Below is the list of CM Committee assignments for 2022.

The Process

In Des Moines, the Mayor is chosen by the Council at the first meeting of the year after the November General Election.  Customarily, CMs send their preferences to the new Mayor and he decides committee assignments shortly thereafter. Here is my letter.

CMs do not interact with one another on this, and in fact, to do so would constitute an illegal serial meeting under OPMA. So I have no idea if some of these choices were based on my colleagues desires.

The Rundown

• Mayor Mahoney is the big winner with nine assignments. He assigned himself as lead on basically anything to do with  transportation, the airport, hotel, and business schmoozing. He is also now the official rep to WRIA-9 (the County agency in charge of watershed restoration–eg. beaches in Lower Woodmont, Saltwater State Park, creeks,  and salmon recovery.)
• Deputy Mayor Buxton remains on Economic Development. She has been the City’s lone regional rep. on various Sound Cities Association committees and has recently moved into leadership. All that makes sense. But she is also adding Public Safety which seems a bit less obvious.
• Jeremy Nutting, who also has a full time job, remains on the Economic Development Committee and Municipal Facilities Committee. He previously served as chair on both and now adds Des Moines Art Commission Liaison, Marina Advisory Commitee Liaison and “What’s Up Des Moines?” (the business schmoozing) to that portfolio.
• Vic Pennington and Harry Steinmetz have been made ‘official’ members of the Police Advisory Committee, which had been picked by the Chief in previous iterations.
• Gene Achziger’s lone assignment is to the Transportation Committee.
• There is no longer any Council presence on either the Human Services Advisory Committee or Senior Services.
• JC Harris: I wrote a letter to the Mayor after he was chosen by the Council, congratulating him and requesting assignments, it may be coincidental but…

• • I was removed from the Transportation Committee.
  • I was assigned as the primary liaison to the Waterland Festival.
  • Mayor Mahoney assigned himself to WRIA-9.
  • Instead of being moved to Municipal Facilities, the Mayor created a new position ‘Marina Liaison’ to the Des Moines Marina Association.

Analysis

This is the biggest shake-up in committees in memory. Typically CMs stay on committees because one builds up an inventory of experience and staff appreciate having the continuity. It’s simply more useful to have had the background on any number of projects which are discussed every year, especially given the 45 minute time limit of each meeting. Coming in cold  just doesn’t make sense to me without a good reason. (I asked to be moved to MFC for specific purposes–the City web site and the Marina, both of which I have expertise.)

Because the public sees so little of what the City Council does, it’s often hard to put into sound bites, why certain topics (like committees) matter so much. But a few words come to mind: Time, Skill and above all money.

Politics

It’s reasonable to see these assignments as political choices. The Mayor put the people most aligned with the current ‘vision’ into each slot–most of all himself. This puts the lie to the notion of a ‘non-partisan City Council.’ AndHis ‘team’ wanted their people in all the key slots and was willing to go so far as to delay those assignments until April to do so.

The Council has been highly partisan for a very long time, but not along traditional Democrat/Republican lines as that word is often used.

• Mayor Mahoney has a full-time job, which he proudly states takes at least fifty (50) hours a week. And yet, the Mayor has assigned himself to nine positions, in addition to the built-in functions of the Mayor.
• Similarly, CM Nutting has a full-time job, which also requires 50+ hours a week and yet he has been assigned to six positions.CM Pennington, though retired, is coming in cold to five positions, including three committee assignments. Although I appreciate his previous experience on the Council, that’s a heavy load for an appointment, since, again, he will have no continuity on any of those spots.

The only logic behind having people in so many positions or with so little time or experience is to say that these committees do not drive policy. It’s further proof that, the current majority is not merely a ‘rubber stamp’ for the Administration, it actively works to block oversight which might lead to better results.

It also further reduced the ability of the committees to provide oversight and policy direction because we will now be cramming twelve months of work into no more than nine 45 minute meetings. (Actually, it will probably be eight. Staff typically cancels one meeting during the summer. And that’s one more item on my process reform list.)

And once again, it dismisses the notion that the ‘problem’ was the last Mayor. That was unfair to him. In fact, his committee assignments were far more sensible and fair.

Money

But even if one buys the argument that our own Committees can function as rubber stamps, there are those regional organisations like SCA and AWC and PSRC, which all sound like so much blah, blah, blah to you.

The fact is, the all those are the source of millions of dollars of State and Federal funding. It is beyond irritating to watch other nearby cities obtain grants and projects that we will never see, simply because their Councils engage far more effectively.

I borrowed this from a public post made by SeaTac CM Peter Kwon from the following document. I have to take a few deep breaths every time I see already wealthy cities like SeaTac get even more grant funding because they’re Council has developed more influence on regional organisations like PSRC.

Suggested Reforms

Other cities with Council-Manager Government do not leave Committee assignments solely to the discretion of the Mayor. And this is another process reform I would make for the following reasons:

1. First because it is another ‘power’ that we just gave to the Mayor over time.
2. I think this is something that all CMs should be able to discuss and work out as a body.
3. We not only give the Mayor the power to decide ‘who’, we give him the power to decide when. He simply decided to not begin committee work until April. And my colleagues seemed to be OK with that. This reduces the ability of these committees to provide oversight and policy direction because they will now be cramming twelve months of work into no more than nine 45 minute meetings. (Actually, it will probably be eight. Staff typically cancels one meeting during the summer. And that’s one more item on my process reform list.)
4. These assignments are important to the functioning of the City and to our performance in regional settings (eg. Federal and State planning and grants.)  I believe both all CMs and the public should have a transparent understanding as to how/why these assignments are made.

At the end of our City Council Meeting last night, we had a 30 minute Executive Session that was extended to 50 minutes. I am not supposed to divulge the contents of that meeting, but click on the above link and Councilmember Achziger has a comment as to why he did not attend.

…the Mayor has told me that the Council will shortly be going into an executive session to discuss potential litigation against the Des Moines Legacy Foundation. As a Legacy board member I have a remote interest in the topic and therefore recusing myself from the process to protect both my integrity and that of the Council.

Now, we actually could have concluded the purpose of that meeting within 30 minutes. However, the discussion veered off in another direction, hence the extension. The hard feelings have obviously not abated. There were some personal attacks. It got to the edge of ugly, but stopped just short.

And… we’re gonna have another discussion about it on 31 March. Woo hoo!

I have said over and over and over, to all sides. “Let. It. Go. We have to work together. Genuine cooperation.”

Civility

During the last campaign, several candidates spoke often of ‘civility’.  I understood why they did it. But personally, I hated it. To me, civility implied politeness; not mean sincere cooperation.

But many voters wanted to believe Gene Achziger, Harry Steinmetz and Matt Mahoney that things would be different people.  Surely the problem was the crabby Matt Pina and Luisa Bangs.

And I’m like, noooooo man. 😀 That’s so not the problem.

Phone call

So I decided to call Mayor Mahoney to protest the bad personal conduct and ask him to not allow things to devolve as in the previous Council. I also protested the fact that we have no place in our current meetings to ask questions of the City Manager, as we’ve had in the past, and as every other city has.

Before I continue. I generally maintain confidence as the default option. If you speak with me you can I assume I will keep your side of the conversation confidential, whether you ask for it or not. But conversations between electeds and staff on City business are meant to be part of the public record so I have no problem related the following, because it has policy significance, it does not divulge any personal information, and it  had nothing to do with that Executive Session.

The Mayor told me that:

1. I am generally suspected of constantly blurting out confidential stuff. He offered no evidence. That has not happened, it does not happen, it will not happen. Most people know how to maintain professional boundaries.
2. Mayor Mahoney has no intention of intervening to obtain professional cooperation from the City Manager.
3. I have offended the City Manager. And therefore it is up to me, as it is the responsibility of all CMs responsibilities to get along with Michael Matthias. “You have a lot of fences to mend.”
4. “You say a lot of bad things about us. And we’re monitoring you.”

I leave it to you to decide who ‘us’ is. And what “we’re monitoring you” means.

Email

After that conversation, the City Manager wanted to punctuate a message that came up during Executive Session by sending an email blast to all the attendees of that meeting and a few others who were not for good measure.

The contents of the emails are from ex-City employee, Sue Padden, a former board member of Legacy and a party to a litigation against Mr. Matthias.

However, the emails have nothing to do with Legacy or the lawsuit. She was replying to a blog post I wrote about parliamentary procedure. They were vacuumed up in the City’s law suit discovery process.

The insinuation being of course that, because this person responded to a blog post I wrote, that there is some connection which makes me suspect–even though the legal settlement has nothing to do with that stuff.

It’s just schoolyard nonsense: Us and Them. as the old song goes.

Aren’t you making it worse?

The only reason to post this is

1. There’s this world that you the public cannot see. CMs and the Administration rarely say anything real on the record. The rancor the public finds distasteful in public is small fraction of the childish nonsense in private settings such as phone calls and Executive Sessions.
2. And because you don’t see 95% of it, that makes it hard to understand what’s really going on and how petty it really is.
3. But regardless of your feelings as to ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, it’s just a huge time suck. And time is money. The amount of hours and energy everyone puts into these feuds is ridonculous.  And for that reason alone, it’s worth getting past.

No dog in this fight…

When people discuss how hard it is to change politics in Des Moines, this is part of the reason why. People do not let things go. They make decisions based on implied ‘tribes’, whilst attempting to look as civil as possible in public.

The funny thing is? I have absolutely no dog in these fights. People constantly mistake my desire for fairness (and saving money!) with taking one side or another. Everything from the Legacy litigation to Anthony Martinelli to the recent appointment process, all I care about is the money.

Arguments and litigation about ‘my reputation!’ are all a complete waste of time because there is never any victory.

And how dare you suggest otherwise, Councilmember Harris!

On 24 January, 2022 I emailed the Mayor Mahoney with my preferences as Committee assignments.

Mayor,

For 2022 I would like to make the following committee assignment requests:

1. I would like to be assigned to the Municipal Facilities Committee or
the Economic Development Committees. Either is fine.

2. I would like to remain on Environment. We treat it as 'the storm
water utility' but it ties in with a broader environmental discussion,
including the Flood Control District I was recently appointed to and
Saltwater State Park that is a key part of the de-armoring discussion
with WRIA-9 and Midway Sewer, etc.

3. I would also certainly like to remain on Transportation. But if
moving to either of those committees makes that necessary, that is a
slot I would give up.

4. If necessary I would be happy to give my slot on the Waterland/DDM to another colleague at this time. Obviously, Gene has a connection with that group. Same with SKHHP. I am very interested in the discussion, but am happy to give that to another to balance opportunities.

5. I would like to be named to the Highline Forum for (hopefully)
obvious reasons. Mayor Pina, you and I actually discussed my being the
alternate in 2020 but for whatever reason that did not happen.

A couple of other things:

1. I have no desire to 'hog' things. But some of us simply have more
-time- and interest. Eg. I dunno why Anthony was only on the PSEM
Committee, but apart from anything else, as far as I could tell he
performed that one thing well and I offer more time in that spirit.
Some people like Harry and Jeremy have full time gigs and may not have
the requisite -time- to dive in.

2. My main goals with Municipal Facilities are these:

    a. It's time to consider a Marina Advisory Committee be spun off
from the MFC. It's not a great look having a quorum of CMs at every DMMA meeting for the foreseeable future. The City has functionally been
conducting business in that DMMA space since the beginning of the
redevelopment process. Dan, Beth Anne and Michael have presented
information there -before- it gets to the Council. Having an Advisory
Committee would bring the DMMA to the City and offer a better
opportunity for the public to engage on the development process. No
matter how welcoming Bill tries to be, it's a bit much to ask the
general public to beg permission to attend monthly meetings--or even
know what's to be discussed. I -believe- they support that, but
regardless, it's time given the significance for the entire community.

    b. I assume the web site fits into MFC. Or it kinda should. Like any building project, to do what needs doing will be an ongoing discussion.

Sincerely

---JC

Here are the final choices posted 8 March, 2022 (after the Council vacancy was filled by Vic Pennington on 3 March, 2022.)