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This is insane

The following is a reality check on the Ferry Pilot program the Council approved at our 23 June Meeting. Now, there is a long-winded introduction and I know some people don’t read the long-winded introductions. But it addresses the numerous complaints about the ‘arguing’ at our 9 June meeting so I hope you’ll read. If not, you can skip directly into the program.

Intro

Residents tell me all the time to “be calmer” and I have no idea what they’re talking about. I’ve certainly never deliberately attacked anyone. Or gotten visibly angry. I do get animated. I tell my version of ‘jokes’. I’m occasionally sarcastic as hell. But this always theatrics. It’s meant to be didactic. I’m trying to tell you, the audience, “Wake up! Pay attention to this. This is the important bit!”

Because after so many years watching our meetings I came to realise that almost no one was really listening. Most people have no idea what is really going on. So the meetings kinda drone on like the way me dad used to leave the TV running in the breakfast room. And unless there are markers to indicate “Wake up! This is important!” you’ll miss the stuff that really matters.

You can be too calm…

We started heading in the wrong direction a very long time ago. There have always been one or two councilmembers who tried to push back and reform our system. Their strategy was to always be as nice and friction-free as possible. They tried their guts out to be “cooperative”, even when there was no reciprocation. But by working so hard to be constantly “friendly”, I’m convinced that the public slept through a whole lot of bad. We’d have a meeting on some big construction project and people would not realise just how awful it was. People hate screaming. I get it. But most of us kinda need it otherwise they miss when something spectacularly wrong occurs.

One sentence…

So at this meeting, I limited any snippiness to one line, regarding the ferry. “This is insane.” And by being so gosh darned “nice” otherwise, afterwards I got several messages telling me how excited people are about the ferry and how glad they are to see the Council all on the same page!

That tells me it wasn’t just the poor audio quality that kept people from hearing. I’m sorry to say, but this is just further proof that when things are too “pleasant” people just don’t pay enough attention. Especially on issues like the ferry, which many of you want so much to believe in I need to be unambiguous.

I told you: This is insane. And here is why.

The program…

The Council voted to approve a sixty day pilot project (contract) using the sixty three passenger whale watching vessel Chilkat from Puget Sound Express.

It will initially have four sailings a day: from Wednesday through Sunday, from our guest moorage to Bell Harbor Marina.

10:00 am 11:00 am
12:00 pm 1:00 pm
2:00 pm 3:00 pm
4:00 pm 5:00 pm

₁The initial fare price will be zero. You heard it here, folks. free, Free, FREE!

You’re welcome.

Concerns…

#1 Sunk costs

I want to point out that, in addition to the $975,000 the Council gave to the City Manager to play with at our 14 April Meeting, we have already sunk at least $200,000 in other costs into (cough) ‘researching’ this thing. Including at least these:

TOTAL	$204,500
Diedrich-RPM private (cough) demand study	$35,000
Peter Philips Ferry consultant retainer ($3,000/mo) that will continue indefinitely.	$72,000
Maritime Consulting Partners a second consultant hired to find the vendor, create the start-up systems (fare box, gangway, etc.), promote the program and. furnish the final performance analysis	$7,500
Start up costs (docks, fareboxes, customer service, etc.)	$90,000

And none of that includes staff time, schmoozing, various reimbursed business lunches, etc.

and… if one actually reads the contract, take a look at page 30 where the actual commitment is not ($87,500 x 2 months.) It’s $470,000!

#2 Beta test?

The City Manager, and all my colleagues, referred to this sixty day program as a ‘beta test’. It’s only June but I can confidently announce that this will win the Inigo Montoya Award for 2022.

When software engineers build a large program, the first version that leaves the lab is an “alpha”. It (mostly) works, but the features are still being debated. It is not shown to the public because we’re not sure if the thing is even saleable. The ‘beta’ is a working version that is “feature complete.” We let a small group of ‘power users’ try it for the purpose of working out bugs, not to see if people like it and not for market testing. In fact, management discourages engineers from making changes because every time you do that, you run the risk of introducing new bugs. The nightmare scenario for a software company is a beta test where the users demand major feature changes. That scares investors. It signals that management might not have a good read on what will actually sell.

The contract requires us to pay $87,500 a month to the vendor to run this thing.

Some details on what you get for $87,500…

No Monday or Tuesday.
No commuter runs either in the morning or evening.
The ‘test’ is being run in August and September, the most likely time for people to take a fun, free ride but the worst time to determine real ongoing demand.
The City acknowledges it may run into significant challenges obtaining staff. Going so far as to consider hiring ₃high school students to crew in lieu of shortages of vendor staff.
For those of you unfamiliar with Bell Harbor Marina, it’s the home of the Port of Seattle on Bell Street and Alaskan Way. It’s an easy to walk to fun places like Pike Place. But it’s about a mile to Westlake Center. It’s about a mile to 4th Ave. It’s about a 20 minute walk to anywhere white collar people work. And it’s a serious bus ride to any blue collar jobs. Every try to get a bus off Alaskan Way to SODO? Goooooood luck. So after your leisurely whale-watching adventure (..er.. ‘commute’), an actual commuter should plan on the same amount of time for the rest of their journey. And maybe a bus fare. (True blue ferry riders might want to cut the middle man and simply apply for a job with the Port of Seattle.)
And again for the cheap seats, the contract actually specifics $470,000!

So the City Manager, and my colleagues, were already talking about more ‘beta tests’ from September on to, you know, iron out some ‘details’. 😀 And just to be clear: any changes to those variables will come with additional costs TBD.

This is no “test” in any meaningful sense of the word.

#3 Revenue Potential

Another detail, which once again makes me think no one else actually reads the packet. The contract requires us to pay $87,500 a month to the vendor to run this thing four times a day, five days a week.

Pick an eventual fare price. (It won’t be free forever, Virginia, get real. 😀 ) Let’s keep it at $11 a ride since we’re a bunch o’ swell people who don’t want to gouge the public.

Now let’s do a quick bit o’ math, shall we?

62 seats x 7 or 8 sailings a day (depending on where she spends the night) sailings a day x 21.5 days x $11 a ride is…

$117,304.

At $11 a ride and 100% capacity we would make $29,804 every month. Sounds pretty good. Now add in $46,800/month in fuel.

Whoopsies! Absolute best case scenario? We lose $16,996/month.

OK, so I leave “showing my work” on the rest of this as an exercise for the reader. For now, my guesses are these:

The break even fare for a five day, four sailing ferry is $16
The break even fare for a five day, five sailing ferry is likely closer to $20.
The break even fare for a seven day, five sailing ferry is probably $24

Which means that even if there is one hundred percent capacity at every sailing (no bad weather or mechanical or labour cancellations) the thing will still never pay for itself. It’s not that it won’t make a lot of money. It will never make any money. It will always need to be subsidised unless the fares are so high that the only commuters who will use it regularly are people who currently have enough money to pay to park downtown. Meaning almost exclusively white collar. The rest would be ‘occasionals’ people taking their gran down to Pike Place for a fun-filled day trip.

Or… and this was truly said at the meeting, “People on layover at Sea-Tac Airport would Uber over to our Marina, get on a ferry, go down to Bell Harbor and then come back to continue their journey to their final destination.”

Seriously?

#4 bait and switch

Given all the publicity from the first ‘test’ back in September, I think it’s reasonable to assume that everyone thought this ‘beta test’ might be comparable to the 178 seat Orca II, moored at Pier 57 (University–the Big Wheel.)

Stick with me here. On 14 April, the Council approved $975,000 for the City Manager to identify a vendor to do a second round of “testing.” I asked why that number and got no response. I think we all assumed that $975,000 was the cost of a boat similar to the Orca II.

He then comes back with the contract we saw for $290,000. What a bargain! But the Chilkat (capacity: 63) is one third the size of the Orca II and Bell Harbor is half a mile north.

Even more troubling for me is this. The contract is dated 25 May, which sounds reasonable. But here’s the reason it is so egregious when my colleagues do not examine the vouchers and the City obstructs me from so doing:

A quick review of the timing of the consultant fees makes it clear that the City had already identified the new vendor in February and likely settled on the new boat ($290,000) months before asking for $975,000.

What annoys me particularly is the last item. Council Meeting 04/14. We paid the consultant to do *something* related to that City Council Meeting. But I do not recall him taking questions from (wait for it) *the City Council*,

In other words, the City Manager likely knew when he came to the Council for $975,000 that he would not be using the boat from last fall or that vendor. But he did not tell the Council. In fact, they likely already knew the vendor they did want, and the boat and the cost of the sixty day ‘test’, which is $290,000.

It is common practice for the City to keep negotiations under wraps. But this is beyond the pale. The City provided no information for the Council. They asked for $975,000 up front to perform a single test, but their real intent all along seems to be to have money ‘in the bank’ to do multiple tests.

So. Not. Cool.

#5 It misspends money

When you waste a dollar, you misspend two dollars. The dollar you should not have spent; and the dollar that could have been spent well.

This project needlessly takes money away from any number of important core programs. What programs are you concerned about?

Roads?
Parks?
Public Safety?
Housing?
Human services?
Airport noise and pollution?

All of us may reasonably disagree on which of those are of highest priority. But regardless, surely we can all agree that those are the core functions of the City and that a ferry is not. Every dollar that goes into a total money loser, is millions of dollars that will not be going towards those essential functions.

#6 The first hit is free

Since day one I have been asking for something very simple: A business plan. I have received none because there is none. The only possible justification would be if the service somehow drove some other money making businesses. Again, there is none. They are all ‘TBD’ because they do not exist.

The only thing I’ve ever read or heard is this, from the Waterland Blog:

“A passenger ferry could serve two purposes:

1. Commuting to downtown Seattle (or other destinations like Tacoma).
2. Tourism attraction that could serve as an “anchor” to a revitalized Des Moines Marina.

The ferry service will also be an essential component to regional emergency plans and regional resiliency plans as it is the closest harbor to the Kent Valley, our center of warehousing and manufacturing,” a study by diedrich-rpm said. “The Kent Valley is vulnerable to flooding in an earthquake or dam breach.”

No one boat can do all those things well. And I have heard no agency mention any willingness to pay Des Moines to keep the engine running on an emergency ferry. You know, for the impending Cascadia Megaquake.

Basically, the plan is to keep (cough) spending money ‘testing’ this thing until it becomes a permanent fixture. And as any successful drug dealer will tell you, the best way to sell something like this is to give it away in the beginning.

The City Manager is simply asking the public to believe that somehow a combination of a “ferry”, a “hotel”, a “farmers market”, an “SR3” (none of them money-makers) will somehow create some “magic” that brings in “tens of thousands of tourists.”

These are words from our Mayor in supporting the City’s offer to subsidise SR3 back in 2019:

It’s great about our eco-tourism. This alone is going to bring tens of thousands of people into our town. They’re going to eat at our restaurants. They’re going to get educated about our community. It’s a complete win. And… we get to help some of our sea life in the Sound… and… uh… that’s very important as well.

I fully support SR3’s mission. But I used the word ‘subsidise’ because we give SR3 far more in grants than they will likely ever pay in rent on the Marina floor.

Mahoney knew when he said those words that the facility would draw no tourism because *SR3 cannot draw tourism. We have a long history of hucksterism like this. The City took advantage of our residents’ deep attachment to sea life to needlessly give up one of the most lucrative spots on the Marina floor.

The ferry is exactly the same thing. A ferry is one of the most romantic notions imaginable. And the City of Des Moines is going to be giving it away to make it even tougher to get people to understand what a waste of money it is. In both cases, the City is manipulating the public’s emotions to keep people from looking at the terrible financial prospects for our community.

As a business proposition the ferry makes no sense.
To call this contract a ‘beta test’ is an insult.
The project misspends hundreds of thousands of dollars that could (and should) be going to core programs; the things we actually know how to do really well. We should spend our money on those things because those are the things that serve the interests of all our residents.

As a business owner, a professional engineer, and a steward of the public trust, I resent all three with every fiber of my being.

Summary

The ‘test’ has no commuter sailings.
The ‘test’ is being run during the two worst possible months for evaluating revenue potential.
The ‘test’ doesn’t even include Monday and Tuesday.
The boat is too small to test parking issues.
There may be significant staffing challenges.
It provides no meaningful transit option except for possibly a limited number of high income office workers.
Regardless, on its own it will never make money. Ever.
And worse, the Marina writ large has no concrete business plan.
At the same time, it robs over a million dollars away from important core competencies and the more it sails, the more it robs.
The entire “test” is a bait and switch.

Best case, this will be an indulgence for a very small number of people; and it will be paid for by the rest of Des Moines. Taking money from core services in order to do something based on wishful thinking is so elitist, so wasteful and so unjust for the wider community interest I can only close as I opened.

This is insane.

₁There is nothing at all in the agreement concerning fares. On the video, the City Manager states his intent to set the initial price to zero, specifically for the purpose of attracting interest.

₂No fare price was ever seriously discussed. I picked the $11 fare price because that was a number that both Mahoney and Matthias floated during a 2019 Council study session. In fact, the optimal fare price according to the (cough) demand study was $8.

₃The City Manager states that he has already had discussions with Highline Schools COO Scott Logan about the possibility of using Maritime High School students as crew. I welcome opportunities for young people to have their first job (especially on the water.) And I do not claim to be an expert on their curriculum. However, it requires not one, but two State certs to deck hand on a State ferry. The job is public safety after all.

*SR3 originally chose to site the facility on the corner of 223rd and Sixth Ave, the location of Harper Studios. (Doreen Harper is a board member of the SR3 Foundation.) The whole idea is to keep the animals in a quiet spot isolated from the public. But since so many people are so emotionally attached to the animals, it’s simply impossible to have a “by the numbers” discussion of the wisdom of siting the facility in that specific place.

Transparency

Lights, Camera, Action!

2 Comments

Super-fans of our City Council may notice me laughing as I look down at the start of many meetings. My phone “blows up” with texts from residents complaining about the meeting video, audio, etc. As if I can do something about it. 😃 I have complained and complained and complained.

*But… I have not seen any letters to the City Council. And I’ll just tell you on this as on every topic.

Do not text me. Especially during a meeting. Seriously, dude.
Do not write the City staff. Not the Clerk, not the IT guy. Why? Because City complaints are not forwarded to the City Council.
Instead, write the City Council, which is automatically read by the City Clerk.
And when you do, please mention me. Not to feed my ego (my ego is doing just fine, thanks very much), but because, unlike my colleagues, I worked in IT for 25 years. Even if you don’t know how the correct way to fix it, I do. On many issues, there’s this ongoing back and forth where the City will say “we’re working on (x)” and my colleagues say “OK” because they know about as much about IT as I do about brain surgery. So nothing improves. For years. Your support gives me leverage in getting a better solution implemented.

If you don’t write to back me up, it’s assumed that I’m “just making shit up”

So please write citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov

The deliberator

I know the audio problems were particularly bad at last Thursday’s meeting. That may be because this was the first meeting where the deliberators were hooked up. I’ve asked the City Clerk about it because I am now blocked from even emailing the IT manager directly. I mean that literally. My emails are refused.

Closed Captions and Transcripts

But before that, one minor victory I’ve had while in office has been to encourage the IT dept to hit a button on Youtube which auto-magically creates closed captions for our meeting videos.

The last meeting was closed-captioned so you can see the transcript even for the bits you cannot hear. Hit the ‘cc’ button and re-watch. 🙂

But some are not. So I also upload every meeting to my Youtube Channel and make sure its closed-captioned just in case. That’s your backup plan. 🙂

You can have the captions move along as you watch OR you can see the entire transcript all in one go by clicking on the “…” on the line below the video with the “Like” and “Share” buttons.

The Law

Our Council’s Rules of Procedure #35 and #36 require that meetings be audio and video-recorded. However, the quality of the recording is not specified. Regular watchers may have noticed the wide range of audio and video quality both during meetings and -between- different meetings.

Eg. at this meeting both main cameras are out of focus. And the “1 shot” and “2 shot” (ie. where the camera zooms in on people as they speak) only worked for Tim George. When members of the Council are speaking it’s only the wide shot. It’s supposed to zoom on each CM as they speak.

Action Minutes

A bit more troubling for “democracy” writ large, the City shifted to “action minutes” about a decade ago. Action minutes mean that only the actions are recorded in the minutes, not what anyone said. The Minutes only tally the votes. They say nothing of the content. Which means that the video is the only detailed account of what was said.

Speaking of the content…

And it is the case that there are several meetings, as recent as 2017, where:

There is audio, but no video.
Or the audio and video are horribly out of sync.
Or some of them are these horrible postage stamp size Windows 95 things.
And of course, many of them were not closed-captioned. (Again, if you have difficulties, search for the meeting video at SeaTacNoise.Info. All those are closed-captioned.)

If a meeting falls in the woods…

Although the meetings must be recorded, there is (AFAIK) no retention requirements of any kind.

So I have no idea where many of those meetings are before 2006. I know for a fact that the City had a video system as far back as Kennedy (1990-ish), but the IT Manager (who started in 2002-ish) has no idea and because he is not required by law to care, he does not care.

SeatacNoise.Info to the rescue…

As part of SeaTacNoise.Info‘s ongoing project to document every aspect of the airport, we have tracked down many (but not all) of these older videos. So if anyone ever wants a trip down memory lane with people like Don Wasson and Terry Brazil, that’s the place to go.

(It’s slightly unnerving to think that I may be the only person left with videos of City meetings more than 15 years old.)

Why it matters…

We keep making a lot of the same mistakes over and over and I wonder how much of it comes down to the fact that nobody cares about the past. And that indicates a certain form of arrogance. What happened before is irrelevant because “this time will be different.”

Apart from that, with the end of detailed meeting minutes video is becoming the only reliable way to know “what happened.”

With video the truth at least has a fighting chance. Without it, democracy has none because then people can say whatever they want.

*26 June, 2022: Today, the City Council received its first complaint on the matter of my tenure. Congratulations!

Neighborhoods, Policy, Public Safety, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 06/20/2022

This Week

Monday: Delrose Manor BBQ, hosted by Stephen Dziadosz.

Thanks for the invitation to this evening’s Delrose Manor BBQ, hosted by Stephen Dziadosz.

When I arrived there were already large contingent of residents and a ton of mighty tasty looking food which I did not get a chance to eat,

Also in attendance were Mayor Mahoney and Deputy Mayor Buxton and a surprising number of very small children running around which is always nice to see.

Also on the plus side, I got to chat with several residents, which was great–but not everyone as I had to cut out to get to another thing. So if I missed anyone, please feel free to contact me any time (206) 878-0578.

Again, I want to mention how much I appreciate these events. In addition to making friends, it makes for a safer neighbourhood. It also helps keep the City’s attention on the area. All good things.

Best.

Wednesday: Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. The agency is deciding on a location for the first fixed-site air quality monitor dedicated to Sea-Tac Airport and aviation-specific emissions. I’ve written that sentence dozens of times and still it amazes me.

In the ’70’s, soon after the Clean Air Act and NEPA were passed, the public was outraged by the dramatic increase in noise and pollution. What is interesting to me is how an entire region can become acclimated to a situation.I often bore people by mentioning Clair Patterson, the chemist who first demonstrated how much lead was present everywhere. Sky. Ocean. Land. As with the noise and pollution from the airport, slowly people got so used to having lead everywhere it wasn’t possible to understand how much damage it was doing to public health. It was only after we stopped using leaded gas and paint and so on that scientists understood the hundreds of thousands of deaths and illnesses every year. People had just learned to live with it.

Thursday: Economic Development Committee Meeting (Agenda) (Video)

Masonic Home Demolition EIS Update (moved to July)
Housing Action Plan
Quarterdeck Lease Extension presentation by owner Ken Rogers. Mr. Rogers is requesting a five year extension, with a further five year option.

Thursday: Municipal Facilities Committee Meeting (Agenda) (Video)

Fieldhouse Lightpole
CIP grant opportunities

Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) (see below)

How to participate in our meetings

City Council Meetings are scheduled for Thursdays at 6:00PM at City Hall 21630 11th Avenue S., Suite #C Des Moines WA 98198. They can also be viewed live on Comcast Channel 21/321 or on the City’s YouTube channel. Committee Meetings are either at 4:00PM or 5:00PM, also on Thursdays.

You do not have to sign in to attend a meeting!
The sign-in sheet is only for people wishing to make a Public Comment.

There are three ways to provide Public Comment:

In person: Show up a few minutes before the meeting and sign the sheet. Public Comment is usually conducted at the beginning of the meeting.
By e-mail: All e-mails sent to citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov are considered public comment. They are instantly available to all members of the City Council and the City Clerk who includes them into the record of public comments at the next meeting.
By US Mail: Attn: City Clerk Office, 21630 11th Avenue S., Des Moines WA 98198 no later than 4:00 p.m. day of the meeting. Please provide us with your first and last name and the city in which you live.

All letters or e-mails requesting a specific action are referred by the City Clerk to the appropriate City department.

If you would like a follow up from me, personally please indicate that or call me (206) 878-0578.

The Clerk does not read e-mails to the Council in full; only the subject line. However, we do see them as soon as you send them. Your comments are added to the Agenda Packet available on the City web site following each meeting.

Last Week

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda)

Wednesday: Puget Sound Regional Council Comprehensive Plan Workshop

Wednesday: Mt. Rainier High School Graduation at ShoWare Center

Thursday: King County Flood Control District

Friday: South King County Housing and Homelessness Partners (SKHHP)

City Council Meeting Preview

Last meeting featured thirteen Consent Agenda items that were not exactly ‘routine’. This one has seven significant presentations.

I once again nagged the City Manager to publish his four presentations ahead of the meeting. It drives me a bit nuts to see those things cold. We’ll see.

City Manager Report

SAMP UPDATE
SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTER PRESENTATION
MARINA REDEVELOPMENT UPDATE
PARKS, RECREATION & SENIOR SERVICES UPDATE

New Business

Public Hearing on Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) The TIP is something at least one person in every neighbourhood should read. It shows you a prioritised list of all our road projects along with their budget and timeline. If you’re on the Transpo Committee, you should be thinking about possibilities to move items around based on new grant opportunities or community need.

Draft Ordinance 21-064 – National Pollution Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) Source Control Best Mamagement Practices
Passenger Ferry Pilot Test Implementation. Last month we voted to approve $975,000 for a pilot project. What came back is less than a third of that. It’s a sixty three seat whale watching boat called the Chilkat that will have four sailings a day from the Marina to Bell Harbor and back.I know you’re getting all hot and bothered. But needless to say, I have questions. Including:
- Why is there no suggested fare price in the proposal?
- How do we gauge succcess?
- From the few invoices I’ve seen, we voted on the thing on April 14 and then another paid consultant chose this vendor almost immediately. We have no idea who, if any, other options there were. And the Council has no clear idea who all the players are we’re working with.
- Seriously. how does this make money? It’s beginning to look like a $90,000 ‘marketing expense’ that we simply eat in order to be the ‘cool marina’. OK, let’s say I buy that. What does being cool do for us?

Caveat Emptor: this may or may not be the boat to be discussed. It’s the promo photo for the vessel and vendor named in the contract. Whale not included.

Pet Licensing (PRR 16116)

Year	Dog Licenses	Dog Revenue	Dog Licenses with Penalty	Cat Licenses	Cat Revenue	On-Line Licenses	On-Line License Revenue	Total Pets	Total Revenue
2017	1013	26,707	8	203	4,100			1224	31,097
2018	980	25,823	3	207	4,140			1190	30,023
2019	554	14,511	2	90	1,762			646	16,233
2020	757	19,020	2	165	3,300	49	5,940	947	28,320
2021	226	6,602	6	42	840	198	13,770	973	21,342

Roughly speaking, how much annual revenue does the City receive from pet licenses?

I asked that question from the dais months before I filed Public Records Request #16116 with the City. It was information I thought would be useful in deciding whether or not to move Animal Control Services to Burien C.A.R.E.S.

When I originally posed the question, I just assumed it was routine information the City would have at its fingertips. After all, we’ve had an on-line licensing system now for two years.

Now I have some follow-on questions:

How difficult is it to gather this kind of information?
How does our compliance track with other cities?

Dirty Laundry

I’m also posting some ‘dirty laundry’ because residents frequently tell me the issues of good government I raise can be difficult to follow. This is hopefully a more straightforward way to illustrate some of those issues.

As I said, l originally asked this question from the dais. A staff member agreed to provide the answer off-line but did not do so.
As usual, I did not get an explanation as to why it went unanswered. It was just ignored.
That’s the reason for most of my public records requests.

Background

The City does not and has not responded to virtually any of my off-line requests for information for over two years. Both the administration and the majority repeatedly blame me for this state of affairs, alleging that I overburden staff with ₁“thousands of pointless questions”; while providing no examples to back up their claims.

Fortunately, there is a fairly simple way to judge for yourself.

By our Rules of Procedure and the RCW, when a Councilmember asks a question from the dais, the administration is required to respond.

Now: nobody expects staff members to have every piece of information available at the drop of a hat. To avoid holding up meetings, electeds routinely accept their responses off-line. But the off-line response still carries the same obligation.

The City simply does not comply. And our Council refuses to enforce that requirement.

In short: the administration refuses to answer questions made by an elected official, no matter how simple, even when made from the dais, and even after they agree to do so.

So I end up making public records requests; which cost the City money.

The choice

I can certainly raise each incident of misconduct at every City Council meeting. But ironically, I pretty much never do because doing so is simply asking for a fight. So I choose to avoid conflict.

And there’s the rub:

To avoid conflict, one must simply roll over. That is the price of cordiality.

And that is the choice at every meeting:

Do not ask for even the most basic information.
Do not embarrass the administration for non-compliance.
Do not point out the Council’s ongoing role in enabling that misconduct.

That is a small portion of what it takes to avoid making the public cringe.

Public Safety, Transparency

Pet Licensing (PRR 16116)

Year	Dog Licenses	Dog Revenue	Dog Licenses with Penalty	Cat Licenses	Cat Revenue	On-Line Licenses	On-Line License Revenue	Total Pets	Total Revenue
2017	1013	26,707	8	203	4,100			1224	31,097
2018	980	25,823	3	207	4,140			1190	30,023
2019	554	14,511	2	90	1,762			646	16,233
2020	757	19,020	2	165	3,300	49	5,940	947	28,320
2021	226	6,602	6	42	840	198	13,770	973	21,342

Roughly speaking, how much annual revenue does the City receive from pet licenses?

When I originally posed the question, I just assumed it was routine information the City would have at its fingertips. After all, we’ve had an on-line licensing system now for two years.

Now I have some follow-on questions:

How difficult is it to gather this kind of information?
How does our compliance track with other cities?

Dirty Laundry

As I said, l originally asked this question from the dais. A staff member agreed to provide the answer off-line but did not do so.
As usual, I did not get an explanation as to why it went unanswered. It was just ignored.
That’s the reason for most of my public records requests.

Background

Fortunately, there is a fairly simple way to judge for yourself.

By our Rules of Procedure and the RCW, when a Councilmember asks a question from the dais, the administration is required to respond.

The City simply does not comply. And our Council refuses to enforce that requirement.

In short: the administration refuses to answer questions made by an elected official, no matter how simple, even when made from the dais, and even after they agree to do so.

So I end up making public records requests; which cost the City money.

The choice

And there’s the rub:

To avoid conflict, one must simply roll over. That is the price of cordiality.

And that is the choice at every meeting:

Do not ask for even the most basic information.
Do not embarrass the administration for non-compliance.
Do not point out the Council’s ongoing role in enabling that misconduct.

That is a small portion of what it takes to avoid making the public cringe.

Transparency

Seriously, who pulls a Voucher Report?

June 16, 2022August 23, 2024

2 Comments

At last Thursday’s regular City Council Meeting you saw me, for the first time, get truly fed up. In the past, I’ve tried only to react only to the most severe attacks. But the events of last week caused me to do something I never expected to do. I pulled the Voucher Report from the Consent Agenda and voted against the City’s official check run–something I can’t recall ever seeing any elected do in any government setting over 600+ meetings.

Friday June 3, 2022

As happens every month, I received the Voucher Report from our Accounts Payable clerk. It’s been almost a month since our last meeting, the number of bills had piled up. So the list was over 400 items and totaled $5.7 million dollars.

Since our municipal code requires we vote to approve this list, I reviewed them. And as I occasionally do, I sent an email to the clerk asking politely to see the underlying invoices.

I was stunned to receive a reply back from the City Manager.

Councilmember Harris,

Your continued insistence on violating the law of the State of Washington is nothing less than disappointing.  I have expressed to you multiple times that your engagement with City staff can be intimidating and is essentially illegal.  I remind you of the following from the State of Washington Revised Code [RCW 35.18.110 City manager—Interference by councilmembers] that explicitly states,

“the council and its members shall deal with the administrative service solely through the manager and neither the council nor any committee or member thereof shall give orders to any  subordinate of the city manager, either publicly or privately.”

Your email below is a direct request for action by City staff and will not stand.

I wrote back:

From: JC Harris <jcharris@desmoineswa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 1:17 PM
To: Michael Matthias <MMatthias@desmoineswa.gov>
Cc: Tim George <TGeorge@desmoineswa.gov>
Subject: Re: June 9th Voucher Certification & Reports

I was asking for invoice copies to support vouchers I am being asked to vote for in excess of $5.7M. Are you saying a member of the City Council is not entitled to see those invoices?

---JC

And I received back:

I will not under any conditions aid and abet you in violating the laws of the State of Washington, which govern your role as a Councilmember.  If you wish to review invoices you can request that of me directly and I will provide the opportunity for you to physically come to City Hall and review hard copies of the invoices and Bonnie will provide appropriate oversight while you review the documents.

Michael Matthias
City Manager 
City of Des Moines, WA
206.870.6554
mmatthias@desmoineswa.gov

This was entirely new. In the past, I would simply receive PDFs from the A/P Clerk. And just so you don’t think this is some unusual request, here is the justification from the State Auditor’s Office (SAO) Budgeting, Accounting and Reporting System (BARS) GAAP Manual.

Regardless, to try to judge how ‘difficult’ I was being, I went through my records and in my two and one half years on the Council I’ve asked for no more than forty invoice copies out of over ten thousand checks I’ve scrolled through.

And just to be triple sure, I contacted Municipal Resource and Services Center (MRSC) for confirmation which is listed in the footnotes. Ironically, their legal advisor recommends a conversation with the City Attorney, which I am forbidden from having–unless the City Manager approves, of course. 😀

But… what-ehveeeeer. I scheduled an appointment for noon on Thursday–the day of our City Council Meeting.

Thursday, June 9, 2022

I show up to the North Conference Room, assuming I’d get a stack of bills. Nope. Instead, I’m presented with a list of files on the big screen TV. I was told that I had to review them using the supplied keyboard. I could request copies (via Public Records Request) for later. And I had to be monitored during my stay because otherwise I might access other parts of the network.

As some of you know (including the City Manager), I have a ₂visual disability, which makes it impractical for me to use a standard computer. I have a variety of eyeglasses I use to get around. I can ‘pass’ so long as I’m prepared for each specific situation. If not, to onlookers it can appear a bit comical, but for me it can be unpleasant.

So as our City Clerk sat there checking her phone, I go back and forth, one bill at a time, clicking the mouse, then walking up to the big screen on the wall, attempting to recognise the image, walking back to the keyboard, and skipping to the next item. Hilarious.

And after half an hour struggling through what should have been a five minute task, I left. Did I have questions? Of course. But there was no opportunity to ask questions. There never is.

Awkward

I rarely speak about vouchers because according to staff, I am literally the only CM who ever requests to see any invoices. If my colleagues feel OK with approving the list with no review, that is their choice, of course. But it is unthinkable to me that any finance director would not cheerfully offer invoice copies if the final approver asked on occasion.

The City Manager said that I’d be looking at hard copies.
But like any modern business, the City scans vendor bills into their system. I caused no scanning work for staff.
I was told the PDFs could not be emailed to me because of their size. Despite the fact that I have received large batches of files via batch service (similar to Dropbox) which the City provides for public records requests or thumb drives.
And since I was told I’d be looking at hard copies, I did not bring the correct eyeglasses to accommodate my visual disability.
So the City Clerk had to sit with me while I struggled through all that because supposedly there was no way to create a protected folder to keep me from breaking into the rest of the network. Like some spy movie. Or maybe Windows 98.
Afterwards, I asked the City Clerk how long it took to prepare that folder. I was told was that doing so took the clerk between 30 and 60 minutes to prepare. And I don’t know what to do about that because my company wrote accounting software–and with every serious product we worked with it would take like five minutes. And the City just bought new accounting software this year.
But regardless, I did ask for some reasonable explanation. I wish there could be some kind of dialogue to avoid these situations.

This wasn’t the usual obstruction. It didn’t just waste my time, it wasted the valuable time of one our highest paid staff members. And failing to provide a simple accommodation made me physically uncomfortable and required me to take medication to continue the rest of the day’s meetings–which I also do not appreciate.

The City Manager constantly mentions hair on fire “Councilmember Interference”. He even quotes from the RCW 35.18.110 to demonstrate how severe my infraction is.

the council and its members shall deal with the administrative service solely through the manager and neither the council nor any committee or member thereof shall give orders to any subordinate of the city manager, either publicly or privately.

Sounds pretty cut and dried right? Not exactly. He always leaves out six little words. Just six. No big deal, right? 😀 Here is how the passage actually reads:

Except for the purpose of inquiry, the council and its members shall deal with the administrative service solely through the manager and neither the council nor any committee or member thereof shall give orders to any subordinate of the city manager, either publicly or privately.

Except for the purpose of inquiry. If you’re simply asking a routine question, the statute does not require Councilmembers to deal ‘solely’ with manager. The passage also makes clear that ‘inquiry’ is not the same thing as ‘giving orders.’

In normal cities, councilmembers email who they need to with their occasional and reasonable inquiries and cc the City Manager. And those reasonable inquiries are accommodated for cheerfully by staff who understand that a small portion of each work week should be set aside for such things–just as they are expected to respond to all manner of general inquiries from the public. If there are concerns that a CM might be asking too much, a pleasant conversation ensues and the issue is amicably resolved.

Here’s a question for freshman philosophy majors: Is every request for information an attempt to direct an employee to take a specific action? You bet it is. But it’s those six little words that make that specific action not only legal, but also a requirement.

For the past two and a half years, the City Manager has been claiming that he has the authority to interpret any legal right of inquiry as an illegal ‘order’.

The purpose of insisting on being the sole conduit for any requests for information is not merely to avoid responding to perfectly acceptable inquiries. The obvious purpose is to shield staff from even becoming aware of my questions; to take away their agency.

The Mayor saying that I had not followed procedure, was simply another layer of that obstruction.

It is not my questions. It is not the way I ask them. It is obstruction. And the entire Council enables it.

Fixing it

I want to again point out that our City Council is 100% majoritarian. If a councilmember has any concern as to the functioning of any aspect of the administration it takes four votes to take any action. So it is the case that, although I am required to review the bills, if the City Manager chooses not to cooperate, there is no enforcement mechanism beyond asking my colleagues to do the right thing.

It is unfortunate, and extremely awkward, to point out that not one of my colleagues supported me on this. Even though at least one has noticeable vision and hearing loss. I leave it to the reader to decide why that might be.

Regardless, the failure to provide a reasonable accommodation to any employee, let alone an elected, is another matter entirely.

And one last thing. The City has already started its annual auditing process with the SAO. We will receive their report in the autumn as part of our budgeting process and I fully expect that the report will once again be very good. The Administration uses these reports as an imprimatur of transparency and good government. But issues such as councilmember review are never a part of their audits. State audits only make sure that money is collected and disbursed according to state law.

Everything else is left to the oversight (four votes) of the City Council.

₁Unlike my colleagues, I am not allowed to speak to the City Attorney.

₂A form of Neural Binocular Diplopia. I have asked for accommodations before and been denied. But who wants to be the Councilmember who files an HR claim against his own City, right?

From: Jill Dvorkin
Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 1:59 PM
To: JC Harris <jcharris@desmoineswa.gov>
Subject: Inquiry re: review of voucher report and supporting invoices

Hello JC,

Below is an inquiry and response written by my colleague Oskar Rey. Similar guidance has been provided by our finance consultants, as well.

Prior Inquiry and Response 19-0674:

Inquiry (by phone):

What is the role of the Council in reviewing City finances? Is it required to review and sign off on vouchers, or may it rely on the Finance Director to certify the accounts?

Response (by email):

MRSC has fielded a number of inquiries on this topic over the years.  There are a range of options available to Councils with respect to the amount of information they receive when approving claims and vouchers.  The thing to remember is that it is not the Council’s role to certify payroll or vouchers.  That is done by the “auditing officer” which can be a finance director or a finance committee of the Council.

Here is an inquiry I responded to in 2017 on the issue of what level of detail needs to be set forth for voucher approval in a council agenda:

The Council should approve all claims and vouchers, but there is not a state law requirement that each voucher appear in the agenda packet.  RCW 35A.12.170 provides that all demands against a code city shall be presented and audited [by the finance director or treasurer] in accordance with regulations prescribed by charter or ordinance.  RCW 42.24.080 also sets forth some overlapping provisions on presentment of claims.

Neither of these provisions explicitly require council approval vouchers and claims, but MRSC has taken the position that council approval is a best-practice and the SAO expects it. It is also implied by RCW 42.24.180 and RCW 35A.33.125. Finally, have a look at the voucher certification procedures in the BARS Manual.  Section 3.8.5.40 sets forth the minimum information required for a council to approve claim vouchers and payroll. It does not require a list of individual vouchers.

Pursuant to Des Moines Municipal Code  Section 3.28.020, the finance director is the auditing officer for purposes of compliance with RCW 42.24.080. The next code section, DMMC Section 3.28.030, describes the presentation of such warrants, checks, and payroll transfers to the council.  

₁I recommend discussing all of these issues with your City Attorney. Our guidance is general and not intended to substitute for the advice of the city’s legal counsel—who is in the best position to advise on specific questions.

Airport, Transparency, Transportation

This is what obstruction looks like

June 16, 2022December 1, 2023

Unfortunately, this is yet another one of those situations where the public tends to think, “I don’t care who’s right or wrong. I just want you to stop arguing!” But it matters. There has been a slow, drip, drip break down in the proper functioning of our government, by every Council, over the past 20 years. And now it’s become so bad that most people (including candidates and colleagues) honestly have no idea how things are supposed to work. They just assume that if we elect the ‘right’ people, good things will happen. Many of us cannot imagine that their friends, the very nice people we elect, also do not know how things are supposed to work. Or we don’t care.

As an informed voter, I urge you to read this carefully.

Mayor Mahoney,

I am in receipt of your 14 June letter. Your letter is timely because I was already preparing a letter to you regarding the troubling discussion at the end of the 9 June Transportation Committee Meeting you chaired. For your convenience, I attach a link to that video as well as transcript (generated by Youtube.)

Background

As you know, last November I asked the WSDOT communications consultant for a briefing on the SR-509 project, with an emphasis on Stage 2. I explained that I had watched the City of SeaTac receive several briefings on the planning. They informed me that they were happy to grant my request because they had tried engaging with the City of Des Moines and not been able to schedule something similar.

The meeting included several members of their team. We all completely understood that the meeting was strictly informational. The meeting concluded with them asking to present to our City Council as soon as convenient. I conveyed all this, especially their request to present to the full Council, both to last year’s Transportation Committee and to the full City Council. I heard absolutely no objections from our Transportation Committee or the full Council at that time.

The entire substance of the meeting was their showing me a ‘fly over’ animation of Stage 2. Their software allowed them to move back and forth at will along the project. They would stop at various points to discussed each section in detail. Portions of that animation are what the public now sees in their Open House video.

In December of 2021, I was informed by their consultant that he was moving onto other projects and introduced me to his successor. I was invited by both to continue our discussion and the new consultant expressed the same eagerness to present to our City Council.

Subsequently the new consultant offered me a preview of that Stage 2 video. I agreed to not comment on it publicly until it was officially released on May 23rd, which I did. However I was asked for my feedback, which I gave.

And that feedback was simply this: provide more detail on the section of greatest concern to Des Moines: 200th S. from 24th Ave. to the Blueberry Lane community and the connection to 188th and do it as soon as possible.

It may be simply an unfortunate coincidence, but the only area that is not shown in any detail on that video is exactly that stretch: from 24th Ave along 200th S. to the Blueberry Lane community and 188th. Oops.

The 9 June committee meeting

After the scheduled business of the Committee concluded, at 48:10 COO Dan Brewer begins an unscheduled discussion, accusing an unnamed ‘Councilmember’ (obviously me) of “providing comment and quasi direction” to WSDOT staff. Both he and DPW Andrew Merges strongly imply that I might have done something that might somehow jeopardise the City’s relationship with WSDOT, going all the way up to the Secretary of the Department of Transportation.

To mitigate this unspecified ‘damage’ and prevent any further problems, Dan Brewer states that he has already contacted WSDOT, in effect, warning them against speaking to me. He also engages in a side conversation with you and Deputy Mayor Buxton which leads to you saying you will initiate a follow-on call with ‘leadership’, ostensibly to decide on some form of further group action between the administration and the City Council against me.

DPW Andrew Merges implies that there are some delicate negotiations between the City and WSDOT (an RFP regarding the Barnes Creek Mitigation?) which could somehow be negatively impacted and stresses the importance of maintaining a ‘cordial’ relationship between the City and WSDOT.

You, the Deputy Mayor and staff all agree that ‘consistency’ is key. Deputy Mayor Buxton summarises the discussion by saying:

… if we receive questions it would be good to refer those for information to the city clerk so that whatever ends up going out into the public is approved by WSDOT’s public outreach teams.

And then COO Dan Brewer replies:

Or if you have questions those can be submitted to the WSDOT team direct or you can ask myself andrew or tommy and we can work with with the staff to get materials or whatever we need to answer questions on the project

There is then a one minute pause where Deputy Mayor Buxton attempts to find the link on the City web site to that Open House. COO Brewer finally guide her to the correct landing page.

Your letter of 14 June

By ‘reinsulation’ I assume you mean updates to Port Packages, a policy which the City of Des Moines has had on its legislative agenda since I first proposed the idea to Rep. Orwall and Sen. Keiser in 2019. If you recall, that became law in 2020 with the passage of HB2315.

I did indeed write to the Port Commission’s Aviation Committee concerning how to implement such a program–at the written suggestion of one of their fellow Commissioners in order to follow their protocols.

With all that said, your allegations sound quite serious, so of course I want to address them fully. To so I, may I receive answers to the following?

Who at WSDOT has expressed concerns?
What are their specific concerns?
How were they conveyed to the City of Des Moines?
And to whom?
What are the specific risks COO Brewer and DPW Merges mention in your 9 June conversation? I’m trying to understand: how does a Councilmember attending an information-only meeting (which any CM could also do) create difficulties for our City?
Who at the Port of Seattle has expressed concerns over any communications I may have had with my fellow electeds? What are their specific allegations? How were they conveyed? And to whom?
What is/are the specific policies, either in our Council Rules of Procedure or DMMC or RCW or anywhere else that I am supposed to have violated?
What is the specific policy, either in our Council Rules of Procedure or DMMC or employee handbook that describes the proper use of “city resources”, by which I assume you mean my desmoineswa.gov email address?
In the specific allegation re. the Port Commissioners, are you implying that an elected writing to another elected, on a subject that is a part of the City’s legislative agenda, must first obtain approval? If so, from what authority?
Why are you the messenger? Why now? And why did whoever has these concerns not express them to me directly in a timely manner?
What exact authority do you feel that you may have in judging the appropriateness of any of the items in your letter?
What exact authority do you feel that you may have in enforcing any of the items in your letter?

I am eager to get your responses to the above as quickly as possible so that I can address these serious concerns in the manner they deserve. Please do not delay.

My message to you

Switching gears, this in response to what I saw at the 9 June Transportation Meeting. If the situation were indeed as serious as COO Brewer indicated he, through the City Manager and City Attorney should have contacted me. Not you. Me.

Instead, apparently Dan and Andrew went directly to WSDOT to obstruct a legitimate request for information by an elected official and then misrepresented my conduct to your committee as “quasi-direction.”

Their action and that untrue characterisation are completely inappropriate and frankly I am surprised that people of such deep experience and expertise would not understand. Staff members have no business interfering with an elected in performing research and attempting to convince staff members in other agencies to avoid legitimate engagement is obstruction.

You and the Deputy Mayor then agree that you will have a private follow-on discussion with ‘leadership’, presumably to decide on some form of collective action against a fellow elected (me.)

That is also highly unethical for all concerned. I will remind you that you are one co-equal member of the legislative branch. Under Rule 5, your title as Mayor gives you no authority concerning the conduct of an elected colleague.

The administration had no business discussing the matter with you apart from me or attempting to influence my relationship(s) with others and you have no business attempting to intervene as if you have some authority over the Council or any of its individual members. You do not.

Further, your actions had nothing to do with the business of the Committee. No motion was made, no proper discussion occurred and no vote was taken approving any specific action, valid or otherwise. It was just “people talking” and then you deciding to “make a phone call”. That is not only invalid parliamentary procedure; it is not how ethical government works.

I therefore demand that you cease any such action immediately and for every participant of that meeting to disavow the entire discussion.

Because here’s the punchline. After all that nonsense, Dan Brewer negates all of it by telling you that you (members of the City Council) can indeed reach out to WSDOT directly if you have questions.

Which is exactly what I did.

Deputy Mayor Buxton’s struggle even to find the proper link to the SR-509 Open House speaks for itself concerning ‘outreach’ and ‘public engagement’. In addition to the above witch hunt, I object to these ongoing attacks because they prevent residents from receiving the information they also have a legitimate right to. May I remind you that your briefing on the SR-509 Open House’ comes less than two weeks before it closes on June 22nd?

As one of my colleagues, I would like to assure you that my conduct with WSDOT was not only appropriate, it was (and is) helping to do some things the City and WSDOT could be doing much better: maximising public engagement, and providing easy to access, thorough, and objective information about SR-509.

Everyone in your meeting room would be better served focusing on those activities. Because apart from everything else, this ongoing harassment is a colossal waste of time. For everyone.

With regard to ‘reinsulation’, my advice would be to refer to such programs as “Port Package Updates” or a “Second Chance program.” It is harder to sound sincere and credible on an issue our City claims to support if one does not know the correct term of art.

But as to your allegation, you are saying that a member of the City Council, using their City email address, to email fellow electeds, at the suggestion of one of their own body, to explore a policy opportunity endorsed by both Legislative Agendas, is an inappropriate use of “city resources”. You may wanna re-think that one as well, sir.

I urge you to stop. All this. None of it is supported by law, parliamentary procedure or best practice. But apart from small details like ‘right and wrong’, all the chronic stonewalling, bullying, intimidation and harassment have practical consequences. Far from preventing undefined ‘bad things’ from happening, they waste valuable City resources and lead to ongoing and unnecessary conflict and embarrassment.

Worst of all in my opinion, enabling all this ongoing misconduct sets a terrible example for both new colleagues and the next generation of candidates. Almost no one has the time necessary to make informed judgments. They assume that whatever they is somehow ‘normal’. Even when it’s not. For that reason alone I urge both you and all my colleagues to start setting a better example.

I am trying to handle this quietly so as to avoid public embarrassment for the City, but unlike all this “hearsay” I am more than happy to go as loud and as public as anyone likes because you are wrong. Not merely in terms of procedure, but basic decency.

And for any of our colleagues, and most importantly members of the public who have questions, I am always happy to respond to sincere inquiries with specific examples from MRSC, Jurassic Parliament and the Association of Washington Cities, from which I have earned their Certificate of Municipal Leadership. I am the only current member of our City Council to have done so and I look forward to having company soon. All their trainings are very useful.

—JC

History

Both the discussion at the end of that meeting and the Mayor’s letter promulgate a series of tired fibs which the administration and the majority have aggressively promoted since even before my election:

Electeds may only speak to electeds. Not true.
Electeds must ask for permission from City staff before speaking to any agency. Not true.
Electeds should obtain permission from the Council before performing almost any activity. Not true.
Electeds who speak to any of the above are automatically somehow ‘representing the City Council’. So not true.

None of these are true. They may be staff’s preference. They may be the majority’s preference. But they are not true. There is no law or rule against any of the above. And just because people keep repeating them, does not make them so.

And the biggest fib? “We’ve tried again and again to educate Councilmember Harris.”

Again, no one from the City contacted me. No one ever does. Both the majority and staff simply run around behind my back and try to spread all sorts of rubbish because it is inconvenient to have a Councilmember who disagrees with the administration’s policies. Obstruction via gaslighting.

The Mayor knows that I have not had a conversation with the City Manager since March 2020. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of phone calls I’ve received from any of my colleagues. And none of them had anything to do with (cough) ‘education’. Quite the contrary, I now have a list of over 100 questions I have submitted to the Administration which have gone unanswered. Mayor Mahoney has countered that with even more falsity. Saying that I am constantly ‘wasting staff time with ₂meaningless questions’.

This narrative of how so many people have patiently tried to ‘educate’ that obstreperous Councilmember Harris is beyond laughable.

We are, in fact, the only nearby City that has no mechanism to insure that Councilmembers get legitimate inquiries of any kind answered. (I shouldn’t say that. Many cities have no official mechanism because they don’t need it. It’s a social norm.)

The City Manager allows for no questioning during the meetings apart from his topics.
There is no open discussion as the Mayor indulged in at the end of the Transportation Committee Meeting.
And even when the City Manager or staff promise on the dais to provide me with follow-up information? They simply do not keep their word.

The City Manager frequently invokes Rule 17 and RCW 35A,13.120 to accuse me of breaking state law by asking even the simplest questions of staff:

“The Council and its members shall deal with the administrative branch solely through the City Manager…”

But in fact the passage reads

“Except for the purpose of inquiry, the Council and its members shall deal
with the administrative branch solely through the City Manager…

Details, details.

During City Council Meetings, the City Manager, on the other hand, is given free reign by our Mayor to present unannounced ad hoc presentations, often the sole purpose of which is to scold Councilmembers for public statements he finds objectionable. A few recent examples:

His days at Hogwarts (er… ‘disposable income’)
The wonders of Pacific Ridge
The City Council has no role in oversight
Why he will never permit a Detroit Skyline at the Des Moines Marina!

Mayor Mahoney decided (by fiat) that the New Items For Consideration section of the meeting (also created by fiat by Matt Pina) may only consist of ‘new legislative proposals.’ It is not a place to ask questions because all questions can submitted off-line for a response by the City Manager. When the Mayor knows full well Mr. Matthias will not respond to those questions, unless he wants to of course.

The current system is tantamount to my memories of trips to the Soviet Union–a government which, on paper, was the soul of ‘democracy’.

My preparation

I knew I was headed into the lion’s den after my election. So I attend as many trainings as possible. I reach out to the training sources the City relies on: Jurassic Parliament, MRSC, AWC, before I do anything. I’m the only member of the City Council to have obtained a Certificate of Municipal Leadership from the Association of Washington Cities.

I was attending our City Council Meetings almost a decade before our current Mayor even moved here. I attend every Port of Seattle public meeting and routinely attend City Council meetings in every nearby community. I have relationships with ex-CMs from our city and all the airport communities going back to the 90’s.

I am far from perfect. I make mistakes all the time. But I am happy to match my understanding of the proper role of Councilmember with those of my colleagues any day of the week. And anyone who knows me knows I respond to constructive criticism quite well.

Ironically, it is the constant obstruction and gaslighting that provides the necessity of preparation. If my colleagues had provided even the slightest bit of cooperation, I would have to study a whole lot less.

6/14/2022 9:27 AM
Matt MahoneyCouncilmember Harris,

It has been brought to my attention you continue to exercise actions outside your authority as a councilmember by contacting outside agencies and inferring you are representing the interests of our city and it’s council. The first instance, over several months, you reached out directly to the Washington Dept. of Transportation requesting actions concerning Highway 509, this created confusion amongst WADOT personnel and our city staff. You had no designation nor authorization to do so. Des Moines City Staff are the only authorized city representatives regarding this matter. The second, recently using city email, you contacted Commissioners Cho and Mohamed concerning matters on reinsulating issues. While you may have interest in this regard, using official city resources is inappropriate and must stop. Both agencies have been contacted and have been informed your requests are not council directed actions and must be treated as citizen requests and that further contact is to be handled in the same manner. While you do have the right to contact agencies as a citizen, but by no means as designation from council or under the guise of official city business. This is to inform you that despite repeated efforts to call out these inappropriate actions you continue to ignore those warnings. If it continues, I will be asking our fellow councilmembers to consider public reprimands and/or censure.

Regards,MattMatt Mahoney
425-941-0090
Mayor
Des Moines City Council

Meeting Video

(transcript auto-generated by Youtube)

Chief of Operations (COO) Dan Brewer
48:08 Just a couple other things to add they currently have a online open house
48:09 That's going on for the stage 2 project we worked with bonnie we've got that
48:15 information on our website so anybody that's interested can go and participate in that and provide comment
48:23 um on the project as they get ready to go out to issue the rfp
48:29 um but that has led to some challenges for us as well as the washdot team and
48:37 just being a bit careful here and to be respectful
48:43 but we have a council member who is reaching out to the wash dot staff
48:50 and providing comment and quasi direction as a council member
48:56 with no from from my understanding no authority or direction to do that
49:01 and it's causing a lot of confusion between the the washdot staff and their consultants
49:07 and us and potentially harming our our relationship with
49:13 the secretary at the d.o.t and things like that so it's become it's really become awkward
49:21 in what's going on i had to kind of step in and provide some direction this week to basically say when
49:27 this council members reaching out they are reaching out as a an ordinary citizen
49:32 and you can respond to them as you would any other ordinary citizen no more or no less
49:39 just treat them like a citizen because they're not they're not acting with the authority of the council when they reach out to you

Mayor Matt Mahoney
49:44 so that is disappointing
49:50 i uh i think i (should) probably have a discussion with the city manager and the city
49:55 attorney about some direction should be sent to the council regarding that matter, okay?

COO Dan Brewer
50:00 Okay.

Deputy Mayor Traci Buxton
50:07 Or if any i mean so you are i was just going to ask if you feel like you need a
50:07 council action in regard to that or do you feel like it's been handled sufficiently?

COO Dan Brewer
50:13 Hopefully we've tried to clear the air with the staff as to how to deal with it
50:19 it just it puts him (Adam Granato?) in an awkward spot because normally as a council you'd reach out elected to
50:25 elected so when an elected is reaching out directly to not just the staff but
50:30 the staff's consulting and uh team that gets really awkward
50:37 for folks so i think i think

Mayor Matt Mahoney
I think we have a discussion with staff leadership and uh

Deputy Mayor Traci Buxton
OK.

Mayor Matt Mahoney
I'll take it from there. (inaudible)

Director of Public Works Andrew Merges
50:46 one follow-up on that as well just to kind of set an expectation as well what you'll notice on some of these slides
50:52 they have the wash dot name on them so generally for the 509 project city staff
50:58 will be working with washdot and allowing their public relations and communications team
51:03 to prepare the public outreach i'll i'll work with washdot on revisions
51:09 of slides but i won't create a presentation
51:14 outside of anything that they present to the public as well just because they've got a huge website they've got a lot of
51:20 outreach folks managing that and like what dan was saying is there's
51:25 there's information that's been requested that could confuse the picture to the public
51:32 so even for the future if you've got questions from washdot's website they should mimic everything that you see at
51:37 a city level from staff as well to try to maintain that consistency

Deputy Mayor Traci Buxton
51:42 In other words if we receive questions it would be good to refer
51:48 those for information to the city clerk so that
51:54 whatever ends up going out into the public is approved by washdot's
52:00 public outreach teams

COO Dan Brewer
52:15 Or if you have questions those can be submitted to the washdot team direct or you can ask myself andrew or tommy and we can work with
52:23 with the staff to get materials or whatever we need to answer questions on the project

Director of Public Works Andrew Merges
52:31 yeah and washdot's going to be start pushing pretty heavily into public outreach as well too
52:36 so i kind of just want to maintain a cordial and very consistent
52:41 discussion between what staff's working on being collaborative and washdot's showing uh the public on their end yeah
52:48 it's tough enough getting the correct information to the public right a mixed message is very problematic
52:55

Deputy Mayor Traci Buxton
52:55 so where is the link on the city website? or can somebody just email that to the
53:00 committee if you go to uh if it's open?

COO Dan Brewer
53:08 it's under new what's new
53:08 yes out there now here


Deputy Mayor Traci Buxton
53:18 so i'm on the website i'm i don't need it to be bonnie's tracking down at the same time

Dan Brewer
53:24 right there's the what's new see all and the thing will pop up with uh


Mayor Matt Mahoney
53:46 rock it fast   {?)

Director of Public Works Andrew Merges
53:55 yeah another note on communication generally washdot's communication team will
54:00 shoot me an update or an advanced notice of something they publish so the city team has a chance to
54:08 review it in case it affects des moines and the citizens as well so any updates will always be posted to
54:15 the city website then is what you're seeing when washdot says we have a public open
54:21 house or here's some public information we're going to release generally staff will work with bonnie to to try to get
54:26 that news feed out there to try to keep up with washout on that okay
54:46 there it is so see all
54:52 what's new go back to the city site bonnie really
54:57 quick so it's under you go back to oh and then see all again
55:18 on the various social media pages and so forth

Mayor Matt Mahoney
55:31 thank you appreciate that

Deputy Mayor Traci Buxton
55:39 i just want to complement all of your work i mean that just
55:44 uh that's a lot of people to coordinate with and to keep up on and you've got you know even though keyword has both in
55:51 those projects i mean it's so nice in my opinion that one company is doing both of those but
55:57 just to keep all that straight and then report out good work and i'm so thankful
56:02 for all the work on the the des moines creek uh the barnes creek trail to keep that in the city and under our
56:10 control and to add that beautiful component into the middle of our city that's really to preserve that it's
56:16 amazing so yeah so really
56:23 thankful yeah excellent excellent


Mayor Matt Mahoney
56:36 yeah thank you

*Emphasis, mine.

₂Meaningless questions such as Farmers Market financials (as required by our agreement.) Comcast customer complaint log (as required by our agreement.) Financial projection for hotel proposal. Graphic depicting geographic boundary of Redondo Aquatic Land Lease.

Neighborhoods

Flag Day 2022

Today I was very happy to see the City of Des Moines flying not only our nation’s flag, but also those celebrating Pride Month and Juneteenth.

A dear friend of mine is going under the knife today. (People my age don’t have surgery. We go under the knife.)

Another expression people of my age have is, “it’s as serious as a heart attack.” My friend didn’t have a heart attack. He’s having his aorta replaced to avoid the heart attack.

He’ll make it. But it is truly serious. It’s not like one of these namby pamby heart attacks guys our age all seem to have these days–you know, the thread a wire up yer groin over and around the tastee-freeze, then down into yer heart for a quintuple bypass and then back to work ye get in two days with some blood thinner, boy-o procedure. No sirree. This is old school heart surgery. The big carapace crab cracker. La Zipper Grande.

He and I have things in common. We’re of the same era and from kinda/sorta the ‘British Isles’. So we’re men who experience a good round of golf like four hours of porn. 😀

Another thing we have in common is that neither of us have any relatives who made it past seventy. Seventy was a fine run. We discussed his upcoming his surgery not with trepidation so much as with wonder. Because where and when we grew up, life was simple. You didn’t need aorta surgery. You got a box and some very nice flowers.

(I know what yer thinking. But this is not going to be another tired “With all it’s problems. Be thankful kids. America is still the greatest nation on earth” post.)

Anyhoo, we have things in common. But not too much in common. He and I, and a lot of people I know, have opinions and beliefs and stuff going on that I do not want to know about.

Indoor flags

When I ran for office I doorbelled a lot of homes. I saw a surprising number of flags proudly displayed inside. US Flags. Pride flags. BLM flags. Mexican flags. Confederate flags. The Don’t Tread On Me snake thing. And many others. That is who we are. All of them. After hitting 6,000 doors I learned a lot about Des Moines. And in some cases, more than I wanted to.

But it was good training for elected office–which is basically a customer service job. I have to find a way to listen to and respect everybody. Otherwise, I don’t think I properly Des Moines.

The secret to friendship

Back to my friend. Outwardly, I suppose our relationship seems superficial. He goes ape for dogs. We play golf. But as with most of my friends we do talk about other things. And now, after many years, we often come to the same endpoints, albeit via completely different routes.

I’ve come to realise that at least part of what made that possible is not stressing too much about the rest of each other’s lives. I am certain things would not have gone nearly as well if we had first been given some form of ‘briefing’. Golf now, talk later. 😀

Notably, he and I have never interacted electronically. Our entire relationship was built on the fact that we kept running into each other over and over again. (Which is also the reason my wife and I got together come to think of it. :D)

Meanwhile at City Hall…

The constant tension on our City Council, in our community, and most likely on planet earth, stems at least partially from the fact that we never played golf. 😀 Actually it stems from the fact that we never got to know each other first. We got on each other’s nerves, people developed their opinions, and now there seems to be no going back.

Notably, we’re the only area City Council that never engages in retreats. We’re the only City Council that never engages as a group without the City Manager. We’re the only City Council that creates no opportunities for CMs and staff to interact with or learn from one another. Hell, we’re the only City Council without a group photo.

From my vantage point, whoever decides such things has done everything possible to avoid us getting to know one another, learn from one another, or value one another. And with the benefit of hindsight that now seems intentional. Perhaps because if we actually got to know one another a bit better, someone might occasionally change their mind.

All of which sounds an awful lot like social media these days.

In a Rom-Com, these kinds of relationship problems are easily solved. Some couple, who hate each others guts, get trapped in an elevator for twelve hours. After a certain period of embarrassment and shared suffering, romance ensues. Sadly, Des Moines City Hall has only a single floor. 😀

Now what?

I hear people in the community discuss the absolute need to overcome the long standing challenges symbolised by the Pride and Juneteenth flags. Others see the world quite differently. Personally, I am thrilled to see these flags flying. But still, as with our City Council and our nation writ large I have to ask: We raised the flags, great. OK, now what?

What I took from seeing all the flags I’ve seen throughout Des Moines gave me the following perspective. It may seem stupid or wrong or mundane or even irrelevant to you, but regardless, it’s all I got at the moment.

You have to nag people.

Seriously, that’s it. You have to constantly find (nice) ways to get in front of a wider a swath of humanity; whether they like it or not. As my friend and I did. You can’t assume people know anything. And you can’t rely on charm or wait for people to invite you over for drinks. All those strategies will only ever reach the same (and very small) subset of Des Moines we’ve always done. That’s not the job.

And it’s also not my job to lecture people about how they should live their lives–unless there is some risk to the public welfare of course. My job is to meet people where they are, whenever possible, and encourage them to engage with me, whether I agree with their current choices or not.

Peace in our time…

Obviously I’m aware of all the various ‘divides’ in Des Moines and I really am trying to do what little I can to address them. Which basically comes down to a lot of walking around looking for excuses to run into people. 😀

That may seem like a pretty naive approach to achieving Peace In Our Time or whatever. But let me tell you one other thing my friend and I have in common. We grew up in places where one could not afford the luxury of avoiding one another.

And that is quite a luxury. Truthfully, fewer and fewer people seem to want to engage. Many people will say that conversation isn’t worth their time. I believe that a lot of it comes down to the fact that it’s so damned easy to avoid one another.

Hell, we’re just grateful we now live in a place where we can choose the aorta replacement surgery, instead of a box with some very nice flowers.

OK, I did do one of those kinds of posts. 🙂

Neighborhoods, Policy, Public Safety, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 06/12/2022

This Week

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda)

Wednesday: Puget Sound Regional Council Comprehensive Plan Workshop

Wednesday: Mt. Rainier High School Graduation at ShoWare Center

Thursday: King County Flood Control District

Friday: South King County Housing and Homelessness Partners (SKHHP)

All throughout the week:

Tree Tours! To help explain the upcoming expansion of SR-509 and the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) I’ve developed a one hour walking/driving presentation.

Two thirds of our residents have flipped since the Great Recession–which coincided with the opening of the Third Runway in 2008. So most of you do not understand what’s coming. You will see separate presentations from WSDOT on SR-509 and the Port of Seattle on the SAMP, and that will make these impacts seem far less significant than they are. The two are basically one massive regional plan.The SAMP/SR-509 will have the same impact on air traffic as the Third Runway and it will re-shape northern Des Moines as dramatically as the Third Runway did Burien and the Second Runway did SeaTac.

The Tree Tour is a way to make this all simple by seeing what happened to Des Moines after the Second and Third runway projects and what’s coming next–from the ground level.

If you live in the area, if you care about things like tree canopy or airport issues in general, please get your friends together and let’s schedule a Tree Tour!

Port Package site visits: SeaTacNoise.Info keeps working on getting relief for home owners with Port Package Problems. If that’s you, please contact them, with your address and Parcel ID and schedule a visit.

Last Week

This was one of the most challenging week’s of my time on the Council. There was a shameful incident regarding something that should be routine, then a disturbing situation where I watched my colleagues collaborating with the administration about me. And finally, there was the City Council Meeting.

Tuesday: ‘Missing Middle’ Housing Seminar. This is something I’m fairly passionate about. Over the past two decades there have been two trends in ‘housing’, the McMansion and the government subsidised apartments. There’s been an ongoing argument that the public only wants 3,000 ft. homes, which is simply not true. Most of Des Moines consists of homes like mine, under 2,000 sq ft. and they have always sold like hot cakes. Town Homes provide much greater opportunities for ownership and greatly increased density.

Wednesday: Des Moines Marina Association. I listened to their concerns, which was awkward. The fact is that they have refused to support any of my attempts to reform our City Council’s process, frankly because for several years they had the City’s ear exclusively and have actually enabled things to get so far with no accountability.

It is especially unsettling to hear everyone in the room casually discussing the upcoming Ferry Pilot as a done deal, because if you recall, the Council only voted to approve $975,000 for the City Manager to do a (cough) ‘search’ for a vendor–and then the Council could weigh in on the details of the agreement. In movies, we often see scenes where characters talk about how “the fix is in”. It’s different when yer actually in that movie, playing the role of the patsy.

Thursday: 4:00 Transportation Committee Meeting (Agenda) There was a presentation on WSDOT on Stage 2 of the SR-509 project. But at the tail end there was a discussion that was so troubling I had to write about it.

Thursday: 5:00 Environment Committee Meeting (Agenda)

Thursday: 6:00 City Council Meeting (Agenda) (Video)

City Council Meeting 06/09/2022

City Manager Report

Mr. Matthias canceled his scheduled update on Summer Events. As I’ve said, the Fireworks are a go for July 4th at the Marina and the Waterland Festival will also occur the July 23-25th

Emergency Management Director Shannon Kirchberg gave a briefing on the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.

Then, the City Manager, switching hats to become our Economic Development Director gave an unscheduled presentation on the topic of Disposable Income. This was in response to a comment Councilmember Steinmetz made on social media which Mr. Matthias claimed reflected poorly on the image of the city he was trying to project to a potential business investor. Councilmember Steinmetz became upset but was overruled by the Mayor.

I honestly have no idea what the presentation was about–something to do with his days in Jolly Ol’ England and John Maynard Keynes. But I do know this: CM Steinmetz was simply getting his initiation spanking. The kind a lot of people seem to like (or so I’ve been told. 😀 )

A few months ago, CM Achziger was treated to a similar presentation on the wonders of Pacific Ridge after making a comment the City Manager felt was unflattering on that topic.

Me? When I dared to criticise his extremely questionable plan for a hotel at the Marina last year, I received a technicolour beat down, “The City Of Des Moines will never have a skyline like Detroit!” (What a relief!)

I tried to address this in my closing comments, but hearing his name mentioned CM Steinmetz snapped at me.

But for what it’s worth,

Dear Colleague

All those silly presentations are prepared Powerpoints. They take staff time to prepare and our valuable Council Meeting time to sit through. It wastes public money and taxes what little good humour remains on our Council. And I do not appreciate wasting either.
For some reason, a great number of people do not seem to find bullying all that problematic. Until it happens to them, of course.
Bear in mind that I’ve been putting up with this crap for many years–looong before I was elected. You took about fifteen seconds to become incensed.
Over the course of your professional career, how many people have you worked with who would do such things? Me neither. I think it says something important.
Remember that it is the Council’s meeting, not Michael’s or the Mayor’s. The City Manager is, in fact, merely an invited guest. And if you are not happy with your invited guest, you can, at any time, ask him to leave, either for twenty minutes or the evening. You may not get three more votes, but you’ll get at least one, and that’s a start. And I would hope you’d afford me the same courtesy.

Consent Agenda

Now remember that the Consent Agenda is defined as “Items that are considered routine…” They are presented as a slate because they do not merit discussion or debate or amendment. Remember, the Mayor and City Manager set the Agenda, not the Council. The Agenda sends their message as to what is ‘routine’.

Every Councilmember may ‘pull’ an item; ie. asked that it be set aside for a separate vote. It is not unusual for that to occur on one item. Here’s was the list of items on that Consent Agenda…

Approval of Vouchers: $5,757,623.05
Approval of minutes from past three months
Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan
Disposal of two abandoned vessels (routine)
Redondo Aquatic Lands Agreement
Wesley Senior Services Contract
Animal Control Officer outsource to Burien C.A.R.E.S.
Farmers Market agreement + 20k grant
Minor Home Repairs project
216th Street Undergrounding PSE payment $220,000
Housing Plan Consultant contract $75,000
LBGTQ Pride Month proclamation
Juneteenth Proclamation

Only the four emboldened items were voted on as a slate. Note to self: find out if Guinness tracks City Council Meetings. This may be the World Record that puts Des Moines on the map! 😀

In fact, it was not I who pulled the majority of these items but rather Councilmember Steinmetz. If the circumstances had been different, I would have pulled the Juneteenth Proclamation. The end of slavery is the second most important event in American History and as such deserves the appropriate recognition by our City. I wrote the Mayor saying as much and he refused. But seeing that all the ‘pulling’, I realised that the meeting was going to tax everyone’s patience so there would be no point in trying.

The Pulled Items

I pulled the approval of Vouchers: $5,757,623.05. I was bullied and harassed by the administration.

I also pulled the disposal of two abandoned vessels item after not receiving a response to a question I had about the item. My question was “Why does the City Council need to approve the sale of vessel abandoned in our Marina?” To which the City Attorney gave me a flip, but accurate answer, “because a prior City Council decided to change the code.” But that was 1993 and in reading that ordinance it just looks like the Council of that time cut’n’pasted a huge swath of general purpose language. My hope was to find out if we could tweak that bit of code so that the Council never has to screw with that sort of thing again. It’s a Harbormaster job, not a Council job. But noooooooo. 😀

CM Steinmetz asked to pull the Redondo Aquatic Lands Agreement. He wanted the item set aside for a future meeting accompanied by a full staff briefing. CM Nutting objected calling the item “as routine as it gets” which is true–from a certain point of view. I went along to try once again to make a point.

The complexity of the material you’re presented with every two weeks is nuts. And nobody comes to the job prepared for all the background material one needs. The material in every packet already assumes one knows a shit ton about ‘aquatic lands’. CM Steinmetz was essentially asking for on the job training, when instead, there should be an on-line repository new CMs can go to which gives one that kind of info one needs to get up to speed without taking the Council’s time. That’s why I keep pushing the concept of a Councilmember Information Request, so that any CM can ask a question, get a good answer and then it’s on file so every future CM can refer to it.

CM Steinmetz asked to pull the Wesley Senior Services Contract, again asking for a postponement and a full briefing. I’m honestly not sure what he wanted on that briefing. I know that I have wanted a community survey of our entire suite of senior services programs and gotten nowhere.

CM Steinmetz asked to pull the Animal Control Officer outsource to Burien C.A.R.E.S., again asking for a postponement and a full briefing. I voted no on the proposal, not only because I think it’s bad policy, but because the PSEM Committee, of which CM Steinmetz is a member, allowed it to go to the full Council without seeing the contract or obtaining any assurance as to how we will gauge the quality of service.

CM Steinmetz asked to pull the Farmers Market agreement, again asking for a postponement and a full briefing. I didn’t need a postponement or a briefing. I know people love them and they have always had my full support. I voted no because a) they are required to provide their financials to the City and I haven’t seem them. b) For the third year in a row, the City waived their rental fee, in effect a $20,000 grant, without being asked. According to all reports, their opening day was record-breaking. If they are doing well, that $20,000 should be made available to other (perhaps new) groups. But under no circumstances should the City give money to anyone who does not submit a request which can be evaluated just like every other organisation.

CM Steinmetz asked to pull the Minor Home Repairs project, again asking for a postponement and a full briefing. I supported this simply to highlight the fact that the program needs to be promoted a lot better. As with the Farmers Market, the program itself is great. And as such, the City should be getting the word out so that more people can take advantage of it!

I pulled the Housing Plan Consultant contract for a reason that seems ‘normal’ to everyone in government but to you will probably sound like it came out of a Dilbert cartoon. The contract states that the consultant will not be doing their own research. Instead, they will be creating a series of recommendations based on an analysis derived from contemporaneous sources. OK here’s the thing: there are no contemporaneous sources. There is simply no good data on anything concerning ‘housing’ or ‘homelessness’. Swear to God. Nobody can tell you how many homeless people are in Des Moines, how they got here or why they’re in their current predicament or what is the appropriate intervention. SKHHP (which Deputy Mayor Buxton and I attend) is doing an ‘inventory of available housing’ this year but it won’t be completed until after the consultant submits their report.

And just to be clear, I am not engaging in some stunt. My colleagues will roll their eyes because, again, this is a grant, it’s free money, so why are you stressing, Harris? Just take the money and shut up.

My point is that I actually do want to do something about the problems. Residents tell me all the time “nobody knows what to do about homelessness.” That is not true. There are good solutions. But we’ve made so many mistakes and done so much to obstruct the process, it just looks like it to the outside world.

This really stings for me because, in 2017, the same Commerce Dept. created a $600,000 study of the community impacts from Sea-Tac Airport, which Des Moines kicked in a few bucks on. And the consultants relied on existing studies, which were, in several cases from 1997 when the airport was half what it is today. So the final report was about as useful as [metaphor goes here].

Neighborhoods, Policy, Public Safety, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 06/05/2022

This Week

Wednesday: Des Moines Marina Association

Thursday: 4:00 Transportation Committee Meeting (Agenda) There will be a presentation from WSDOT on Stage 2 of the SR-509 project.

Thursday: 5:00 Environment Committee Meeting (Agenda)

Thursday: 6:00 City Council Meeting (Agenda) The City Manager has scheduled an update on Summer Events, which I assume includes announcing that the Fireworks are a go for July 4th at the Marina. As for my part of the show, there will be thirteen items on the Consent Agenda but nothing on New Business.

OK, the City Manager typically spends 20 minutes on his thing. And assuming it takes five minutes to read two proclamations. And assuming we voted on all that stuff without objection. Total elapsed time? 30 minutes. Now that is efficient government, my friend.

Here’s the list of items on that Consent Agenda…

Approval of Vouchers: $5,757,623.05
Approval of minutes from past three months
Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan
Disposal of two abandoned vessels (routine)
Redondo Aquatic Lands Agreement
Wesley Senior Services Contract
Animal Control Officer outsource to Burien C.A.R.E.S.
Farmers Market agreement + 20k grant
Minor Home Repairs project
216th Street Undergrounding PSE payment $220,000
Housing Plan Consultant contract $75,000
LBGTQ Pride Month proclamation
Juneteenth Proclamation

Do all those seem routine to you? And one last thing, concerning what should be the least controversial part of any Consent Agenda. We’re being asked to vote for $5.7M in spending. The Council gets this list (which is a public document, but which you don’t see, probably because it also includes people’s pay rates–which I edited out for this post.) Since we haven’t met for a long time, there are well over 400 items. I simply asked to see the invoices for about ten. And… it’s a fight.

If you can deny any Councilmember information as basic as the bills we are legally required to approve? We’re onto an entirely new level.

Friday: Mt. Rainier High School Graduation at ShoWare Center

Last Week

Wednesday: Highline School Board Meeting. I was there to witness the swearing in of District #5 Director Azeb Hagos.

“Welcome. My neighbour Ibrahim is from Addis and he was gonna join me, but at the last minute he had to take care of his kids. My point is: people care. A lot. They may not show up, but they do care. But it’s easy to forget that after a while when you work
in an empty room. Don’t.

–HSD has a -district- based board. None of our cities have district-based councils. The Port does not—and it’s an even larger government. Some very smart people made this choice very intentionally. In contrast, almost everything you vote on will be HSD-wide. Almost every staff presentation will talk about what is best for HSD as a whole. And of course, you always want to work with your colleagues. But…. you represent District 5.

–One of Ibrahim’s kids is at Midway. The other is at Bezos. A lot of families are like that. It’s not a closed system and I hope you will learn from all those experiences.

–Always return everybody’s phone call.

–Always read the entire packet. The front will have a staff summary and a recommendation, which is fine. But read the whole thing.

Congratulations

Thursday: Public Safety and Emergency Management Committee Meeting (Agenda) (Video) This ties into my comments about Thursday’s upcoming meeting.

All throughout the week:

Tree Tours! To help explain the upcoming expansion of SR-509 and the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) I’ve developed a one hour walking/driving presentation.

The SAMP/SR-509 will have the same impact on air traffic as the Third Runway and it will re-shape northern Des Moines as dramatically as the Third Runway did Burien and the Second Runway did SeaTac.

The Tree Tour is a way to make this all simple by seeing what happened to Des Moines after the Second and Third runway projects and what’s coming next–from the ground level.

If you live in the area, if you care about things like tree canopy or airport issues in general, please get your friends together and let’s schedule a Tree Tour!

Public Safety Committee Meeting

I struggled to not publish this. I ran for office in 2019 to improve transparency and reduce the rubber stamping. But after almost two and a half years, I gotta say, things may actually be getting worse. But this has become truly alarming. Perhaps my colleagues are simply unaware of how business is supposed to be conducted. I urge both the public, potential candidates, and my colleagues to attend other city meetings and judge for themselves. We have become true outliers.

Today’s Publice Safety/Emergency Management Committee Meeting was the first in-person Council meeting of any kind since 2020. So hopefully you can forgive whoever forgot to activate some of my colleagues’ microphones. Getting back to ‘normal’ takes some practice. (If you’re having trouble hearing, I added subtitles.)

Although committee meetings are probably more important to the decision making process than the full meetings, I don’t usually write about them in detail because it’s just too much detail for most people. (Eg. there was a very important discussion regarding Flock Cameras which will soon be deployed to constantly scan people’s license plates in key areas.) But the process for both the issues I’ll cover was terrible. I’ve had people tell me they do not understand exactly what I mean by that and why it matters. These are two issues people care about a lot so it seemed like a good way to make the idea of ‘bad process’ concrete.

Animal Control

Background

The City and Police Chief have wanted to move from an Animal Control Officer to outsourcing the process to Burien C.A.R.E.S. The public has been unaware of this, but the Chief has been selling this hard internally for at least two years. As my predecessor said, “it was always a luxury and one we can no longer afford.”

Another reason this has been so quiet is that the administration had asked the Council not to respond to public concerns about the proposal because it might impact contract negotiations with the Police Guild. Somehow. During the update w learned that had not turned out to be problematic after all.

Lucky break.

The Chief did brief the Council on the proposal at the last full meeting. He provided a Powerpoint of cost savings and benefits, but no supporting evidence. That’s the problem before the problem: He bypassed the committee and went straight to the Council. And the Committee let him. In a better world, any of the committee members would have moved to stop him and remand his presentation to the committee–where it belonged in the first place.

Mistake #1: Never bypass the committee.

Presentation

Speaking for the Police Department was not the Chief, but rather Commander Patti Richards. And that right there is politics. Our Council rarely gives leadership a hard time. But no elected wants to be ‘that guy’ and grill a subordinate. Which is why I object to anyone but the Chief or City Manager presenting anything that might be controversial.

Mistake #2: Never bypass the committee.

So the Committee asked some perfunctory questions, but did not address the much more substantial concerns I heard from residents. I’m not sure whether or not my colleagues heard those same concerns.

The Commander indicated that the City had already worked with Legal, PD and Burien C.A.R.E.S to prepare a draft contract, but did not have that contract for review. Instead, she assured the committee that all their concerns had been addressed. The draft contract would be sent to the full Council for approval.

Mistake #3: Never bypass the committee.

In past years, the Committee would normally see that draft contract, provide notes, which the City Attorney would take back for polishing, come back for final committee approval and then send it fully baked to the Council for a vote. Despite their obvious differences, Councilmembers Bangs and Martinelli did just that on at least two PSEM ordinances in 2021.

Towing Ordinance

The committee spent a few minutes talking over Councilmember Steinmetz’s concerns over the recent 72 Hour Towing Ordinance. I voted against that ordinance for that reason and because it lacked a zoning provision which would have offered a good revenue stream and safety on certain streets. These tweaks could have easily been added and done right the first time.

Mistake #1: There is almost nothing that can’t wait a couple of weeks.

Instead, CM Steinmetz voted for it and *afterwards met privately with the Asst. City Attorney, hoping to work out some new language.

Mistake #2: Get it in writing. It’s a public process. If you want the committee to consider your idea, have an actual amendment. And print copies for the audience while yer at it. 🙂

But at the committee meeting, City Attorney Tim George told the committee that in his mind, the ordinance the Council approved was fine as is. And the other members of the committee agreed. Chair Traci Buxton suggested that we should wait and see if there is a public outcry and then it would surely be easy to fix.

Mistake #3: Nothing in government is easy to fix.

Measure twice, cut once…

Governments rarely re-visit legislation unless something is really wrong. Nor should they. It’s always onto the next thing. Think about it: we get a couple of hours twice a month. And this year? We’re four months behind schedule.

That is why I never vote to invoke ₂Rule 26a and approve any ordinance in one night.

You wanna make sure it’s right the first time for at least two reasons:

Assuming everyone is willing to stop and re-visit your pet issue again, you’re creating more work for everybody than doing it proper the first time.
We owe it to future Councils to leave things as tidy as possible for them. Because they will surely have plenty of their own messes to deal with.

If we had simply waited two weeks until the next meeting, we could have made the tweaks both CM Steinmetz and I wanted and we’d never have to worry about it again. It would be done. And in fact the ‘urgency’ is almost always artificial. We’d waited years without an ordinance, what was two more weeks?

Takeaways…

Council

This is the second time this year that the PSEM has allowed the administration to take an ordinance directly to the full Council. And both times have been a mistake. Other cities do not take these shortcuts. And in previous years, neither did we.

The whole point of having committees is to provide the hard review (and yes oversight) so that legislation is fully baked before it goes to the full Council. It is not supposed to be a rubber stamp before another rubber stamp.

Public

Over the past several months I’ve spoken to about a dozen residents who told me passionately how very much wanted to retain our own Animal Control Officer (ACO). I gave them my thoughts on how to make it happen and, as usual, they listened politely and then did something else. 😀

I love you Des Moines, but you also have to stop trying to do things in private. It’s a PITA, but you gotta start speaking up. Because every time you yell at me and then act so ‘chill’ to the majority, you send a message to the Council that they can listen to your polite complaints, do whatever they want and pay no price. And you’re making me not want to listen to your complaining either frankly. 😀

City

These committee meetings are OPMA public meetings. First the Council was told the meetings would be in the North Conference Room. (The Agenda says so.) Then we’re told it’s via Zoom, but I see no public notice. Then I get an email saying it’s in the Council Chambers and on Channel 21. But it’s not. I did find it on Youtube but it took a day for it to appear without a deep search. Then I watch it and find the mics aren’t on and there are no captions for our large number of hearing impaired residents. Come on.

Postscript

I’m sorry, but this strikes me as pretend government at the moment. We’re all so used to ‘just working things out’, we can’t even run a meeting as if it matters. Because frankly? It doesn’t.

Luke 16:10

*Something I am not permitted to do, by the way. Also known as straight up corruption.

₂Ordinances are required two separate readings (votes) in order to become law. Rule 26a is a motion that can be used to override that and pass a law in one vote. I never vote for it, not only for the above reason, but also because it gives the public almost no chance to engage on the issue.

Engagement, Public Safety

Animal Control, Flock Cameras, Surveillance, Towing

PSEM Committee Meeting June 2, 2022

Animal Control

Background

Lucky break.

Mistake #1: Never bypass the committee.

Presentation

Mistake #2: Never bypass the committee.

Mistake #3: Never bypass the committee.

Towing Ordinance

Mistake #1: There is almost nothing that can’t wait a couple of weeks.

Instead, CM Steinmetz voted for it and *afterwards met privately with the Asst. City Attorney, hoping to work out some new language.

Mistake #2: Get it in writing. It’s a public process. If you want the committee to consider your idea, have an actual amendment. And print copies for the audience while yer at it. 🙂

Mistake #3: Nothing in government is easy to fix.

Measure twice, cut once…

That is why I never vote to invoke ₂Rule 26a and approve any ordinance in one night.

You wanna make sure it’s right the first time for at least two reasons:

Assuming everyone is willing to stop and re-visit your pet issue again, you’re creating more work for everybody than doing it proper the first time.
We owe it to future Councils to leave things as tidy as possible for them. Because they will surely have plenty of their own messes to deal with.

Takeaways…

Council

Public

City

Postscript

Luke 16:10

*Something I am not permitted to do, by the way. Also known as straight up corruption.