JC Harris For Des Moines, Washington
City Council, Position #2
Non-partisan. Independent.
Next City Council Meeting is July 11, 6:00PM
Working hard to support local businesses!
An advocate for airport issues!
At Thursday’s meeting, I introduced an item of New Business. Basically an ‘undo key’ on Ordinance 1539 from 2012. Or to put it another way, to re-instate Ordinance 1407 from 2007. To be less confusing: We used to have a section in our building code (Ordinance 1407 from 2007) which required sound insulation in all
... continue reading.A common story I hear is that “Our downtown was always terrible! All the construction cranes since 2016? That means we’re (finally) moving forward!” But OTOH, here are a couple of budget numbers from 2008–right before the bottom dropped out. Note the Sales Tax revenue: Remember: that represents the money that people spend here. It’s
... continue reading.I’ll say. 😀 At our last City Council Meeting, our City Manager opened the discussion of selecting the developer for Parcel A by recounting that, early in his career he had been given a fellowship by the Robert F Kennedy for work with low income families in Oakland, California. I had no idea what that
... continue reading.At our November 18, 2021 meeting, we chose a developer to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the City to develop Parcel A of the Marina Floor as described in the RFQ from our 18 November 2021 Meeting. Essentially, it was a job interview. Drama? After the meeting I got some feedback telling me
... continue reading.Submitted to Councilmembers as “information only” November 13, 2021 Fellow Councilmembers, At Thursday’s meeting I will present the following six budget amendment items, most of whichh I have already discussed with Beth Anne and Dan Brewer on November 4. They total $41,204. $5,000 of which is a one-time expense and the remaining $36,204 to be
... continue reading.Councilmembers routinely get anonymous emails advocating for some issue–often using hyperbolic language. I got one this week saying “Vaccine Mandates Are Slavery!” To which I reply: No, dude. Slavery is slavery. But OK, being told you have no choice to get a vaccine is, to some degree, a loss of freedom. I’m not trying to
... continue reading.Update 08/31/21: Since this original post, I have added two other proposals for a total of six. I’ve added them below. As I said in the Christmas in July post on spending our $9M in stimulus money, after the July 22 City Council Meeting, Councilmembers were given an application by the City Manager to fill
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HB1220 presentation from Eric Lane and Matthew Hutchins
Like my colleagues, I’m sure, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to spend the $9M I discussed in my Christmas In July post. I’ve received dozens of messages about this. Many are very detailed proposals showing a concern for civic life that is seriously wonderful. And they spread the gamut. “More police!” to “no
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