JC Harris For Des Moines, Washington
City Council, Position #2
Non-partisan. Independent.
Next City Council Meeting is December 5, 2024
Working hard to support local businesses!
An advocate for airport issues!
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
... continue reading.Inquiry: When councilmembers confer in advance about matters to come before the council when is it a serial meeting in violation of the OPMA? Response: In my opinion, it would be a serial meeting in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) if a quorum of city council members confer with each other, including
... continue reading.Inquiry: May a city council review of the city manager’s performance happen in an executive session? Response: It looks like the annual evaluation of a city manager may take place during an executive session under the authority of RCW 42.30.110(1)(g). However, if a city is considering termination of a city manager’s appointment, then a resolution,
... continue reading.This is the Des Moines City Web Site… as captured by our friend the Wayback Machine… on November 30, 2021 And this is the site as it exists on 12/05/2021 Notice anything missing? The Search. I guess someone decided that since it doesn’t work, hey… who needs it right? 😃 It’s just a problem… Everyone
... 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.