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

This Week

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

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

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

Last Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Week

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

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

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

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

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

Last Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

This Week

Monday: Happy Martin Luther King Day! Meeting with Councilmember Satwinder Kaur of Kent. She’s on the Sound Cities Association (SCA) Puget Sound Clean Air Committee. Regional organizations like this are something Des Moines needs to get more involved with. Just one, kind of a weedsy detail: there are no pollution monitors around Sea-Tac Airport! The closest one is in Georgetown, eight miles away. Small cities like DM never almost never get enough attention from regional planners unless we have our electeds on these committees. And that means housing, environment, transportation. We started engaging with SCA and PSRC tw years ago after a long absence–which is good, but we’ve got a lot of ground to make up.

Tuesday is another regional committee I’ve mentioned: South King County Transportation Board (SCATbd) ‘skate-board’. They cover all things transportation related. If you’re concerned about getting better bus service in DM, SR509, the airport… anything like that? SeaTac City Hall. 9:00AM.

On Wednesday, I’ll be in Olympia (again) to give public comment again on the House Bill on Port Package Updates (HB 2315 ) introduced by Tina Orwall. You can introduce a bill on either the House or the Senate side. Or you can introduce basically the same bill on both sides as Senator Karen Keiser and Rep. Orwall have done. This can increase the chances that the bill will pass, not least of all because it indicates that you can muster support in both houses. As with companion bill SB6214 my testimony will be to make sure that lawmakers understand that this bill is meant to help homeowners with real damage to their homes from poor installs–not just get people ‘new doors and windows’.

Wednesday is also my weekly meeting with the City Manager, Michael Matthias. A lot of this job is simply being made aware of what is going on and this is the chance to cover items that can’t easily be done via e-mail.

Wednesday is also the Highline Forum, a group of electeds from all the airport communities plus the Port Of Seattle started waaaay back in 2005. It meets every other month (is that bi-monthly or semi-monthly? 😀 ) The original purpose (I guess) was to foster good relations between the Port and the communities in the aftermath of the Third Runway Lawsuit. I think there has always been some hope (at least on the community side) that it would evolve into something more. What it is is basically information sharing and there is increasing talk of ditching the whole thing. (To give you a notion of where I stand on this, three years ago, I made a speech where I advised all City electeds to immediately adjourn to the IHOP across the street,  and start a new group (without the Port) with the explicit purpose of negotiating a deal with the Port for ongoing compensation. Needless to say, that is not the official position of participating Cities. 😀 But it should be.)

Thursday I’m meeting with our King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove. And then there is our City Council Meeting at 7pm. Agenda here. There will be the annual performance review of our City Manager, which of course, is done in Executive Session. More on that below.

Friday I’ll be meeting with Mayor Jim Ferrell of Federal Way and his (kinda) new Strategic Advisor. (It’s worth mentioning that almost nobody you’ll read here is someone I’m meeting for the first time. I’ve been annoying electeds throughout King County for years. 😀 ) All I’m trying to do now is tell people, “Hey, I want to engage with you on shared issues besides the airport. And by the way… did you know thisabout the airport? 😀 )

Last Week

On Wednesday I attended a Reach Out Des Moines meeting at Pacific Middle School.  As I said last time, this is a wide group of people who are involved with teens in every possible context, including Des Moines Community Service Officer Tonya Seaberry. The primary goal includes reducing juvenile violence in the Pac Ridge neighbourhood and nearby schools. But there are so many benefits to the program because the tools used to achieve this goal also end up improving school attendance, reducing hunger and on and on. Just one stat that CSO Seaberry presented:  Juvenile Crime in Des Moines has gone down from 68 arrests in 2013 to only 17 in 2019. That’s truly amazing! And I hope the City can find ways to further their efforts.

On Thursday I was in Olympia to give public comment on SB6214. I wrote more about that (including a link to the view) here.

On Saturday I met with our new State Rep. Jesse Johnson (30th D) who was just appointed. He was previously on the Federal Way City Council and his background and passion is for education. When he ran for City Council he doorbelled over 8,000 homes. RESPECT! I gave him a rundown on airport issues (of course) and a little about the south end of Des Moines. He told me that, as a kid he used to train for track meets by running the Boardwalk. So he knows Redondo. 🙂

I also met with Mayor Matt Pina and newly elected Deputy Mayor Matt Mahoney. It was my second meeting with Mayor Pina since the election. The original purpose was to discuss Committee Assignments. As I said after the first CC Meeting, in our City, the Mayor chooses which committees each CC is on and that’s a big deal. The obvious way to choose people would be based on their desire and expertise on relevant issues. But, frankly, the Mayor could also choose people whose agree with his policy agenda and exclude CCs who do not. I am not saying that’s what’s currently going on in DM. I’m just telling you one potential concern I have with the current system and why I wish it were different.

It’s all about Timing, son

The thing I want to mention about the City Manager Performance Review is ‘timing’. Mr. Matthias’ contract says that any changes of terms (salary, benefits, etc.) should take effect in January. So the Council has previously done the annual review in December. But because there would be two new members on the Council, the previous Council thought best to wait until we were seated to give us noobs a voice in the review–for which I am very grateful.

However, it does put us new guys in an awkward position. We’re expected to review his performance with almost no time on the job–and that may make other Councilmembers feel like our opinions don’t matter as much.  Of course I have real opinions about his performance in public settings because I have been so engaged in local politics over the years. However, I’m the first to acknowledge that that is far from a complete picture.

It would be better, in my opinion, to move these reviews (for all employees subject to Council oversight) further into the year–perhaps as part of the Budget process, so that new members of the Council have time to get a feel for the people.

This Week

On Wednesday, I’ll be having a weekly meeting with the City Manager, Michael Matthias. All Councilmembers try to have weekly contact to go over questions, concerns. I prefer to do these face to face.

I’ll also be attending a Reach Out Des Moines meeting at Pacific Middle School. This is a group of teachers and Des Moines Community Service Officer Tonya Seaberry, chaired by CHI Franciscan’s Cynthia Ricks-Macottan. The goals are to provide human services for children in the area–particularly Pacific Ridge. Programs include uniforms, camping, advocating for improved school bus service, etc.

Last Week

On Monday I attended the Dept. Of Commerce Study On Sea-Tac Airport Impacts.

Tuesday was the first Port Of Seattle Commission Meeting of the year. New Commissioner Sam Cho was sworn in. They had a party. The cake was merely OK. My public (and later private) comment, concerned enhancing the Port’s Noise Monitor Reporting system. This allows the public to track flights and their noise impacts. We need accurate tracking of noise impacts in order to pressure the airlines for meaningful changes to flight times and paths.

Tuesday afternoon I also attended the first Water District #54 Commission Meeting of the year. Relations with all the local utilities have been strained in recent years and I think they appreciated having a chat about how we can work together better. One issue, which I brought up at the City Council meeting, is our aging infra-structure. The Water Commissioners brought up the chronic complaints from residents on clogged drains, issues with pipes–all things the City can help with. And as the recent Woodmont landslides showed we need to work together to prevent future problems. (The City responded in a heroic way to that incident. But our goal needs to make sure we’re not repeating that heroism too often.)

Wednesday was my first meeting with the entire City Senior Staff. I have to say it was about 55 minutes of Councilmember Martinelli and I listening and about 5 minutes of me asking a couple of questions. As I said last time, I hope this is not an example of things to come.

Thursday I attended the State Second Airport Siting Committee. Des Moines is ably represented by Steve Edmiston as a (non-voting) Citizen Member, plus Sen. Karen Keiser and Rep. Tina Orwall. Just one stat: According to the State’s recent Aviation Capacity Study, the State will need at least the capacity of another Sea-Tac Airport by 2050. And if one were to build a new airport with the same capacity as Sea-Tac it would require at least 4,600 acres of land. Guess how much land Sea-Tac covers? 2,500. That’s right. The 8th largest airport in the country squeezes all those flights onto a footprint that is about half the size it should be. As decision-makers realized thirty years ago when they did the last second airport study, finding 4,600 acres of land anywhere was very difficult–which is why they gave up. Now? It will be impossible. I’m telling you this because I want Des Moines residents to recognize that, although we will likely get a second airport somewhere it will provide us with no relief. And I’ve been screaming about this for several years because that search distracts attention from other efforts that can help us. So let’s stop thinking about that study and move on.

Thursday was the first City Council Meeting of the year and the debut of Anthony Martinelli and moi. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO SHOWED UP! 🙂

Video here

As expected, Matt Pina was re-elected as Mayor and Matt Mahoney was elected as our new Deputy Mayor, replacing outgoing Councilmember Vic Pennington. Councilmember Martinelli and I abstained. We both indicated that this was not a lack of confidence in either person; it was the fact that we both feel that the process is bad. I promised to give my complete support to Mayor Pina’s office–and I meant it.

However, what the public does not generally know is that councilmembers are not allowed to discuss the whole election process before the meeting. And after the nominations, the vote happens immediately. There is no campaign. No opportunity to interview the nominees. Which suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. No other ‘election’ you can think of happens that way.

Now: why do you think the rules are set up like that? Because the whole idea of a Weak Mayor system is that the Mayor is supposed to be a ‘ceremonial’ function. There is no accommodation for campaigning because the thinking is that the Mayor doesn’t really have any special ‘powers’, so what’s the diff?

Unfortunately, in practice, this could not be further from the truth. In practice the Weak Mayor system has evolved a bit like how the Senate and Congress have rules which give key figures (Senate Majority Leader, Speaker Of The House) tremendous control never imagined in the Constitution. More below.

My Take: Weak Mayor?

A key moment of the City Council Meeting was the  comments by Mayor Pina. For some reason, the Mayor decided to respond for over nine minutes on three items which he implied were made by Councilmember Martinelli and I, although neither of us said anything like what he was talking about. I’m willing to attribute this to his being sick. But his comments were pretty extraordinary and bear mentioning…

Strong Mayor vs. Weak Mayor

The Mayor talked about why he feels we should not have a Strong Mayor system in Des Moines. The thing is: both Councilmember Martinelli and I agree. Strong Mayor? Bad idea. Neither of us advocated for such a thing. We specifically objected to the process by which the mayor is elected; not our system of government. Why Mayor Pina decided to do a tutorial on this is mysterious.

Executive Session

Second, two members of the public commented on the notion that too many decisions are made in secret. The Mayor responded by giving another tutorial on the process of ‘Executive Session’, using this ‘lecture’ to tell the public that  their concerns were completely unfounded. I think this was a mistake. Although the public may have gotten some of the details wrong, their concerns about transparency are legitimate. During my campaign, even people who did not support me agreed that the Council often operates in a very secretive fashion. The Mayor could have responded by offering to really think about their concerns. More than a missed opportunity in my opinion.

Special powers of our Weak Mayor

Finally, when explaining his reasons for abstaining in the Mayoral Election, Councilmember Martinelli spoke eloquently about the special powers of the current so-called ‘Weak’ mayor system.

The Mayor controls the Agenda of every meeting (ie. the items that are discussed and then voted on; if it’s not on the agenda? It never gets a public discussion and it never has a chance to become law.) So that is huge. No other Councilmember has the ability to get an item on the Agenda without the Mayor or the City Manager’s OK. A group of three councilmembers can also get an item on the agenda, but in real life this rarely occurs unless sponsored by a particular committee.

Speaking of which, under our current rules, the Mayor has sole control over committee assignments–which is the other way that items get on the Agenda. So, regardless of one’s expertise, one may not be assigned to the committees that are the best fit. And if one is not on the appropriate committee, your ideas don’t get on the Agenda. The upshot of all this is that, if you aren’t on the Mayor’s good side, you may well never get your proposal to any kind of public discussion.

As with our current Congress, the Weak Mayor system has developed an elaborate set of rules which were not part of the original notion of that form of governance. And these rules afford a tremendous amount of parliamentary control to the Mayor and his majority. The rules were designed simply to keep meetings ordered, which is great, but they can also be used to concentrate power and limit the full range of expression of Councilmembers. Ultimately, I would like to see the rules return to their original format: a weaker Weak Mayor system–meaning a Council of seven equals where each member has the chance to get a full public hearing on ideas they think important.

Say it three times

For the third time ( 😀 ) , Mayor Pina will have my full support in his office. I bring all this up because none of it was mentioned by our City Attorney in describing the Office of Mayor. And I think the public deserves to understand that there is a lot more to the office than was described.

This Week

This is an ACTION-PACKED WEEK! 😀 Sprinkled throughout the week are short “Hi There!” meetings to various CCs in other airport communities. I kind of have a leg up in that I already know at least a few CCs in all six cities as part of my ‘airporty’ stuff over the years. But it’s important to me to get to know as many people as possible because I want more cooperation between the Cities on a whole range of regional issues.

Monday at 1:00pm I’ll be at a public meeting on the Dept. Of Commerce Study On Sea-Tac Airport at City Of SeaTac City Hall on 188th. If you are concerned about airport issues, I urge you to attend. Frankly, there are real concerns that the  study has gone off the rails. This is a chance for the study team to provide some answers. Why you should care? The practical reason for the study is to get money for our communities to fight the noise and pollution. But there is a truism in politics: Without quality data there is no problem. And this study is not based on on new data. So far it has largely been put together with information going back as far as 1997. Think of it this way: If you are a lawmaker from Eastern Washington with no great concern about ‘airports’, it makes it hard for you to vote for money for Des Moines residents if you’re presented with a weak study. We need to fix this now. Even if you are not familiar with the issues, this is a good place to get up to speed.

Tuesday is the first Port Of Seattle Commission Meeting of the year. The new Commissioner Sam Cho will be sworn in. I’ll also be attending the first Water District #54 Commission Meeting of the year. Relations with all the local utilities have been strained in recent years over the utility taxes and I want to work on improving that.

Wednesday will be my first meeting with the entire City Senior Staff. In past years, City Council had much greater access to City employees for the purpose of inquiry. The new policy set down by our City Manager is to require that all inquiry go through his office. I’ve got literally years of questions I’ve been waiting to get answers to so it will be interesting to see how they handle that. One of my big campaign issues was transparency.

Thursday starts with a meeting of the State Airport Siting Committee. Our own Steve Edmiston is one of the sole Citizen Members (which is great). The thing to think about is: How will a second airport help Des Moines? It doesn’t help us if the airport is too far away or only handles a small number of flights. The challenge is, I’ll be blunt here: other cities aren’t stupid. They see how bad the relationship is here at Sea-Tac and they (understandably) are skeptical of a new airport next door with another Port Of Seattle.

Thursday is also the first City Council Meeting of the year and the debut of Anthony Martinelli and moi. (If you can’t be there, it’s on Channel #21) There will be a five minute swearing-in ceremony at the beginning which I hope you will attend. There will also be the election of the next Mayor and Deputy Mayor (whose identities, sadly are already pretty much a fait a compli.) There will also be a presentation by COO Dan Brewer on the Woodmont landslides.

And also, right away we’ll need to address the worst kept secret of 2019: Namely, the resignation of Deputy Mayor Vic Pennington.

http://www.federalwaymirror.com/news/new-south-king-fire-chief-steps-down-from-des-moines-city-council-seat

I’ll have a few more words on that process below.

Last Week

I mostly took last week off. However I did have my first meeting with City Manager Michael Matthias and City Clerk Bonnie Wilkins who gave me ‘the tour’ of the City–from an economic development standpoint. As some of you know, Mr. Matthias is not ‘just’ our City Manager, but also our Economic Development Director so it’s important for me to understand what his vision is for growing the business sectors here. I am skeptical about several of the City’s current long-term plans, but the one thing we completely agree on is the concept of ‘steps’ connecting 223rd down to the Marina Floor. My hope is to focus his team’s execution on the ideas we all agree on.

Resignation

The replacement process for a City Councilmember who resigns is pretty simple: The City issues a call for applicants, then a few weeks later, the six remaining CCs will vote to choose a replacement. That new CC will serve out Vic’s regular term which ends in in December of 2021.

I gotta be honest: I am not a fan of appointments. They are inherently un-democratic. In Des Moines in particular, we have had far more than our share of un-elected CCs over the past two decades. In addition to the four or five appointees, if you throw in all the un-opposed campaigns it comes to a very small pool of people who have actually run competitive elections.

That said, this is your chance to apply and I urge you to do so. You can serve. Because, frankly, if you don’t apply, you’ll just get someone that the current Council has already pre-selected. I know that sounds snippy, but we always seem to draw from the same very small pool of people and it leads to a certain elitism and in-breeding which just ain’t healthy for a government of any size. If you don’t like how things have been going? That’s a big part of the reason. There was a lot of talk during the election about ‘diversity’. Well to me that also means a broader range of opinions. I ran specifically to provide a different point of view from the existing Council. And if you think that’s a good idea, you should think about stepping up as well. Because the fact is: running a campaign is work. This is the lowest bar of entry you’ll ever have if you want to serve.

My first meeting on the City Council will be Thursday January 9th at 7PM at City Hall (21630 11th Avenue Des Moines, WA 98198). There will be a brief ‘swearing in’ ceremony at the beginning. So… you know… mark your calendar. 😀 By the way, Des Moines subscribers to Comcast can watch this (or any City Council Meeting) on Channel #21.

This Week

Slow Week. I think the only vaguely ‘City’ stuff I have planned are meetings with Councilmembers. (Is it ‘Council Members or Councilmembers? I’m never sure.)

One of the things that doesn’t thrill me about how our type of ‘Council-Manager’ government works is the fact that the first few meetings are super-action-packed. For example, at the first meeting, one votes for a new Mayor, who then immediately assigns Councilmembers to their Committees. His/her decision. And Committees matter because legislation is usually brought forward from Committees. So if you have a fantastic idea regarding ‘economic development’, but you’re not on the Economic Development Committee? You’ll have a tough time even getting your idea turned into a vote-able piece of paper. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes procedural jazz like this that gets decided in the first few weeks. So my job is to figure out who wants to do what and see what Committees I can get on to get make good on the tons of wonderful things I promised I would do for you.

Last Week

Monday I was sworn in for realz as City Council Member Position #2. I immediately lost fifteen pounds. My hair grew back. And so forth…

I attended the Burien City meeting re. shutting down their Annex for various non-profits. I showed up partly to see if there were any opportunities for Des Moines to provide some assistance, but mainly to see how the City and residents would handle a tense situation. All Cities have their share of crises and frankly Des Moines meetings have often not gone well. So this was a bit of ‘look and learn’ for me. And I have to say that all sides really did a great job. I think the residents were polite (without backing down one inch) and credit to Mayor Matta: he showed empathy and gave clear answers. I am not sure where this goes, but whenever something like that goes well, it makes me feel good about ‘democracy’.

B-Town Blog Article

Tuesday was the last  Salmon counting with Saltwater State Park and Trout Unlimited. This year was as terrible as it gets. I think the entire team only saw one specimen and… it was the wrong species for this time of year. So I’m doubly freaked out about what we can do about this. Many of you know that we have a hatchery at our Marina that releases tens of thousands of babies every year. But they obviously aren’t thriving.

Tuesday was also the the last meeting of the year for SCatBD (the County transportation board.) There were some good comments on making sure that the airport is near the top of the legislative agenda. There was also a lot of concern about I-976 and what it will do to local budgets. I made the following comment: If it was such a big deal for municipalities why weren’t Cities educating their residents about the importance of I-976? This is something you’ll hear me go on about a lot. If we want voters to engage we have to communicate a lot better what these State and Federal deals mean for us.

South County Area Transportation Board

Tuesday was also a meeting of the Burien Airport Committee. They have not decided what to do re. StART and there was no update on their FAA lawsuit. I encouraged them to re-join StART–even though I do not think it is functioning properly right now. Frankly, I don’t think they care much what I (or Des Moines) thinks about this right now. But we need very much for the other airport communities to care. No City can take on the Port on their own. More soon.

Friday I met with State Rep. Mike Pellicciotti of the 30th District. I asked him if he could help get a Dept. Of Ecology water quality monitor in place for Redondo and he agreed to try. We also talked about his legislation to expand the noise mitigation boundary out from its current, Federally mandated, limit, out to Federal Way. As sort of ‘the expert’ on Port Package stuff, I tried to explain that it’s not just a question of changing that boundary–or getting a bag of money to provide insulation for more homes. There is a whole process involved in evaluating homes, deciding on what to do for each home, choosing contractors, providing oversight. None of that was done particularly well back when the Port was doing it to scale back in the 1990’s. And none of the Cities providing decent oversight. So we have a real job figuring out how to do this right going forward. This is a frustrating message for lawmakers who really want to help, but the complexity must be addressed now otherwise we’ll just be throwing money at the problem (see ‘Salmon Recovery’ above.)

Sunday I visited Des Moines’ newest tourist destination: the road closures at Woodmont. 😀 I hung out for maybe an hour between both sites and I lost count of the people who pulled up to take selfies. I had no idea civil engineering was such a hobby here.  Putting my ‘engineer’ hat on what I see in our future dollar signs. Not just for these repairs; I mean long term. Make no mistake: this is a combo-platter of bad news. Frankly, a whole lot of the area was not engineered according to current best practice (eg. drainage). Plus the fact that a lot of this post-war infra-structure is reaching the end of its useful life (who knew that one has to actually replace sewers, drains, roads every fifty years or so, right?) And then there’s that pesky climate change: we have to expect much more severe rains like this and build tougher. Where will all the money come from? Hey don’t ask me… this is my first week on the job! But it’s definitely something I’m thinking about.

Merry Christmas

There, I said it. Feel free to translate to Hanukkah Tov, Happy Kwanza, Festivus For The Restofus or whatever your thing is. My thing involves playing at one of the Masses at St. Phils. If I can wake up on time. 😀 Maybe I’ll see you there.

But whatever your thing is, I hope it’s happy and safe for you and your family. I’ll probably take next week off to fish, drink, gain a few (more) unnecessary pounds. All in preparation for starting my new job as a public servant of course.