Street Racers at the Des Moines Creek Business Park, December 2020
As I’ve written and testified, I am a strong advocate of police reform. I was the lone vote against the motion so I figured I should explain a bit. And I want to stipulate that body cameras will likely be in all Cities (including Des Moines) at some point.
Point by point
Let’s begin by pointing out that going into the meeting there was no vote planned. So let me acknowledge the City Manager for asking for a motion rather than simply giving the presentation and then acting unilaterally. Here is a link to the presentation.
Crime is increasing
As hinted at on page 5, crime has been on the increase in the two years before COVID-19 and is expected to continue increasing. We’ve heard in the media about a downward trend in crime over the past decades, but in many categories here in Des Moines that is simply no longer true.
Misdirection
Lest we forget, the whole discussion re. body cameras first came up as a response to calls to address systemic racism in policing, specifically the killing of George Floyd. ‘Racism’ and ‘accountability’ were the defining terms in the whole discussion. And yet at last night’s presentation neither the words racism or accountability were mentioned. It feels to me like the whole discussion has shifted towards being a symbolic gesture–something we cannot afford right now.
During the presentation, we learned that there have been almost no complaints about Des Moines Police Officers in recent years. So I struggle to understand the urgency of this project.
Not the best use of funds
The police are beginning a beta-test with only two units. Yet back in July the City Manager set aside $140,000 (the cost of the entire system). In a time of serious budget shortfalls, we are essentially pre-paying for something we may not use at all until the end of 2021. That $140,000 could instead be used to fund another officer and a part time civilian position. Right now. That is no symbolic gesture. Hiring new officers would provide an immediate benefit to our community in terms of crime prevention and reduction.
Many bugs yet to work out
The presentation (and prior Public Safety Committee presentation) specifically mentioned that there are still significant challenges to implementing body cameras, both technical and legal (including privacy and little details like when officers get to turn them on and off!) I believe that we should let other communities work out these bugs before we invest heavily. Again, not while there is no local data supporting an immediate need.
The Police did not request this
And then there is something you would have to have attended prior Public Safety and Police Advisory Meetings to learn: the Police Guild (the officers) have not asked for body cameras. The police union representatives have taken great pains to word their reaction like this, “We do not oppose body cameras.” That’s it. They do not say, we need body cameras to do our job. The Chief has also made it clear that this is not about improving law enforcement or addressing documented concerns about accountability or racism.
Summary
I support a beta-test of two cameras. But I do not support funding the entire program in advance, using money that could and should be used now to fight and prevent increased crime. I believe that is what the overwhelming majority of you, the voters really want. Especially when there is no true evidence of need and no actual desire coming from the PD itself.
When there is a generally accepted best-practice in place for Cities like Des Moines, I will support it, along with other, the far more impactful means of combatting racism and improving accountability that I have previously written about.
PSA: Every home should have a Carbon Monoxide Detector–especially during the colder months! Full stop. If you need one but money is tight, South King County Fire And Rescue will get you one. Just call their Community Affairs Office at 253-946-7347.
PSA: Rental Assistance for Low Income King County Bar Association – The Housing Justice Project is requesting community based providers assistance to identify households who owe 10K or more in back-rent.
PSA: So, I’m now officially out of quarantine. FREE! 😀 However, even though I’ve dodged a bullet, I’m noticing more and more people not taking this seriously now that a vaccine seems to be on the way. Not to burst yer bubble, but here is a good summary of how the roll out is likely to occur. And the detail I want you to notice is this: The vaccine does not prevent you from transmitting the disease. It protects you, not the people around you. Show of hands: who wants to be the jerk who infects someone so close to the finish line? Or worse: in April. Follow the guidelines. They work.
This Week
Monday: I’m getting down to the wire on various interviews for a forthcoming book on the history of Sea-Tac Airport. What’s interesting is the number of people who have started on this over the past forty years and then gotten fed up and just tore up their manuscript. A lot of people just
Tuesday: Back to counting salmon at McSorley Creek with Trout Unlimited. The news so far is slightly better than last year for some reason. 🙂
Thursday: There will be a presentation by the State Auditor’s Office as to how things went in reviewing this year’s financials.
Thursday: 4pm is the Public Safety Committee Meeting (Agenda). The discussion item is drones. Which sounds exciting? 😀
Thursday: Regular City Council Meeting. (Agenda). There will be a redux of the whole Body Camera discussion which the Public Safety already signed off on in September. There will be an amendment to the current 2035 Comprehensive Plan which I’m vaguely OK with. One element: we’re purchasing some run down homes along the perimeter of Midway Park in order to expand it, which sounds like a no-brainer. Except that it cuts into usable land for housing. We have a serious shortage of land for housing . and as much as I love Midway Park (I’ve been present for all their clean-ups and garden events), I love good housing options even more. You can’t have a thriving neighborhood if you take away all the places for neighbors to live. 🙂 My point is that there are a lot fewer no-brainer decisions than you might think.
Last Week: Rule 9
Confession: I’ve never actually watched Plan 9 From Outer Space all the way through. But there’s this line where the aliens say something like how they decided on Plan 9 as ‘the most effective solution for dealing with difficult people like…’ 😀
Anyhoo, I did receive a reply from the City Attorney as to my question last week about failed motions:
In response to your question below, I reviewed your blog and I agree with this statement that you made.
According to RROO and JurassicParliament (the fantastic training service that our City uses to train Councilmembers), if a motion does not pass, it is only ‘dead’ for that particular meeting. A Councilmember can bring back the same motion at the next meeting. (Of course, when one renews a previously failed motion one should always include new information in order to change hearts and minds.)
In addition, before making a motion, the business item needs to be on the agenda. This is accomplished in accordance with City Council rule 9 (below). Finally, motions for reconsideration can be made pursuant to Council Rule 28 (also below).
And that’s a whole other kettle o’ fish. And I don’t mean the fresh, delightful, sashimi grade tuna. 😀
Because he dreaded Rule #9 tells us how things get on a City Council Meeting Agenda. And for years and years it used to be thus:
This rule specifies the method of preparation of a Council meeting agenda for meetings other than study sessions. The Presiding Officer, three (3) Councilmembers, or the City Manager may introduce a new item to the preliminary agenda. The Presiding Officer shall have the option of deleting any item, other than those items introduced by three (3) Councilmembers, from the preliminary agenda until the next regular Council meeting when the full Council shall vote on whether to introduce the item on the agenda for a subsequent Council meeting. The City Clerk, under the direction of the City Manager, shall arrange a list of such matters according to the order of business and prepare a preliminary agenda for the Council. After the preliminary agenda has been approved by the Presiding Officer, a copy of the agenda and supporting materials shall be prepared for Councilmembers, the City Manager, and the press by close of business Friday prior to the Regular Council Meeting, except in case of an emergency.
Blah, blah, blah-dee-blah…. Blah. Right? 😀 You didn’t read any of that because it’s so boring. And that’s fine, because this language is pretty much the same in most cities. But in our City it was amended a year ago on the last vote before I took my seat on the Council to add the following:
Any Councilmember seeking to bring forward a new community event or project for consideration shall provide the details of the proposal to the City Clerk in written format, to include the estimated cost and staff time for the proposal. Once received by the City Clerk, the proposal can be placed on a preliminary agenda in accordance with the requirements of this Rule.
And this is why we all hate lawyers
That one tortuous sentence actually does a whole lot. Here it is in plainer language:
“Look, we don’t want you wasting valuable meeting time trying to bring up anything that hasn’t already been pre-approved. And to make sure, you’ll need to send anything you want to talk about to the Clerk ahead of time. With a cost estimate, of course. Just so we can give it the once over. K?”
As you can tell by the snarky tone, I’ve got any number of problems with this seemingly innocent language. Here’s just one: “How do I even obtain a cost estimate without the cooperation of the Administration?”
Why it matters
Not to belabor the obvious, but the language was added as sort of a ‘belt and suspenders’ way to make doubly certain that City Council Meetings are now pro-forma affairs.
A big part of being in the minority is simply finding a way to break past that wall and get your ideas across. You don’t expect to win votes; with the current majority (which always votes as a bloc) that is impossible. But what you do expect to be able to do is to bring up ideas that you think think the public should know about, whether the majority or the administration approve. It’s called democracy. And it matters.
OK, it’s not just a hat. It’s the official hat of the 2001 Detroit Red Wings. 1The finest hockey team ever to lace up skates.
This is a screen cap from the video of one of my over fifty public comments at 2Des Moines City Council–and that was before I was elected. I absolutely love this piccie because although I don’t think of myself as being that guy, the truth is that I really was/am ‘that guy’–the annoying person who shows up at every meeting to rail against injustice and… whatever, right? 😀 Everyone who sees it goes, “Yeah, that’s you.”
But that’s not why you clicked here.
So… back in 1989 I was in my dream job, having a great time, when a steel beam fell down on me and broke my neck and back. I was left with 24/7/365 (cough) ‘issues’. And after many years I started to notice that I seemed to feel a bit better when wearing a hat. I asked my neurologist about this and she was like, “Well, duhhhh!” 😀 She treats lots of Vets and apparently wearing a hat is a common intervention for traumatic brain injuries (TBI.)
1Well…. except for maybe the ’76 Canadiens, gotta be real here. OK,. and…. maybe the ’82 Islanders… Of course… ’84 Edmonton…. ’91 Pittsburgh… and you could argue the ’98 Wings were right up there. Buuuuut. Definitely Detroit. 🙂
2When did we stop serving coffee and little nibblies?
Well, this is gonna be an odd Thanksgiving, am I right? 😀 There wasn’t much scheduled to begin with. However, it will be especially constrained for moi.
As you may have heard, I am in ‘quarantine’ for the next ten days. A person I came in contact with last weekend tested positive and is symptomatic. Currently I have no symptoms–beyond my usual delightful disposition.
I have contacted everyone I have been face to face with recently and I have gotten an initial test (which was negative.) That said, I’m in the jailhouse for ten more days.
I’m only tellin’ y’all to emphasize that this is no joke and if you’ve been slacking recently? Get on the stick. You know what to do. I know it’s tough with the holidays, but… you gotta stop rationalizing risky behavior. You know what I’m talking about. It reminds me of teenagers. “I’m sure it’ll be fine just this one time, Betty!” 😀 Uh huh.
Anyhoo… have a very Happy Holiday. On Zoom.
(I’m waiting to see Santa show up on a Zoom call. 😀 )
Last Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle regular Commission Meeting (Agenda) This meeting finalized their 2021 Budget and Tax Levy and included a 3% increase in Property Taxes. On the other hand, it also did set aside more money for Port Packages than in the past ten years, so that’s something. One thing you’ll be hearing about a lot is something called the South King County Fund. Originally, this was the Port’s attempt at providing money for airport mitigation programs. Very quickly however, our Cities did what they often do best: disagree. Some of the Cities were like, “environment, schmironment, just give us money for general improvements (like sidewalks). And some areas affected by the planes (Beacon Hill) were upset that they were not included. So now the program has morphed into something of a general ‘grant’ program. I object to these sorts of grab bag programs. The Port should be budgeting specifically to pay for the environmental problems of the airport.
Tuesday:Burien Airport Committee I always highlight their work for a few reasons: a) They’re currently the only group that is doing any real work on behalf of the communities. b) Simply because their web site is so much more user-friendly than Des Moines. For those watching, we have two ‘official’ groups which purport to be working on airport issues: The Highline Forum (which is electeds) and the Sea-Tac Airport Stakeholder Advisory Committee (StART) which was supposed to be for community residents. Neither has turned out to be particularly useful because neither has worked on actual legislation or negotiation with the Port of Seattle. The BAC is the one remaining group (well, besides SeatacNoise.Info) doing actual research and asking tough questions.
Wednesday:Highline Forum. Speaking of which: this one had great presentations on Sound Transit and SR-509. Heading back to StART for a minute, there is talk about somehow ‘reforming’ both StART and the Highline Forum so that they might function more like you expect them to (ie. actually advocate for changes to the airport.) I am not thrilled about this notion for a couple of reasons because a) It would still be run by the Port, which is a bit like having yer wife’s attorney mediate yer divorce settlement. b) The fact is that, as with that SKCF, there is simply not a lot of engagement from some Cities. Many of the Cities (including ours, frankly) focus on getting economic development money from the Port and not actually reducing the negative impacts from the airport. There are plenty of organisations now supporting economic development. There should be at least one organisation which is solely dedicated to reducing the noise and pollution.
Friday:South King County Housing and Homelessness Partnership (SKHPP). An Inter-Local Agreement between many Cities in SKC. The name pretty much says it all. All the Cities have agreed to put in a pot of money, which is great. But as I keep saying, the real question is, “Now what?” In other words, at some point you have to do something with it and that’s gonna be tough because, frankly, the issues are so tough. One of the participants is Master Builders–an organization representing developers. They have a Toolkit which I think you’ll find interesting because it offers several ways forward for increasing housing. One thing I disagreed with the City on over the years was land use and now we have very little space left. But there are some great options in that toolkit.
Friday: Sound Cities Assocation Legislative Agenda presentation. Our own 30th District Rep. Jesse Johnson was in attendance. Here is a letter written by the SCA to Governor Jay Inslee which asks for help for restaurants. If you are concerned that the tone of the letter seems to go against health guidelines, recognise the desperate situation: the Federal Government has totally dropped the ball. And the State has serious Constitutional limits on grants it can supply to Cities (the previous money the State distributed was from Federal CARES Act money). My hope is that the State holds a Special Session and acts to provide more money to Cities. However, based on the dialogue I heard today from State lawmakers, I am not confident. I also want to say one other thing on this: The Stock Market is at a record high which is very misleading. We currently have two very different economies in Des Moines. On the one hand we have these large companies that are doing amazingly well: and those are primarily ones that sell products (Amazon, Lowes, etc.) But then there is the service economy, which is in the tank. And it’s that service economy that comprises the majority of small business in a City like Des Moines. I support the State health guidelines. But I keep reminding people how rough things were for our local businesses after the 2008 recession: it decimated Marine View Drive. We cannot let that happen again.
A quick note on Motions…
I wrote the following letter to our City Attorney last week to ask for a ruling on parliamentary procedure based on a potential problem at our last City Council Meeting (Video) where I proposed that the City rejoin the National League Of Cities (NLC). There were several problems with that motion, but I only want to focus on the parliamentary issue here. I had hoped to receive an answer in time for this article. Hopefully soon. 🙂
Hi Tim,
A parliamentary question. I hope you’re the right person to ask. If not, please direct me to the proper individual for future questions.
At several meetings this year, Mayor Pina has warned me that if I make a motion, it is seconded, and then fails, it is ‘dead’. He did just this in our last meeting.
He has not specified exactly what that means, but the implication is that he means that this is permanent, ie. that particular motion can never be made again. In fact CM Buxton said that she chose not to second my motion to join *National League Of Cities (NLC) specifically because if she had done so it could never be brought up again. She felt that she was doing me a service by not seconding my motion. (ie. by having it die for lack of a second, it could then be brought up again at a future meeting.)
I can’t seem to find that in my reading of Robert’s.
Please provide the specific place in our Rules Of Procedure (or RROO orother City code?) which lays out the specifics of when/if a motion may be renewed.
According to RROO and JurassicParliament (the fantastic training service that our City uses to train Councilmembers), if a motion does not pass, it is only ‘dead’ for that particular meeting. A Councilmember can bring back the same motion at the next meeting. (Of course, when one renews a previously failed motion one should always include new information in order to change hearts and minds.)
This is a great case of why all that ‘parliamentary’ jazz actually matters. A lot.
*The National League Of Cities is just what it says it is, a nationwide group of Cities that lobbies at the Federal level in order to further interests that all Cities tend to share. The City Of Des Moines was a member for many years and we left when the current majority took over. I strongly favor re-joining not only because all our sister cities are members, but because the NLC has been particularly strong in advocating for Airport/FAA reform and in returning more Federal money to Cities.
This’ll be a long-winded one (sorry). Last week’s City Council Meeting was, arguably, the most important of the year. There was the Budget, Property Taxes, Human Services spending and I got to be the one yelling at my colleagues (for a change) rather than just sitting there and taking it. And tucked in the DMMA thing is a presentation you should watch. So… ya know… it’s a lot. 😀
Wednesday: Have lunch with me at the Senior Center. Get an EATS voucher!
Wednesday:Highline Forum. There will be updates on SR-509 and the StART. Usually a snoozer, but who knows? 😀
Wednesday: Reach Out Des Moines. This group of education and youth professionals (including our DMPD Community Service Officer) meets to discuss ways to improve school attendance and reduce teen violence in Des Moines.
Thursday:PSRC Growth Management Policy Board There will be a presentation on housing needs in King County. I’ve already hinted at this a few times. It is critical to our City to understand the various demands that the PSRC foresees for our area in order to do our own planning. There are (cough) ‘targets’ each City is expected to meet.
Last Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle regular Commission Meeting (Agenda) This meeting finalizes the 2021 Tax Levy. Their Budget proposed to increase this item on your taxes by 3%, which I find outrageous given the pandemic. Here is my letter to the Commission in protest.
Wednesday:Des Moines Marina Association Meeting. The contents is actually a ‘State Of The City’ tag team presentation by Mayor Matt Pina and Deputy Mayor Matt Mahoney. I strongly encourage everyone to watch it because it covers pretty much big area of the City (with plenty of questions re. the Marina at the very end.)
Thursday: Environmental Committee Meeting. The single item was the Storm Water Comprehensive Plan Update presentation, which I am quite interested in given the various infra-structure problems we’ve had over the past year. Here is the presentation: Surface Water Comp Plan Update
Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) (Video). Recap below.
Thursday:Sound Cities Association ‘PIC’ Meeting. The Public Issues Committee is is always fascinating to me because you get to hear about what all the other Cities are dealing with, plus upcoming legislation from the State and Federal governments. It’s one of the best ways to get a sense of how other Cities function and how we all see our role in the region. Traci Buxton is our official representative.
A quick note on how Councilmember can help you…
If you watch the City Council Meetings or you are on-line, there is some confusion as to what/how a Councilmember may help a resident with a particular issue or a problem with the City itself. Here is what Council Rules Of Procedure Rule 32 says:
RULE 32. When administrative policy or administrative performance complaints are made directly to individual Councilmembers, the Councilmember may then refer the matter directly to the City Manager for his/her view and/or action. The individual Councilmember may request to be informed of the action or response made to the complaint. (Res. 525 §1, 1988).
So, if you contact me (or any Councilmember), we’ll refer it to the City Manager and his staff to deal with on your behalf. The advantage in bringing a problem to your Councilmember is in that last sentence: you get another (hopefully well-informed) set of eyes on the issue so we can make sure that you’re getting the best possible customer service. It also helps me/ us know what’s going on–which helps everybody. If you know the numbers? Contact the City directly. If you want to call me personally? I’m always happy to help. 🙂
Normally, I put in timings at the various points in the vide I’m referencing. I got lazy this week. These things are already work. But when I go on about making our web site more helpful to the public, here is just one thing I’d like to implement. When you look at a Burien Meeting Agenda, it has bookmarks to all the important moments in the video. That’s good public communication.
We passed the Budget.
Yay? 😀
The good news is that we got away this year without significant harm. That is no mean feat and I applaud the Finance team. Our City Manager, has told me that I don’t ‘appreciate them’. As a guy who worked for companies like Arthur Andersen, I’m probably the only person on the Council who fully appreciates their job. I salute them not only for keeping the City on track, but also because the basic day to day mechanics of finance and ‘bookkeeping’ are tough enough without having to screw with telecommuting. Thanks a million. (Get it? Million? I kill me. 😀 )
But I don’t want to be too super jazzed for a couple of reasons. First, we pulled this off by basically:
Holding off on any new capital improvement stuff. Which means we’re kinda losing not one but two years on a lot of very worthy projects. (On the other hand, with the repeal of I-976 we may be able to do some road stuff. Stay tuned.)
CARES Act funding. And who knows if there will ever be another Federal stimulus package. (Gosh I hope so, Ma. 🙂 )
Using one-time money–which was the bane of the City in the bad old days. We voted to allow for it (if necessary) again in 2021. Hopefully it won’t be necessary. But I’ve made it clear that 2021 is the last year I’ll vote for that. *I’m sayin’ two Hail Marys and four Our Fathers every day that the local economy will be back by then. 🙂
Is there anybody in there?
(Boomer reference to Pink Floyd) As I said, this was arguably the most important meeting of the year. And at 1:43 it was twice as long as a typical meeting (which still makes it shorter than every one of our sister cities.) It covered the Budget, your Property Taxes, our Human Services Budget (which helps thousands of people.) And yet a grand total of zero people signed up to comment. As of this writing a whopping 43 people have watched it. (sigh)
Yes, but are you paying attention?
People see me looking away during the Zoom meetings and wonder if I’m even paying attention. The nerve! 😀 For the record, I’m taking notes on another computer screen.
But as some of you know, a lot of the material is already covered in Committee Meetings, so most of the presentations are things I’ve already seen. There’s very little ‘new’ material at our City Council Meetings. Also there’s no real dialogue to speak of (it’s not like Councilmembers are debating or trying to convince each other of anything or even modifying stuff as happens in other Cities.
So you’re not wrong if you wonder who’s actually paying attention. Because most of it is a formality. And when it comes to Councilmember comments, a lot of those are also not really information sharing per se. Eg. Councilmember Nutting, in his comments described the absolute perfection of our 2021 Budget stating something like (and I’ll get the quote wrong here but I do think I’m capturing the sense of what he said) “You couldn’t move five dollars around without breaking the whole thing.” Now that’s something, right? 😀
Being best isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…
The point I’m trying to make is that there’s this vibe that everything presented to the Council is, worry-free, baked to a golden brown and not to be messed with. If the Council believes that the Budget presented to them has such a delicate balance, why would anyone try to amend anything, right? You might break something!
I’m not being snarky (OK, maybe about 10%) But making everything that the administration presents so ‘perfect’ scares me. Not because it’s untrue (there are many ways that Budget might be tweaked without risk–some might even be 😯 better.) And not just because we’re not really participating in the process (let alone performing oversight). No, what scares me is that I know a certain portion of the public recognizes the performative aspect of our Council Meetings and that makes them even more cynical in any already cynical world.
I think my colleagues see all these claims of “we’re the best” and clockwork precision as a plus–I think they truly believe that such hyperbole inspires confidence with Developers and generally boosts our image. I’m not so sure. I think it makes the public feel like their participation is irrelevant.
In Councilmember Bangs’ comments, she encouraged more volunteerism. As I’ve written many times there is an absolute dearth in volunteerism in Des Moines. But what my colleagues don’t seem to recognize is that the City has done almost everything possible to push away the public over the past five years. I made a comment at the beginning of the meeting that the City should do more to provide outreach to the public on how we determine their taxes. And the reply I got from Mayor Pina was, “Anyone can find this out if they go looking.” That basically sums up the philosophical difference between myself and the rest of the Council. I believe that it’s 2020 and we need to reach out to you. The more information we provide, the more welcoming we are, the more likely we are to feel like the City is a place they want to volunteer.
Human Services Advisory Fund
As I said l would do last week, I voted ‘no’ on the Consent Agenda item to fund the Human Services Advisory Fund. I did so not because I object to the grants. I voted no because I asked for some very basic information on each of the grants ahead of the meeting from our City Manager and got… Nada. Niente. Bupkis. That is simply intolerable conduct. As I’ve said many times, Councilmembers should be able to receive fulsome responses to their requests for basic information on any topic they feel will help them do the job.
Sadly, the current majority is fine with it. (Maybe they don’t care to know about all these programs to any depth, but I certainly do.)
Currently the only form of protest I have is my vote.
I applaud the great work these volunteers and our staff are doing. And in fairness, the City is edging closer to a long-standing goal we’ve had to get to 2% of Total Budget for these grants. We’re not there yet. But it’s progress and I am very glad that we’re heading in the right direction.
Property Taxes
Some good news here. But getting back to that whole ‘public engagement’ thing for a minute: open that packet and go almost to the end (pg 168ish?) and it will show how your property tax dollars are spent. Note that the portion of the pie that the City gets keeps going down over time. In other words, don’t blame the City for your property taxes. Cities have been getting slowly starved for cash now for two decades. And this is just one of those ways.
During the public hearing on property taxes I commented that the City should do more to make the public aware of how we use your tax dollars. I already gave you Mayor Pina’s reply to this suggestion. Councilmember Bangs stated that there really was nothing to worry about given that we’re not raising taxes. In other words, if it doesn’t cost you more money, you probably don’t care. I strongly disagree.
Anyhoo, we did vote on next year’s property tax. The good news is that, unlike the Port Of Seattle, we are freezing the rate at current levels and not raising the rate 1% as has become the usual practice. Well done. The only caveat is that the law says that we can push that increase into future years. Remember how I said I was worried about our Budget for 2022? We could theoretically come back then and retroactively charge the 2021 one percent on top of that current year’s increase. I would not vote for such a thing.
OK, this is the bad news. Maybe. The Storm Water Fund is kinda the biggest piece of business for the Environment Committee. I wish the committee could do a lot more real ‘environment’ stuff (water and air quality), but that’s what it is for now.
The amount of money that the City needs to prepare for future issues is high. We have a 1.3% reserve for unexpected issues. I have no idea if that is sufficient or not. It seems low to me, but what do I know, right? All I know is that we blew through that with one landslide last year. In fact, we’re under-funded by over $3.6 million dollars to do all the projects we need by the next big review in 2026. To fully fund them would add about $2.80 a month to the average homeowner’s bill. I have very mixed feelings on this. Three bucks a month isn’t the world. But I know many of you feel nickeled and dimed to death. Because we do have quite the array of fees and utility taxes. And taken together it adds up to real money for you.
My concern is that if we don’t keep ahead of these projects we’ll be in real trouble. As you know, we’ve had several water-infrastructure problems this year. The infrastructure in much of our City is at or near end of life. And then there’s that pesky climate change–the more it rains, the more work there will be to do.
I’ll close this week by mentioning yet another information request I made that went unfulfilled. I asked for some background information that might help me to decide on how much funding to vote for. As you can see from the presentation, we can be aggressive in funding these programs or we can do less and hope for the best. Right now, I don’t have an idea of how to think about this more broadly.
*I may be exaggerating my prayer routine slightly. Bad Catholic. Bad Catholic, JC.
I always wondered why my father never spoke of his time in the Army. He spent four years in the Service during World War II and in addition to not talking about it he apparently kept no memorabilia of any kind. The whole thing was a complete mystery to me.
The short version is that he spent four years in Burma, one of the worst theatres of the war. I did what little research I could over the years as to where he was and what he was doing and it just sounds like an absolute hell on earth with no break–and certainly no ‘leave’ to speak of.
When he got off the boat in San Francisco in autumn of 1945, there was no parade or even welcome to speak of–all the celebrating had happened in the Summer after Germany had surrendered. Because by that point, Americans were mostly just exhausted and anxious to get on with life.
Here’s this poor kid at the dock, 23 years old, who volunteered because he was told that by not waiting a year to be drafted he’d get ‘better duty’. It’s 72 degrees, but he’s bundled up in a winter coat because he’s been living in a 100 degree jungle for four years and now he’s absolutely freezing.
So on the train back to his home base in Wisconsin, he got so disgusted he simply tossed everything except the clothes on his back out the window. In his view, yeah we won the war, but personally, it was no great ‘victory’. He felt unappreciated for all he had endured and to some degree that resentment probably never went away.
And I don’t blame him one bit. Frankly, he could be a distant guy. But knowing what I know now–things that he could never say? Just thinking about his story makes me choke up.
To one degree or another every person who serves comes back a different person. Going in, you never know what sacrifices you’ll be asked to make for your country–and that uncertainty must, in itself, be a weight.
If you or a loved one has served in the U.S. Military I want to thank you, most profoundly. May you always feel fully appreciated for your service to this nation.
Right now, people in Des Moines have divided opinions about most everything. But one thing I know we all agree on: gratitude and support for all Veterans.
Back in November, Mayor Pina and Deputy Mayor Mahoney gave a presentation to the Des Moines Marina Association and it’s worth thinking about. I get comments sometimes complaining that all I do is bitch about picayune stuff like parliamentary procedure saying basically “Let’s talk about something real, Dude!” Well, this is as real as it gets. In this video, the Mayor/Deputy Mayor tag team on pretty much every current item on the City’s plate.Where they think we are and where they want us to go. I’m posting this again because it’s time to start talking about where I think they get it right and where I think we need to change direction. Thanks again to the DMMA for recording this.
Part I
By way of intro, I want to being by saying that this whole series will be about responsibility. I’m going to make the case that the progress (or lack thereof) is intentional. If you like the way the City is going, my colleagues in the majority deserve all the credit. If not, then those policies should be changed. What I do not accept is the notion that so much of our fate is out of our hands.
For years I’ve heard endless talk about how “There’s nothing we can do about the airport. There’s nothing we can do about the downtown. There’s nothing we can do about property crime.” Pick a thorny issue. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Their argument is that the set of things the City can actually do something about is quite limited. So stop complaining and focus on the much smaller domain of things we can accomplish.
Grading on a curve
That is the primary reason I ran for City Council, because I know that much of that is untrue. What I will argue is that we have a far greater set of options and capabilities. We may choose not to tackle the big problems because they’re hard or controversial, but that is a choice, not fate. So when the current management says we’re doing great, recognize that those much tougher problems aren’t even part of their calculus. Sort of like your kid bringing home all A’s–which sounds great until you find out that they’re ‘grading on a curve’. You have to compare how Des Moines is doing relative to other Cities; not to how we may have done in the past.
Sometimes, angry residents will say unkind things about my colleagues like, “Why don’t those guys ever tell us what they would do!” And I gotta say in my colleagues’ defense: Look around! They’re actually doing it! In other words, just examine the City as it is. That is the story of current management. They don’t need to blather away like me because they’re accomplishing their agenda. For them, the way the City is running now speaks for itself. Again: if you like the way certain things are going, then my colleagues deserve serious applause. If not, they deserve criticism for those specifics. But what I will not accept is that “I’m always doing as good as I can do, Dad.” Good, bad or indifferent, I don’t believe in grading our City on a curve.
Yeah, late. Again. I’m soooooorry. I had intended to do a piece on Code Enforcement but the Federal election got me thinking about the parallels with Des Moines and unlike most weeks, where I just whip something off in an hour, I actually spent some time choosing my words fairly carefully. 😀
This Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle regular Commission Meeting (Agenda) This meeting finalizes the 2021 Tax Levy. Their Budget proposes to increase this item on your taxes by 3%, which I find outrageous given the pandemic.
Wednesday: have lunch with me at the Senior Center. Get an EATS voucher!
Thursday: Environmental Committee Meeting. The single item will be a Storm Water Comprehensive Plan Update presentation, which I am quite interested in given the various infra-structure problems we’ve had over the past year.
Wednesday: Puget Sound Regional Council Economic Development District Board
Wednesday: have lunch with me at the Senior Center. Get an EATS voucher!
Thursday: Indoor Air Quality Study with Tina Orwall. It’s finally getting off the ground!
Thursday: Public Safety Committee Meeting (Agenda). I wish y’all would attend these. This particular meeting hit my hot spots with really informative presentations from our new Animal Control Officer and our Code Enforcement Officer Kory Batterman. Please read!
Friday: Airport Summit organized by State Rep. Tina Orwall. This included activists and electeds from the Sea-Tac as well as East Boston (Logan Airport.) Just to give you a reminder of what we’re dealing with, have a look at this environmental risk map of the area. Notice how Des Moines is the worst? The problem is that civic leaders have traditionally ignored these problems-maybe out of ignorance, or fear of scaring people off or just feeling powerless to do anything. But whether it’s in our job description or not, I feel like your City Council must do more and I am proud to see our State legislators: Orwall, Johnson and Keiser taking it up.
PTSD
For me, this week has been an eerie flash back to my own microscopically tinier election last year. Representative Adam Smith once gave me a piece of advice. He said, it should take you as much work to get elected to City Council as it does to Congress. He wasn’t just whistling Dixie. 😀
Like the President-Elect, I also did not have anything to rejoice about on election night. The race was very close and I didn’t feel comfortable in declaring (cough) ‘victory’ for several days. And then there was the small matter that, like Mr. Biden, I also knew that I was heading into very divided government.
As you know, the Federal government, has all kinds of built-ins that force the majority to take the minority’s ideas seriously. A major component of our Constitution is to make sure that the majority cannot run the table.
But City government is not like the Federal government. There is no built-in ‘gridlock’ because our form of Council/Manager government is more of a parliamentary system (like Great Britain). If you attain four loyal votes on our Council, you have the ability to run the table. There are no built-in protections for the minority voice. The only ‘rights’ the minority position has are based on all those ‘social norms’ you’ve heard so much about over the past four years in the other Washington.
How do you feel?
Love him or hate him, the fascinating thing about Joe Biden is that despite the evidence of his own eyes he actually still believes in compromise. He gets scorned by people on both sides of the aisle for either being terribly naive about that or for being willing to compromise where he shouldn’t.
So the question I have today is: do you really believe in ‘democracy’ like that? Because if you do, you have to be willing to accept really crappy outcomes sometimes. Sometimes that is all that is possible in a system where the minority has a voice. But if you really don’t care about compromise you need to either win all the seats or engage in dodgy ethics. And since neither side has a hope in hell of doing the former, there is always the strong temptation to do the latter. After all, you want to get things done, right? Ends justifying the means and all that.
The thing I increasingly hear from both sides of the political spectrum is that there is a lot of appeal to this. The situation is so dire now that they just want to get things done.
(Boy howdy, do I feel ya on that one. There are issues where I’m like “Tick tock! We’re running out of time!” If only I could become Emperor. Just for a day. Is that too much to ask? 😀 )
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
With regard to national issues, Des Moines is divided just like the rest of America. But unlike much of the country, DM has a pretty amazing cross-section of America–all in one small town. We’ve got it all here. (I think I’m fairly qualified to make with this half-baked punditry because I have talked to so many of you.)
So when thinking about local issues, the question I always come back to is, “How much do you care about good government?”
See, President-Elect Biden is about to walk into a wall of gridlock. And it’s that desire to ‘get things done’ that makes every President behave more unilaterally than the one before. Speaking truthfully, Mr. Biden will be sorely tempted to use exactly the hardball tactics that Democrats have complained about.
But ironically, that gridlock is something I kinda envy here in Des Moines–I wish the minority here had more of a say in our City government.
Government is government
What I object to here in Des Moines is that the current majority has engaged in exactly the tactics so many of us despise about the Federal government. Over time, they’ve changed Council rules and enabled a miserable level of *stonewalling from the administration. They play hardball.
Which just means that government is government. The issues of ethics, transparency and power are the same at all levels. And my watching Des Moines over the past twenty five years tells me that sooner or later, those issues always come back to bite.
But as I wondered before, maybe you don’t care about all them high-falutin’ ‘ethics’. Maybe just care about “getting ‘er done.” If so, I am so screwed. 😀
So one big question I’ll be interested in next year is whether or not voters will care. I hope you will–even though you may be more interested in more day to day issues like roads or public safety.
Civics Shmivics
Despite the tone of this article, I want to make it clear that I do not wake up every morning brimming with zeal for GOOD GOVERNMENT! 😀
I figured out a long time ago that we’d have to work on some of that stuff first before we could ever have a chance to work on the more practical things I think you do care about: economic development, programs for the south end, a decent strategy for dealing with the airport (to name a few.)
There’s simply no way to get any of the things done that you told me you care about so long as there is no willingness to compromise or even engage other ideas.
In the meanwhile, I have a piece of unasked for advice: Try giving Mr. Biden a bit of a honeymoon (at least until the first major screw-up. 😀 ) He wasn’t my first choice either. But if we’re gonna recover from 2020, it’s gonna take each of us showing some willingness to bend a little.
Trust me, it sucks coming into a new position and running into a brick wall. 😉
*Just one example from this week’s meeting. We are being asked to vote for the Human Services Budget Funding this week on our Consent Agenda. The Consent Agenda, if you recall, is a list of items considered so routine as to require no debate. So ahead of the meeting, I did as I usually do, I asked for background information on the twenty two various programs–pretty basic, right? Here is the only reply I received from the City:
The Human Services Committee will be presenting their recommendations to Council this Thursday
It will be a cold day in hell before I ever vote to approve twenty two grants on the spot, with no background information. Shame on the City for failing to provide a Councilmember with background information. And shame on any Councilmember who approves of this refusal to comply with a basic request for information.
In 2010 I moved away for a year and rented out my house here. Now back then, in order to rent out yer house, the City required aspiring landlords to do a few things: you paid an $80 fee and you became part of a database with your current address and phone number so that the police could contact you if your renters were misbehaving. You also had to take a class run by Community Service Officer Tonya Seaberry (which was great by the way.) The class taught all kinds of neat-o stuff like how not to discriminate, your relationship with renters, etc. Sweet.
In 2011, I moved back and shortly thereafter I found that several of my neighbors had flipped their houses (as was so popular back then.) And the new owners were using their homes as rental properties. Unfortunately, the renters who had moved into these houses just suuuuucked. I mean suuuuucked. So I went to the City, because I knew from my ‘landlord class’ that we had a Code Enforcement Officer. And she told me that since my time away the City had rescinded a whole bunch of the code. The class was now optional. And most importantly: no database. Which meant no accountability.
What I learned first hand is that when landlords cannot be easily held accountable for their renters, chaos tends to ensue. The City’s Code at the time made it almost impossible for people like me to locate the landlords of these bad renters (because, let’s be honest: a lot of these landlords did not and do not particularly want to be found.)
And I did call the City. And SKFR. Many times. They were on a first-name basis with all the ne’er do-well renters. They were sympathetic to my problems, but told me plainly that there was nothing they could do ‘until a crime is committed.’ The City Code was not designed to deal pro-actively with these kinds of situations.
So after many months of frustration I walked up the hill to City Hall on a Thursday night at 7pm and made my first public comment. And the Council just stared at me. (Just like they stare at you.) Which totally pissed me off. So I kept coming back. And kept getting stared at. But in the meantime, I found that the City had been threatened with a lawsuit from the Rental Housing Association–a group I had joined in order to be a ‘good landlord’. They objected to any form of ‘regulation’ on landlords and rather than litigate the City caved. I won’t go into more detail than that, but the whole thing is what started to sour me on Des Moines government. My issue seemed like exactly the sort of basic ‘blocking and tackling’ that City government should handle: keeping your street safe, clean and quiet.
Plus, since we were in the dark times of Des Moines financial problems, the Code Enforcement program was gutted–which I thought was just a terrible policy choice given the fact that we also cutting police officers. That sent a very clear message about values.
The net effect of this on me personally and my street was this: Three of my long-time neighbors moved away–specifically because of these jerk renters. One of the rental homes was burned down to the studs by the renter. And another home was completely trashed by a meth-head who would store thousands of pounds of stolen wire in his back yard. Because stealing copper was his day job. All it to0k was two crappy renters (or should I say, crappy landlords) to devastate my street. A street with half a dozen school-age kids.
To his credit, a few years later, at the end of his mayoralty, I got a nice letter from Dave Kaplan, informing me that the City had taken my complaints to heart and was revamping its Code Enforcement program. As you can imagine, I was initially very skeptical.
I’ve got a nose for it…
Fast forward to 2020. I am pleased to report that the situation is much better.
Because of my bad experience, I had developed something of a ‘bad property radar’. I can spot troubled properties from far away. And during my campaign, I walked every single block of Des Moines. And I heard hundreds of complaints about ‘that one house’ that makes the entire block nervous. And. I. get. it.
The City now has a full-time Code Enforcement officer–who literally pays for himself. It’s still not where I’d like it to be, but it’s great progress and I will keep pushing for even more emphasis on Code Enforcement.
The thing that is not on the presentation Officer Batterman gave was a very good comment from Chief Thomas: Code Enforcement pays. If done properly, it should basically pay for itself. You can see that it’s at least $100k a year in City revenue when done well. That’s not a bad thing like some speed trap. It’s a good way to measure effectiveness simply because there’s a lot of work left to do in Des Moines.
Now, am I 100% happy? Of course not. 😀 But I gotta be fair. It’s much better than it was. And I want you to know that, on a street by street level this is my number one issue. I moved here because Des Moines had a great reputation for its neighborhoods. Gardens were well tended. People understood that the way their house and street looked mattered.
If you have a Code Enforcement issue, please go to the City Code Enforcement Complaint page or call Officer Kory Batterman directly at (206) 870-7617.
November 2021: Yeah, forget all that…
This year we’re going to set a record for Code Enforcement income, nearly doubling previous years.
And yet? I am not exactly dancing for joy. Because the thing is: well-functioning cities do not need a lot of Code Enforcement (or police for that matter.) When a neighbourhood is doing well, it generally does self-regulate. My predecessors were not entirely wrong.
So when the City makes a ton of money on Code Enforcement it’s a sign that the government needs to pay attention to.
The real problem I had a decade ago was not a lack of Code Enforcement, it was the fact that the property owner didn’t give a damn and the City felt it could not hold landlords to account. The lack of Code Enforcement was just a bonus.
One of the most maddening things I remember about my earliest City Council Meetings was that at every frickin’ meeting at least one CM would say something about ‘property rights!’ We must protect property rights! And I was like, “What about our right to be safe from these morons living across the street?” But they felt very strongly that, if there was trouble, your neighbours should (somehow) be able to work it out. It was a lovely idea. But it was so out of touch with my reality I didn’t know what to think.
OK, now we have better Code Enforcement, great. We also have an uptick in crime. I’m not saying there is any direct correlation. But the pandemic, all the home sales, all eviction fears and the concerns about a shortage of police feels eerily similar to me in some ways to 2008.
So I just want to leave you with something I realised as I doorbelled: you can often tell that something is wrong on your street. I certainly could. I’d go to one house: normal. I’d go to the next door and, woah… something is not right. Not sure what, but something. You probably can too.
Again, you should report it. And if you’d do me a favour, please contact me with how things go. Because here’s the thing: the City Council does not generally get cc’d on Code Enforcement complaints. So we often do not hear about your issue. But if you cc me (or any councilmember), then the City is required to keep us in the loop on that specific complaint. And I want to know how we’re doing on this. Good, bad, indifferent.
In 2021, both problem houses on my street are now occupied by young families who are invested in the community. They put up elaborate Halloween displays and go out of their way to let everyone know when they’re going to be away. They’re great.
I think what made the difference is that these new owners see their property as a home and not as just an investment. Code Enforcement can’t do anything about that. But Code Enforcement does send a good message to the rest of the street: the City understands the value of holding every property owner accountable.
PSA #1: I’ve made a few tweaks to the web site. Most noticeably that you can now Search for stuff.
PSA #2: You may have heard that there is an election on November 3rd and I encourage you to vote (the nearest Ballot Box is at Highline College.) However I have a comment to make regarding November 4th. Here it is: If by some evil trick of fate your candidate does not win I want to assure you of one thing:
If your candidate doesn’t win? Relax. Get a good night’s sleep. Eat a hearty breakfast. And get back to work.
This Week
Wednesday: Puget Sound Regional Council Economic Development District Board
Wednesday: have lunch with me at the Senior Center. Get an EATS voucher!
Tuesday: Port of Seattle regular Commission Meeting (Agenda) This meeting presented the 2021 Tax Levy. Their Budget proposes to increase this item on your taxes by 3%, which I find outrageous given the pandemic.
Wednesday: I did not lunch at the Senior Center! 😀
Wednesday: Sea-Tac Airport Stakeholder Advisory Round Table (StART) Meeting (Agenda): The discussion included the 2020 Legislative Agenda. Recognizing that this is also the Port’s agenda, it is timid. If you care about airport issues I always feel like I should encourage you to sign up for this.
Thursday: Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) General Assembly (Agenda). If it were any other week, I would have a lot to say about this as they approved their ‘Vision 2050’. Let’s just say that it’s not my vision for Des Moines in 2050. Much more. Soon.
1974
I was all jazzed to start talking about some of the broad regional issues that never get talked about. But let’s face it: no one gives a crap about anything except the Presidential election right now.
Now that’s democracy…
I came to America in February 1974 from leeeetle tiny village on the west coast of Ireland–and we was country, baby. But the second biggest story of that year was when Richard Nixon resigned in August.
The thing that Americans don’t ‘get’ is that, while you thought of it as something of a crisis, for us ‘foreigners’, 1974 was a high watermark in the history of democracy. In 1974, the system worked. Legislators on both sides of the aisle agreed that something was wrong and were willing to put aside their various disagreements and tackle the obvious problem of corruption.
There’s also this: the guy left voluntarily. He wasn’t removed. He understood that his continued position would be chaotic for the country. Ironically, that was pretty darned patriotic if you think about it. My people back home marveled at this. That sort of orderly housekeeping never happens in most of the world.
But that’s not even the best part. Because except for that eensy, weensy detail of being a crook, Nixon was arguably one of the more effective Presidents in American history. He had a gazillion bi-partisan policy achievements that we take for granted today (Clean water, Clean air, EPA.) The list is off the hook.
So I matured into a very deep belief in ‘the system’ of America. I saw it work–ironically, even when it seemed most broken.
What happened?
The current level of politics is somewhat less elevated, of course. And that includes Des Moines. Now I’m not saying or even implying that 2020 in Des Moines is the same as 1974 in Washington D.C. But things could definitely be better. And my hope is that we can think about ways to improve politics in Des Moines, not just in that other Washington. Because the same ongoing political challenges there are also at play here. We tend not to notice it because, as I keep yammering on about, people in friendly small towns don’t like to think of themselves as engaging in anything as nasty as ‘politics’. Right? 😀
The FOCs
The big problem for Des Moines politics, as with so many small towns, is that civic engagement keeps getting weaker. We’ve traditionally had a very small group of people who are engaged in what’s going on and this tends to feed on itself. The same people are everywhere and involved in everything. And over time that small gene pool of engaged people tends to only get smaller. And as you learned in high school biology, if you don’t have a big enough gene pool eventually you start running into problems. 😀
I refer to this set of engaged people as ‘Friends Of The City’ (FOCs). These are the people who are somehow connected with the City either by blood or work or some group affiliation. I use this term because these relationships are friendly and effective and I am grateful for everything that everyone contributes because, frankly, the City wouldn’t run otherwise.
(I feel a need to emphasize that I am not, not, NOT using FOC as a pejorative. All I’m going to be arguing is that, despite good intentions, there is also a dark side. Some of my best friends are FOCs. 😀 )
I don’t want to upset you…
First off, friends don’t like to create tension. Even when you know there are problems in the City, you figure that the way to change things is with a friendly visit. Or a phone call. In this view of small town government, there’s rarely a need for confrontation or disagreement–and definitely not in public. (Watching friends argue in public is totally cringe-y, right?) So after a while, people even forget how to disagree. Disagreement itself becomes impolite–something to be avoided at all costs.
However disagreement and open debate is what democracy is all about. Government only works with competing ideas and full access to information. But when the only ‘influencers’ are people who are connected by blood, friendship or financial ties it makes it almost impossible to be objective, let alone speak truth to power.
Then there’s the issue of risk. Anyone who is on a committee they value or who has a contract with the City or gets some form of grant is simply less likely to want to say something critical. That relationship makes you self-censor. Paradoxically, it’s these people who often have information about something not great going on in the City.
And probably worst of all there’s denial: Most of us simply refuse to acknowledge that we are influenced by this arrangement. (How dare you suggest that I might allow my relationship with the City to colour my… <whatever>!) Conflicts of interest that we would instantly spot in others we refuse to see in ourselves. That’s called Human Nature.
Unfortunately, FOCs are also the people most likely to run for City Council, serve on committees, which only further increases the likelihood that the City will keep moving in the same direction.
He had so much potential
Speaking of that direction… During my campaign a very popular question was, “Why hasn’t Des Moines lived up to its ‘potential’?” (The ‘why aren’t we more like Edmonds’ question.) The funny thing is that people ask it in a rhetorical way–they don’t expect a real answer. But there is a real answer and the answer is that, over the decades, our City’s leadership has made Des Moines what it is. Now, if you think you have a good idea of where things are heading and are happy? Great. But if you aren’t happy (or more likely have no idea where the City is going), the good news is that, we can change trajectory. Either way, understand that it is a choice.
And the choices the FOCs tend to make have overwhelmingly been focused on the short term. That’s a problem for most small cities. All the incentives tend to point towards leaving all the ‘big picture’ stuff to someone else (like a developer or some other much larger agency like King County.) And again, with so few people ‘in the know’, there is not a great likelihood that a large group of residents can get organized to steer the boat in a different direction.
What to do…
I know one thing for sure: the City has a role to play in reversing this. At the risk of annoying some of you, let’s call it ‘civic affirmative action’. (I can be so annoying, I know. 😀 ) But that’s what it is. I see two broad areas that the City needs to address in order to strengthen local government and get Des Moines pointing more towards its long term ‘potential’.
Increase engagement
First of all, the traditional model where residents join some committee or a group like the Rotary no longer works for most people. (Most young people don’t even know what a Kiwanis or Rotary does.) So people don’t see a way into the system of local government. As I’ve written here many times, virtually none of the City’s Advisory Committees are even functional due to lack of participation. So we desperately need to find ways to introduce people into what it’s like to work with ‘the system’. And the City is the only vehicle with the resources to do that.
Increase awareness
We have no newspaper. Without a newspaper there’s no way for most of you to gain an objective understanding of what is going on. Again: the information you get from any government is biased. I’ll keep hammering on this for as long as I’m doing this: our City government is no different from a State or Federal government. We put out press releases. We don’t tell the whole story. Not by a country mile. And people who work for our government should have no problem with this paragraph, because it’s just the truth.
Twenty years ago we had the same issues of FOCs as we have today. But at least back then, you’d see the occasional piece of investigative journalism and that kept things in check. Today? If there was the same kind of corruption in Des Moines we had less *than twenty years ago, I doubt you’d even hear about it.
So to protect democracy (and I’m not being hyperbolic here) the City needs to reach out to a wider group of people, both to inform them and also to increase the public’s involvement in civic life.
On the other hand…
Of course, providing more information and reaching out to a wider group of residents runs contrary to the interests of many of the FOCs. To a certain portion of the City, things are going along just peachy and all the points I’m raising are at a minimum silly or perhaps even harmful to the positive image the City wants to always portray.
And of course, ethics and transparency are rarely big winners at the local level because, as I keep saying, local government tends to be about tangible stuff like roads and schools and having a cop around when you need one. Unless there’s some dramatic level of corruption (like Nixon or what we had here twenty years ago), a lot of people don’t care too much. For many voters ‘ethics’ is kinda like getting more fiber in yer diet–it’s a nice goal, but not exactly a must have.
Darn that other Washington!
The whole national situation has completely sucked the oxygen out of any attempts I’ve made to get more people to pay attention to City politics. And that’s a shame because, for most of us, what happens at City Council has more of a direct impact on your life than what happens in Washington D.C.
But if you’re, like me, in it for the long run, you also should care about those issues here in Des Moines. We may disagree as to who made the swamp and whose draining it (or backing up the truck to add to the landfill). But the fact is that the same issues that plague national politics are also a challenge right here. Government is government.
Summary
It’s my contention that the reason Des Moines hasn’t lived up to its potential is at least partially for the same reasons the Federal government doesn’t: the number of people actually involved in the system keeps shrinking. (Ironically, many people voted for Donald Trump precisely for this reason.) Regardless of your preferred candidate, do you really believe either of those two clowns are the best we could come up with out of 328 million Americans? I don’t think that and I doubt that most of you do either.
Similarly, the only way Des Moines gets where it oughta go is by broadening the gene pool beyond the same batch of FOCs. And with your help, I hope to get the City working on that in the next few years. The irony, of course, is that we will also need some help from those same FOCs.
