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Categories Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 03/23/2020

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This Week

Oh, you thought I’d miss a Weekly Update? It takes more than some ‘Pandemic’ to stop me from gassing on about Des Moines! Actually, I was kinda waitin’ to hear what Governor Inslee had to say at 5:30pm. Short answer: We’re on lockdown, folks.

I will not be at the Port Of Seattle Special Meeting (agenda) tomorrow. Although it will be of great interest to people in Des Moines and I urge you to watch it with me. Not on my couch, of course. But here. It will include a contract to (finally) sound insulate Villa Enzi condominiums on 216th and allocates the first money to the new sound insulation initiative I keep banging on about and finalizes the Flight Corridor Safety Program (aka ‘tree cutting along 200th’). Though originally slated to chop down 3,000 trees, it’s been reduced now to 170. Whew.

And I will (apparently) not be at City Hall for our City Council Meeting (agenda) at the extra-special time of 5pm on Thursday March 26th. But I will be attending ‘telephonically’ per our City Manager’s recommendation. Technically, you can’t prevent people from showing up to a public meeting, but we are encouraging people to stay home and watch on Channel 21. People who show up will be ‘screened’ –this simply means taking yer temperature and answering some basic health questions. Now normally I’d be like, “screw yer telephonic, mate” because every call-in-councilmember I’ve ever witnessed has been something of a joke. But speaking of jokes, the Agenda is such that that is the least of my objections. More below.

Last Week

I did not meet with City Manager Michael Matthias. More below.

I did a bunch of driving around, delivering food, running errands, whatnot.

I had a tele-conference training on Emergency Preparedness for the National Incident Management System NIMS, which was interesting. There is a whole system in place from top to bottom which is designed to keep all the governments running in case of situations like this. Thank God. I’m not entirely thrilled with how we all are handling the current Coronavirus thing, but I’m probably a little calmer about it than you are after learning just how well-thought out most of these systems are.

As of Sunday, Saltwater State Park was the busiest I have ever seen it. I mean, the parking lot is overflowing. The Marina Beach Park and Redondo Beach are also going gangbusters. I see whole gaggles of children and parents congregating at every school. Frankly, people are simply not taking the situation seriously enough. I’m sure I’ll come off as a total jerk to some, but I spent a good deal of time during the week asking, begging our City Manager to shut these down. I’ll stand by that because, as one of my neighbours told me, “If we’re going to go through all this pain, we shouldn’t do it half-assed.” Right.

Newsflash: People have already tested positive here. In Des Moines. When you’re passing dozens and dozens of people, we think we’re ‘social distancing’. But we’re not. Please stay home. I know it’s boring as hell and I know there are only so many shows you can binge or games you can play. But stay home.

One last thing: If you aren’t at home and you see people congregating like ignorant jerks? SAY SOMETHING! Don’t place politeness over your community.

The Incoming Wave

There is a whole timeline of how this disease is supposed to spread. And I think one reason people have so much trouble taking it seriously is that they think that what we’re doing now is ‘it’. This is not ‘it’. This is like a 7-10 days before it.

The way to think about the situation is that we’re like in a boat and there’s a slow motion Tsunami coming. We know it’s coming so we batten down the hatches (note to non-sailors, that really is a thing). The tighter you make the boat, the less chance you have of being swamped. Sure, you may get some water inside, but if you’re good, not enough to be a total disaster.

When we behave in cavalier way because people aren’t dropping like flies now, we’re like the guy who waited until the wave was upon him to batten down the hatches.

Again, resources to help people to cope are starting to emerge, including food, transportation, unemployment benefits and small business loans. I’ll be posting specifics on my Facebook Page as they come in.

Emergency Government

Since this whole thing started, there has been an almost complete shutdown on information from City Hall to City Council (well to me at least) with the exception of occasional Coronavirus updates. It’s disconcerting to get questions from Councilmembers in other cities about Des Moines’ business. It tells me that they’re getting more info than we are (or at least I am).

When I entered office I complained that in a Council/Manager form of government, you can really have a tough time getting information if you’re in the minority. And when you couple that with the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), one can feel pretty blind as to what is going on at City Hall.

To review: in our form of government, the City Council has no real authority outside of official meetings. It’s almost completely up to the discretion of the City Manager as to what information to share. And it’s illegal for a quorum of Councilmembers to meet outside of a public meeting–and that includes emails and phone calls. And there is a limit on the number of meetings during a calendar year. And only the Mayor or City Manager can call a special meeting. And as a practical matter, the Mayor or City Manager have total control over the items on a meeting Agenda.

So during a declared emergency, where there are either no or severely truncated meetings, business either doesn’t get done, gets done on auto-pilot or is left to the City Manager or Mayor’s discretion. Which is OK for yer basic short-term emergency (nuclear explosion, volcanic eruption, etc. 😀 ) This makes total sense when one needs to focus 100% of the corporation’s attention on instaneous considerations of public safety.

However, we’re definitely not well-suited to a crisis with a months-long trajectory which doesn’t feel quite as dramatic as the above examples. One where it’s difficult to physically meet and we don’t have a fancy schmancy video-conferencing system. One that not only allows for Councilmembers to interact seamlessly with each other and the public at large (remember, these are public meetings). When you add all that up then you have a recipe for… um… well I dunno exactly what it’s a recipe for, but it’s not something I want a steady diet of, that’s for sure.

(As I write this, I just got a reply from the Mayor saying that video-conferencing is in the works, so stop worrying. Good!) My only reply is that it would be nice if the entire Council were getting updates that work like that is getting done. Also, with such a truncated meeting Agenda, how does one even find out what is going on, right?

Speaking of City Hall, we’re running a skeleton crew at City Hall, which is largely unavoidable. That too will need to be examined: how can we keep more of the corporation running so we can keep helping the public as much as possible.

Anyhoo, not trying to get all ‘negative’. I’m an engineer and process improvement is how I think. The staff I’ve spoken with have been doing an admiral job–special shout out to our City Clerk Bonnie Wilkins who has  had one of the toughest jobs in King County these past few weeks answering a gazillion questions at all hours, seven days a week, with amazing patience and good humour.

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Categories Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 03/15/2020

This Week

It’s now all-Coronavirus all-the-time. A lot of the City government is shut down or curtailed now (including the court.) Our City is taking COVID-19 very seriously (as I hope you are) and you can check here for good info from King County on the current status of the situation.

I’ll be meeting with City Manager Michael Matthias to get an update on what his Staff are doing to keep the City safe and functioning.

I’m also doing a certain amount of volunteering–basically giving people lifts to places now that so many things are shut down.

There are a number of routine meetings that are now being done via tele-conference (ironically one is on Emergency Preparedness) which I’ll talk about if and when anything interesting happens. 😀

Resources to help people to cope are starting to emerge, including food, transportation, unemployment benefits and small business loans. I’ll be posting specifics on my Facebook Page as they come in.

Last Week

Our City Council meeting (Agenda) was cancelled. I have no further information yet as to when meetings will resume. I’m trying to balance my concern for this pandemic with the need for oversight. Frankly, I’m a bit nervous letting the government run itself for too long without the full Council having a say. We’re way behind schedule on Committee meetings, partly due to the recent resignation/appointment process, but also because (sorry colleagues) not enough activity was going on at the committee-level  last year. We’ve got some catching up to do.

Thursday I had a brief chat with 30th State Reps. Mike Pellicciotti and Jesse Johnson–mainly to thank them (again) for their work on various pieces of legislation, including big things like HB1847, but smaller and very meaningful work like getting money to repair the Redondo Pier and getting funding for South King County Fire & Rescue to buy a new boat, which has been sorely needed for some time. By the way: Our 30th Legislators are unique in that they make a point of scheduling regular phone calls with City electeds while the Legislature is in session–which I totally appreciate.

Friday I donated blood. OK, not exactly part of the job. But I got a note from the WA Department Of Health telling electeds that the blood supply had dipped dangerously low–people are not donating due to the Corona Virus outbreak. They want me to assure you that it is completely safe to donate. Check out the Bloodworks Northwest web site to make an appointment.

The New Normal

When I was six, I got sick; I mean really sick. That took about two years to get past and I still have ‘issues’ as a result. I used to kinda laugh at how ‘trivial’ so many common diseases now are. For example, a typical case of meningitis can now be treated with a single injection. We’ve come a long way.

The COVID-19 response, as uneven as it has been thus far, is actually a big step forward.  As big a pain as it now seems, it’s going to save a lot of lives.  And my real point is that it’s going to be the new normal. We’re going to be doing ‘this’ every few years or so because it’s clear that such things are becoming much more common (Remember: there was a COVID 1-18, right?)

So we should think about what that means going forward. Back in the early ’60’s when I got sick–when people in general got sick–you just shrugged and dealt with it as best you could on an individual level. There was not a great understanding of how to prevent whole populations from coming down with Polio or Measles or whatever. If you got sick, that was really sad, but… society just kept limping along–which only got more people get sick.

Now, we have an understanding of how to ‘flatten the curve’; which is great. A whole bunch fewer people are going to get sick as a result of all the steps we’re now being asked to take. It really is progress. But to many of you it certainly doesn’t feel like progress. For most of us ‘progress’ means not impacting my daily life. We just haven’t had a lot of practice dealing with community-wide events like this. We don’t yet have the infra-structure to cope with schools, daycare, movies, sporting events, churches, basically everything being shut for a few days, weeks until things blow over.

The way that I’m thinking about it is kinda like a very, very long Tornado Drill–a thing which we don’t do in Puget Sound, but which is extremely common in other parts of the United States. Basically, you go into a basement, with some snacks, water and a radio and you wait for the twister to pass. You remain calm. You’re almost certainly not going to get hurt so long as you don’t act stupidly. Those things usually only last a few hours.

OK, so the trick for us is two-fold. First, as with the Tornado Drill not to panic. That’s actually  the easy part. People used to Tornado Drills have that part down.

The second one is a bit more tricky because this thing may last a good long while. How many of us even have one of those ’emergency preparedness’ kits we’re all supposed to have, right? Well, maybe this isn’t as extreme as an earthquake, but we do have to think about hunkering down for several weeks now. How many of us have plans for School. Work. Church. Shopping. Daycare (!)

Because here’s the thing: This is not the last time we’re gonna deal with this sort of thing. New viruses like this are springing up every couple of years now. Some turn out to be mild and some not so much. And if we’re smart, we’re gonna have to expect something like this to happen from time to time. Again, it’s the new normal.

So my thinking is not so much about ‘The dreaded COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020!’. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be fine. Annoyed as hell, but fine.  What I’m already thinking about is next time. There will likely be any number of  proposals to dramatically expand emergency spending when this is over. Some will be worthy and some will be totally cockamamie (remember after 9/11 how many cities were seriously thinking about buying tanks?) Yeah, I’m not voting for any of that.

What I hope we take away from this mostly is on a more personal level. We are all going to need to be prepared to do what we’re all doing now–which really is not all that onerous or scary, right? We’ll just need to do do it in a less frantic way (got enough toilet paper and ramen, guys? 😀 ) It’s just a very long Tornado Drill.

Currently the City is providing information and keeping essential services running. But going forward we will also need to a lot more. We’ll need to help individuals and businesses get services to help them stay on their feet. We’ll need to advocate for much better and above all consistent State and Federal policies so that when this sort of thing reccurs, we can quickly provide ways to get relief to individuals and businesses. We will have to learn to all be on the same page from the jump.

Please stay inside. Wash yer hands obsessively–with soap. Just to be clear: we’re not over-reacting. And it’s not the end of the world. But it is the new normal.

 

Categories Airport, Policy, Transparency, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 03/09/2020

This Week

It’s now all-Corona all-the-time. A lot of the City government is shut down or curtailed now (including the court.) Our City is taking COVID-19 very seriously (as I hope you are) and you can check here for good info from King County on the current status of the situation.

Well, the Port Of Seattle trip all us airport-community electeds had scheduled for Washington D.C. got cancelled (thanks a lot corona virus!) So my dance card is pretty clear this week! Some of my peers in Burien and SeaTac are already there as part of a National League Of Cities convention so they may still be able to have meetings with the FAA, Senator Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Rick Larsen that I had planned. (Des Moines is no longer a member of NLC :(.) The good news is that I can honestly say that there is at least one elected now in each of these cities who is strong on airport issues. So I’m confident that they will advocate strongly in my stead to get Federal funding for HB2315 and HB1847 as well as help in the upcoming SAMP process at Sea-Tac Airport. Hopefully, we can re-schedule the Port trip soon!

Thursday is the next City Council meeting (Agenda). Although the Agenda says that no public comment will be taken, actually public comment will be taken on the ‘code clean-up’ item. If you can, please examine pg. 87 of the packet carefully. Some of those ‘clean-up’ items are quite significant in my opinion and I will be asking questions. More below.

City Manager Michael Matthias will als0 be reporting on his meeting in January on the fate of the StART. More below.

Last Week

Monday I met with electeds from SeaTac, Burien and Tukwila on that ill-fated (get it? 😀 ) trip to D.C. As I wrote above, I’m feel pretty good that we have a few people now on the various city councils who are truly engaged and that is what we’ve needed all along: better electeds.

Thursday I met with the Beacon Hill Quieter Skies Coalition. They get a lot of the same impacts from Sea-Tac Airport that we do and they have some great organizers that can help us get more of our residents engaged.

Saturday morning, the City Of Des Moines employees who completed their  Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training. Unfortunately, all us city council people were ordered not to show up. In fact, a lot of the City government is shut down or curtailed now (including the court.) Our City is taking COVID-19 very seriously (as I hope you are) and you can check the City web site for good info on the current status of the situation.

Also, on Friday and Saturday, both HB2315 and HB1847 passed in the Legislature and are on their way to the Governor’s desk. Kudos to Rep. Tina Orwall and especially to Rep. Mike Pellicciotti for their great work.

Keep It Short

There is a lot of ‘inside baseball’ to any City government–and Des Moines more than most. Part of my writing these Updates is to give the public a sense of that. It’s also a chance for electeds from other cities and activists to gain an understanding of how we differ from other cities. I’m just a ‘noob’ Councilmember here, but I have the somewhat bizarre distinction of being the only person who actually attends council meetings all over the area and I ‘compare and contrast’ a lot. There are more interesting hobbies of course–like this guy.

One detail: Des Moines City Council Meetings tend to be the shortest in the area. Even on nights where there’s, like a Boy Scout presentation or some other long ceremonial deal, meetings are often a mere ninety minutes–half the length of most other Cities. And this is quite intentional. Our current majority has worked to change procedures over the years to make it so. Now don’t get me wrong: no one wants to get home in time for Deep Space Nine any more than me.  But when meetings move along this fast, things can slip by.

What I told the applicants for the recent Council appointment was this: Look at the Consent Agendas. The Consent Agenda (CA) is the long list of items at the beginning of the Agenda which are voted on as one with no discussion. The idea is that they are considered to be routine and completely obvious items and thus require no debate. Typical items will be payroll checks and other payments to vendors.  Often, our CA will have ten or more items, and fiscal impacts of as much as two million dollars. I often cringe at this. In my gut, it feels like we should not just rush through a list of items that long and that expensive.

Similarly the public hearing on ‘code clean-up’ is considered to be merely routine items. But a public hearing is required on any code changes like this for a reason. And if you dig into the code to be ‘cleaned up’ this time, you’ll see several tweaks to zoning that I don’t find routine at all.

The idea of running an efficient meeting is understandable. But here’s the thing: I do not want the meetings to go so fast. I want to ask questions even if they’re obvious questions. Because on many of these items, the City Council meeting is the only chance the public will ever get to hear about a particular issue.

There is an inherent tension in our Council/Manager form of government which I’ll point out again and again, because it matters and because the overwhelming majority of the public does not understand. The government does not work for the City Council. It works for the City Manager. And under our current rules, the Council has exactly zero authority over the City Manager outside of the official meetings. Those meetings are technically the only places to hold the government to account.

Now because of this arrangement, the tension is that whenever one questions the government, the Staff can get defensive–as in, “Are you questioning the way I do my job?” And the answer, of course, is: yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. 😀 That’s the price of having a government job: you have to be willing to submit to questioning. It’s not questioning one’s competence or integrity. It’s just… asking questions. Again: away from the dais, the Staff is under no obligation to answer questions from Council. The moment we step off the dais, we have actually less authority than a resident with Staff. So it’s up to Councilmembers to make the most of their time on the dais. That’s the one time we have any ‘power’.

Unfortunately, questioning takes time. And that’s why meetings sometimes should be longer in my opinion. Because again, if we don’t use that time on the dais to inquire, we lose our chance at accountability.

So in general, I prefer fewer items on the CA and fewer items considered ‘routine’. I tend to want more discussion and more inquiry. But that’s just me. Other current Councilmembers do not have as many questions and do have families they want to get home to. Their position is that the City Manager and the Staff are doing a great job and unless there is something super-obvious that requires immediate attention, we should let them get on with it and not waste time with a lot of pointless questions at Council meetings.

Again: there’s the tension.

Categories Airport, Policy

A timeline. And a commitment to airport issues in Des Moines

On February 12th of 2020, I was told of a group trip to Washington D.C. being organized by the Port Of Seattle for electeds in the six airport communities. The purpose being a chance to provide a unified front from electeds and the Port Of Seattle on several pieces of legislation that all the cities (seem) to agree are important to our communities. The Port lobbyist, Eric Schinfeld had already scheduled several very good meetings with FAA leaders, Adam Smith, Maria Cantwell, Rick Larsen and Rep. Lynch from Massachusetts. Attendees were also encouraged to set up their own meetings, which I began doing. (My agenda is Federal funding of HB2315, an improved relationship with the FAA, and ways to get elements of Congressman Smith’s Aviation Impacted Communities Act passed at the State level.)

Strangely enough, I only found out about this event ‘through the grapevine’–not via my City. So I asked Mr. Schinfeld to be included and, of course, he agreed–recognizing the important position the City Of Des Moines should have in this process.

Unlike our neighbour cities, the City Of Des Moines has no travel budget for electeds. One has to ask for permission from the City Manager in order to be reimbursed for any activity. So on 19 February I asked Michael Matthias what the chances were for me getting a travel reimbursement for my airfare to this event. I was told, “About zero.” When I asked why his reply was, “The Mayor and I feel that there is no value in spending money to talk to people who are already on board with that legislation. And besides, none of that has any realistic chance of passing.”

So I went ahead and made my own booking. And in the meantime, I discretely asked two of my peers on the City Council to see if anyone might support me in a motion from the dais to reimburse me for my travel expenses. I was politely told “No”. And as you may know, one needs four votes to pass a motion.

A week later, the City Manager did decide to send a representative from Des Moines: the City’s State lobbyist, a fine man, but someone who would be the first to admit he is not conversant in the issues. I leave it to you to decide why. But the upshot is that Des Moines is the only City not represented by knowledgeable electeds.

Why you should care

This puzzles and frustrates my peers in other Cities who are constantly wondering why Des Moines, which bears so much of the brunt of negative impacts from Sea-Tac Airport is chronically so intransigent in advocating for its residents on airport issues.

For example, the legislation I originally proposed back in March of 2019 which became HB2315 only became a part of the City’s legislative agenda after it was apparent that it had a good chance of passage–and after I got elected, by the way. I was specifically told by Mayor Pina after my election to not, I repeat not say that I was representing the City Of Des Moines when I would testify in public on behalf of either  bill.

And Mike Pellicciotti’s HB1847, which aims to expand the boundary of Port Packages throughout Des Moines was never formally endorsed by the City Of Des Moines. So again, when I would spend my own time and money to advocate for that bill, I would be doing so as a private citizen.

Attendance Matters

Other airport communities send their electeds to a variety of conferences on airport issues and they are, in many ways, ahead of us in terms of knowledge and political savvy. I also attend these conferences when I can but they are simply too expensive for me to do with consistency. (For example, I attended a conference of Noise Program Managers last November which set me back over $800 for a single day event.) These events matter because they provide information about policy that is hard to obtain otherwise. They are the cheapest possible insurance against being out of the loop on events that matter to airport communities.

Even more importantly, they are the one place where an elected can meet in a casual setting with the real  decider-ers at the FAA and other large airport operators. There is nothing to get honest back and forth going like having a few drinks with decision makers and that is why I’m willing to shell out the dough. You simply cannot have truly candid discussions within the context of formal meetings. But Des Moines does not participate and thus we don’t know what we don’t know regarding what is actually possible. And since we don’t know what’s possible, we continue to do the wrong things on airport issues.

Divisive?

Over the past decade, the City Of Des Moines has made consistently poor decisions with regard to the negative impacts from Sea-Tac Airport. My peers on the Council hate when I say that but it’s simply the truth. What our government does is the appearance of engagement–just enough to appear like we’re advocating for residents. But not enough to actually make a difference.

This is not pointing a finger at any one person; it’s been a consistent pattern across several administrations and it has become normative–by it’s actions, our government has made it clear that it doesn’t consider airport issues to be all that important. I ran for City Council to change that. Airport issues are my area of expertise and I had hoped to leverage that expertise with the backing of the City to bring home far greater benefits to our residents. Sadly, this has not been the case thus far.

Until the City Of Des Moines begins doing smart things, like sending our electeds to events that matter, building the knowledgebase of our electeds on these issues, working with our peers in other cities, by giving our full-throated support to good legislation and by creating our own strong agenda of leadership on these issues, we will never get where we all want to be: a quieter, safer, cleaner Des Moines.

The negative impacts from Sea-Tac Airport should be non-partisan. So whether or not you voted for me, if you care about the noise, the pollution and the economic harms, I need your support on this. If what I wrote above makes sense to you, please encourage the rest of the City Council and City Manager to support me in my efforts before it’s too late.

Tick. tock. The Port keeps building.

Categories Airport, Policy, Transparency, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 03/02/2020

This Week

Monday I’ll be meeting with everyone heading to Washington D.C. on March 12th to lobby for various pieces of airport-related legislation (including Adam Smith’s recent bill.)

Tuesday it’s back to Olympia for (hopefully) the last Stakeholders Meeting to finalize language for HB2315 (Port Package Updates).

Thursday I’ll be meeting with leaders of the Beacon Hill Quieter Skies Coalition (see ‘Last Week’ below) to gather their requests I can pass onto various bigwigs in D.C. 😀

Saturday morning I’ll be at the Beach Park to say thanks to the recent City Of Des Moines employees who are completing their  Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training.

Sunday I’ll be at Marine View Espresso from 10:00-11:00AM to talk with residents. Come on over and let’s talk!

Last Week

Tuesday was a very important Port Of Seattle Meeting–especially if you have a Port Package. The Port did indeed decide to scale up their Noise Program big time, not just to address HB2315 but to finally get done all the residences that they’ve slow walked for so long. This is potentially huge as they are committing to do the work before getting Federal money and they are asking the airlines to chip in.

Wednesday, I gave a talk on the status of various airport issues at the Rotary Club at Anthony’s.

Wednesday night I attended the Burien Airport Committee (BAC) at their Community Center (the old Library on Sixth). The BAC has been doing great things over the past few years and I highly recommend that you attend if you want to get a sense of how local communities are working on these issues.

Thursday I attended a Puget Sound Clean Air Agency meeting in Seattle. I was there to lobby for something pretty basic: a pollution monitor. One thing almost no one realizes is that there are currently no air quality monitors anywhere near Sea-Tac Airport. This is something we should be fighting for because as I keep saying, “If there’s no data, the government thinks the problem doesn’t exist.”

Thursday was our City Council Meeting (Agenda, Video ).  The Mayor did not discuss committee assignments, however I did receive an e-mail with that info. More below. The highlight was a presentation on the construction of the new Link Light Rail Station near 240th and Pac Highway. I expressed my serious concerns about the parking (or rather lack thereof.) The parking garage is set for only 500 spaces–less than half of Angle Lake (which is seriously under-capacity.) The fact is that there is almost no chance of increasing that. But I am angry. I know there is a lot of controversy over parking capacity. Planners in Seattle like to provide as little parking as possible, but my feeling is that people here need as many spaces as possible–otherwise we simply won’t utilize transit as much as we should. If it ain’t convenient? People won’t do it.

Friday I talked with our King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove. We did indeed talk about air quality monitors–and he allowed me to vent about parking at the Light Rail. One of my long-term goals is to have several of those Commuter Shuttles like we currently have on 216th.

Saturday morning, I missed the Hillgrove Cemetery clean up (sorry, Pete). If you’re interested in helping out with this essential piece of Des Moines history, please contact Pete Loke on Facebook. Instead, I was at Beacon Hill Centro De La Raza with Normandy Park Councilmember Earnest Thompson to see a presentation by Dr. Edmund Seto of the MOV-UP Study on the airport impacts they experience from Sea-Tac Airport (we tend to forget that people to the North also get slammed.) Yo

The Beacon Hill community has done a fantastic job of community organizing and the room was packed with residents who are interested in finding ways to fight back.  Bonus: they provided an amazing lunch. (Pro community organizer tip–home-made tamales are how you get people to show up! 😀 )

Seniority and Committees

So, it looks like I’ll be on the Environment and Transportation Committees. These are choices I definitely wanted (thank you, Mayor Pina!) as they are the committees directly connected with airport and water quality–issues that I consider to be intrinsic to the future of Des Moines. The only major disappointment was not being assigned to the Seniors & Human Services Committee. Seniors supported me big time during my campaign and I want to keep my promise to advocate for them. My hope is to attend as many of those committee meetings as well and compla… er… ‘contribute’ as much as possible. 😀

FYI: As you might guess, almost everyone wants to be on the Economic Development Committee, but when one joins the Council one is told that it just ain’t happening for us noobs.

Now when I said ‘Thank you, Mayor Pina!’ I was being totally sincere; I am grateful. However, that is another one of those ‘traditional roles’ that the Mayoralty has assumed in Des Moines that is not necessarily the case in other Cities. Currently there is kind of a ‘seniority system’ on City Council. Now it makes sense to assign a particular Councilmember to a position–for example in situations where a specific technical expertise is required. But for a lot of positions the only real requirement is  a strong commitment to the subject. However, I’ve heard various Councilmembers over the years describe feeling not really ‘full members’ until they had been on Council for a couple of years. That strikes me as wrong.

Another issue with our system is that it encourages politicking between Councilmembers to become Mayor or obtain other high-status privilege (like committee assignments.) So you have jockeying for position even after the election, rather than focusing on helping residents.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not just singling out Des Moines or our current Mayor. This has been going on in lots of cities (including Des Moines) for a looong time and it’s kinda become normative in the same way that ‘seniority’ has become so much a part of State and Federal politics. It’s not built into the law, it’s just become tradition. A lot of times, noobs will rail against the practices, but then become a lot more enthusiastic once they obtain seniority. That’s human nature, of course.

Assuming I’m around for a while, I hope to change this. In my opinion, the moment one is sworn in, every Councilmember should have an equal voice. Suggested changes? I’ve already talked about a few–basically reducing the current power of the position of Mayor back to the defaults under State law for our ‘weak mayor’ form of government. Another suggestion I’ve seen successfully implemented in other cities is to rotate the office every two years. That alone would help to focus every Councilmember’s attention on the group as a whole, rather than doing politics inside the Council.

Categories Airport, Policy, Taxes, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: 02/23/2020

This Week

Tuesday is a Port Of Seattle General Meeting at Sea-Tac Airport. Any activist will want to attend as it will concern both the whole ‘Port Package’ issue and the SAMP-expansion. In twenty five words or less, the Port is deciding to scale up their Noise Program big time, not just to address HB2315 but to finally get done all the residences that they’ve slow walked for so long. This is potentially huge as they are committing to do the work before getting Federal money and they are asking the airlines to chip in.

Wednesday, I’ll be giving a talk on the status of various airport issues at the Rotary Club at Anthony’s. At some point I need to start videotaping these.

Then it’s back to Olympia for another Stakeholders Meeting on HB2315, presumably to get some final tweaks to the language.

Wednesday night is also the next meeting of the Burien Airport Committee (BAC) at their Community Center (the old Library on Sixth). The BAC has been doing great things over the past few years and I highly recommend that you attend if you want to get a sense of how local communities are working on these issues.

Thursday there is a Puget Sound Clean Air Agency meeting in Seattle. I want to be there to lobby for something pretty basic: a pollution monitor. One thing almost no one realizes is that there are currently no air quality monitors anywhere near Sea-Tac Airport. This is something we should be fighting for because as I keep saying, “If there’s no data, the government thinks the problem doesn’t exist.”

Thursday is also the next City Council Meeting (Agenda). Apparently, the Mayor will be discussing committee assignments–which is a big deal.

Friday I’ll be talking with our King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove (Maybe he can get us the air quality monitor? 🙂 ) He’s a big supporter of transit.

Saturday morning, I’ll be at the Hillgrove Cemetery helping with clean up. If you’re interested in helping out with this essential piece of Des Moines history, please let me know for details.

Last Week

Wednesday was the latest Reach Out Des Moines (RODM) meeting. I’m interested in how much effort the City and schools are putting into making sure that all the new residents at Waterview Crossing will have the services they need to thrive here as the place finally opens in a few months. I’ve made friends with several people who represent immigrant communities from East Africa and South Asia and one thing I keep thinking about is the wide range of languages used in Des Moines now. It feels like we should be doing more to provide translation services for a wide variety of documents. I wonder what are the ‘top five’? You can’t provide for the dozens and dozens of languages, but what are the ones that will be of value to the vast majority.

Wednesday was also Sound Cities Association (SCA) ‘networking’ event. The highlight was a speech by King County Executive Dow Constantine. I gotta say: when Dow gives a speech, he gives a real speechifyin’ speech. 😀 Anyhoo, he talked mostly about ‘revenue’, ‘housing’ and ‘transit’, the eternal trinity of regional politics. Basically, every city wants/needs more of all of the above. More on this below.

Thursday I was back in Olympia for yet another hearing on HB2315 (Port Package Updates). It feels like it’s going to pass. I can’t express how extraordinary it is to get a bill through on the first try. For any number of reasons (not the least of which being the fact that we run a $50 billion dollar organization (the State Of Washington) with a part-time legislation), most legislation takes several tries (years) to become law. If it passes, our own Rep. Tina Orwall is the reason why.

Somewhere in there was another bunch of SeatacNoise.info apts.; taking a look at people’s homes with Port Packages. And now a brief PSA for residents who think they may be eligible:

FER CRYIN’ OUT LOUD, FIND YOUR PORT PACKAGE HANDBOOK! If you’re not the owner who had the system installed, you may not know this, but every Port Package is custom. A tech came to the priority and came up with a noise reduction design just for your home. And one of the problems with many Port Packages is that the design was not very good or was not properly followed. If you have your Handbook, the design is inside (in the link it’s on pg. 27) and SeatacNoise.info (or a home inspector) can go through your home and check the design. If the design was not followed or was poor that is another way you should be able to get relief under the new program. (That example? That’s one of the less than adequate ones.)

Saturday I helped out Trout Unlimited to get the Coho Pen assembled at the Des Moines Marina. It’s currently across from the Harbor Master’s office. Come down and watch the fry grow. 🙂 Total tangent: It amazes me that this process even works. If you’ve ever looked at a salmon, they go through these pretty amazing transformations as they grow and move from fresh to salt and then back to fresh water. It’s a very gradual process. The fact that you can just throw these babies from a hatchery into Puget Sound and they live is something. (Double Tangent: Salmon are the national animal of Ireland–kinda like bald eagles are here.)

Don’t Shoot The Messenger

One thing I’ve been noticing at almost every public meeting I’ve been to in the last few years is an almost constant sense of frustration among most local leaders on the issues Executive Constantine spoke of in his speech. And I don’t mean the usual chronic complaining. This is different. This is beginning to sound desperate. Transit is a big one. After years of largely avoiding the issue, most cities are now (finally) falling all over themselves to improve non-auto transportation. And that costs.

See the thing is this: Ya know how most people think that, behind closed doors, all politicians do is try to find ways to get more money, even though in public they all preach, “Read my lips. No new taxes.”? OK, worst kept secret of all time: you’re absolutely correct. Most (not all, but most) local politicians are constantly scheming to get new sources of revenue and it really is only the constant public screaming that keeps taxes under control. But before you start in with all that  “you bloodsucking politicians!” jazz, I’ll just state for the record, I understand both sides.

If you really listen to a mayor or city manager, they will generally talk about this abstract thing called a ‘City’ or a ‘County’. They talk far less about people. Their primary duty is to that institution. And frankly, the institution wants and needs money. More of it all the time. If you’re an elected or a city manager your oath is to safeguard your city–which is often a very different thing from making individuals happy, right? We want to re-build roads, hire more police,  build houses and on and on. These are not bad priorities. They just cost a fortune.

There is this myth that all cities are wasting tons of money. It’s simply untrue. The current State tax system has been extremely unfair to cities over the past twenty years. Cities like Des Moines used to count on property taxes for the majority of their funding. Now? Property tax only makes up about a third of our revenue. So most cities now scramble to build strong business tax bases to make up the difference. And if they can’t? They/we find (cough) ‘creative’ solutions. Some of these are really bad (borrowing from the future), only kinda bad (red light cameras) or merely unpredictable (grants).

The point I’m trying to make is that you will be hearing more and more regionally about proposals to lift property tax limits, add sales tax increases and so on–especially with the passage of I-976. Many of these are for real needs like re-building infrastructure and improved transit. I have no objection to any of these…

(you’ve stopped reading and started getting angry already, right?)

…so long as you get to vote on it.

Happier now? 😀 Look, there are a ton of extremely worthy projects that you should consider funding. But I will never support an increase to your taxes that you don’t get a say in.

In my view, the proper way to go about any touchy issue like taxes is for the city/county/state to get out there and sell it. A lot of revenue increases tend to bypass the public because, frankly, it is hard to convince residents to pony up. It’s much easier to pass legislation for revenue sources that do not require public approval. And that kinda looks like what is on the horizon as regional needs for things like transit and housing become more acute.

(Example: Cities like Des Moines knew I-976 would be a gut punch to our road projects. So in my view, government should have all been getting out there educating the public as to how it would affect those projects before the vote. At least then voters would be able to understand what they’d be giving up in exchange. We did not do that education and we should do better in the future.)

Leaders do hear the message from voters of ‘no more taxes’. But as I said before: their (my) duty is to the institution and that is why they/we sometimes seem so tone-deaf. It’s like taking a kid to the doctor. (You’re the kid in this analogy): you’re screaming ‘I don’t wanna get a shot!’ but the parent is trying to do what’s best so they make you get it anyway. I know how patronizing that sounds, but that really is the psychology at work. So expect even more tension on taxes in the coming year.

Categories 2019 Campaigning, Transparency

It’s about the policy, not the person

1 Comment on 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.

Categories 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.

Categories Campaigning, History, Transparency

Competitive City Council Races Des Moines 1995-2024

Last Updated:December 28th, 2023
7 Comments on Competitive City Council Races Des Moines 1995-2024

*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
#YearNo, of
Competitive
Races		R/ACompetitive
Candidates/
Applicants		Mayor/Mayor Pro-TemMembersSignificant Events
1995---Don Wasson elected
191996Mayor 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
201998Mayor 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
1999Don Wasson (comp.)
Scott Thomasson
Bob Scheckler (comp.)
212000Mayor Scott Thomasson
Mayor Pro-Tem Terry Brazil 		Scott Thomasson Terry Brazil Bob Sheckler Don Wasson Gary Towe Dave Kaplan Dan Sherman
2001Wasson Takeover:
Maggie Steenrod
Gary Peterson
Richard Benjamin

---Dave Kaplan loses
---Dan Sherman loses by < 20 votes
---Susan White elected
222002Mayor Don Wasson Mayor Pro-Tem Richard BenjaminDon Wasson Richard Benjamin Maggie Steenrod Gary Petersen Bob Sheckler Scott Thomasson Susan WhiteHSD School Board President Ed Pina organises unsuccessful recall campaign over the conveyor thing...
20031---Wasson resigns -----Dan Sherman appointed
---Maggie Steenrod becomes second female Mayor in DM history.

--Dan Sherman/Jeanette Burrage (comp.)
--Scott Thomasson/Brenda Siegrist (comp.)
232004Mayor Bob Sheckler Mayor Pro-Tem Dan ShermanBob Sheckler Dan Sherman Richard Benjamin Maggie Steenrod Gary Petersen Bob Sheckler Scott Thomasson Susan White
20051---Wasson crew wiped out
---Ed Pina leaves school board
---Matt Pina takes his father's seat on school board
---Ed Pina/Maggie Steenrod (comp.)
242006Mayor Bob Sheckler
Mayor Pro-Tem Scott Thomasson 		Bob Sheckler Mayor Scott Thomasson Dave Kaplan Ed Pina Carmen Scott Dan Sherman Susan White
20070
252008Mayor Bob Sheckler
Mayor Pro-Tem Dan Sherman		Bob Sheckler Dan Sherman Scott Thomasson Dave Kaplan Ed Pina Carmen Scott Susan White
20091---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.)
262010Mayor Bob Sheckler
Mayor Pro-Tem Dan Sherman		Bob Sheckler Dan Sherman Matt Pina Carmen Scott Scott Thomasson Melissa Musser
20111Mayor 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
272012Mayor Bob Sheckler
Mayor Pro-Tem Dave Kaplan
Bob Sheckler Dave Kaplan Dan Caldwell Jeanette Burrage Matt Pina Melissa Musser Carmen Scott
201311---Dan Caldwell resigns due to ill health.
---Jeremy appointed w 8 applicants
---Carmen Scott retires
---Vic Pennington elected

---Jeremy Nutting/James Payne (comp.)
282014Mayor Dave Kaplan
Mayor Pro-Tem Matt Pina		Dave Kaplan Matt Pina Vic elected replaces Carmen Sheckler Burrage Musser Jeremy Nutting
201510---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
292016Mayor Dave Kaplan
Mayor Pro-Tem Matt Pina		Dave Kaplan Matt Pina Rob Back Bob Sheckler Melissa Musser Jeremy Nutting Vic Pennington
20171---Melissa Musser retires
---Dave Kaplan retires
---Traci Buxton replaces Musser
---Matt Mahoney replaces Kaplan

---Traci Buxton/Harry Steinmetz (comp.)
302018Mayor Pina Deputy
Mayor Vic Pennington		Matt Pina Luisa Bangs Vic Pennington Traci Buxton Matt Mahoney Jeremy Nutting Rob Back
20192---Harris/Bangs (comp.)
---Martinellis/Back (comp.)
3120201Mayor 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
20211Mayor Mahoney Deputy Mayor Buxton Gene replaces Luisa (retired) Harry replaces Pina (retired) Harris Nutting Martinelli Martinelli resigns

Gene Achziger/Priscilla Vargas (comp.)
3220221Mayor 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
33202411Matt 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
TOTAL395

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
Categories 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. 😀