in a democracy. There’s always gonna be some group that organises and gets something you don’t. I’m not saying that to squash your dreams of fair service. I’m just pointing out that, you know, until ‘the great revolution’, it will always be to your advantage to get as many people together as you can and advocate for what you want. And I want to help you do that. 🙂
1People in other areas see what the airport has done to our area and they’re like, “Yeah you can keep that.” The reasons are exactly the same as in 1989 when we had a similar commission. And whenever this conversation comes up I feel like it’s my duty to mention that, even if ‘they’ built a second airport, doesn’t matter what kind or where it’s located it will never reduce the operations at Sea-Tac Airport. Ever. ever. ever. ever ever. I could write ‘ever’ 150 times and you still would not believe me. 😀 Partly because people always have hope, right? But also for the same reason that most people believe that adding another lane to a highway reduces traffic congestion (It does not.)
You would think building a second airport would be like opening a second hamburger joint across the street–half the business would go there. Nope. If you build a second airport all that happens is that you get more hamburgers… er… planes at the new airport. It does nothing to reduce traffic at the first airport. Really. Truly.
Wednesday: Sea-Tac Airport Roundtable StART Meeting. This is the first ‘reveal’ of the Sustainable Airport Master Plan environmental review process. Frankly, there hasn’t been much going on for almost a year, but this would be a good one to attend. Airport expansion is the biggest Des Moines issue you don’t know anything about.
Thursday: Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. Des Moines resident Steve Edmiston is a member of the commission and will be giving a presentation. I have nothing to do with it aside from watching, but I always mention their activities because it seems to be part of my job to crush people’s hopes. See below…
Sunday: I gave King County Council candidate Shukri Olow a tour of the south end of Des Moines. I generally don’t give or receive endorsements. So the only reason to mention this is because I always encourage everyone to get to know everybody. You never know who will win. And I want everyone to get to know each other at least a little bit–what they care about and what I’m concerned about for Des Moines. We drove through the south end of town because frankly, whenever people visit Des Moines they usually seem to focus on other spots.
A brief word about the Metroplitan King County Council. Yes, it’s an over-simplification, but a big part of what King County does is ‘human services department’ for cities like Des Moines. They handle issues of health, housing, arts grants, etc. I get lots of impassioned calls begging the City to do something about various social problems when oftenn it’s really the County that has, not only the authority, but just as importantly the infrastructure already in place. And I mention that for two reasons:
Because when you vote, candidates promise all sorts of stuff. So when you give some thought not to what they aspire to, but to what they actually have the authority to do for you and Des Moines.
And also because there is so much attention now on the City using ARPA money for various purposes. So many great ideas that would be hard for Des Moines, but easy for King County.
Monday: I spoke with State Senator Karen Keiser about our Remote Works Better program. Yeah, not super excited. 😀 It’s interesting how different the reactions have been.
Wednesday: I attended the Reach Out Des Moines meeting. As usual, they discussed how to get more activities for kids in Pacific Ridge. The goal has been crime reduction and school attendance and they have been remarkably successful on both counts. Again, not to over-simplify, but accomplishing both goals often comes down to giving teens things to do. It’s cheap. It works. And we should do more of it throughout Des Moines.
Along those lines, there’s been talk of a building a community center in Des Moines for a long time. Everyone acknowledges the needs in Pacific Ridge. But there is also a very longstanding desire to have a similar activity center in the South end of town. I don’t want to take anything away from the great work happening in Pacific Ridge. But what I dearly want to see is a proper survey of Des Moines–neighbourhood-level detail to assess where we stand throughout the City.
Thursday: I met with Noemie Maxwell an activist working to save North SeaTac Park from development by the Port Of Seattle. She’s also thinking about how we could have a more regional approach to tree cover.
All the airport communities really are defined by Sea-Tac Airport. If it weren’t for that property, it’s likely that most of our cities would have formed some sort of a single ‘Highline’ government decades ago. From the air there is an obvious outline of one big ‘city’ and ‘forest’. Sea-Tac Airport is like that giant foot that came down in Monty Python sketches and artificially divided the entire region. It would be much more efficient if we could somehow plan regionally for the forest and creek systems.
Oh, you want answers?
The paradox of City Councilmember is that the gig allows you to really understand what is needed at the street level. On the other hand, you’re often not in a position to actually do much. You have to (sigh) you know, ‘convince people’.
Dumb engineer guys like me want to be able to say to residents, “Look, here’s what’s really going on. Here’s why it hasn’t been solved. Here’s what we need to do (finally) to get there.” I believe the current term is ‘mansplaining’? People really love that. 😀
You also want to be able to question every program the City engages in, not just at the City level but also regionally. But this is not ‘academia’ where people like me are used to giving each other routine grillings. So if you do that, you’re instantly hurting a lot of hard working people’s feelings. They themselves would be the first to acknowledge that a lot of these programs are not the greatest but they’re making the best of the situation. So you feel like a jerk pointing out that that this is, ya know, public money.
At the end of the day you run the risk of seeming heartless to everybody. Never underestimate how much the desire to look like government is trying drives so much bad policy and bad spending. If you’re me, this cocktail of easy and ineffective can have you constantly checking the clock to see if it’s not too early in the day for that first drink.
Two practical Notes from the week…
I sincerely support what SKHHP is trying to do. But at the end of the day, the main reason we haven’t built ‘affordable housing’ in Des Moines is not because of any mysterious forces of nature. It’s because voters told us what they wanted and government has responded. If the people who actually vote really, really wanted more places for people to live? We’d have had them decades ago. Groups like SKHHP exist because the term ‘affordable housing’ is just one of a growing list of items that Cities now spend money on in order to try to secretly wish problems away. It won’t.
I fully support the CACC. 1But it won’t help Des Moines at all. Again, the reason there isn’t a second airport in the area is because nobody else wants a second airport. But governments keep putting energy into this rather than things that would help Des Moines because, again, it’s just easier.
The fact is, we spend a ton of energy and/or money on policy stuff like this that is at best questionable, but woe unto you for saying so. (Talk to me about the squillions we’ve wasted on salmon recovery. See? Now you think I’m a 4salmon hater, too right? 😀 )
Poking the bear…
I often discuss thorny issues here, mainly because no one else does. You cannot expect the public to engage on the issues unless they are aware of the issues. The City communicates its successes, generally not the problems. Some people perceive these criticisms as ‘poking the bear’, but that’s really not the point. The real point is that we haven’t had a decent argument in Des Moines for a very long time.
Where are the town halls?
Almost every day now, I also talk with residents who demand, “Where are the Town Halls!?!” And I’m like, “3Dude, we did have town halls back in the day. Ya know why we don’t have town halls now? Because people screamed a lot!”
You don’t know that because, more than half of you only moved here within the past decade. You have no idea how much things have changed. The City gradually abandoned all sorts of public engagement for a very practical reason: Having real discussions means people disagree.
See you think there’s a lack of ‘public engagement’, but I know that it’s really a lack of basic accountability. (I told you there would be man-splaining.) The administration thinks it’s perfectly fine to treat both of us as they do. And why shouldn’t they? Who is out there telling them otherwise? (I’m not being rhetorical. Councilmembers get lots of letters. But the number demanding better public engagement is exactly the same as the number demanding equal treatment for all Councilmembers. 😀 )
I ‘poke the bear’, not to be prickly, but because I have the right to ask any damned thing I want in order to serve you. I don’t work for the administration. I work for you. I know who works for who. The administration may not. My colleagues may not. But that’s not my fault. It’s their fault for trying to game the system. And it’s also yours if you don’t speak up in support of Councilmembers who poke the bear. (See what I did there? 😀 )
Seriously, though: you want town halls? As soon as you insist on a government that understands who works for whom, trust me, you’ll get your town halls. (And progress on airport issues, housing and all that stuff we spend money on as opposed to actually doing something.)
1People in other areas see what the airport has done to our area and they’re like, “Yeah you can keep that.” The reasons are exactly the same as in 1989 when we had a similar commission. And whenever this conversation comes up I feel like it’s my duty to mention that, even if ‘they’ built a second airport, doesn’t matter what kind or where it’s located it will never reduce the operations at Sea-Tac Airport. Ever. ever. ever. ever ever. I could write ‘ever’ 150 times and you still would not believe me. 😀 Partly because people always have hope, right? But also for the same reason that most people believe that adding another lane to a highway reduces traffic congestion (It does not.)
You would think building a second airport would be like opening a second hamburger joint across the street–half the business would go there. Nope. If you build a second airport all that happens is that you get more hamburgers… er… planes at the new airport. It does nothing to reduce traffic at the first airport. Really. Truly. And I keep hammering away at that, one voter at a time, because so long as people have this misguided hope that a second airport will reduce traffic, we can never deal properly with Sea-Tac.
2OK, except Chinook and Coho. Unless human beings pack up and leave Des Moines, they’re probably screwed.
3Artistic license. I really don’t address constituents as ‘Dude’ all that much.
4I have a deep and, some would say, almost spiritual connection with fish. The Incredible Mr. Limpet is a true classic of film, OK?
On August 6, 2021, the City Of Des Moines published its 2021 Draft Marina Master Plan Update. Almost immediately, residents began speaking with me about serious concerns. I was asked to create ‘talking points’ to try to put those concerns into something digestible.
Here’s your first talking point: It’s hard to create short ‘talking points’. 😀
The scheme is so complex, there are so many unknowns and it is constantly evolving. But if you can remember only one thing, remember this:
The land side must pay for the water side
Key problems with the proposal
I know people want their specific concerns addressed, but before drilling down, there are some broad issues that apply to almost every specific item:
The proposal is simply too vague, particularly thje financing. But despite many gaps and unknowns, the City has already moved ahead. Some of the needed analysis is occurring now but a lot more should have happened and needs to happen before we can acknowledge the risks and benefits.
Since the original version of this document, the City has responded with a number of presentations and far from making things clearer, they have actually muddied the waters even further.
The proposal conflates need with want and does not at all make clear that various aspects are financed independently.
The proposal shamelessly includes several “glamour features” to sell the idea, including a passenger ferry, hotel and year-round-market, while failing to acknowledge that their revenue potential is not just unknown but unknowable.
The proposal repurposes the Marina towards wealthier boaters and does not consider the possible effects to small boat users or the larger community which uses the Marina Floor as a park.
The lack of public outreach has been simply grievous. For almost three years, the City chose to make the Des Moines Marina Association (DMMA) the only stakeholder in the planning process. This calls into question the City’s management and oversight.
Ten Takeaways From The Report
Most people kinda/sorta get that the land side has two big features:
A Marina Steps project at the end of 223rd (Overlook II) for people to walk down to the Marina Floor.
A large multi-level Adaptive Purpose Building (APB) which will replace the boat storage sheds.
The Steps seem largely popular. The APB? Eh, not so much. Regardless, here are ten things to think about.
This is the largest and longest capital project in our history: 15-20 years and $35-50 million. That one sentence should been enough to merit a Town Hall before proceeding with any aspect of the projects.
The land side must pay for the water side. This requires a walk-through:
The Marina is a semi-private and self-sustaining business referred to as an Enterprise Fund. The Marina’s own borrowing power is barely enough to start on the first two docks and there will be no more borrowing for the foreseeable future.
The City has not discussed borrowing from its General Fund to finance this. The only answer I’ve been able to obtain is that we’re maxing that borrowing out now for the North Bulkhead and the 223rd Steps.
There has been no discussion of going to the voters (bonds) to pay for docks replacement. I do not know why.
So, every aspect of the land side redevelopment: the APB and any other proposals to be determined (including passenger ferry, boutique hotel, parking, you name it) is the funding source for dock replacement.
So the land side needs to generate enough ongoing (structural) revenue to pay that $35-50M bill for dock replacement over that 15-20 year cycle. That is $1.75M – $3M per year. And that is above and beyond any revenue from existing lessees (SR3, CSR, Quarterdeck, etc.)
The proposal has serious gaps. At our September 2 City Council Meeting the Administration will unveil a Request For Proposal (RFQ) to developers. That will be anyone’s first look at what the City is looking for in terms of land side development. It will then be up to whichever developers respond to flesh out a vision for the APB and other projects. But it is important to note that internally, the City must already have a pretty good idea of what it wants the Marina Floor to be like in order to prepare that RFQ. And it is disappointing that they have not shared any of that with the public.
Do not conflate the desires of various self-interests to develop the land side with the need to rebuild the docks or sea walls.
The docks and the seawalls (the water side) must be replaced now. There is a years-long process of permitting and planning. No one argues that. If we as a City are committed to having a Marina, we must begin work on the docks now.
The docks and the seawalls and land side are all financed separately. (In fact, the City has already received funding to repair the North sea wall. Work on that is already beginning and it has nothing to do with the land side.)
There are land side amenities that boaters highly desire (parking, good restrooms, etc.) and the land side should be planned strategically to fully accommodate those needs. But it is only the docks that are in peril. And it is only the docks that depend on land side development to pay for.
The knowable land side revenue generators are not solid:
Build a dry stack storage system with 240 spaces into the east side of the hill near the south end of the floor. Presumably, all the small boats displaced by the removal of the current storage sheds will go there. Best case, it generates $1.1M/year in revenue, however operational cost has not been discussed. We are assuming that there will be immediate and 100% demand for that storage.
Build a second dry stack storage system with another 240 spaces inside the APB. See above.
Move the harbor master’s office into the APB and lease out or redevelop the building for retail/restaurant. Revenue unknown.
The most glamorous revenue generators are unknown and unknowable:
Passenger ferry
Boutique hotel
Move the Farmers Market inside the APB and convert it into a year-round concern
There’s no way to comment on any of these without more information. They sound wonderful. Who doesn’t like the sound of a ferry or a boutique hotel or a year round market. But there are no numbers. And no discussion as to the impacts on our transportation infrastructure including parking.
Perhaps the biggest problem with any of these glamour items is that they are being sold as economic drivers. The pitch is that, if we had a ferry or a hotel, regardless of any direct revenue, their presence somehow attracts more visitors, people spending money and general business development. We heard that same argument with the Des Moines Creek Business Park (DMCBP) and whatever it’s other virtues, the DMCBP has not been that great economic driver. If people want those things just because they are fun? Great. Sell them like that. But do not include them in the mix of revenue sources for dock replacement.
Also:
The most likely location for a hotel is on City property known as Parcel A immediately south of the 223rd Stairs. That is within the Marina’s Enterprise Fund area. This plan would likely require selling Parcel A property to a private developer. OK, where do the one-time monies and ongoing tax receipts go? Do they contribute to the dock replacement or do they get re-purposed to the General Fund–thus delaying dock replacement and increasing our borrowing costs?
The demand for a ferry is based on a private study done by the City in 2019 but only revealed a few months ago. Those results are not exactly echoed by a very thorough study done by the Puget Sound Regional Council where a Des Moines route came in dead last. And yet, in May of 2022, the Council voted to give the City Manager $975,000 to pay a private company to run a pilot program, with no financial projections or even a schedule.
Although the Farmers Market is a beloved institution, a big money maker it is not. It is fantasy to think that a year-round concern would do any better. And again: every inch of the APB must, above all things, be an efficient money maker.
The public outreach has been terrible.
The City’s last real ‘town hall’ about the proposal was in 2017. There was also a Yacht Club event in 2019 which was far less well attended. The City’s claims for attendance have been from 200-500. I was there and those numbers are highly inflated. But regardless, the total number of residents reached at both these events would have been at best several hundreds. Not exactly representative of the entire community. Also: these were not proposals concerning financing or dock replacement or anything real. They were at best surveys of public interest on three broad options; nothing more. And to say otherwise is completely disingenuous.
The sole outreach about the current plan was by distributing flyers inside the docks to the 750-ish boat owners, 80% of whom are not residents. They were the only stakeholders asked to submit questions and not a single member outside of that community attended the initial planning meetings before the Council voted to move ahead with design. You can verify this for yourself by looking at page 11 of the Draft Proposal or here for a list of all documents reviewed before the City Council voted to move ahead.
The plan changes the entire focus of moorage towards larger boats or wealthier tenants and that has far bigger consequences than just the docks.The dream would be to make Des Moines a weekend destination for boat owners similar to the San Juans. And that means that any other developments on the land side will also shift upmarket. Does the community believe in and want that sort of long term vision? There are is a small, but important group of residents who disagree because it is such a change from the original mission. Some boat owners still dearly miss the ‘sling’ removed in 2009. Many resent having to go down to Redondo to launch, which they consider inconvenient and much more challenging to use.
The Marina Floor is smaller than people think. If there is a ferry, dry stack operations, a boutique hotel and retail space in the APB and the harbor master’s office, the logistics will be non-trivial. Some people will use the new Steps on 223rd. But many will need parking or shuttles or ride shares to at least get up to Marine View Drive. Also, there are many ways to implement dry stack storage and we are considering not one but two systems–which means potentially launching seven times as many boats..
For 99% of Des Moines, the practical function of the Marina is as a public park. It has always been that way. The Marina Floor is the City’s gathering space–and so much so that most people have forgotten that it is, in fact, a business. Thus far, apart from the 223rd Steps, the entire discussion has been around ‘boaters’ and ‘revenue’, ignoring entirely the fact that the Marina is a park and that the vast majority of users will never set foot on the docks.
The ends do not justify the means…
I want to acknowledge that the proposal and every one of its assumptions could turn out to be absolutely wonderful. Really. But at the end of the day, the ends do not justify the means. The issue is not the actual proposal, which could be fixed, but rather the process which was and continues to be fraught.
Dismissive…
The City and the Council majority have been completely dismissive of any complaints. The administration denies that there has been any problem with the process. This is not only a failure of government, it is a lack of regard for your intelligence.
To insist that there has been anything approaching a proper level of public outreach is to deny reality.
Demanding a decent business proposal before proceeding is the very definition of good business.
Three messages to government…
We must send a strong message to our government:
The Marina belongs to the entire City. The entire community are the stakeholders and must have a voice at every stage of planning.
The City must communicate properly and that includes both high quality information and serious public outreach on programs of this scale.
The City must provide complete proposals before asking the City Council to vote and the City Council must not tolerate anything less.
Action Items
To send these messages, I’m asking you to write, not only the City Council, but also to all candidates. Many of the biggest decisions will happen in 2021. So you should be getting specific answers from them now.
Ask them to support creating a new Marina Committee of the City Council to provide oversight and planning of Marina and Redondo Zones. This would insure that the entire community had a voice in Marina planning, not merely the DMMA.
1To give you some perspective, SR3 currently pays the City about $46K/year for its piece of the Marina floor. But has also received close to $200k in grant money from the City, thus zeroing out any economic benefit.
My last union vaguely optional. The idea was to organize professional engineers to negotiate contracts with the State Of Michigan as a single unit. At the time, I thought it was kinda cockamamie because despite any merits of the idea, its success depended on the willingness of a bunch of independent-minded guys to cooperate. Candidly, we were nothing like these women or any other model of solidarity. So we self-destructed. No robots required. I now realize that it was a very worthy goal and very much ahead of its time. Some of us did better without the union, some worse. But it would have simplified very useful things like health insurance and retirement planning for all of us–things you don’t pay attention to when you think you’re special and have all the time in the world. There’s a lesson there. Maybe. 😀
All the airport communities really are defined by Sea-Tac Airport. If it weren’t for that property, it’s likely that most of our cities would have formed some sort of a single ‘Highline’ government decades ago. From the air there is an obvious outline of one big ‘city’ and ‘forest’. Sea-Tac Airport is like that giant foot that came down in Monty Python sketches and artificially divided the entire region. It would be much more efficient if we could somehow plan regionally for the forest and creek systems.