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Airport, Economic Development, Policy, Public Safety, Weekly Updates

Port Of Seattle, Redondo, Sea-Tac Airport, Senior Center, VSWAT

Weekly Update: 06/14/2020

This Week

Monday: Sound Cities Association meeting on helping businesses to re-open.

Tuesday: SCATbd Meeting. The cuts to King County Metro are looking to be pretty massive in the next two years. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Zoom link yet so check their web site if you want to comment. The drag is that this is exactly the moment we should be increasing transit options.

Tuesday: Burien Airport Committee Meeting (BAC). If you’re concerned about the noise and pollution, I urge you to attend this Zoom meeting. The problem we always have in managing Sea-Tac Airport is reactivity historically we only respond to their growth. The BAC is one of the only places where there is ongoing work to change that.

Wednesday: Come have lunch with me at the Senior Center. Get an EATS voucher!

Wednesday: Reach Out Des Moines. Over the past several years the group has made major improvements in attendance at our schools as well as juvenile crime reduction.

Last Week

Not one, but two web meeting with Southside Seattle Chamber Of Commerce on small business grants in Des Moines. There has been a bunch of talk on how to get more emergency aid to local businesses. There is help on the way. I know it’s taking forever, but a big part of this is that it’s right in the State Constitution that governments are not supposed to give ‘public gifts’ to private businesses (think of the possibilities for corruption.) That’s why grants almost always come with lots of strings attached. How do you do it fairly? Just give xxx dollars to every licensed business regardless of size? Do you make an application process based on ‘need’? How do you define that? The system just ain’t set up to do this quickly.

Tuesday: Port Of Seattle General Meeting. Speaking of grants, after two years, the commissioners finally voted to approve the South King County Fund–a program that was originally proposed to provide money for mitigation programs (noise and pollution). But in this? It was the cities who could not even agree on what they wanted to do. They kept pushing back saying, “We want sidewalks!” or “Parks!”. This is the maddening part of dealing with the impacts from Sea-Tac Airport. Even when the Port tries to do the right thing, the Cities can’t agree. Anyhoo… expect to see more Port grants to cities–but not more relief on noise or pollution.

Wednesday: Come have lunch with me at the Senior Center. Get an EATS voucher!

Thursday: City Council General Meeting (see recap below). (Agenda) (Video).

Meeting Recap

For openers, here is the coverage of the meeting in the Waterland Blog. And I have a question for you, Dear Reader. When I read their coverage I always wonder, “Is this the average viewer’s takeaway?” So, I’d be interested to get feedback from you as to what you think of their coverage. I obviously address what I consider most important, but I want to occasionally check in and make sure I’m also talking about what you care about.

The ever-expanding Consent Agenda

I’ve gotten a number of questions recently about how meetings work. There is a lot more confusion than usual because of (once again) that darned Consent Agenda. Remember: a Consent Agenda is a straight up or down vote on items that are supposed to be routine.

Now between all the kerfuffle in January and February in bringing on us noob councilmembers, Vic Pennington resigning and then being replaced by Luisa Bangs and now this pesky Pandemic, we’re five months behind schedule. So what we’re doing is cramming most definitely non-routine items onto the Consent Agenda. (and pretending like they’re routine.) Why? Because under our ‘State Of Emergency’ we’re not allowed to do much ‘new business’. So we re-brand new business as ‘routine’. Got all that? 😀

If it weren’t for COVID-19, we’d see a lot more discussion on many items. But even I, ‘the complainer’ am eager to move things along. You simply have to keep City busines moving. *So I’m actually being a lot more ‘go along’ than I would be if it weren’t a pandemic kind of world.

Sustained Airport Master Plan (SAMP)

The SAMP is one of those things the public isn’t engaged on and at some point I need to do an ‘explainer’ because like I keep saying, the airport is the single external threat to our city’s long term success. But not today. 😀

For now, the deal is that we have this Inter-Local Agreement (ILA) between Des Moines, Burien, SeaTac and Normandy Park to hire a shared team of consultants to help represent us on the possible environmental impacts of the impending expansion of the airport. SeaTac was administering that contract. We simply voted to transfer that bookkeeping function to DM. My motion was tangential. I just snuck in an opportunity to find out from our City Manager (CM) where things stand.

See the thing is: remember that the CM is the executive. So when there is official dialogue between the cities, it’s generally the City Managers doing it. So we’re in this weird parallel universe, where a small number of councilmembers who care about the issue do the day to day research and work with lawmakers. But it’s the City Managers who do the formal negotiating with the FAA or Port. It’s totally cockamamie. But that’s just the deal until the City Councils decide to take this more seriously.

Basically, the dais is the one place where I am guaranteed at least some kind of cooperation from the government. Which sucks for Des Moines. But, again, that’s an explainer for another day. 😀

Valley SWAT (VSWAT)

I tried (unsuccessfully) to delay this vote to formally join VSWAT until the next meeting because the City provided no stats as to the number of incidents or what they were about, cost per incident, or even the difference between ‘joining’ and not joining. There was not even a statement of the effects of not approving the motion (as is typical in most packets.) Yes, the Chief spoke to anecdotes (thank you, that’s helpful). But like I always say, I won’t vote for anything without data.

The funny thing is that this was a golden opportunity to address issues of proper use of force. Presenting some real stats as to the benefits of VSWAT would have allayed some valid concerns from the public. In fact, the very first purpose laid out in the mission statement in the packet was ‘crowd control’. If that ain’t bad timing, I dunno what is. And I think that was worth two weeks sending a message saying, “When you want something? Bring data. Thanks very much.”

I want a culture of data in decision-making. I want reports. You know: those things with numbers on them? That goes for all departments, but especially with policing where the public has concerns. Facts are the best remedy to public skepticism.

My public comment

COVID-19

We really need to mask up. Every State that has re-opened is showing a lot more cases. I try being patient with people who hate wearing masks, but I’m losing patience. We in Des Moines are super-vulnerable due to our senior citizen populations living in such concentration. So it’s my strong feeling that we need to be conservative in our approach and I ask for your help.

George Floyd

As I mentioned above with the VSWAT, we need more information on police activities. Yes, we’re a relatively small city, but we have the ability, right now, to make significant improvements in policing while spending almost nothing. The problem is that the entire conversation has (like all issues, right?) instantly become ‘all or nothing’. If you ask for more data, people immediately get defensive and accuse you of being ‘soft on crime’. It’s about transparency. You don’t have to choose. What’s telling to me in this moment is how many people are willing to talk about everything except: increasing basic accountability.

For example, all the studies show that something as trivial as having a Customer Comment form on the web site works. Just asking the public to submit comments on policing makes a difference.

And publishing complaint data also makes a big difference. Knowing that there were ‘x’ complaints every month (and what type) and having a clear and public policy makes a difference.

Finally, it’s telling that any sort of civilian oversight is not even in the discussion–even thought that has been shown to be the single most effective way to reduce police complaints. Not cameras, not town halls or changes in use of force procedures; just being more transparent. Here is a good article from MIT describing why so many high dollar interventions haven’t worked.

Redondo

Redondo. It was great to see a new resident: Karen Steinhaus and lifetime resident: Rick Johnson, both comment on problems at Redondo. It’s time that the City recognize that the noise and speeding have become chronic and come up with some long-term solutions. Redondo will only continue to grow in importance to the city so we must figure this out. I applaud their efforts to organize residents and help the City figure it out.

*On the other hand: Our meeting still clocked in at a sprinty 1:45, which is much faster than meetings in other cities. So maybe I’m going along a little too much? Who knows. I’m new on the job. 🙂

Airport, Economic Development, Policy, Public Safety, Weekly Updates

Port Of Seattle, Sea-Tac Airport, Senior Center

Weekly Update: 06/07/2020

This Week

Web meeting with Southside Seattle Chamber Of Commerce on small business grants in Des Moines. (See Last Week below).

Tuesday: Port Of Seattle General Meeting. A final vote to proceed with their long-term plan ‘Century Agenda’; a long term blueprint for growth. What I asked them to consider is that they hold off since there is no reasonable way to plan for either air or cruise travel until the dust settles. (The same was true after 9/11–it took Sea-Tac Airport nearly a decade to return to 2001 levels of operations–even with a shiny new third runway.)

Wednesday: Come have lunch with me at the Senior Center. Get an EATS voucher!

Thursday: City Council General Meeting (see recap below). (Agenda)

Last Week

Tuesday: Southside Seattle Chamber Of Commerce Web Meeting. Attended by City Of Des Moines Economic Planner Eric Lane, King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove and Connor Talbott of the Des Moines/Normandy Park Rotary Club. The talk was the nuts and bolts of doing small business grants. There was also a very good discussion on the last mile–getting business owners engaged with translation and form-filling help as needed. Here is an example of how unincorporate King County is doing it.

Tuesday: Attended protest for George Floyd (more below).

Wednesday: Lunch at Senior Center. Got another EATS certificate. Woo hoo!

Wednesday: MRSC meeting on legislative updates and how the upcoming Special Session might affect Des Moines.

Friday: I had a meeting with long-time friend and restaurant management consultant Mat Mandeltort. Mat is something of a polymath: lawyer, MBA and for many years, a professional fine-dining chef. He is a restaurant management consulting in Chicago. He has generously offered to put together a program for restaurants in Des Moines to help them profitably adapt to the new post-COVID-19 reality. If you, or someone you know, runs a restaurant in Des Moines, please contact me. The systems he comes up are most beneficial for restaurants that work together, so the more owners that participate, the more money they will all benefit. Here are a couple of examples showing off the quality of his work:

Datassential Restaurant Analysis for Coronavirus

Black sheep restaurants COVID-19 operating procedures

1500 words about George Floyd

There is just to much to say about this issue to cram in here so I wrote a separate article which contains a very simple proposal which I believe would improve police accountability here in Des Moines.

*Unlike most posts I write, I did not crank this out in an hour. I considered what I wrote quite carefully. Even so, my concern is that, because it’s a long piece, people will not actually read the thing and just cherry pick the items they agree or disagree with. But as the kids say… what…. ehveeeeehr.

What can Des Moines learn from George Floyd?

*I just did something writing teachers tell you is completely weaselly, but… I did it anyway. Namely trying to shame you into reading something difficult because I’m afraid that otherwise you’ll just skim. Jerk move, right?

Policy, Public Safety

Race

What can Des Moines learn from George Floyd?

6 Comments

I’m in the not unusual position of being a white guy in a black family. So I’ve been an unwitting participant in a decades long sociology experiment. I’ve gotten to see how I get treated differently from my family members in all sorts of shared situations.

Unfortunately, that also applies to dealings with the police. I have male family members and friends who’ve been stopped for no particularly good reason in Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and yes, many years ago, *Des Moines. And I’ve been in the car when that has happened. My takeaway? If you’re a black person (and especially a black man), sooner or later, you should expect to be stopped.

The complaints you don’t hear about

During my campaign I knocked on a whole bunch of doors and I heard big support for our police department, for which they should be justifiably proud. But I also heard complaints. Most of the complaints are, as you might expect, of the “there’s never a cop around when you need ’em” variety. But some of these complaints match up with my family’s bad experiences; enough to get my attention. And I think it’s easy to ignore those types of concerns because you never hear about them. For obvious reasons, people of color are often reluctant to file a complaint when they’ve been treated disrespectfully unless something truly horrible happens. They just do what my family has done: try to shake it off and move on.

About that statement…

Let me be clear: Chief Thomas’ statement last week was very good and I applaud the sentiments. I also believe that members of the DMPD and the Guild are on board. But my praise is more guarded than I would like and the reason goes to a partial solution I will present in a minute.

Said it before, say it again…

As I’ve written many times here, your City Council is not allowed to have direct contact with any City employee unless given express permission by the City Manager. And that includes the Chief Of Police and the City Attorney. They work for the City Manager, not the Council. All communication goes through the CM.

I rarely have contact with the Chief (or any staff for that matter). And unless it’s presented at a City Council meeting I don’t have access to all the policing data I would like. So I have no better idea than you do about the department’s performance on issues of race. Based on talking to the Chief a bit over the years, again, I assume they are good. †But I have no way to judge for myself. In fact I have less contact with him (and staff in general) now than before I was elected. I also have no more access to stats than the general public. And if I can’t see data and I can’t observe how people do their jobs? I will always have questions–especially when it comes to issues like this.

Please Note: Apparently the Mayor does routinely speak with the Chief and staff, but that is only because the City Manager allows it; not because the office of Mayor has any more legal authority than any other councilmember.) I keep coming back to this point of ‘mayoral privilege’ because most residents believe that the office of Mayor has some built-in special authority. It doesn’t. We are seven equals under the law. If there’s a difference? It’s only because the City Manager deigns it so.

The Current System

There is a State law (quoted below) which shields all staff (including the police) from ‘Council interference’. The rationale (which I agree with 100%) is to keep the Council from trying to manage the City–which is solely the job of the CM. You can’t have councilmembers bugging staff day in and day out or attempting to contravene the CM’s authority.

RCW 35A.13.120: 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.

However, all laws are subject to interpretations. And Des Moines has adopted one of the most extreme possible interpretations of that statute. We heavily restrict the ‘inquiry’ mentioned at the beginning of that sentence. In practical terms, this allows the City Manager and the police department to choose the information it provides to councilmembers. When a resident complains about something (like policing) a councilmember has no way to demand answers. They only get the answer that the CM or other staff choose to give them. And that’s bad for me as a councilmember and bad for you as a resident. In practical terms: when I hear concerns from residents (as I did during my campaign) I cannot dig deeper without first getting the permission of the CM and the Police Chief. That is the first thing that needs to change.

Where am I going with this?

The suggestions I’ve gotten from residents have included some rather dramatic changes: body cameras, creating a civilian review board, etc. Many cities have spent millions doing such things and still have problems. I believe that we should first try to catch problems a lot further upstream. Because by the time you get to the level of the incident, it’s often too late. In other words, what the George Floyd video tells me is that their entire department has a problem of culture, not a lack of rules or tech.

Proposal #1: Restore the right of inquiry

So my initial suggestion for Des Moines is a bit different. Let’s start by making a very simple, but very significant change to the City Code. Under specific circumstances, each councilmember should have the ability to speak with staff and freely gather information from the government, independent of the executive.

This ability would allow councilmembers to determine for themselves whether or not the culture is improving and then come together to craft policy as necessary. Frankly, this is a power that the public already thinks councilmembers have: independent inquiry. And in fact, legislators in most other jurisdictions do have this power.

Now this change in no way goes against the statute or infringes on the City Manager’s authority. In fact, inquiry is the first clause of that sentence. But somehow ‘inquiry’ has been dropped from that equation in our city. And the net effect is this: the Council has to take the Chief and the City Manager at their word on any issue or event because the City Manager controls access to all information the Council sees. This a specific and important example of the ‘lack of transparency’ I campaigned on.

Please note: As I write this: The City Manager and Police Chief informed Council that they are discussing a proposal to improve policing. In other words they will propose the solution for Council to approve. In my opinion, that is completely backwards and speaks directly to my concerns. To me, this discussion should begin with the City Council.

Proposal #2: Make complaining simple

The process for filing a complaint is difficult for a lot of people–probably the people most likely to need to file a complaint. As I mentioned, currently if a resident has a complaint about policing it initiates a process whereby no one outside the Police Department is even aware of the situation until it has been reviewed by the Police. There needs to be a system whereby we actually welcome and encourage honest feedback from the public, good or bad. And we need to reassure the public that if they do file a complaint that someone who is not with the Police will be able to at least see their issue–not to intervene directly, but to be aware.

Proposal #3: Provide Statistics

As I said, we currently provide no statistics on complaints. I don’t mean information on specific officers or classes of problems, I mean anything; not even a grand total for each year. This sort of basic data should be public information. If it is, as I suspect, a super-low number? All the better: we can then show the public how well we’re doing. If it rises because people start taking advantage of a better complaint system, then at least we know what we need to work on and we show the public that we’re sincere in those efforts.

A first step

I know that for some of you, my suggestions will seem a bit underwhelming. And at some point, other levels of oversight may well be necessary. But based on the studies I have read, transparency is always near the root of most problems of policing.

I think the calls for bigger solutions are largely because people are so frustrated at ‘nibbling around the edges’. They want to see something dramatic happen now. I get that. However my goal is always to do what works best based on the data and, again, the data tells me that improving transparency is key.

So first we should try just having the people you’ve already elected become more engaged in how policing is done. Let the City Council provide an additional level of investigation and oversight already present in statute.

Simply adding seven sets of eyes (who are not part of the government, remember) to monitor what is going on will send a powerful message to residents and police about our commitment to transparency and change. It will enable members of the public to come forward who have heretofore been reluctant to do so and it will allow the Council to identify problems before they migrate to the public.

Both things are true

Like most cities, our public safety constitutes almost half of the Des Moines general budget. That indicates just how important we all value policing. So any change that calls into question that department will create defensiveness, not just with the force, but also in the community. And that also explains why it’s easy to engage in endless platitudes but not take any real action.

I know that a certain portion of readers will react to this post as follows, “You don’t support the police!” That is simply untrue. And if you feel that way, my guess is that you have not experienced the type of incident I have.

Nobody appreciates the talent, hard work and courage our police demonstrate every day more than I do–as well as the tremendous stress that is intrinsic to the job. (If you recall, last month I asked for the City to support a National Holiday for First Responders.) These people are heroes and without their efforts, society isn’t even possible. And every member of my family feels exactly the same.

All of my family want the police department to understand that we simultaneously hold two thoughts in our heads and in our hearts. Some may say these are contradictory, but they are not.

I support you 100%.
It could happen here.

*Just to be clear: in this case, the officer worked for the Port Of Seattle.

†Yes, a Councilmember can do a one-off Ride-Along with an officer. Those are good things to do. But they are not the same thing as actual regular contact with management.

Airport, Economic Development, Policy, Public Safety, Weekly Updates

Port Of Seattle, Sea-Tac Airport, Senior Center, UW DEOHS

Weekly Update: 06/01/2020

2 Comments

This Week

It’s all very hush hush. Totally on the QT. Or is it on the down low? OK, maybe it’s just a slow week. So why not give me a call? (206) 878-0578.

Last Week

Tuesday: Port Of Seattle General Meeting. This is a biggee in that the Commission voted to proceed with their long-term plan ‘Century Agenda’ which is their long term blueprint for growth. What I asked them to consider is that they hold off since there is no reasonable way to plan for either air or cruise travel until the dust settles. (The same was true after 9/11–it took Sea-Tac Airport nearly a decade to return to 2001 levels of operations–even with a shiny new third runway.)

Wednesday: Highline Forum. I want to give a shout out to Councilmember Nancy Tosta of Burien and SeaTac City Manager Carl Cole for bringing up that same issue: Why all the hurry to press on with construction when the ‘demand’ will be low for the foreseeable future? Is there a way to maintain at least some of the current lower levels of noise and pollution? My hope is that electeds from all the airport communities will embrace this notion and work together. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Thursday: 30th Legislative District Call with Senator Claire Wilson, Rep. Mike Pellicciotti and Rep. Jesse Johnson. These are phone calls that any elected can get in on and they are generally just these three providing updates on what they’re doing and asking questions. I’m there mostly to listen and occasionally lobby. And I bring that up because a lot of what I do is lobbying–providing information for someone higher up the food chain about something in Des Moines. I’m not expecting them to ‘do’ anything in the moment because, as legislators, they’re in the same boat as I am–they can’t ‘do’ anything on their own. But if I bring up an issue and a bunch of other people bring up the same issue, then they can start to build a consensus. It’s a long game and it involves a ton of bowing and scraping, which I discuss in one of my fave rants How To Get What You Want From Elected Officials.

Thursday: City Council General Meeting (see recap below). (Agenda) (Video).

Friday: UW DEOHS Meeting. We’re having ongoing discussions on how to better monitor the air quality and noise around Sea-Tac Airport. I’ll keep repeating this because it’s always just unbelievable to so many people: There is no proper air quality monitoring around Sea-Tac Airport. Coming from Detroit as I did, and being used to working around factories where ‘monitoring’ is just standard operating procedure, this is just outrageous to me. Sea-Tac Airport is, by any measure, one of the worst polluters in the State of Washington. And what makes me speechless is the fact that so few electeds seem to care. In other words, because there is no ‘smokestack’ people seem to think it’s somehow ‘safer’. But Sea-Tac Airport generates noise and pollution just like any other factory and should be monitored just like any other factory.

Council Meeting Recap

We all gave ten second ‘congratulations’ speeches to graduating High School Seniors. Councilmember Buxton’s was especially good, IMO.

I also want to applaud Councilmember Bangs’ comments.

My new hero

In my comments, I kinda/sorta made two motions. The second was a finishing up of my motion to bring back city manager reports from our last meeting. It is 100% needed but will never pass with the current majority.

So… moving on to that first item. 😀 I gave a shout out to a resident I met at the Senior Center for lunch out back at the patio tables.

Background: ‘Mr. H.’ called me out for not practicing proper social distancing. He was 100% correct! And then, after I left, he got one of the workers to help him mark the tables so as to encourage proper distancing. Is this guy a great activist or what? But then, he went next level and called me to ask for additional patio tables (a long-standing request) to make up for the fact that we can now only safely have half as many people at each table. This is a man after my own heart!

So I asked from the dais to get the center more patio tables. And was politely shot down by our Mayor. He rightly pointed out that such requests should normally be handled as any other budget item.

However, like Mr. H. I also am an activist. And I’m also a fan of (occasionally) using petty cash to expedite the odd good deed. Mr. H. did a very good deed–he had the courage to mention social distancing (something we all should do) and then advocate for what he wanted. He deserved a favor. So I advocated for the guy. Shoot me. The Senior Center needs those tables. And a few hundred bucks ain’t gonna break the city.

Let’s be clear: that isn’t anyone’s ‘fault’. It’s just that a City has a gazillion things to do, so small items like this often just have to wait. Can’t be helped; even in the most efficient organization imaginable. So occasionally it’s good to stop for a sec and get one small thing taken care of. Not to make a habit of ‘budgeting from the dais’. It just makes people feel better about government writ large when they can actually see their efforts rewarded once in a while.

SR-509

I also made a totally pointless ‘no’ vote on the SR-509 expansion item. This vote was considered so ‘routine’ that it was placed on the Consent Agenda. But even though my protest was pointless, this is one of the most significant votes I will ever take.

SR-509 has been sold as a way to improve traffic through the area (the constant mess on Des Moines Memorial Drive, for example). But what it’s really about, what it has always been about is to make it easier for Sea-Tac Airport to move cargo onto I-5 and 167. That means more trucks on the road, but more significantly, it enables the airport to run waaaaaay more cargo flights–which primarily operate at night.

But the facts on SR-509 are that we are paying the State for the privilege of letting them run a road thru Des Moines that will bring us a small amount of one one-time money and a lot more noise and pollution forever. And if you really listen to the arguments it was all about how we are helping ‘the region’… not Des Moines. As if it’s our patriotic duty to help the rest of King County while we take it in the neck. There are no good arguments on the long term merits of this for Des Moines.

I will never vote for any legislation that enables more flights at Sea-Tac Airport. Any short term benefits just pale when compared to the ongoing damages to health and quality of life.

Engagement, Policy

How To Get What You Want From Elected Officials

2 Comments

I get at least two letters every week from residents where they ask me to do something. I give them the honest answer about getting their request fulfilled and… usually never hear from them again. And I can just feel their unhappiness with my reply (which I’ll share with you in a sec).

Darwinism

As I often write, a lot of my job is ‘bowing and scraping’. I have literally never begged and cajoled and nagged this much in my entire life. But that is just the deal for activists (and electeds). You’re not an executive. You can’t ‘do’ all that much on yer own. All you mainly do is try to convince other people to get on board and then they make things happen. And the person or group that is the most relentless and convincing, usually gets their way. That’s democracy. If you just write a public official once and then call it a day, you’re not even in the game. There is someone else out there who is calling or writing literally every day. Because that’s what it takes to win. It’s survival of the fittest.

And if that disappoints you, please believe me: I understand. And I’m sorry, but that’s just the dealio. It’s not nearly enough to have a good idea. Lots of people have really good ideas. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to listen to all the good ideas that need attention. So either your idea is something that your elected already cares about (lucky you) or you have to demonstrate that you want it. Real bad. 😀 A lot more than the other fifty people with their good ideas.

So when people write me with an idea, I usually write back something like,

“Great idea! OK, now here is what I need you to do to make that happen…”

And that right there immediately turns off the majority of people who contact me. Because I know they think their job is done simply by writing me. Au contraire, mon fre’er. 😀 That’s just the beginning.

I now have six other councilmembers to convince. Have you given me enough information to do that? Do your neighbors or fellow business owners support your idea? Maybe we need a petition to prove that. Do you have data to support your idea? Are you willing to help raise money?

See my point: your work has just begun. And if you’re not willing to do that work? Someone else in Des Moines is. And that’s why their idea gets done and yours doesn’t.

You want a speed bump? A sidewalk? A <whatever>? You gotta earn it. Nobody can do it for you. Now I could lie and write back, “Great idea! I’m on it!” But I assume that when you write me, you want the real answer. 😀

Council schmouncil. Wherever you see some road improvement or basically anything substantial in Des Moines, there’s a story where someone or some group worked their collective asses off to make it happen.

And now the good news

I’m not trying to curb anyone’s enthusiasm. Just the opposite, in fact! I live for activism. Which is why I’m giving you the skinny so you can actually succeed.

In short: the bar is really high to get anything done. But it is doable if you’re willing to put in the work. The real question is: are you willing to put in the work? If the answer is “You bet”, let’s get started. 🙂

Airport, Economic Development, Policy, Public Safety, Weekly Updates

COVID-19, Port Of Seattle, Reach Out Des Moines, SCATbd, Sea-Tac Airport, UW DEOHS

Weekly Update: 05/25/2020

This Week

Tuesday: Port Of Seattle General Meeting. This is a biggee in that the Commission will be voting to proceed with their long-term plan ‘Century Agenda’ which is their long term blueprint for growth. What I am asking them to consider is that they hold off since there is no reasonable way to plan for either air or cruise travel until the dust settles. (The same was true after 9/11–it took Sea-Tac Airport almost a decade to return to 2001 levels of operations–even with a shiny new third runway.)

Thursday: City Council General Meeting (Agenda). Spoiler Alert: I will be making a totally pointless ‘no’ vote on the SR-509 expansion which will easily pass. SR-509 has been sold as a way to improve traffic through the area (the constant mess on Des Moines Memorial Drive, for example). But what it’s really about, what it has always been about is to make it easier for Sea-Tac Airport to move cargo onto I-5 and 167. That means more trucks on the road, but more significantly, it enables the airport to run waaaaaay more cargo flights–which primarily operate at night. And I will never vote for any legislation that makes it easier for Sea-Tac Airport to run more flights.

Friday: UW DEOHS Meeting. (A follow up to the presentation discussed below.)

Last Week

Tuesday 9AM: SCATbd Meeting. Short take: Fees will go up. Service will go down. I know you’re shocked. It’s exactly the opposite of what should happen to deal with the ‘new normal’, but like so much of our world, the numbers only penciled out with as many riders as possible. So…

Tuesday: Burien Airport Committee Meeting

Wednesday: Lunch at Senior Center. My first EATS voucher!

Wednesday: Reach Out Des Moines Zoom Meeting. RODMs works to improve outcomes for school kids in Des Moines and has been incredibly successful at improving school attendance and reducing teenage crime–using very simple tools like after school activities. COVID-19 challenges our community to find ways to engage these kids when social distancing makes these activities difficult.

Wednesday: Puget Sound Regional Council CARES Act recovery webinar

Thursday: 30th Legislative District COVID 19 phone call. Legislators made it clear that they are taking unemployment insurance issues seriously. Once again I was pleased to hear that there seems to be a lot of interest in working to improve Internet access for our community (see RODMs above) not only for remote learning, but frankly because if social distancing remains in place, kids will need the Internet more than ever to keep occupied.

Thursday: UW DEOHS presentation on Airport Pollution. This is an overview of where we’re at in terms of noise and pollution. If it seems like there are more questions than answers, you’re not wrong. The biggest challenge our community has had in reducing noise and pollution is that we have not had proper measurements of all the pollutants since 1997. You cannot get relief on anything with the government unless you have data. Getting proper air quality and noise monitoring is one of those ultra-boring long-term issues I spend a lot of time working on.

Friday: Phone call with our Senator Karen Keiser

Following Directions

Mayor Matt Pina’s letter in the most recent City Current Magazine had a good overview of the City’s actions during the COVID-19 Pandemic. I appreciated his call for residents to hang in there and follow the State guidelines. What I hope to hear from my colleagues at the next City Council Meeting (and what I will certainly mention) is the importance of ‘stay the course’.

But girlfriend, can we talk? Most of the frustrations I hear remind me of how so many of us stop taking our prescriptions and then jump back to work the second we start to feel a little better, rather than following the doctor’s directions. I’ve done that. And then had a relapse. And missed more work. Now that kind of chance-taking may be acceptable if it’s just you, but not when yer talking about public health.

Look: We are re-opening. We’re almost there. The plan has worked. (Don’t believe me? Check other States with similar population densities.) So at the risk of sounding like an annoyed parent: STOP FIDGETING, MYRON!

And to sound even more patronizing, I would say this to anyone thinking about running for City Council next year: Whatever personal frustrations you have with this whole deal, do not be one of the grousers. Don’t be one of those passive aggressive types who say, “I’m following the rules… even though I think they’re crap!” Don’t be that guy. Be a leader. Your public face right now should be 100% behind the State’s plan. In fact, you should be the loudest nagger in town: SIX FEET, PEOPLE! WHERE’S YER MASK, BOB? Advocate for fixes in private sure, but this is the one issue to not go with the angry natives on.

Because here’s the thing: Reopening is only safe if people follow directions. And let’s face it, we haven’t shown that we’re all that great at that. One of the big reasons we had to shut so many places down was because much of the public simply would not get with the program voluntarily. Right now: walk past any business now and you’ll see maybe half the public not wearing a mask; not obeying the six foot rule–even when it’s easy to do. So the police and business owners and civic leaders and yes, candidates will not only have to model best practice but also do some serious nagging or else the public will never get with the program.

And to close this little rant, I happen to believe in the whole ‘science’ deal, which (again patronizing alert) I don’t think some people understand. Science is about being wrong. Frequently. It’s about being allowed to make mistakes along the way to finding out what’s what. You don’t fire people for getting the wrong answer. If anything, you applaud them and tell them to give it another go. During this pandemic researchers have made many mistakes and had to make many course corrections. Why? Because it’s a novel virus, Gomer! It’s never been seen before. So of course yer gonna get things wrong. You make adjustments and move on. This does not trouble me in the least and nothing has annoyed me more than certain people mocking every misstep as an excuse to abandon ship. As someone who has had to work under pressure, I can only imagine how disheartening it must be for researchers and leaders to be constantly pummeled with snark as they try to find answers and do the right thing.

Please hang in there. And as we re-open, if you haven’t been exactly a role model when it comes to masks, hand washing, six feet, etc. I hope you’ll try a bit harder–and maybe even nag a few other people to get with the program. It’s like just seat belts and motorcycle helmets and all the other things we used to think were so ‘unbearable’ only a few years ago. It’s really not a big deal. But it makes a big difference.

Economic Development, Engagement, Policy, Transparency, Weekly Updates

COVID-19, Marina

Weekly Update: 05/17/2020

This Week

Tuesday 9AM: SCATbd Meeting. If you have concerns about anything transportation-related, check this out.

Tuesday: Burien Airport Committee Meeting (note their calendaring system? 🙂 )

Wednesday: Reach Out Des Moines Zoom Meeting

Wednesday: Puget Sound Regional Council CARES Act recovery webinar

Thursday: 30th Legislative District COVID 19 phone call.

Last Week

Monday: Disassembling the Coho Pen at the Marina. Thanks, as always to John Muramatsu and Trout Unlimited and the Des Moines Marina crew.

Tuesday: Port Of Seattle General Meeting

Wednesday: Officer Boehmer/K9 Daric meeting with Police Chief Ken Thomas. My comments are here.

Thursday: MRSC Meeting on Utility Management. Although Des Moines does not run its own utilities, understanding how they work and having strong relationships with those authorities is critical because we currently derive about one third of our revenue from utility taxes.

Friday: Another webinar from the Seattle Southside Chamber Of Commerce. The topic was ‘how to re-open’. I have a link to the video on my Facebook Page and I recommend that every business owner watch it. The challenges to re-opening are significant. Without getting into a whole discussion, the point isn’t so much to ‘re-open’ as it is to find ways to re-open and actually make money.

Fifty Years Ago

If you asked most people to think of one image that represents Des Moines, 95% would imagine the Marina. So I was kinda disappointed that we didn’t have anything like a ‘celebration’ of its fiftieth anniversary last week. For me, the Marina is Des Moines and the dedication on May 10, 1970 was one of the top 3-4 events in our short history. I encourage you to read the clippings from the Des Moines News posted by our Clerk Bonnie Wilkins last week.

Good Leadership Moves

According to the article, the first thing the City Council did was take surveys of residents and get buy-in before moving forward. That was smart. Because what the article doesn’t point out is that the Marina was controversial (Odd, right? Can you imagine Des Moines without the Marina now? I can’t.)

One thing that is not mentioned is that at least some of those leaders had a long term vision for Des Moines. They thought the Marina would be transformative for the city–and to a certain extent it definitely has been. But I would argue, not as much as they might have hoped. I think the hope that many of us have had over the decades would be for Des Moines to become as vibrant as other waterfront communities. The one word you often hear from residents since the Marina’s building is ‘potential’. People are always writing how loaded we are with potential. But somehow, that potential never gets fully realized.

Sure there have been good reasons (like the occasional recession or a pandemic (!) for example). But at a certain point, one has to accept that the stars will never align to make developing Des Moines easy. If it were easy it would’ve happened by now. And if we’re ever going to live up to that potential, we will have to do something dramatic in order to make it happen.

Long Term

When I ran for office, I talked a lot about the long-term and frankly I think a lot of residents just nodded along (as my kids tend to do when they’re politely humouring me. 😀 )

But this actually matters. There are two broad concerns of city government: short term and long term. The short term is what most residents (and politicians) think about: public safety, building permits, speed bumps, human service stuff and so on. The long term is the part the public rarely sees and that’s the part I think about most: where we’ll be twenty five years from now.

But why should you care about twenty five years from now, right? We won’t even be around then (OK, you will, I definitely won’t. 😀 ) Now is where you can make residents and businesses happy today–especially post-pandemic. So maybe it seems like the wrong time to be thinking about twenty five years in the future. But I would argue that there will never be a convenient time to do so. Like many cities, Des Moines seems to swing from one crisis to the next and so we never have any easy chance to finish the job of becoming who we’re supposed to be: a true ‘destination’.

So what does that mean in practical terms? Hey what do I look like, The Amazing Kreskin? 😀 (I gotta stop referring to things people under 50 won’t get.) A few quick thoughts:

I do know what the outcome should be: making Des Moines a place that leverages its great physical beauty to become much more prosperous. We’ve needed to do that for decades because it’s the only way to sustainably achieve the amenities and services we’ve all wanted for so long.
We also need to do something big in order to protect this place. There is always a pressure to industrialize cities in South King County–especially near the airport. Long term, this is neither in the interest of the environment or our residents.
At least part of it involves the south end of town. We’re a city of a zillion annexations but so far we’ve done precious little to tie them together–all the improvements still tend to go in mostly the same places.
Finally, I’m also pretty sure that we can start by taking a lesson from the City Council in 1964: ask the public–get buy-in first, and then think big.

One-Time Money

There is an adage you hear repeated over and over (and over… and over) in municipal budgeting: one-time money for one-time projects. Despite that mantra, there will be a tremendous pressure to use any such grants to prop up existing spending and avoid short-term pain. (Not too many of us used those $1,200 checks for savings accounts, right?) However, I would like to see at least a portion of such monies automatically set aside for something truly transformative because I’m convinced of one thing: making Des Moines that ‘destination’ will not be easy and it will not happen by itself.. In fact, to make Des Moines a real destination city will require an effort from the public and the City as large as building the Marina. But I believe it’s worth it and I also believe that the longer we wait the less likely it becomes.

We now have two bags of money coming our way as a result of COVID-19: a small one from King County (thank you, King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove) and a much larger one from the Federal government. There will be others. So far, there has been no discussion as to how to use these with the Council and I think there should be for all the reasons I just gave. I think we should be investing in the future now.

Anyhoo, none of this starts tomorrow. But I want you to understand where my primary attention will be so long as I serve you. I want to work with you to finally achieve a Des Moines that lives up to all that ‘potential’ previous leadership was striving for back in 1964. They did their part. Now it’s our turn.

Happy 50th Anniversary Des Moines Marina. 🙂

Economic Development, Policy, Transparency, Weekly Updates

COVID-19, EATS, Internet

Weekly Update: 05/11/2020

I get complaints from the public (and my colleagues) that I’m over-simplifying or trivializing some topic by being so short. And I try to say that these things are already too frickin’ long! If I don’t simplify, every post would be like Municipal War And Peace. (Boy I really want to read that. Not.) Also, I can’t assume that y’all actually watch these meetings. So if I go on with too many details, nothing will make sense–and I definitely don’t want this to be like a ‘cast commentary’ on some really low-budget DVD. Anyhoo, I’m trying an experiment this week by breaking down some of the key items into separate posts because there were several details of procedure I care about a lot. Most of you will just read this. But if yer a real local politics nerdlicant (or just like trolling for incriminating evidence. 😉 ), by all means, drill down for more details.

This Week

Monday: Disassembling the Coho Pen at the Marina. With the good weather, the Marina needs room for more boats.

Thursday: City Council Meeting? 5pm? There’sNo agenda received, which is kinda weird because we’re supposed to get it the Friday before the meeting so we can prepare. Here is all I got from the Futures Report.

Just heard from the City Clerk officially that the next meeting is actually 28 May (the Mayor mentioned that at the end of the last meeting but I wasn’t sure as the web site hadn’t changed.) You can still use the Futures Report if you want a look at what is likely to show up there.

Friday: Another webinar from the Seattle Southside Chamber Of Commerce. This time on ‘how to re-open’. So far, these have all been very good. If you have a business or organization, I recommend you check it out.

Beyond that? Total mystery. Why not call me for a chat? (206) 878-0578.

Last Week

Monday: The City unveiled its EATS Restaurant Voucher Program to support restaurant owners, seniors and vets. Discussion below.

Thursday: 5pm City Council Meeting (Video) (Agenda). Discussion below.

Friday: A really good Zoom presentation by Katherine Kertzman, President of the Seattle Southside Regional Tourism Authority (RTA). If you have any kind of business related to hospitality and tourism you should watch this. The video is here: https://www.seattlesouthsidechamber.com/smart
You can download the Presentation File here: https://buff.ly/3blwqgV

Meeting Drill Down

First off, why was CM Matthias absent? Whenever anyone is MIA, I want an explanation in the public record. It’s one of my procedural pet peeves. For others, see below. 😀

National First Responders Day

In my comments I made two motions. The first was A proposal for a National Holiday for First Responders. The City will be sending a letter in support of the idea to Congressman Smith and Senators Murray and Cantwell. Given that this passed unanimously, I’m kinda surprised at the skepticism I’ve received from a few peers in other cities. In the comments I put my reply to one of them. This makes me really appreciative of our Council taking action. I hope that they, in their contacts with other cities evangelize for this. It’s the right thing to do.

City Manager Reports

My second motion was to direct the City Manager to provide weekly reports. And I discuss it here. If you’ve read these Weekly Updates, you know that one of my ongoing frustrations is that I have no idea how so much of day to day operations get done. I feel like these sorts of reports are critical to the Council’s decision-making.

Emergency Operations

We had an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) presentation from Shannon Kirchberg which was really good. The work the City is now doing with the Food Bank shows some great coordination. And by the way, the entire community has stepped up in some pretty big ways. A shout out to resident Kevin Isherwood who’s company GEICO (are they the lizard or Flo?) Anyhoo, they provided a $5,000 donation! You couple that with recent big ticket donations from Rotary and Legacy and now we’re getting somewhere!

One reason I had been previously critical of the City’s response was this: Des Moines, like many small cities has several organizations that are not ‘the city’ but kinda are. These include the Food Bank, the Farmers Market, Legacy, Destination Des Moines, etc. All these groups have been tightly integrated with the government, providing much needed services that, frankly, the government does do in many other places. We’re proud to be a very volunteer-oriented community. So when an emergency appears, it is critical that we engage without delay with all these organizations because together we can leverage much better results.

EATS Program

The briefing on the EATS program was also good. My comment was that even though it’s just getting started I hope it rapidly expands to do a lot more. This is what I was talking about last week regarding planning. The EATS program was designed to get cash to restaurant owners and to help Seniors get meals on weekends. Great start! Now: expand it. Make it open to seniors all over town–not necessarily as free vouchers, but perhaps at a 1:1 match for residents of Wesley, Judson, Adriana, etc. I know I sound never satisfied, but it’s because the situation for our local restaurants is so critical.

The Budget

Another really good presentation and I encourage you to watch the slides. To save time, I deferred my questions (I had a gazillion) to a written note. I’ll let ya know.

Anyhoo, you’ve probably heard that we’re cutting $2.1 million dollars now in expectation of a 16% overall reduction to 2020 inflows. The important thing for me is that these adjustments are the easy ones (I hesitate to call them ‘cuts’ because none of these are things the public dreads.) And both the COO and Budget Director were quick to point out that, for now, we’re in a good place. But these adjustments only cover a couple of months of cash flow. This is just the beginning.

Now: I have been a fierce critic of the 2016-17 recovery strategy because it depended so much on fees I feel are not in the City’s long-term interest: paid parking, red light cameras, utility taxes, etc. And I still hate them all. However, it must be said that COVID-19 makes them necessary for the foreseeable future. The Cities that currently depend on sales tax revenue (which is what I would prefer in a normal world) are going to suffer the worst as the entire retail market has collapsed. So despite my criticisms, I have to acknowledge that our current portfolio is probably not a bad place to be. At least until the small business market regains some clarity.

An Apology

I wrote a letter of apology to COO Dan Brewer. I raised my voice to him during the meeting and that was discourteous and unkind. People who follow these meetings or read my Weekly Updates know why I get so frustrated but I won’t re-hash that as some half-assed excuse.

Consent Agenda Kerfuffle

Near the end of the meeting, there was some heartburn because I voted ‘nay’ on the Consent Agenda. Which, it turns out, is a procedural problem because it’s actually called the Unanimous Consent Agenda. If it ain’t unanimous? It ain’t a consent agenda. This article explains the procedural issue and then discusses the importance of Meeting Minutes.

Good Husband Move

And last but not least: Over the years, I’ve groused about a lot of ‘unnecessary’ things at City Council Meetings. But every year, Harbormaster Scott Wilkins does some little ‘surprise’ Happy Birthday greeting for his wife, our Communications Director and City Clerk Bonnie Wilkins. It’s become something of an annual tradition at Des Moines City Council Meetings and I find it utterly charming.

Transparency

Bring Back City Manager Reports

2 Comments

My second motion at the 7 May City Council Meeting was to direct the City Manager to provide weekly reports. This actually was the practice for many years (and continues in many other cities our size and larger.) It was cut back to a Monthly Report in 2018 and then dispensed with entirely in February 2019. We now get quarterly presentations from main departments which is OK. I guess. (Insert Red Green Man’s Pray here.)

But those reports are a list of accomplishments. That ain’t what I’m used to as a manager. I’ve spent most of my working life in jobs where people put in time sheets or talk about how their job works. Or at least, I’d occasionally get to walk the factory and see how the sausage gets made. Most residents are surprised to know that councilmembers have no more access to City Hall than they do–and that is weird to me.

So… what do you guys exactly do all day?

What I’m trying to say is that I have almost no understanding as to what a lot of the staff (including the CM) actually do all day. A list of accomplishments without context is not great for a guy like me. It’s like telling me you painted your house (impressive) but neglected to point out that it took you five years (less so).

Now here’ something: everybody hates doing these reports: hate, Hate, HATE. And I say that with some conviction because I did them for years and hated every minute of it. However, when I started my own company, we did them. My kid does them at his law firm. People at all levels of management do them. It’s sad that people hate them, but like regular visits to the dentist they’re really useful. 😀

And the thing is: Like most of us now, the City Manager has a calendar. So it’s already there; there’s no effort involved in preparing such a report. It’s actually less work than having to write a quarterly list of accomplishments.

Hanging out at the Marina

I was speaking to our harbormaster this morning and as we chatted I had the realization that I know how the Marina works because I’m there literally every day. And that makes me feel really comfy that its run well. I mean, I know this because I see it. I talk with people at their slips and they tell me that the service is great and so on.

Now here’s the thing: that’s maybe the first time I’ve actually had a conversation with Scott in twenty plus years. He saw me walking by and was kind enough to say hello. I rarely ever spoke with his predecessor, either. I think I’ve actually been in the office maybe 4-5 times. I’m not somebody who ‘monitors’ people. I just like knowing how things work and I’m routinely puzzled that my colleagues seem to have so little curiosity.

See that’s a key difference between myself and the majority. I value that kind of reporting and learning about people’s jobs. My colleagues feel like, “We hired the guy. Let him do his job.” (that’s a quote)

So… why do I bother?

I withdrew the motion only because I thought we had three votes to bring it to a formal agenda item at the next meeting. But… one of my colleagues changed their mind. My colleagues said they would only consider voting for this motion if the City Manager were present, which I found slightly disingenuous. Because, of course he doesn’t want it. If he wanted to do it, he wouldn’t have stopped doing it two years ago. Because, like I said, nobody enjoys doing them–even if someone else does them for you.

So I’ll leave the issue with this observation: Since my election, that was the first meeting I’ve with all my colleagues where the City Manager was not present. And it’s telling that they said they did not feel comfortable taking action without him there. In fact, he was even present during his job review–which is also kinda weird to me.

Transparency, Weekly Updates

Why Meeting Minutes Matter

2 Comments

It’s always great to begin with an alliteration, right? 😀

This article explains why I objected to the Consent Agenda at the 7 May City Council Meeting which caused something of a ‘consent agenda kerfuffle’ and then goes on to discuss the importance of ‘Minutes’.

This Week’s Hate Mail

I do get hate mail after every meeting. 😀 It’s generally from the same people every time and generally harmless. In this case the complaint had to do with the fact that I voted ‘no’ on the Unanimous Consent Agenda (UCA), which caused a tedious extension to the meeting. To recap: the whole point of a Consent Agenda is to save time–the group simply votes up/down on a list of (supposedly) uncontentious items. What people often omit is the word ‘unanimous’. The group has to show its agreement that these are routine items by voting unanimously. By voting ‘nay’, I broke that process.

Did I intend to cause this kerfuffle? Of course not. I don’t show up with goofy plans to annoy the majority. But I gotta say, it was fascinating from a procedural standpoint. And I have to give props to City Attorney Tim George. I honestly don’t know, but I think he could have interrupted the meeting right when I voted ‘no’ and pointed out what the effect would be. But for whatever reason, he let things play out and I really appreciate it. If he had spoken up, it would’ve put pressure on me to vote ‘Yes’.

Why Minutes Matter

Now, here’s why I voted no. Item #2 on the Consent Agenda was to approve the Minutes of prior meetings. ‘Minutes’ should be the least controversial part of the UCA. It’s just a summary of the meeting. In fact, we use what are called action minutes, which means the clerk provides a very short (often one-line) descriptor of what was done but not all the talking.

OK, so here are the Minutes for Councilmember Comments from the 9 April General City Council Meeting:

Pretty dull, right? Now please refer back to the 9 April City Council Meeting Video. And (finally) we get to my point. And please understand I am not being petty here. This really matters to me and I hope I can convince you that it should matter to the City.

Where Deputy Mayor Mahoney talks about “social media comments” and “emergency operations center” what he was actually doing on the video was taking five minutes to ream me out. Similarly, the Mayor’s “Councilmember’s Actions in the Community” was actually an almost ten minute list of complaints against moi.

I will always want the Minutes to reflect what really happened. So I was prepared to make the following motion:

I move to modify the April 9^th Agenda as follows:

Change the description of Mayor Pina’s comments to read: Mayor Pina expressed numerous concerns over Councilmember Harris’ conduct.

Change the description of Deputy Mayor Mahoney’s comments to read: Deputy Mayor Mahoney expressed numerous concerns over Councilmember Harris’ conduct

Because that is what actually happened.

Now, why do I give a shit about something so apparently picayune? Am I really that petty? Nope. Very few people in King County actually read these things. I’ve read hundreds of Minutes from hundreds of meetings over the years in doing my research on Sea-Tac Airport. And if the Minutes don’t reflect what really happened? History is screwed. Until HAL 9000 allows for people to do keyword searches on video, it is virtually impossible to find information on a particular public meeting video unless you know ahead of time what you’re looking for. Having those descriptions be meaningful doesn’t seem to matter until you have to actually try and find something. Then, if you are a researcher or a reporter it’s imperative. So I take this deadly seriously.

(I leave it as an exercise for the reader to review Minutes from key past meetings of various City Councils and the Port. Eg. virtually every meeting near the end of Don Wasson’s time or at the Port near the end of CEO Yoshitani’s tenure. From the Minutes alone you might not know much was wrong.)

Descriptions are sanitized with perfectly good intent–to be polite, of course. Which is lovely. But I don’t want polite. I want what actually happened: good, bad or ugly. Not just in this case, but in every case, regardless of who is involved.

Now, if I feel that strongly about it, why didn’t I raise the motion? Wait for it… to be polite, of course. 😀 Seriously. The meeting had already gone on three hours, it would’ve started an argument, some of the Councilmembers were visibly close to blowing a gasket so I let it go. But if I’d had the votes? I would’ve gone ahead, regardless of the blood pressures of my colleagues.