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Two still unseated SeaTac City Council members went before the Des Moines City Council on Thursday night to tell its members to not believe its staff on advice about a proposed 16 percent utility tax to balance its budget for the next two years.

Mayor Dave Kaplan lashed at the two, saying they had no business coming to his city to tell them how to run his city, adding that one of the SeaTac people had “another agenda” and that he would not go to their city and give unsolicited advice. Retiring Councilmember Bob Sheckler, also a former Des Moines mayor, said in his 20 years on the Council, that he’s “seen a lot of political tricks and a lot of politicians that think they are really hot and really aren’t. Observers said the actions of the two from SeaTac were surprising. City councilmembers virtually never go to another city and publicly lecture its governing body on how to raise budget money or telling the other city’s leaders not to believe their own staff advice.

‘Please don’t believe them’

Rick Forschler, former and soon to be again a SeaTac Councilmember, told the Des Moines Council he respected them but he might say things they might not like to hear. “The city staff here will likely tell you that the utility taxes are necessary in order to make the budget meet – please don’t believe them.” He added “sorry Tony” to City Manager Tony Piasecki. “I know these special purpose districts very well,” Forschler said. “They operate efficiently, they live within their means. There is very little, if any, waste… “Long before we consider raising taxes, we should exhaust all other options,” Forschler said, “including competitive contracting services … if used wisely would save from 10 to 30 percent of those costs.” Then he listed other cities that had reduced costs by better managing the services of city contractors. “I have these same sort of comments last year to the SeaTac City Council,” he said. “They ignored them.” Forschler said “a major reason” four SeaTac Council lost the election was the 6 percent utility taxes they had approved. Then he turned to the citizens in the Des Moines audience and addressed them. “Will the voters among you raise your hands, please. Write down the name Rick Forschler and if these folks,” gesturing to the Council members, “impose that utility tax contact Rick in SeaTac and I’ll help you do the same thing we did in SeaTac. “I’m sorry, but we need to protect these small districts, they do well, they work efficiently and you are doing a disservice to your citizens if you don’t consider these alternatives for saving money first.” He got long and loud applause from the Des Moines citizens in the Council chambers.

Soon to be SeaTac Councilmember Peter Kwon, recently elected, and former and soon to be again City Councilmember Rich Forschler told the Des Moines Council of the utility tax increase approved in SeaTac last year that he said resulted in four Council members being voted off that city’s Council. “Please listen to your citizens and at least put it to a vote,” he said. Kwon takes his SeaTac Council seat in January.

Kaplan blasts ‘ludicrous’ duo

At the later Councilmember comment period, Kaplan addressed the appearance of Forschler and Kwon, “people form a city that don’t even live here.” Referring to Forschler, Kaplan said, “I have a great deal of respect for you but Des Moines is not SeaTac. We don’t have a bunch of hotels, we don’t have a parking tax, we don’t have a $30 million a year budget like you do. We don’t have the same economic base. “For you to come in and tell us what we need to do for our city and our citizens and the services we provide is ludicrous,” a visibly angry mayor said. “It was our city that took the steps forward to get the SCORE (South Correctional Entity) jail built. Why? Because it saves us $350,000 a year in our jail costs. “I get really frustrated with people who really don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to the finances of the city coming in and telling us – we’ve had these conversations publically in public forums year after year after year about our financial condition. “I don’t appreciate you coming into our city and telling us how we should be conducting our business,” Kaplan said. “I wouldn’t presume to do the same thing in yours and hope that you and Mr. Kwan would keep that in mind when you take office in January. Councilmember Bob Sheckler, said “the most disgusting thing I’ve seen any politician do was what Mr. Forschler did this evening. “Imagine if we were to go over to SeaTac and do that, how would they think of us as a neighbor? Now, I think there is going to be quite a problem between Des Moines and the city of SeaTac. ”

A woman from the audience shouted out, “They are here to help us.” “They are not here to help you, that is a political stunt,” Sheckler snapped back. “You ask yourself what is Mr. Forschler really doing? He’s got some other ambitions; he’s got some other agenda. “You never come into another’s city and do what he did, that’s disgusting,” Sheckler said, jabbing a pen in the direction of the woman in the audience.

Here’s video of Forschler and Kwon, along with responses from Mayor Dave Kaplan and Councilmember Bob Sheckler:

Utilities protest

Ken Case, manager of the Midway Sewer District, regarding the proposed 16 percent gross tax on utility districts, said he is not confident that all Council members are seeing the comments of the district sent to the city. While a Councilmember said they were interested in proposed solutions to alleviate the tax, Case said his district has offered the solution of a franchise agreement that would pay to the city up to 6 percent of the district’s revenue, but the city has not responded and has rejected the suggested agreement. Case said the city at a meeting suggested the sewer district could be taken over by the city if there was no agreement on the city tax. Such assumption of special purpose district is legal under state law with caveats including paying the district for certain property. The city has acted in a punitive fashion, Case told the Council, noting that the city says that all money paid to the district for its services or service expansion would be taxed at 16 percent. If the city and district can’t come to an agreement, Case said the sewer utility would consider suing the city but suggested negotiate a franchise or some other form of “win-win” agreement with the district. Matt Everett, manager of the Highline Water District, said the district ratepayers are having a hard time getting by without additional taxes. “Going from zero to 16 percent “seems amazingly high … especially in a year when people on Social Security are receiving zero percent raise,” Everett told the Council. The best agreement from his utility would be to work on a franchise tax agreement. Several other residents objected to the proposed 16 percent utility district taxes and taxes in general, with some suggesting the city does not listen to their comments and complaints.

Partially true

Suzy Gonzale a commissioner of the Southwest Suburban Sewer District said the district got a letter from City Manager Piasecki on Nov. 9 that said there was no progress on a franchise agreement, “but this is only partially true.” She said the district’s manager “did not respond on a couple of occasions but his requested modifications to the proposed agreement “were not considered by city staff.” She said the city’s argument that utility taxes were not subject to negotiation “is not true” and that SeaTac and Normandy Park are negotiating a utility tax cap of 6 percent. “I don’t understand how you can make this statement when other cities are doing so,” Gonzale said. “Why are you the only city within Puget Sound region unwilling to negotiate a utility tax within a franchise agreement? Why are you the only city dictating a 16 percent tax, 10 percent higher than anyone else?” Gonzale also said the city has told them they have “unrestricted cash to we can afford to pay your imposed 16 percent utility tax. Do you have any idea what that money is earmarked for?” The money is for designated capital improvements to the district’s system, she said. Gonzale said the city told them it has “neither the time, nor patience to stretch out the negotiations,” which she calls the “most troubling” part of the city’s letter. “You made absolutely no effort to reach out and discuss this with any of the utility districts or even the residents that will be financially affected by this new tax.” The various districts involved have told the city they will explore a lawsuit if the tax is imposed.

Negotiate tax down

Councilmember Victor Pennington said he hoped the 16 percent could be negotiated down. “We have to find a balance between all of us in the community because we are all invested in the community,” Pennington said. Councilmember Sheckler said he expected the complaints from the special purpose districts but was concerned about comments that the city does not listen to people or “spending money on ludicrous things.” Prior to putting the utility tax before the Council, Sheckler said “the same number of people that are here tonight were here and out the door that were very, very concerned that the Council was about to do something that they didn’t want to have happen …” Those people spoke against cuts in the Parks and Recreation, especially senior programs and those for youth, and road repairs and “the thing we have been hearing a lot, the need for more police officers, he said, “people on the opposite side of the equation coming before us and demanding these things, too.” Those requests were worthy, but he said he hoped citizens didn’t think they just making budget change “willy-nilly for more cash.” “How do you keep everybody happy in politics? You definitely don’t,” Sheckler said. “Hopefully this evening maybe we can come to some sort of compromise.” The Council had to weigh both sides, he said.

Hard to do things right

Mayor Pro-Tem Matt Pina agreed, and that many things have happened to change the way Des Moines is financed. Where once it was possible to exist as a bedroom community, now the “law has slowly changed.” “We are a bedroom community that no longer can be that because you can’t generate enough revenue through property tax or any other means to really sustain yourself and sustain the essential services.” Pina said the city is working hard to get “things right” like the business park and other moves to improve the financial situation for Des Moines. Councilmember Luisa Bangs said her six months on the Council have been tough one coming up with a budget and getting to “a better state of affairs in this city.” “It is our job to listen to you in terms of where you want it to come from. Sometimes we don’t have a choice, it is not easy. As a new Councilperson, we are going to do our best and if ‘best’ isn’t enough, my God, we’ve got to do something,” Bang said. “It’s taxes and it’s cuts. “I don’t think its we don’t hear you,” she said. “There is nothing easy about what we hear today but hopefully in the future it will be a lot better. Councilmember Melissa Musser said she was offended at someone saying all of the “people up here” are the same, they don’t care. When no one comes to meeting, Musser said, “it is quiet happiness, there is nothing to complain about. “But, man, you want to get to come to a meeting, levy a special assessment, raise their taxes, do something controversial and people come out and then you learn who your community is …” She said that “you citizens should be ashamed of yourselves” because two Council seats on the latest election were uncontested. “I hope to see all of you on the ballot in two years, because that means you care, that you are engaged,” returning to the audience comments that many commenters have made during Council session of late, adding that many committees go begging for volunteers. “Please, stay engaged,” Musser told the audience. “Just because the controversy goes away doesn’t mean there is not still stuff happening in our city. I hope you people stay engaged.”

‘We care’

Mayor Kaplan said, “The Council does care.” In 1999, Initiative 695 passed “it eliminated the welfare check our city was getting in the form of sales tax equalization to the tune of somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million a year.” Since then the city had been trying to do what it could to “sustain the services that you told us you want.” The voters pass an initiative “that caps the amount of property taxes we collect on an annual basis.” “So if you collect $2.5 million worth of property tax one year, you can collect a whopping $25,000 the next,” Kaplan said. “That doesn’t pass our utility bill increase the following year, let along (cost of living) increases or other things for operating the city.” “Since 1999 we have reduced staff in the city by 30 percent. Name another city that can say that. In the last eight years, we have reduced by 20 percent, a number of those were police positions. “Do our communications need to import? Yes,” said Kaplan. “We have had talks about the utility tax going back to Aug. 8. Should there have been more direct communication with the utility districts prior to October, yeah, we own that.”

Economic Development, History

Highline Times, Westside Seattle

Highline Times: Des Moines council hires temporary economic development director

Mon, 08/02/2010

After an impassioned discussion about Des Moines’ future and how best to utilize what little extra money the city has, a split City Council voted 4-2 to create a temporary full-time economic development manager position.

Marion Yoshino, who has been volunteering on a downtown business survey and other economic development projects, will become Des Moines economic development director.

During the nine-month contract period, the position will cost the city $70,512.

The funding will come from Business and Occupation taxes (B&O), which are bringing in more than was expected. If trends continue, excess B&O tax could bring in an additional $190,000 in funding.

Mayor Pro-Tem Dave Kaplan and Councilwoman Melissa Musser voted against creating the new position, saying while they felt an economic development manager was important, other priorities took a higher priority.

“I think this is a luxury we wish we could have,” Musser said. “Not a priority.”

Kaplan told the council that he reluctantly could not support it, saying there are a lot of competing needs for the city’s resources.

He said this is the first year revenue from utility taxes has dropped and considering all of the other places the money could be used around the city he could not support creating a new position.

Councilman Scott Thomasson, who was not in attendance at this meeting, said last week if the city had extra money lawmakers should look at reinstating a police officer position.

Other alternative uses for the money included restoring to a fulltime basis either the city clerk, administrative assistant in Planning, Building and Public Works, or the receptionist-business license clerk– all of whom are currently working 32 hours a week. Other possibilities include creating a full time personnel analyst position, fund capital projects such as street overlays or a generator for City Hall, or pay for a police department needs assessment/audit.

Councilman Matt Pina spoke out for the new manager, saying it can be a revenue generating opportunity.

“If we lose the momentum here it will be really hard to get it back,” Pina said. “(An economic development director) has the potential to set us up for long term benefit and growth.”

Councilman Dan Sherman said he didn’t feel nine months was a long enough amount of time, and made a motion to increase the length of the position to April 2012.

“If we are doing it, lets not do it half baked,” Sherman said.

The motion ultimately died for lack of a second, however several council members did agree with Sherman’s point.

Sherman said he wanted to give Yoshino enough time to really accomplish something, as well as give confidence to businesses she works with that she will be in Des Moines for a while.

An uncertainty for continued funding, as well as not knowing whether Yoshino would even want to commit to a longer amount of time, kept the motion at nine months.

However, City Manager Tony Piasecki said the Council will definitely be revisiting this again when Yoshino’s contract is over in April.

“There are signs the economy is improving,” Piasecki said. “Some businesses have weathered the storm very well. Those are the businesses we want.”

Thomasson also said last week he did not approve of creating a position and hiring someone without advertising it first.

Piasecki admitted it is not normal procedure to have someone in mind before creating a job, but Yoshino had been performing the job very well for the city already. He also said they were not creating a permanent position; this is basically a contract job.

Pina said she already has projects she is working on and he did not see any point to disrupting the momentum by doing a job search.

Campaigning, History, Transparency

Competitive City Council Races (Part II)

Last Updated:December 28th, 2023 @ 02:20PM

1 Comment

As I wrote in Part I, we’ve had forty two City Council races or vacancies in the past twenty years, only seventeen competitive races and only thirty eight (38) candidates that may be called ‘competive’. And since many of them obtained office running unopposed or via appointment, the number of candidates who have been tested is actually less.

But Des Moines is now a City of 33,000 people and our budget is $117M. It’s an uncomfortable question to ask, but the stakes are high enough now that it’s worth considering whether or not our system of vetting candidates is up to the challenge of generating electeds who are able to meet those challenges.

The cure is an election

Democracy depends on quality. Quality candidates and quality voters.

The bedrock assumption of our election system is that voters are rational actors and that voters will select for quality.

Our system assumes that:

Candidates will step forward to run who have what it takes to govern well.
Voters can and do choose wisely.
That things will only rarely go wrong, and that when they do, the voters will fix the mistake in the next election.

The phrase you will hear over and over to describe this approach is:

The cure is an election.

Time and again, courts have been extremely reluctant to intervene in anything having to do with elected offices. They rightly leave it to the voters to test candidates to make sure they are obtaining the best quality electeds. They rightly fear constitutional implications of attempting to monkey with the will of the voters. Democracy depends on you doing something.

Why the cure is hard to swallow…

So, the system leaves it up to voters to select good electeds. A couple of challenges with that.

Turnout

Traditionally, only about one third of registered voters actually vote in Des Moines. Their median age is now over fifty eight (58), they are clustered in the wealthiest precincts (nearest the water), have far fewer children on average, and they are overwhelmingly white. In short, the people who vote are not representative of the population as a whole in almost every way that counts: diversity, age, parenting, location. Darn.

Ethics

On paper, WA has among the best election and government ethics laws in the nation. But every elected so quickly learns how to work them that they often make things worse. Also, there is no HR department for Councilmembers. We police ourselves. Or rather, four votes (the Council majority) is the sole enforcement of ethics for the entire Council.

Quantity

Face it. The fewer choices, the less likely it is to get good candidates. Does Gonzaga field a great team? Sure. But they get to aggressively recruit from all over America. We’re limited to residents of Des Moines. I doubt the Bulldogs would do as well if their talent pool was limited to the good people of Spokane Valley.

Candidate Quality

And this brings up the most uncomfortable question possible: With such a small talent pool, it is simply not possible to consistently obtain high quality candidates under any circumstance. One way employers hope to obtain good employees is by vetting a large number of candidates,. right? If you kiss enough frogs, eventually you find your prince.

Electeds take no skills tests and are subject to almost no training beyond just “don’t violate the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA)’. The training ground is supposed to be the campaign. But how often have you seen candidates tested? Challenged? How many doors have they (not a surrogate) knocked on? How many places do they hang out besides in the Marina District? How well do they know the City, how much policy have they digested and how well are they prepared to govern? Frankly, voters have never seemed to care.

Eg. During the 2022 Council Vacancy process:

There was no opportunity for public questioning of applicants by CMs. The majority believed that having applicants respond to questioning would be onerous for applicants.
Not one letter the Council received from residents mentioned anything to do with any policy position; only identity and general qualifications.

Signals

Our City Council races are non-partisan. It uses a very pleasant anachronism that the public will rationally choose the best seven people, regardless of politics or other factors. It assumes that you get to know all the candidates and have all the information you need to make a rational decision that aligns with both your, and the community’s interest.

Unfortunately, voters don’t tend to do that. Instead, they look for signals, time-saving shortcuts to indicate that candidates are aligned both with their positions and values. And notice that ‘quality’ (ie. issue expertise or job-specific skills are nowhere in there.)

The two biggest signals tend to be Identity/Diversity and Political Endorsements. Neither are reliable indicators either of quality or issue positions:

Diversity

It may be hard to hear, but due to the small talent pool, choosing based on identity tends to work against candidate quality. There is simply no correlation between candidate quality, issue positions or even identities such as ‘Black’, ‘LGBTQ’ or ‘gender’.

The uncomfortable fact is that, given our small talent pool, if you vote based primarily on identity, you are either assuming that those identities provide some benefit which trumps all other qualifications, or you believe that candidate quality does not matter.

- We’ve had five female CMs over the past 20 years. Only one could remotely be classified as ‘progressive’. But again, only one of those women faced strong opposition, which makes it impossible to know if the voters give automatic deference to women.)
- We’ve had three CMs elected under the age of forty: hard conservatives Jeremy Nutting and Dave Kaplan and the only openly progressive CM in our history: Anthony Martinelli.
- We’ve had at least three gay men as CMs. They have been among the most tenured in our history. But again, some were very conservative and some were among the most liberal.

Party endorsements

Within the Des Moines Talent Pool, there has been absolutely no correlation between candidate quality, issues positions and political endorsement. In fact it’s worse than that. There has been no correlation between party affiliation and issue positions. Party affiliation provides no reliable indicator either of quality or of issue positions.

And remember, the smallest unit of organisation for a political party is the Legislative District; in our case, the 33rd. The majority of the 33rd Leg is actually in Burien and SeaTac. And the interests of those voters are often not the same as those of Des Moines voters.

PAC Endorsements

Within the Des Moines Talent Pool, there is absolutely no correlation between candidate quality and Political Action Committee (PAC) endorsements. However, there has been some correlation between some PAC endorsements and some issue positions. But it may not be what you think.

The following PACs tend to support the incumbent or most conservative candidate, regardless of party or issue positions: Police and Fire, Unions, Developers, and Real Estate.

(In fact, many of these endorsements are made without affording all candidates an opportunity to compete. The bias is towards the Devil You Know, regardless of any results the endorsees provide for their members. And their interests are not always the same as voter interest.

Other advocacy groups which are identified more as ‘liberal’, such as teachers or even groups called ‘Progressive Voters’, are unpredictable. But again, their interests are not always the same as voter interest.

So?

When I did the first version of this article, I just left the data there. I’ve been very reluctant to provide any form of ‘solutions’. I’m the first to admit that I either appear biased or I really am biased towards the approach I suggest. I tried (and try) to be the candidate and elected that my analysis suggests is ‘best’. Regardless, there’s no way to avoid sounding self-serving. I’m working with I’ve got.

But without offering a ‘solution’ this will read like just another ‘all complaints no answers’ rant. So…

Here’s all ya gotta do…

I opened this article as follows:

Democracy depends on quality candidates. The bedrock assumption of our election system is that voters are rational actors and that voters will select for quality.

But given the low number of candidates of any quality and all the challenges you face in choosing, here’s all ya gotta do fellas…

Be well-informed: make sure you have ways to really get to know each candidate, their background and pay specific attention to their issue positions (their values.)
Avoid any signals: Don’t vote based on relationships or party or endorsements or identity or nothing other than what the candidates tell you. I know it’s counter-intuitive and it’s awkward but the data is 100% clear on this going back thirty years: The candidates who value an issue will support it far more than the people who vote based on signals:

- Candidates who have strong policy positions on diversity, will obtain diversity faster than voting for people based on their identity.
- Candidates who have strong policy positions on public safety will hire more cops than people endorsed by the police union.

It really is that simple. But by ‘simple’ I do not mean easy. It’s a lot of work to research each candidate and then refuse all those handy temptations to vote based on habit and signals.

So I can make it even simpler, a one step process:

Just vote for candidates who seems most genuinely interested in expanding public awareness.

Think about it: if you’re selling a quality product, you want as many people as possible to know as much about it as possible. And you definitely want customers to see how your features stack up against the competition. You want to maximise awareness, both of the product and specific features.

The candidates who do not prioritise those things are marketing to a narrow audience. And that’s why Des Moines is the way it is.

Coda: OK, it’s not that simple…

Actually, the current system is missing something: It depends on a functioning and free press. It’s actually in the Constitution, under the very first Amendment. And it’s there because the founders recognised almost immediately that voters need some form of ongoing quality control.

And by that I mean, you can’t just wait four years and hope for good candidates and electeds. The public has a responsibility to improve both candidates and electeds as they go.

We rarely do that in Des Moines. We bitch, we moan, but we provide very few incentives (carrots and sticks) to our politicians to make them better. We expect little and they are only too happy to oblige. They should thank us for making their lives easier. 🙂

So I’ll just close by saying that the public must find ways to continuously improve candidates and electeds. All politicians must feel a constant desire (and pressure) to study, to be flexible, to do more outreach, to cooperate with their colleagues, and basically to be more professional.

I don’t know how to get there, but that is the piece of the puzzle that is almost completely absent in the discussion at the moment. With so few people even bothering to run, the only way to obtain good electeds is if the public insists on some form of continuous improvement.

JC Harris For Des Moines, Washington