Weekly Update: 01/29/2023

Some housekeeping

• This is a long one. It is also long on what some might call ‘rant’. And I get notes from people telling me how they dislike both those kinds of articles. But I believe that last Thursday’s meeting (as well as this Thursday’s meeting) are pivot points. This is politics after all and on occasion, to represent what’s going on accurately, one has to speak in political terms.
• Many of you have commented on the 2008 University of Washington Storefront Studio scans I’ve previously posted. You should check out the update I did which adds the original and complete high resolution PDF I was able to obtain from them. SSF is not some pie in the sky deal. They have done work with many Cities, and many of their ideas have been put into practice. They work. 
• In another example of why you need actual customer input, I implemented a Share Button on each post which will allow you to… er… well… share any article here to social media with a single click. If you’re the web-savvy person I know you are, that may seem like what-ehveeeer. But a lot of people are not. Frankly, I never bothered with it, not because it was difficult to do, but because it never occurred to me. 😀 I would never use it so it slipped my mind. In other words, as a (cough) ‘expert’ I’ve been ignoring some basic usability and I’m sorry. However, I am soooo grateful that a couple of residents (finally) pointed this out to me. I looooove suggestions. 🙂 Share Away!

This Week

Monday: 10:00AM Return of the Coho! We assembled the Coho pen last week. (And when I say ‘we’ I mean that I mostly took pictures. 😀 ) This Monday, the State will bring a truck full of 30,000 baby salmonoids and drop them into the pen. The actual delivery only takes about five minutes. Where we might need help is in schlepping the floating pen from its current location near the boat hoist over to the guest moorage where it will live for the next two months. This will all become clear when you get there. 🙂

Monday: 6:00PM Burien City Council Meeting. (Agenda) There will be a presentation by Kris Johnson of Seattle Public Health on the health impacts of aviation. This is an important discussion, aviation emissions can cause serious problems, especially for prenatals, children, mothers and the elderly. and if you cannot attend you can watch on TV or via Zoom.

Thursday: 5:00PM Public Safety Committee Meeting (Agenda) (Video). First meeting of the year. The main item will be planning the calendar for the rest of the year.

Thursday: 6:00PM City Council Meeting (Agenda). Highlights include:

• An ordinance to declare the beach area of Redondo a public park, as a technicality, hopefully to make placing a speed camera happen more quickly. The question is where. I know most people want something done about the ‘main drag’, but as this recent video demonstrates, the actual ‘speeding’ is more often on the east west road now called Redondo Way.
• A motion to direct the City either to move forward on Marina Redevelopment options. You’ll notice that there are absolutely zero specific requests and if you ask me for nothing specific, my answer will almost always be “no”.
• And, a motion to censure moi. The substance of which seems to be a single HR Complaint where I used a “four letter word” and made “threatening gestures” to a member of the City staff. To which I reply, bullshit. And as I said last time, the only reasons I did not already have a public hearing on this were:
  • To avoid wasting public money
  • To allow the employee and I a chance at reconciliation
  • To give the City a chance to back down gracefully

Yeah, right. 😀

The only relevant item is the Investigator’s Report, which largely supports my account, but plucks two words completely out of context. And everything from the City, including the resolution, is rubbish. They have not replied to my requests to see the actual complaint, the video, and any related communications, nor did they feel it necessary to include the City’s Personnel Manual, which describes a number of very different options for handling such incidents.

As a non-politician, I struggle with ‘tone’ sometimes. It is pretty enraging to be falsely accused of anything, let alone this. However, acting ‘enraged’ is probably not the most ‘politically correct’ tone to take, of course. I may have something more to say on Thursday.

But for now, here is my ‘statement’

I would ask people to look honestly at the way I behave on the dais and the way my colleagues and the City Manager behave on the dais. As a person of faith, the thing I find sad about this is that it shuts the door on any form of reconciliation. I never ‘ghost’ people because I don’t believe in shunning anyone. There should almost always be a way to work things out. This process was not designed to ‘protect’ anyone. It was designed to prevent any solution and I strongly object to that. As a former boss, as a former employee, and as an ongoing person.

Tuesday: Port of Seattle: (Agenda/Video)

Wednesday: The Coho Pen came back. If you’re reading the ‘This Week’ you already know that last week we assembled the pen. It’s basically a floating frame made out of sewer pipe with a net. It’s kind of a hoot to put together because you put the pieces in the water, lie on the edge of the dock and start bolting them together. Then you have to climb on and put the stanchions (the vertical parts) on and then the top and then throw on the net (which weight a couple hundred pounds) and all without taking a bath.

Thursday: 4:00PM Economic Development Meeting (cancelled) (Agenda) For whatever reason, the City cancelled both committee meetings–perhaps to have more time to prepare for the “really big shoe” at 6:00PM 😀

Thursday: 6:00PM City Council Marina Study Session (Agenda) recap below.

Friday: I met with Senator Claire Wilson (30th) I mention it only because I do try to keep in touch with all six of our State electeds and this: the vast majority of Des Moines is in the 33th Legislative District. The 30th is mostly FedWay and Auburn, but a sliver covers Woodmont/Redondo-ish. Last year the district maps were redrawn and there was a lot of talk about fitting all of Des Moines into the 33rd, which makes sense on a certain level. However, I testified to keep things as they are because we’re a dinky city and I prefer having two senators and four representatives I can nag on any number of issues. 🙂 Senator Wilson has done influential work on any number of issues involving education and childreny stuff. And one last thing that bears noticing from time to time because it has become so unremarkable: all six of our state electeds are women, four are in top leadership, and three are BIPOC. Things do change. 🙂

Council Recap

For those of you who spent the last few weeks on Asgard or wherever, the Council held a Study Session, which is simply a City Council Meeting devoted to a single topic, in this case, the issue of landside Marina Redevelopment. I highly recommend you watch everything, including the public comments which were outstanding. er. Outstandinger. Over the past year or so they’ve become routinely outstanding, but this time they were even more outstanding than the usual outstandingness. You will learn things from them.

• 30 minute history of the Marina and current negotiating status presentation by City Manager Matthias.
• 30 minute presentation by Jeff Korvell, Skylab Architects–the people who the City contracted to create the overall ‘design’ of the landside.
• Two rounds of questions by each member of the Council–and in each round we were afforded two questions, which had to be directed to the City Manager, not to Skylab or any other member of staff or the Council.
• Public comment from about a dozen people
• 4 minutes of closing remarks from each member of the Council.
• Closing comments by the City Manager

First, congratulations. I guess.

Over 100 people wrote into the City Council about siting a hotel in the North Parking Lot. And many of these letters are wonderfully detailed, articulate and it makes me wish you would all get involved when your view is not on the line. 😀 (I kid, because I love. But seriously… take a few minutes from the Wordle and start applying your talents to the City. We need you. 🙂 )

Your view is saved! For now…

But to cut to the chase, at the tail end of the City Manager’s presentation, he seemed to be saying:

• Hotel in north parking lot? On hold.
• Parcel A? On hold.
• Private development? On hold.
• The RFQ we voted on in November 2021? Cancelled.
• The Exclusive Negotiating Agreement (ENA) from March, 2022? Cancelled.
• The deposit the developer hand delivered to Mayor Mahoney? Refunded.

¹But the City Council literally never saw evidence of that ENA or that deposit.

Regardless, according to the City Manager, inflation and many other ‘macro-economic factors’ (Ukraine was mentioned!), have led the City to re-think the wisdom of all that stuff, including selling off bits of property. (Apology accepted. 😀 )

For the immediate future, the City seems to be talking mostly about 100% publicly funded projects: the 223rd Marina Steps, the Urban Creek/bioswales business and/or perhaps the whole ‘adaptive purpose building’, which is now being referred to more like what it actually is: a boat storage facility.

And they ain’t wasting any time doing it. At the next (February 2nd Meeting) this is the agenda item to move forward is this:

This is not Direction…

If that language is not tightened up significantly, I will vote “no” on February 2nd. It is not “direction”, it is yet another blank check.

But to give you a sense of what actual ‘direction’ looks like, here is a template draft piece of legislation from our old friends at the FAA:

“Within 180 days of passage, the administrator will return to Congress with a report on the status of the following items, a list of at least three appropriate options, including budget and financial impacts, and a preferred recommendation.”

I’ve seen that kind of working language at the Federal, State, City and dogcatcher levels of government. And so has everyone else. The City of Des Moines also does it. Sometimes.

My advice…

I always feel redundant, because I don’t know how many people have heard me rant before that the City has already received three annual grants since 2016 from the Port to study “Marina Redevelopment Feasibility”. By now, one would hope we would have the basics in place. But apparently we still need more ‘feasibility studies’ to get to some numbers. On anything.

And if I do a back of the envelope list of consulting fees we’ve already paid since 2016 to Skylab, The Holmes Group (the Steps guy), Waggoner (the boater guy), Reid Middleton (the dock guys), Peter Philips (the ferry guy) it’s gotta be $500,000.

My advice has been and remains: Stop everything until we have:

• A Public Planning Commission
• A Marina Committee
• A Finance Committee
• A decent web site and proper communication policies

These are all things we once had, and they are the path to what I know many of you want. I believe that with the right mix of residents, and the right people on these Committees, we can make good choices on both the Marina floor and in the downtown.

But after last Thursday? I have a new one, which should be fairly simple to achieve: I’d enjoy seeing a list of every invoice we’ve already paid out on any aspect of ‘Marina Redevelopment since 2016. From the first reimbursed business lunch and Port of Seattle grant to today. I honestly have no idea what that number is.

Practicalities…

This is the part in Wayne’s World where Mike Myers utters his famous catchphrase, “Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.” 😀

The fact is, on Thursday there will be a vote of censure. Which means that the Council has crossed the Rubicon.

Also, and I’m sorry but this goes to a dark place: Almost immediately after the last meeting, my colleagues began having more private presentations with various groups, pre-selling the next phase of nonsense.

And now the dad lecture…

Truth be told, that is what has happened here for decades. It’s part of the reason the North Parking Lot Hotel idea got floated in the first place! (See reason #3)

Every time we’ve tried to have any community decision on anything, whoever is in leadership at the time engages in some kind of private sales campaign. And somehow, it’s gotta stop. I know residents find it flattering (who doesn’t love a private meeting with ‘the mayor’) but it short circuits the whole idea of open government. I know this comes off as lecturey, but this isn’t some high school civics rant. No matter how counter-intuitive it seems, a totally public process, where no one gets preferential treatment creates better outcomes for everybody. You just don’t know that because you’ve only been in the game for a relatively short time.

For both those reasons it will, in fact, take an election to get the Council to agree to some basic reforms. In fact, it will take more than just an election. It will take serious ethical reforms of our Council’s rules of procedure–including what our expectations are to insure equitable treatment of all Councilmembers by the City Manager and staff.

As a ‘less rules are usually better’ kind of guy, it pains me to say this, but we’ve reached a point where we now need to codify some basic ethical guidelines–things that one should be able to take for granted. We can no longer do so because in the decades I’ve been examining, going around them is simply irresistible for those in power.

My reaction?

I haven’t had time to update the Marina Redevelopment Timeline. I will do so very soon. But I’m pleased to see how many people have been looking at it. There’s a lot to say about the 223rd Steps, in addition to all the pieces of the puzzle we haven’t talked about, but should as one large system: transportation, drainage, revenue potential, oh and the minor issue of dock replacement.

I’ve been surprised by how many people have asked me my reaction to last Thursday’s meeting. Since so many people watched it made it easier to do some ‘image analysis’. For ‘first time watchers’, the City got high marks. One person wrote to tell me that my conduct at the meeting was ‘disgusting’.

If you are a ‘first time caller’ you likely found it interesting–especially some of the cherry picked history–and that always creates a positive impression.

But see what I did there? That bit of snark reflects the fact that I’ve seen this movie 100 times. This was supposed to be a City Council Study Session, they’re supposed to be about the Council learning new things. We devote an entire meeting to one issue to really dig in on details. Instead, you got a show and each CM got to ask a whopping four questions during a 20 minute period. And without getting the information in advance, we had no way to learn anything.

But I get it. The public is starving for information. Many people won’t give a shit about the actual purpose of the meeting–which is fine. Many people just wanted to hear “no hotel!” and get at least some details (other than what they might read here, of course. 😀 ) And the City Manager obliged. In fact, the Council has already received 1-2 letters of gratitude and support.

However, from my seat, I’m watching the same stuff I’ve seen before. And I was as blindsided by radically new information as I was on September 27. And the next decision point, in seven days, has nothing to inform that decision.

So the most polite thing I can say about my reaction is: this does not make me happy. 🙂

But to give you a sense of how I view our meetings versus how you may view our meetings, this comment by Councilmember Nutting was, in fact, the moment I found most interesting.

If you could’ve put a thought balloon over my head at the time it would’ve read:

Now ya tell me! 😃

With all due respect, I wish that all my colleagues could understand what a mistake that September 27 meeting was. If it really was never a serious proposal, why did we cause so much worry? If any of my colleagues had concerns, but did not make them known until after the City backed out, that was a mistake. It was also not a great idea to imply that the public had nothing to worry about all along–as more than one colleague did.

We’ve been patronising and we’ve repeatedly violated the public trust. That’s my honest reaction.

But hey, a guy like me would say something like that. 😉

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¹I will note that at such momentous occasions there have been known to be photo-ops.