JC Harris For Des Moines, Washington
City Council, Position #2
At the end of our City Council Meeting last night, we had a 30 minute Executive Session that was extended to 50 minutes. I am not supposed to divulge the contents of that meeting, but click on the above link and Councilmember Achziger has a comment as to why he did not attend. …the Mayor
... continue reading.On 24 January, 2022 I emailed the Mayor Mahoney with my preferences as Committee assignments. Mayor, For 2022 I would like to make the following committee assignment requests: 1. I would like to be assigned to the Municipal Facilities Committee or the Economic Development Committees. Either is fine. 2. I would like to remain on
... continue reading.Dear Des Moines, I want to congratulate all three applicants for the Council vacancy, especially the winner, Vic Pennington. He was not my choice, but he ran a gauntlet of criticism that most of us would find very tough to take and did so graciously. To him, I promise my full professional cooperation. To those
... continue reading.This is an article by Ann McFarlane, who runs Jurassic Parliament, a training company used by *The City of Des Moines and most cities in WA. It corrects just one of dozens of misconceptions I hear over and over from both the public, candidates and electeds about how Council Meetings are supposed to work. Time
... continue reading.After the February 2020 appointment process, I received many negative comments. What was so striking to me in reading those comm was the fact that both the process and the person selected came as almost no surprise to anyone. (I myself was told by fairly well-informed people three days after my election exactly how that
... continue reading.To the residents of Des Moines: I’ve lived here long enough to see several scandals on our City Council. And the thing I’ve learned is that the public has all the tools it needs to handle them; quickly and efficiently. The best thing colleagues can do at those times is to stay out of it.
... continue reading.Two years ago… Anthony Martinelli and I were both elected in 2019. We both defeated incumbents (which was almost unheard of over the past three decades) and shared many broad policy positions. But there was a real difference in philosophy. In one sentence: I was interested in the long game; he seemed focused on helping
... continue reading.Last Thursday’s meeting was a triumph of civility. You never saw such civil sons o’ bitches in all your life. 😀 I was looking for ‘signals’ as to whether this was a surface thing or something deeper and my comments reflect on what cues I got. I’ve heard about a dozen times about how the
... continue reading.Former Mayor Pina frequently compared our city to a corporation. Not being nearly as cranky as people say, I never had the heart to mention that one legal title for our city is the Municipal Corporation Of Des Moines, Washington. There’s a point to this (very) gentle dig. It isn’t a metaphor, it’s a fact. We
... continue reading.Inquiry: May a city manager review individual councilmembers? Response: On the question of whether the city manager may provide feedback to councilmembers in an executive session, I agree with my colleague Oskar Rey’s April 2021 inquiry response to you. RCW 42.30.110(1)(g) authorizes executive sessions for the council to “to review the performance of a public
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