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2019 Campaigning, Transparency

It’s about the policy, not the person

When I ran for City Council, I ran for policies, not against a person. I could have run against any of the three incumbents and had similar results. Because the public is ready for change. Last Thursday’s reappointment was also not about the person, it was about policy. The current majority did not want change and this was a unique opportunity for them to hit the undo key on the last election. Simple as that.

I have heard over and over how the process of the appointment was flawed. I have heard over and over how the process of the City Manager’s raise was bad. I have heard over and over how the Mayor’s comments from the dais have been damaging.

If you agree with the above statements, you cannot support Ms. Bangs reappointment. Because those are also her policies. She said so, both during her campaign and during the appointment process. She is the current majority–and that is why they wanted her back. To hit the undo key. They too were not voting for a person, they were voting for policy.

The Choice

If you voted for Ms. Bangs in November, or supported her reappointment last Thursday, you are saying that you support the direction of current management and that you see none of the problems I just mentioned.

If you voted for me (I hope) you were saying, that you want better process, more transparency and more accountability than you’ve seen in the past six weeks (or the past four years.) You were saying that you want different policy.

So what I’m saying is simple: You cannot support both of us ( ‘the best of both worlds’) because our policies are incompatible. You can’t both change and remain the same.

The Story: There Can Be Only One

To explain their decision, the current majority said that that they are now doing everything better than it’s ever been done before (literally, that is exactly what they said from the dais.) They told a story of the City being like a patient recovering from a long-term illness and that without exactly this ‘team’ in place, the City would relapse and perhaps never recover. (that is also a quote). Therefore, it would be irresponsible to risk any ‘instability’ by trying anyone new.

And the politician who just lost an election and then began lobbying for re-appointment even before leaving office must also feel that she is indispensable.

To feel so special must be a wonderful thing. But I find this point of view not just wrong, but unbelievably arrogant. Obviously, Ms. Bangs is ‘qualified’ for the position. That’s not the point. Does her on-the-job experience outweigh all other considerations? No organization depends on any single person for success. And despite the financial turn-around in 2016, the majority of people in Des Moines do not see things nearly as rosy as this majority obviously does.

The Choices

There were several excellent candidates for the appointment, which after all, is meant to be temporary; a worthy placeholder until the next election–that’s what the statute says.

I nominated Mr. Maleke because he has skills (he was the only applicant who actually works in City government and knows the ins and outs), he represents diversity, and because he represents the south end of town which so many of the public said they wanted. He ticked all the boxes that the public and my peers said mattered to them.

What he did not represent was huge ambition to use the appointment as a springboard towards election in 2021. I found this very refreshing because I want the public to start with a clean slate in 2021. Over the decades, we’ve had waaaaaaaaaaaay too many un-competitive elections as it is.

However, I am confident that all the applicants I met with would make excellent candidates in 2021 and I urge you all to start campaigning today. I would be thrilled to share the dais with any of you!

Bad Communication

Once again the Council and Ms. Bangs have been incredibly tone-deaf towards the public. Despite all the very high quality options, they both insisted on the only choice guaranteed to divide the community. This just demonstrates a long-standing problem with Des Moines government: bad communication. Our government has routinely ignored the public’s feelings on big decisions. We (I’m now a part of that) come across like condescending parents, either not explaining decisions or being scolds: “You’ll thank us later!” By rejoining the majority, our newest council member has only continued that bad policy.

As I keep saying, it’s not about the person, it’s about the policy. If you want different policy? You must support new people. And I urge you to begin doing so. 2021 is not that far off.

Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 02/16/2020

This Week

Wednesday is the next Reach Out Des Moines (RODM) meeting. The stated purpose of the group is to reduce ‘juvenile violence’ but the stuff that gets talked about are some pretty basic stuff: activities for kids, finding out who needs a school uniform, making it easier for kids to get to school. Anything that keeps kids showing up is a big help.

Wednesday is also a Sound Cities Association (SCA) ‘networking’ event. I think I’m getting the Pork entree. Any chance I have to practice ‘mingling’ is worthwhile. 😀

Thursday I’m back in Olympia for yet another hearing on HB2315 (Port Package Updates). Why so many frickin’ trips? Because there are like eleven steps to getting a State bill passed. It starts in a Local Government committee, then goes to an Executive Session, then goes for a finance review, then… you get the idea. It’s the democratic process. And even though we got through the House unanimously, we’re now moving to the Senate where things might go completely differently. Or even if they don’t, someone may want to tack on an amendment–which sends it back to the Hosue for re-evaluation. And the session runs out and then you have to start all over again next session. In fact, that’s one very common technique for killing legislation–just innocently tack on a tiny little deely-bobber when you know there’s only a week left in session. Poof. It’s gone. And that’s also why it’s best to keep legislation simple. Because the more detailed you get, the more likely some guy from a far-away district will have a question and then… Poof. It’s gone. Anyhoo, you gotta show up for every stage because when you take it for granted bad things happen.

Somewhere in there are various sit-downs with various Councilmembers and, in my other ‘job’ with SeatacNoise.info, taking a look at people’s homes with Port Packages. As I shoulda expected, once HB2315 became vaguely possible, a gazillion people now want to know if they can get help.

Last Week

Last week ended getting dominated by (as has become the norm) ‘Port Packages’ and ‘political intrigue’. I’m waiting for things to calm down to boring mode. One note: I’ve put more miles on my car since the election than in most entire years.

Tuesday was a regular Port Of Seattle Meeting. Borrrrrrring. (More below.)

Wednesday was not my first Sound Cities Association (SCA) event by any means, but it was my first Public Issues Committee (PIC) 101 meeting. As I said last time, SCA is sort of a ‘league’ of all us smaller cities to try to have more regional clout with the much larger Puget Sound Regional Council. There are all sorts of sub-committees involving transportation, flood control, human services, issues, public safety, etc. but PIC is sort of a clearinghouse for all issues of concern that we want to lobby the State on. Our representative on ‘the PIC’ is Traci Buxton.

One fascinating thing to me about SCA is that it is ultra-democratic. Almost nothing becomes an official position unless all 38 cities agree. (Maybe this is a response to how un-democratic the rest of regional governance can be where small cities almost always get voted down by larger cities like Seattle and Bellevue.) The only problem is that this means that a lot of issues (like airport stuff) don’t get taken up because they are not of concern to everyone. See the thing a lot of people don’t recognize is that King County is huge. It is the fourth largest county in the United States by area. So there are a lot of very small cities that have very different needs/wants/desires.

City Council Meeting Recap

Thursday was the 02/13/20 regular City Council Meeting (Agenda, Video) where Luisa Bangs was re-appointed. Here is a letter Mayor Pina and Deputy Mayor Mahoney wrote to the Waterland Blog. And here is my reply.

One little detail for you pros out there: there was a Consent Agenda Item (remember, we discussed those a while back?) to schedule a ‘routine clean-up’ of the Municipal Code. You may have noticed a little kerfuffle at the beginning of the meeting where I asked of that Item could be re-scheduled from 12 March to the following meeting (I’ll be in the other Washington meeting with a bunch of Councilmembers from nearby cities to lobby on airport issues.) The Mayor and City Attorney scrambled to tell me if moving that item were even possible. And acted all puzzled as to why I might want to do that for ‘routine clean-up’? Well, because there are some zoning changes in there that are important. Now you pros know that councilmembers get one ‘phone-in’ meeting per year. Can I do a phone-in? Sure I can. Are phone-ins totally useless for discussing detailed issues like zoning? Sure they are. So I sure hope they agree to re-schedule. 🙂

Re. the applications for the vacant Council position, I was extremely pleased that I got to speak at length with David Black, Tad Doviak, Dan Harrington, Semere Melake, Meiling Sproger and Harry Steinmetz. And the question I had when I was done was: WHERE THE HELL HAVE THESE PEOPLE BEEN HIDING? All these people would have made fine choices for the position and what I told all of them was: 2021 is just around the corner. There will be four spots open. Run hard for them. Traditionally, it’s been very tough to run against an incumbent so most people don’t even try. But the last election proved that the ice is breaking. And the actions of the current majority, captured on video during the first four meetings will give the right candidate a lot of ammunition.

Panning For Gold

Occasionally, someone will ask me to back up my policy ideas–especially compared to councilmembers who have had a lot more time on the job. And I just direct them to video archives of all sorts of boring meetings I’ve participated in over the years. Call it my unpaid internship if you will. City Council Meetings in six cities. PSRC Meetings. SCA Meetings. Port Of Seattle Meetings. Highline Forum Meetings. King County Council Meetings. Puget Sound Clean Air Meetings. SCATbd Meetings, State Legislature hearings. A gazillion ‘stakeholder’ get-togethers. I started attending these meetings years before I joined the Des Moines City Council. I’ve logged over 300 of these in the past four years. Which is insane, right? I mean, think of all the episodes of Star Trek I’ve missed?

Why? When we started SeatacNoise.Info, we quickly realized that we had to learn what was going on, not only in each of the affected cities, but also in all the organizations that have influence over Sea-Tac Airport. Because so many of the decisions made by each City going back sixty years seemed to be so contrary to the interest of residents.

So I started attending all these affairs for the same reason beat reporters do. You’re panning for gold: hours and hours of boredom in order to get the occasional nugget you can’t obtain any other way. There isn’t a meeting I go to where I don’t meet someone or have some side-conversation or overhear something that actually matters. At least… if you want to understand the why.

So when I comment on various issues it’s usually because I’ve already seen how people approach the same challenges in lots of other places. On a wide range of issues and processes I know what is and is not being done, or is at least possible. That’s the side-benefit of attending all these boring soirées: one gets to learn how people in far away lands with exotic names like Tukwila and Federal Way conduct their affairs. And then, like Marco Polo, if you make it back alive, you get to report back on this amazing thing called ‘spaghetti’. Of course, then you have to convince people to try it, but that’s a story for another day.

Campaigning, History, Transparency

Competitive City Council Races Des Moines 1995-2024

Last Updated:December 28th, 2023

7 Comments

*Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.

Update: 03/12/2022: At the Thursday March 10, 2022 I said I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of competitive elections in Des Moines over the past ten years. I was wrong. Make that twenty. And three of those winners resigned.

Competitive City Council Races 1995-2023 The members of the 19th-33nd City Councils of Des Moines, Washington

#	Year	No, of Competitive Races	R/A	Mayor/Mayor Pro-Tem	Members	Significant Events
	1995					---Don Wasson elected
19	1996			Mayor Richard Kennedy Mayor Pro-Tem Scott Thomasson	Richard Kennedy Scott Thomasson Don Wasson Bob Sheckler Gary Towe Terry Brazil	---23rd, largest and last annexation: Redondo/Woodmont
	1997					---Richard Kennedy (author of Waterland History) retires ---Dave Kapan wins by < 100 vote ---Gary Towe wins ---Terry Brazil wins
20	1998			Mayor Scott Thomasson Mayor Pro-Tem Terry Brazil	Mayor Scott Thomasson Mayor Pro-Tem Terry Brazil Bob Sheckler Don Wasson Gary Towe Dave Kaplan Dan Sherman
	1999					Don Wasson (comp.) Scott Thomasson Bob Scheckler (comp.)
21	2000			Mayor Scott Thomasson Mayor Pro-Tem Terry Brazil	Scott Thomasson Terry Brazil Bob Sheckler Don Wasson Gary Towe Dave Kaplan Dan Sherman
	2001					Wasson Takeover: Maggie Steenrod Gary Peterson Richard Benjamin ---Dave Kaplan loses ---Dan Sherman loses by < 20 votes ---Susan White elected
22	2002			Mayor Don Wasson Mayor Pro-Tem Richard Benjamin	Don Wasson Richard Benjamin Maggie Steenrod Gary Petersen Bob Sheckler Scott Thomasson Susan White	HSD School Board President Ed Pina organises unsuccessful recall campaign over the conveyor thing...
	2003		1			---Wasson resigns -----Dan Sherman appointed ---Maggie Steenrod becomes second female Mayor in DM history. --Dan Sherman/Jeanette Burrage (comp.) --Scott Thomasson/Brenda Siegrist (comp.)
23	2004			Mayor Bob Sheckler Mayor Pro-Tem Dan Sherman	Bob Sheckler Dan Sherman Richard Benjamin Maggie Steenrod Gary Petersen Bob Sheckler Scott Thomasson Susan White
	2005		1			---Wasson crew wiped out ---Ed Pina leaves school board ---Matt Pina takes his father's seat on school board ---Ed Pina/Maggie Steenrod (comp.)
24	2006			Mayor Bob Sheckler Mayor Pro-Tem Scott Thomasson	Bob Sheckler Mayor Scott Thomasson Dave Kaplan Ed Pina Carmen Scott Dan Sherman Susan White
	2007		0
25	2008			Mayor Bob Sheckler Mayor Pro-Tem Dan Sherman	Bob Sheckler Dan Sherman Scott Thomasson Dave Kaplan Ed Pina Carmen Scott Susan White
	2009		1			---Matt Pina takes Ed Pina (his father)'s seat ---Dave Kaplan ran against Susan White in order to make space for Melissa ---Matt Pina/Anne Farmer (comp.)
26	2010			Mayor Bob Sheckler Mayor Pro-Tem Dan Sherman	Bob Sheckler Dan Sherman Matt Pina Carmen Scott Scott Thomasson Melissa Musser
	2011		1			Mayor Sheckler Mayor Pro-Tem Kaplan Dan Caldwell takes Scott's seat? Jeanette Burrage (Dan retires?) Matt Pina Melissa Musser and Carmen Scott Bob Sheckler/Rebecca King (comp.) recount
27	2012			Mayor Bob Sheckler Mayor Pro-Tem Dave Kaplan	Bob Sheckler Dave Kaplan Dan Caldwell Jeanette Burrage Matt Pina Melissa Musser Carmen Scott
	2013	1	1			---Dan Caldwell resigns due to ill health. ---Jeremy appointed w 8 applicants ---Carmen Scott retires ---Vic Pennington elected ---Jeremy Nutting/James Payne (comp.)
28	2014			Mayor Dave Kaplan Mayor Pro-Tem Matt Pina	Dave Kaplan Matt Pina Vic elected replaces Carmen Sheckler Burrage Musser Jeremy Nutting
	2015	1	0			---Jeanette Burrage resigns ---Arts Commission member Luisa Bangs appointed w 2 applicants and re-elected same year ---Rob Back wins on 4th try running unopposed
29	2016			Mayor Dave Kaplan Mayor Pro-Tem Matt Pina	Dave Kaplan Matt Pina Rob Back Bob Sheckler Melissa Musser Jeremy Nutting Vic Pennington
	2017	1				---Melissa Musser retires ---Dave Kaplan retires ---Traci Buxton replaces Musser ---Matt Mahoney replaces Kaplan ---Traci Buxton/Harry Steinmetz (comp.)
30	2018			Mayor Pina Deputy Mayor Vic Pennington	Matt Pina Luisa Bangs Vic Pennington Traci Buxton Matt Mahoney Jeremy Nutting Rob Back
	2019	2				---Harris/Bangs (comp.) ---Martinellis/Back (comp.)
31	2020		1	Mayor Matt Pina Deputy Mayor Matt Mahoney	Matt Pina Matt Mahoney JC Harris Anthony Martinelli Traci Buxton Luisa Bangs Jeremy Nutting	---Vic Pennington resigns ---Luisa Bangs appointed w 8 applicants
	2021	1				Mayor Mahoney Deputy Mayor Buxton Gene replaces Luisa (retired) Harry replaces Pina (retired) Harris Nutting Martinelli Martinelli resigns Gene Achziger/Priscilla Vargas (comp.)
32	2022		1	Mayor Mahoney Deputy Mayor Buxton	Matt Mahoney JC Harris Gene Achziger Harry Steinmetz Jeremy Nutting Vic Pennington Traci Buxton	---Anthony Martinelli resigns ---Vic Pennington appointed w 4 applicants: ---Yoshiko Grace Matsui ---Tad Doviak ---Priscilla Vargas ---Priscilla Vargas withdraws during application speech, using that time to endorse Vic Pennington
33	2024	1	1		Matt Mahoney JC Harris Gene Achziger Harry Steinmetz Jeremy Nutting Yoshiko Grace Matsui Traci Buxton	---Harris defeats 6-time candidate Rob Back by 15 ---Nutting wins by 35, ---Grace Matsui runs unopposed
	TOTAL	39	5

Some quickees…

See Part II for a broader analysis. But for now…

Twenty one (22) elections over forty four (45) years. Seventeen (18) competitive races. And I was beyond generous using a 15% margin as being (cough) ‘competitive’.
But then factor in five (5) resignations, which means five (5) appointments.
And three of those appointees were ex-Councilmembers who were later re-appointed to other positions.
But only two new faces were brought into the Council via the appointment process.
And then we’ve had cases such as 2009 where an incumbent (Dave Kaplan) ran for re-election in another seat against another incumbent (Susan White), in order to open up an uncontested seat for Melissa Musser to run unopposed.

And yet…

During every election in Des Moines, you’ll hear someone say:

How lucky we are to have such a wonderful variety of great candidates in a town our size!

So how do we make sense of all this?

Well, the two important numbers you cannot see in this table are

Thirty eight (38) ¹unique competitive candidates (UCC).
Twenty five (25) ²unique winning candidates (UWC).

They sound like new divisions of MMA but they matter. But before we get into them, I’m gonna give you a series of factlets (I know, I know, you hate the factlets. You’ll like these.)

Factlets

Most people run one non-competitive campaign and are never heard from again. [We’ll get into that in another article]
- Alexander Szabo was the only other applicant (against Luisa Bangs) for the 2015 appointment. He lost, then ran against her for the same slot that autumn and, as happens with people who run against appointees, got smoked. But just looking at his application, it is sad that he did not try again.
A number of people run multiple intentionally non-competitive campaigns. These are campaigns that have no expectation of success and thus never succeed. I call them ‘civic duty campaigns’ because the candidates feels that it is an intrinsic civic good to have an opponent. But since they don’t actually campaign, they pad the system, making the number of choices appear greater than they actually are.
- Eg. Tad Doviak.
All successful candidates in competitive elections have run multiple times. There are no ‘one and dones’.
- Almost always they run, win and keep going (Traci Buxton).
- Or (much rarer) lose, improve, and eventually win (Anthony Martinelli).
- Or (rarest of all) win, lose, then win again (Dave Kaplan).
Contrary to what you might think, it is actually rare for candidates to run multiple campaigns and then succeed in a competitive race.
- Anthony Martinelli got totally wiped out by Matt Pina in 2017 and then prevailed in 2019.
A significant number of people run one or more unsuccessful competitive campaigns, but then succeed by running unopposed.
- Rob Back ran three times in competitive races, but only won on the fourth try; unopposed.
- Harry Steinmetz ran a competitive campaign and then succeeded in 2021 running unopposed.
All appointees run when their time comes and all are re-elected. And anyone who has been appointed tends to be among the longer serving CMs.
- Jeremy Nutting: appointed in 2013, then re-elected twice, neither time in competitive races.
- Dan Sherman lost in the closest election in City history in 2001 (20 votes!) then was re-appointed in 2003 to replace Wasson, which gave him that ‘appointment bump’ and was unopposed in 2007.
Most people who run successfully the first time run unopposed
- When Position #5 incumbent Dave Kaplan decided to challenge Position #7 incumbent Susan White, it allowed Melissa Musser to unopposed for Position #5 in 2009 and then again in 2013.
It is very rare for a first-time candidate to run in a competitive race and succeed
- Traci Buxton in 2017 was outspent two to one by Harry Steinmetz.
Most incumbents lose as soon as they face a competitive race, especially if they initially got in via appointment
- Luisa Bangs: appointed in 2015, re-elected in 2015, lost in 2019, re-appointed to another seat in 2020.
The number of people who win more than once with competitive races is very low. And these people tend to be the longest serving and most impactful CMs in City history. ie. they were the for realz politicians. Dave Kaplan was unique in that he won in 1997, then lost in a highly competitive race in 2001, then came back swinging in 2005.
- Dave Kaplan
- Bob Sheckler (Truly unique among Des Moines politicians. He faced multiple tough races, winning every one.)
Put another way, between 2001 and 2020, only six people (actually five, I’m adding back Dave Kaplan) have lost, then come back to win. People who lose, tend to pack it in.
- But in four out of six cases where they did stage a comeback, it was a rout or an uncontested election.
- In one case, Dan Sherman was appointed two years after his loss and then attained an election victory after that using the ‘appointment bump’.
- There have been eleven (11) even vaguely unique competitive losers (UCL)
- Most people lose, and regardless of margin, are never heard from again. (Rob Back is a true outlier, ran four times, two vaguely competitive, and finally got in the last time running uncontested.)
- Only two (2) people have lost, and then come back to win in strongly contested races.
- People like Melissa Musser served multiple terms and never ran a competitive race. Incumbents actually have as good a chance of being defeated as anyone else when confronted with a quality opponent. It’s just that they rarely do.

Let’s recap…

Forty two (42) elections over the past 20 years.
But only twenty four (24) ¹unique winning candidates. The UWCs.
And only ³seventeen (17) of those unique winning candidates (UWCs) ever faced even a single competitive race. (In fact, only one candidate, Bob Sheckler ever won multiple tough races.)
There have been five appointees, after five resignations. But three of those were ex-CMs tapped to fill subsequent appointments which means that only two new faces were brought on to the Council via the appointment process.

The Talent Pool

This is so important, it bears repeating:

Out of fortyT two (42) elections/vacancies the total unique number of competitive candidates/applicants over the past twenty years has been thirty eight (38).

Even if you include the people like Tad Doviak, who have run multiple ‘civic duty’ campaigns, you arrive at a number less than the total number of elections.

Over the past twenty years, the number of viable or even known candidates for every race has averaged less than one (1).

The overwhelming number of wins are either via appointment (and then an appointment bump), non-competitive races, or unopposed.

And one last new number: Out of the twenty four (24) unique winning candidates (UWC) only seventeen (17) ever faced a competitive opponent.

Moving towards a theory…

The lack of unique competitive candidates makes it difficult to draw many statistically valid conclusions, such as “what makes for a successful candidate”. One would expect a fairly low number of UWCs if people are truly happy with their electeds.

But given the ongoing controversies in our local politics, coupled with the fact that there are so few competitive candidates does suggest a few things:

Candidate quality is probably irrelevant
Money may or may not be a factor (that’s for another day)
Specific policy positions may be irrelevant
Identity has been irrelevant

In other words, the data suggests a typical ‘small town’ election eco-system where people bitch a lot, but only a minority of people vote. And that leads to one other conclusion: the number of UCCs is probably not coincidental.

In any unconstrained market where there are limited choices, it is because the customers are generally satisfied with their choices.

Voters may be truly satisfied, or they may not be, but are unaware of other options for various reasons. However there are no constraints on who can run (no tests, not even a filing fee, the application takes about five minutes to fill out.)

For whatever reason, the 6,000+ people who vote out of the 19,000 registered voters make the decisions for the 33,000 residents. And those people have not demanded more choices.

*This is one of a series of analyses I update from time to time. It is far from perfect (eg. I need to update it to 1997 which was the first ‘modern Des Moines’ election, ie. after the final annexation of Woodmont/Redondo.) But as it is, it’s close enough to make some valid points.

¹The thirty eight (38) unique competitive candidates 2001-2020. Win or lose, these are the people who ran anything close to a competitive campaign. And I’m being pretty generous here: 🙂

Anne Farmer
Anthony Martinelli
Bob Sheckler
Brenda Siegrist
Carmen Scott
Dan Caldwell
Dan Sherman
Dave Kaplan
Dave Markwell
Ed Pina
Gary Peterson
Gene Achzigner
Harry Steinmetz
James Payne
JC Harris
Jeanette Burrage
Jeremy Nutting
Luisa Bangs
Maggie Steenrod
Matt Mahoney
Matt Pina
Melissa Musser
Melissa Ponder
Mike Foote
Priscilla Vargas
Rebecca King
Richard Benjamin
Rob Back
Scott Thomasson
Soleil Lewis
Susan White
Terry Brazil
Traci Buxton
Vic Pennington
Yoshiko Grace Matsui

²The twenty four (24) unique winners 2001-2020. The twenty four people who ever made it over the line:

Anthony Martinelli
Bob Sheckler
Carmen Scott
Dan Caldwell
Dan Sherman
Dave Kaplan
Ed Pina
Gary Peterson
Gene Achzigner
Harry Steinmetz
JC Harris
Jeanette Burrage
Jeremy Nutting
Luisa Bangs
Maggie Steenrod
Matt Mahoney
Matt Pina
Melissa Musser
Rob Back
Scott Thomasson
Susan White
Traci Buxton
Vic Pennington

³The eighteen (18) unique competitive winners 2001-2023. The eighteen people who were ever actually given a run for their money in any attempt and prevailed. (And just to be add to the fun: In almost every case, these individuals faced only one competitive race, either their first race or their last. If they faced a competitive first election, any subsequent races were a rout or went uncontested. If they lost in a competitive race, in every case (but one) they packed it in.

Anthony Martinelli
Bob Sheckler
Carmen Scott
Dan Caldwell
Dan Sherman
Dave Kaplan
Ed Pina
Gary Peterson
Gene Achzigner
Harry Steinmetz
JC Harris
Jeremy Nutting
Jeanette Burrage
Maggie Steenrod
Matt Pina
Scott Thomasson
Susan White
Traci Buxton

Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 02/09/2020

This Week

Tuesday is a regular Port Of Seattle Meeting. That night I’ll be speaking at the North Hill Community Club on various ‘airporty’ stuff. There’s a lot to report, although beyond the Port Package Update bill, it’s not getting a lot of press. I’ll post some notes after the meeting–assuming I actually have some notes. 😀

Wednesday I’m at the Sound Cities Association PIC 101 meeting. The Public Issues Committee (PIC) is an important thing for budding city councilmembers to learn about. Sound Cities Association is sort of a ‘league’ of all us smaller cities to try to have more regional clout with the much larger Puget Sound Regional Council. My hope is that, all us airport communities can work together through this to change airport policy more to our benefit.

There is also a Des Moines Marina Association Meeting at 7PM. That also will be interesting because they also turned out in support of Luisa Bangs. I guess this is why they call it ‘politics’. 😀 Again, you’ve got an organisation with a shared interest (the Marina is in my top three concerns) but where we seem to disagree is on the process to get there.

Thursday is a Regular City Council Meeting (Agenda). The appointment for the vacant position will be decided. There will also be a presentation on the next big road project in Des Moines (wish we could do more than one at a time, right?) which is 24th Avenue from KDM to 223rd–the path in front of all the schools. One little detail: there is a Public Hearing scheduled for ‘clean-up’ of the Municipal Code. This one should be routine, but it’s like a ton of detail on all sorts of zoning. And I always get a little nervous when I see references to dozens and dozens of ‘tweaks’ to any document. It means lots of reading.

(Following the meeting, I will once again retire to somewhere for a post-whatever drink. I was joined by a few very nice people last week and it was a great way to unwind. The only challenge was that the All-Star is a bit loud if you want to hear tears descending mournfully into ones beer.)

Somewhere in here I also hope to chat again with all the contestants 😀 …er… ‘applicants’ for the vacant Council position. As I wrote before, I thought that limiting the process to one teeny, weeny question (and basically the same question over and over and over) was kinda weak. Most of the applicants were great and I hope to get to know them better. (By the way, not to complain too much, but in past appointments, the applicants were kept off-stage so that they could not hear each other’s answers. Am I the only one who thought it was stupidissimo to have all the candidate kinda saying the same thing over and over and over in response to hearing the guy before them? Maybe it was just me. 😀 )

Last Week

Wednesday I met with Police Guild President Justin Cripe and Vice President Isaac. It’s a weird thing because the Guild was (and is) a big supporter of Luisa Bangs (and the entire current majority). And why not? The current government has been responsive to the needs of the police department–and in many ways that has been good for Des Moines. What I tried to convey is that there is a significant gap between the public’s perception and the Police Department’s crime statistics. It’s not always thrilling news to hear that you’re not universally loved (trust me on this! 😀 ) but it’s critical to me that the residents feel safe–and feel heard. A lot of that comes down to better communication. I talk to residents more than most so I hope I can help bridge that gap on both sides.

I did not meet with City Attorney Tim George to get a tutorial on how to write a Resolution. Me sad. Hopefully when we get past all these tough initial City Council Meetings. (The beginning of the year is hectic!)

Thursday was the Study Session. I’ve gassed on about that all over social media so I won’t belabour the point. On the positive side? I think that six out of the seven Applicants would be fantastic for the job. And that right there makes me feel good about the future of our City. My hope is that at least a few of those who do not get in see this as the kick-off to their 2021 campaigns.

The whole Board/CEO thing

There is a great article in the Seattle Times today on the Boeing Board Of Directors and I urge you to read it. The S/T has been doing really great coverage on the whole 737 MAX issue. Their writers keep promising me to provide more coverage of the SAMP, but they keep getting diverted to this cluster-f–k which has Pulitzer Prize written all over it so I can’t blame ’em.)

One of the first things you notice is the horizontal spread of all the Directors with their credentials. Note that only one director has any serious knowledge about aviation. (In fact, that one guy was the CEO they just fired.) You’ve got people in Big Pharma, heavy machinery, several hedge fund guys, three diplomats (one of the Kennedys!) Contrast that to the good ol’ days back when HQ was in Seattle and when their Board would be staffed by people with an intimate knowledge of, oh I dunno, airplanes? Perhaps you can develop a one word explanation for why things may have gone off the rails. And that word might be oversight.

What I’m getting at is that I’ve been getting a certain amount of flak regarding my (apparent) obsession with ‘process’ and ‘transparency’ at Council Meetings. The push back I receive is usually along the lines of, “Why keep complaining when things are going so well? Setting aside just how ‘well’ we’re doing, my grousing about ‘process’ is because I believe that the City Council’s number one job is to provide active oversight.

Although we are described as legislators, the truth is that the Council does very little actual legislating. Almost all items that appear on a Meeting Agenda originate from the City Manager. For example: as I’ve previous mentioned, one way a Resolution can appear on the Agenda is when three councilmembers vote to put it there. But when I recently asked Mr. Matthias how often that happens, he told me that he could not remember the last time that had occurred. See the vast majority of what the Council actually does is not legislation per sé, but rather approval. Our actual work load is mostly just signing off on legislation that was created by the City Manager and his Staff.

And because we rarely actually make the laws, and because most of us are not exactly experts on any of the Agenda Items we’re being asked to sign off on, this can easily create complacency. When your only real job is to say ‘OK’, it’s easy to start letting the corporation run itself.

The flip side to this is, frankly, corporations kinda like it that way. There are few things most employees (including me) hate more than having some guy looking over their shoulder asking a passel of damn-fool questions. Just let me do my job, OK? The “interfering councilmember” scenario is so prevalent that it is actually talked about in State RCW/:

“Except for the purpose of inquiry, the council and its members shall deal with the administrative service solely through the manager”

Ah, but for me that clause “Except for the purpose of inquiry” is a biggee.

The Boeing debacle is an example of what happens when you have a Board that approves, but doesn’t actually “inquire” all that much. To the clueless Board, the company is making money; the employees seem happy; the investors seem happy. What could go wrong?

Now having watched and studied our Council for a while, my perspective is that when things are going well, we tend to give the City Manager and staff a tremendous amount of leeway–as we should, of course. So it’s easy for the Council to fall into a pattern of simply acting as well-meaning, part-time cheerleaders for Des Moines.

Cheerleading is good (especially in towns like ours, with no Chamber Of Commerce!) But as a Council, we also need to establish the kind of thorough oversight ‘hygiene’ that other cities already have in place. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to blind spots.

Boeing makes the most complex machines on the planet and they have done so for decades with an astounding track record of competence. But if a company with their track record can fall into complacency and not do the right things in terms of basic oversight? That should cause small cities like Des Moines to also consider how we might improve our processes.

Everyone in government uses words like ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ so often that they can become meaningless. But despite a lot of fine words, our city does not have a history of great oversight. And I hope to help change that. For what it’s worth, I hate the complaining even more than you do. 😀

Transparency

My preferred Council Appointment process

Digging back into the cobwebs of history, I have researched several other appointment processes (we’ve had five in the past 25 years.) And there seems to have been a system for having eight (8) applicants which worked well. I’ve decided that this is my preferred process, not just because it seems fair, but because it has actually be implemented so no one can accuse me of proposing something untried. As I stated here, I am not happy with the process as it stands on the current Agenda. That’s why I’m proposing the following alternative. If you agree, I hope you will let all the Council know your feelings as soon as possible : citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov

The Suggested Process

There was a first City Council Meeting with interviews of all eight candidates. This process took the majority of the meeting, the balance of time being taken with an Executive Session which pared the list down to three finalists.

The next day, the finalists were informed of the Council’s decision and were invited to provide supplemental materials to bolster their cases before the following City Council Meeting.

At the following City Council Meeting, there was a second round of in-depth finalist interviews where questions were asked based on the applicants’ supplemental materials. Immediately following those interviews, the Council retired to Executive Session to discuss.They then re-appeared and had the final vote.

Summary

This seems like a pretty fair process to me because it gives the Council, the Applicants and the public a chance to provide a much fuller picture of the relative merits of each Applicant.

This is such an important decision. I believe the above process provides a much more deliberate way of determining the best person for the job and I strongly urge our Council to adopt it as the method for filling the current Council vacancy.

Transparency

Better City Council Meetings

Dear Applicant: There may be a quiz

Weekly Update: 02/02/2020

If yer looking for my post on our the upcoming City Council appointment, it’s here.

This Week

This week I’ll be meeting with Police Guild President Justin Cripe. As a corporation the City Of Des Moines takes policing seriously. 46% of our budget goes to the Police Department. But way more than that, policing is the number one issue for about half of residents. It’s really important to me that all of us (Council and the public) have a great relationship with the police. I keep harping on the idea of public relations and the Police Department is no exception: the Police Department has made a tremendous amount of progress over the past few years but the public often doesn’t believe it. We have to do a better job of giving residents the full picture–which includes big reductions in many types of crime.

I’ll also be meeting with City Attorney Tim George to get a tutorial on how to write a Resolution. This is a big deal to me because it is something that a lot of new councilmembers have avoided, sometimes waiting literally years before tackling. Frankly, we’re a divided Council now and it’s tough to get anything on the Agenda. But regardless, my job is to get my ideas on the record. Hopefully, I can get my peers to

But the majority of the week is pretty well consumed with Thursday’s Study Session to appoint a new City to replace Vic Pennington on Thursday. (By the way, a ‘Study Session’ is simply a City Council Meeting that is confined to a single issue.) I really want y’all to attend this one. I mean I really want you to attend this meeting. So much so that I have a separate post on this extremely important meeting. It’s here.

Last Week

I was Olympia three days last week. On Monday there we had a Stakeholders meeting with Tina Orwall on the whole Port Package Update bill. I’ve gotten a bunch of messages on this: some are upset that I’m ‘selling out’ (I get that a lot) and some that I’m too ‘angry’ (I get that even more). The original bill is so bare bones as to be meaningless. That was just to get the process rolling, whip support in the Legislature and get the Port on board. But that right there is a big accomplishment!

Now the real language will be fleshed out in two ways: the basic principles will be in the bill and the gritty details of implementation (who gets what, when) will be in a separate ‘Proviso Study’. This process actually makes me very happy because I was concerned that the bill was moving too fast; that it might be passed without giving real thought to the details. One big reason we have all these bad Port Packages is because the original program was crap. The last thing we want is a Rev 2.0 that has the same flaws. We need time to develop a system. Keep in mind that the Port no longer has the infrastructure to redo hundreds and hundreds of homes. We need that in place first.

Tuesday and Wednesday I was also in Olympia for the Association Of Washington Cities (AWC) events. I am now a huge believer in ‘the power of schmoozing’. Anyone who has met me knows that I was born without the ‘networking’ gene. But you get in a place where there are so many councilmembers and legislators from all over WA? You can’t help but learn a ton, share a ton and get things accomplished you could never do on yer own. In addition to talking about several bills I don’t have time to talk about today, I got a chance to lobby for Tina Orwall’s HB1775, a law to try to reduce human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children. It sounds like a no-brainer, but the thing about politics is that there are a zillion ‘no-brainers’ and the way we have these cockamamie ‘short sessions’, not enough time to get all the legislation passed that needs doing. So you need nobodies like you and me to lobby your Reps. to get them to pay attention to your bill over somebody else’s bill.

Thursday was Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) orientation session. The PSRC creates many of the regional planning rules we all have to live by (transportation, airports, housing, environment, etc.) One really good thing Des Moines has done in the last few years is to re-join after many years in absence. We felt that we were getting run over by larger cities and the Port Of Seattle so we quit. That was a mistake. You can’t change the situation if you’re not at the table. Our challenge now is how to get a bigger voice. Because PSRC is not all that ‘democratic’. Voting is based on size. Big cities like Seattle get 99 votes on any issue. The Port Of Seattle gets 52. Des Moines? We get one. Uno. So the trick is for us is to find other ways to gain larger influence. Right now some cities are doing well at that (Burien comes to mind.) We need to do the same. Traci Buxton is currently our only councilmember on the PSRC, but hopefully that will change. Soon.

I also met with several residents with bad Port Packages. Now that HB2315 is getting some press, more people are speaking up and that’s great. The recent people reporting don’t have the awful structural damage that originally got me started on this, but their issues are still real. Almost every home with issues has problems because of a slap-dash approach. It was just poor windows and doors. It’s usually that there’s only one vent when there should be two. Or no proper insulation when the plan clearly indicated that an attic or walls be filled. Fireplaces not mitigated. Windows left untreated. It’s so blatant it would be comic if it weren’t so frustrating. Anyhoo, if your home has problems like this, please contact https://seatacnoise.info. As I wrote above a whole lot of people are going to be in line for the program when it passes. My commitment is to do my best to make sure that people who have documented their problems with SeatacNoise.Info now will be given first look.

Transparency

Upcoming Study Session: Councilmember Appointment

2 Comments

Hi,

Normally I try not to bug you more than once a week, but the upcoming City Council Meeting (Thursday February 6 @ 7PM) is so important I want to strongly encourage you to attend. Agenda is here.

At that Meeting (referred to as a Study Session), the Council will take up a single issue: the vacant City Council position. At the meeting, all applicants will be given an ‘interview’.

Here’s why I want you to attend: I want you to ask the City Council to postpone voting on a replacement until the next meeting (a week later). Just one week. That’s all.

The Process

1. We as councilmembers did not receive any instructions on how the process of choosing would work ahead of time. Nor were we given any input into that process. Everyone (except the Mayor) were informed the same way you as a resident might: by looking at the Agenda available on the City’s web site. The only reference to the process (which is on the Agenda) is that it was the same process as was used on the last two appointments. Frankly, I don’t care how it was done in the past. I want all my fellow councilmembers to have a chance to decide on the process.

2. Applications are due by end of business on February 3rd. That gives us as councilmembers only two days to review the resumes of all the applicants!

3. At the Study Session, applicants will each have three minutes to make a presentation. And after that, each councilmember will be allowed to ask only one question of each applicant. Just one.

4. After that ‘interview’ process, we may vote to go into Executive Session to discuss the applicants. Frankly, I personally don’t favour doing any of the selection process in private, but in the past two appointments that was what happened.

5. After that optional Executive Session, we will most likely vote on the new replacement. All in the same night. With no time to think about the process.

Why This Matters

Now, those of you who have owned businesses or hired people for important jobs. Have you made that kind of a decision all in one sitting? Every person I have ever hired for anything other than a minimum-wage job, I took several days to make up my mind. A typical election campaign takes six months to decide. A position this consequential should not be decided in under three hours!

Also, by voting in the same evening, I won’t be able to obtain valuable input from the people I represent. I believe that you deserve an opportunity to weigh in with your thoughts.

Finally, although the Agenda states that the current appointment is being done like the past two appointments, that’s not strictly true. In 2013, Jeremy Nutting was interviewed on the April 25, 2013 City Council Meeting and then voted at the following May 2, 2013 meeting. However, Luisa Bangs was interviewed then voted on at the same meeting in 2015. This ‘all-in-one-night’ approach is exactly what we should avoid.

Postpone

To sum it up, councilmembers have had no input on the selection process. We have only two days to review applications. And then we are expected to interview and make our final decision with only one question a piece in about three hours with a big chunk of the process in private Executive Session. Does that sound like best practice for someone who will be helping to lead your city?

For all these reasons I’m asking you to show up for this meeting and demand that, after the interview process, the Council moves to postpone the final vote on the applicants for a week until the next Council Meeting (Febuary 13). Just one week so that we make the best decision possible for the next two years.

Thanks for your time and your support for transparent government!

Policy, Transparency

Over-compensating?

3 Comments

I’ve gotten at least two dozen phone calls and messages from residents since last Thursday’s City Council Meeting where our City Manager, Michael Matthias had his annual Performance Review. January 23, 2020 City Council Minutes January 23, 2020 City Council Packet.

I said much of what I have to say on this from the dais. But since so many people keep asking me about it (or are unaware of what happened), and since my peer on the Council Traci Buxton put out a blizzard of comments in defense of the votes, I figured I’d try to put my thoughts in a more organised fashion.

(By the way–I voted ‘no’ on both motions to increase Mr. Matthias’ salary. At the risk of sounding whatever it kinda saddens me that people read my comments and think I voted for the increases. C’mon, people! 😀 )

The issue begins at 2:13:00
My comments start at 3:04:00

The proposed change was a 5% step automatic increase, which was on the Agenda for a formal vote. I said from the dais that I do not believe in automatic raises beyond COLA. I believe that one’s salary should never ‘automatically’ increase; a new rate should be up for negotiation only after a proper review. So the problem is ongoing. Mr. Matthias is now at the extreme top end of salaries for a City of our size. Next year his salary will reach that of Cities many times larger than Des Moines, such as Tacoma! And it will continue to expand with each passing year. That is simply unacceptable, regardless of the quality of his work.
However, an even greater change to his compensation was the ad hoc motion by departing Councilmember Pennington to literally triple his severance package. That was the cash equivalent of over $200,000 approved with no staff research or prior notice (as always happens with an Agenda Item). No expenditure of that magnitude should ever occur without being on the official Agenda. Even during an emergency (like the recent Woodmont slide), an official memo will be presented for the Council to vote on. Worst of all, this motion was completely pre-planned by the five members of the majority to be presented this way, at the last moments of the meeting. This motion was unethical and damaged both our City’s reputation and the public’s trust in us.
The five members of the majority wanted the increase in severance pay not only to reward Mr. Matthias for his work (a sort of bonus), but specifically to make it difficult for future Councils to make a change. They said, from the dais, that they were concerned that a future Council might (foolishly) attempt to undo what they consider his indispensable work. The arrogance of this is truly profound. Mr. Matthias is the City’s Economic Development Director. That was his original position before being elevated to City Manager. Should a future Council wish to make a change in Economic Development, we’re now saddled with a large payout which would, indeed, make it harder to make a change–even if it’s in the best interest of our City. The current majority has thus handcuffed the flexibility of a future Council because ‘they know better’. This sets a terrible precedent.
Last December the same majority members of the Council were concerned that comments from the dais were going on too long. So they voted to add timers to limit comment to 4 minutes. 😀 Which is ironic since four of my peers went on for 1 hr and 12 minutes defending the salary increase. (That was the longest discussion period since last year’s salary increase.) And here’s my point: If you feel like you have to work that hard to convince the public to buy something? Maybe you should re-consider what yer tryin’ to sell. Even this weekend, Councilmember Buxton has been going full-throttle to defend the decision on social media. Fair play. My only objection to that is that she presents her views not as opinion, but as ‘transparency’. The word ‘transparency’ implies an objective presentation of facts, not merely the ones which support one’s viewpoint.
Finally, during the Council’s hour-long defense/sales pitch, they repeatedly used phrases such as:
- “This town won’t succeed without Michael.”.
- “If we lose Michael, we’ll go back to the way things were 25 years ago.”
- “We’ve got to protect Michael no matter what it takes.”
Look, one always strives for a great working relationship, but there is a certain professional distance that one must maintain between any CEO and their supervisors for the good of the City. But the majority’s praise for our City Manager was so effusive as to cross that line entirely. Even if I agreed that Mr. Matthias’ accomplishments were as grand as they say, no one should be thought of, or presented to the public, as being indispensable to an organisation, and certainly not our city.
You’ll notice that I have not commented on the quality of Mr. Matthias’ work. I had several objections to his salary increases, based not on his work as an Administrator, but on his other official positions, as Chairman of our Aviation Advisory Committee and as his position as Economic Development Director. I do not think the City’s business and retail environment have gone in the right direction and I know that the City has not done a great job in improving the problems we are experiencing from Sea-Tac Airport. But most of my objections to the contract changes have nothing to do with performance and everything to do with the process. During my campaign I railed against a City Council that acts in a high-handed manner, without concern for the public’s opinion. Since the election, my peers have asked me about this. They have seemed genuinely confused as to what I was talking about. Well, this whole affair is exactly what I was talking about. And the fact that the current majority cannot recognise how tone deaf they are being to the public’s feelings means that we still have a lot of work to do in improving our relationship with our residents.

Mr. Matthias has done exemplary work in many areas (as I’ve said many times). The point of this post was not to complain about his performance or to impune his character. But the manner in which his Performance Review was handled was simply outrageous.

Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 01/26/2020

1 Comment

If yer looking for my post on our City Manager’s raise, it’s here

This Week

Monday I’ll be Olympia again, at a Stakeholders meeting with Tina Orwall on the whole Port Package Update bill. Some details here.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I’ll also be in Olympia for the Association Of Washington Cities (AWC) events. Tuesday is a training session on parliamentary techniques, which sounds boring but if yer in the minority on a City Council, you need to learn all the rules in order to have any chance of making a difference. Wednesday is called ‘Legislative Day’ and it’s a chance for noobs like me to meet with not just Senators and Representatives, but also the people who run important departments like Transportation, Ecology, State, etc.

Tuesday at noon is a Port Of Seattle Commission Meeting at Sea-Tac Airport. I urge anyone interested in airport issues to attend or watch the LiveStream as there will be an update on the whole SAMP (airport expansion) projects. I wish I could be there.

Thursday is yet another all day schmoozefest–an annual Puget Sound Regional Council get-together in Seattle. Again, relationship building.

Somewhere in there will be a bunch of meetings with residents and our cousin Councilmembers in neighbour cities. 🙂

Last Week

Monday I met with Kent Councilmember Satwinder Kaur. She’s on the Sound Cities Association (SCA) Puget Sound Clean Air Committee and has done fantastic things with their local parks–including clean up and beautification efforts similar to what we’ve done at Midway Park. We talked about how we can work together to get pollution monitors installed around Sea-Tac Airport–something that was supposed to be part of the Third Runway mitigation program but somehow never got done. (Gee, I wonder why?) Without sounding too cynical, the reason it never happened is that, as I often say, “If there’s no data, there’s no problem.” Without pollution monitors, there’s no ‘official’ data. And without official data, there can be no State or Federal funding or legal action to improve the situation.

Tuesday I was at the South King County Transportation Board (SCATbd) along with Councilmember Mahoney. The PSRC (you’ll soon learn that they’re everywhere in these updates) is offering grants for bike and walking trails and at the last City Council Meeting I suggested that we apply for a portion of those to finish the Barnes Creek Trail and connect Kent Des Moines Road all the way to 200th! 😀

On Wednesday, I was back in Olympia to testify on behalf of the House Bill on Port Package Updates (HB 2315 ) introduced by Tina Orwall. The good news is that the bill passed out of Committee and is now seems to be moving forward with support from all sides. Fingers crossed!

Wednesday I had my first weekly meeting with the City Manager, Michael Matthias. There was some ‘air-clearing’. I claimed during the campaign that I had heard him make several dishonest statements. Accusing someone of dishonesty is a huge deal, of course so I completely understand why he’d be more than a little dis-chuffed. One of those involved a ‘Tree In Lieu Program’, which I said did not exist. He gave me a copy of the City Tree Regulations which describes this program. So I guess I stand corrected. I’ll just add this: I went to the City’s web site to look for the text from the printed page he gave me. I was really upset that I might have falsely accused him of something based on laziness on my part. However, I could not find the same text on the web site. So perhaps this is all a terrible misunderstanding. I do know that I’d be a lot more contrite if I knew why I couldn’t find the text on that web page. Perhaps this just underscores what I’ve been saying all along: We need a better web site. The inability to find information can not only be annoying, it can cause serious problems. Regardless, he has my sincere apology.

Wednesday was also the Highline Forum and the Port Of Seattle presented several items where they say they are trying to be more helpful on airport issues. I am (as always) skeptical due to decades of bad faith on their part. However, I must admit that the newer Commissioners have made more of an effort at communication. Is it enough? HELL NO! But compared to the way it was back ten years ago where Commissioners did not even pretend to care about the community, it represents at least some progress. So I try to tell activists: you’re not going all ‘Uncle Tom’ by trying to talk.

Thursday I met with our King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove. He is big on transit and we discussed ways to expand the Commuter Shuttle program to the entire City and to improve routes in the South end of town (Highline college to 272nd.) He fully acknowledges that current bus service is pretty out of whack: most of the routes are in the North end of town while most of the people who want to ride are in the South. This is another of those ‘gravity’ issues I often speak about. We must move the focus of key City programs southward–to where the people who need them are.

And then there was our City Council Meeting at 7pm. Video here.

That was so much fun I even made a separate post on it. 😀 By the way, I’m starting to notice now that a certain percentage of residents either don’t seem to get or fully appreciate my world-class sense of humour. So where I just wrote, “so much fun” what I was really saying is, “bloody fuckin’ horrible, mate.” 😀 But I don’t say that out loud because, you know, I’m a very polite guy. 🙂

Friday I met with Mayor Jim Ferrell of Federal Way and his (kinda) new Strategic Advisor, Bill Vadino. Speaking candidly (is there any other way?) Federal Way had not been getting great reviews from activists on its efforts to improve the noise and pollution from Sea-Tac Airport. All I can tell you is that Mayor Ferrell seemed engaged in the situation and clearly frustrated with the lack of progress. In other words, he is not happy with the status quo. He fully recognises that we’ve been spinning our wheels and says that he is willing to think about a new approach. We’ll see!

I’m not special, but the Staff certainly is!

I want to make a general comment on civic engagement. Last week, I got big ‘Thank you!’ moments from three residents that really I did not deserve. They had some really annoying complaints and reached out to me. A couple of days later? PRESTO! Problem solved. I’m a magician. Apparently, I run this town.

EHHHHHH (that’s my, “sorry you’re incorrect, Alex”, buzzer sound effect.)

All I do is write down their complaint, then I go home and do what you (or they) could do: I call the City (206-878-4595), or fill out the on-line form and… A couple of days later? PRESTO! Problem solved.

See, I have no ‘pull’ with the City on day to day affairs. No councilmember does. Again, all I do is do what you can do.

I bring this up because I think there is a sense sometimes that nothing in government works well and you have to ‘know a guy’ to get anything done. Not true in Des Moines. In fact, a lot of routine issues get resolved very efficiently by our staff. You just have to know the City phone number (Again, that’s 206-878-4595 🙂 )

I think one thing that makes some people think that nothing works in government is because there are often lots of kerfuffles involving politics (see below). But the City staff who help our residents is not involved in any of that junk. Whatever shenanigans are going wrong with ‘big’ issues, you can count on the day to day stuff to be handled pretty well. (And in the unlikely event it isn’t I do want to hear about it.)

That said, I am happy to hear your concerns and make a call or fill out a form for you. In fact, I am glad to do it because it helps me know what’s going on in Des Moines! But I just want to make it clear that I have no special superpower. You get exactly the same service and I encourage you to give it a shot, then tell your neighbours. My goal is to build confidence in our City’s customer service and its great staff.