Weekly Update 02/15/2026

Some bits of business…

About the cover

This image is from last week’s meeting. It is a ‘word cloud’ of the one-word responses people were asked to provide at last year’s Town Hall. More votes, bigger fonts. These are lovely sentiments and I appreciate every one of them.

Now what? 🙂 We’ll find out as we move into our STRATEGIC PLAN (dun, Dun, DUNH!) in two weeks.

Federal Way and Social Media

If you live anywhere in the south end, you may have heard that Martin Moore was just removed as council president in Federal Way for making a social media post as Council President, showing support of a high school ‘ICE’ protest.

I saw a social media post calling him, “libtard” and I just had to laugh. I’m like Martin Moore? Nobody who knows him would confuse Martin with ‘the radical left’.

But it’s also worth noting for a couple of ‘civics’ reasons. Federal Way has a very different system than Des Moines. They have a strong mayor system, where the president of their council acts as their leader and their mayor acts more like our City Manager.

Moore expressed his opinion using a social media page identifying himself as ‘Council President’. His colleagues took that as an implication that he was speaking for the entire council.

From one point of view, their reaction is understandable. It should never be the case that somebody in official leadership expresses a personal opinion that might be confused as expressing the will of the entire group.

For example, I have railed when previous mayors here claiming to speak for our City Council. Because our mayor is not the leader of our City Council. That’s not how our form of government works. Here, in Council/Manager Government, we are all just ‘one of seven’.

I have this blog because I’m speaking as one vote. I’m not speaking for the Council or the City.

However, in this current, highly polarised world, where people seem to get upset about every damned thing? One might wish for less dramatic responses–on all sides and to everything. But that is their business.

What I found just as interesting was Mayor Jim Ferrell’s statement in the Federal Way Mirror

Ferrell stated that he is not aware of any excessive force by ICE agents except when “people are interjecting themselves into actual ICE actions,” explaining that “that’s where I think the danger was. That’s where the violence is coming from, where people are injecting themselves into that.”

I would suggest that might also have been a comment better left unsaid. And for exactly the same reasons.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Reports! February 13, 2026

This Week

Wednesday

Regional Transit Committee – RTC is, essentially, ‘buses and water taxis’. This is our first full meeting of year with new chair our own new District #5 King County Councilmember Steffanie Fain taking over from Jorge Baron.Agenda/Work Plan-Ideas.

Last Week

Tuesday

Port of Seattle Commission – More and more, the Commission is supporting communities to our north–both the Duwamish and now with the creation of Beacon Hill Roundtable. This makes sense for them. It’s something of (cough) ‘envy’ to note that, frankly, their communities have shown more of an ability to advocate for their interests than ours. Here, we’re still drinking the Kool-Aid on ‘jobs and growth’. Coverage from STNI.

Wednesday

Emergency Management Advisory Committee – This was EMAC’s first in-person meeting of the year. We’re doing exercises to prepare for FIFA. One thing I learned is that international cell phones still do not all work the same. Travelers (using Sea-Tac) are depending almost exclusively on a phone app from FIFA to get around. Sure hope it works or we may have a few more people than we expected wandering around from Iran/Qatar/Belgium/Australia wandering around.

On the way back, I (finally) took some piccies of the Jimi Hendrix Memorial — also located in Renton. For those of you who also like to turn it up to eleven? Worth a visit. 🙂

Thursday

6:00pm City Council Meeting Recap below

Friday

Ferry Consultant briefing. We obtained a grant last year to (again) ‘study’ the economic benefits of a ferry. This time to/from Seattle and Bell Harbor (the Port of Seattle/Pier 66.) The group has a draft and unless the final version changes radically, the results will be the “Neener, neener, I was right and you were wrong!” report. Will we have the courage to say so? I don’t know.

2022 Ferry Pilot Contract

The problem is this: Even after Ms. Caffrey was hired, the City continued to say that the project ‘only’ cost $242,000 and talked about how ‘successful it had been. It should not require a paid study and seven years simply to tell the truth. We’ve wasted over $700,000 dollars on a program that was insane from the beginning. I wish we could have that money back now to provide real value for our residents. I could say the same wrt to Drones, Steps, and above all the airport.

You should care because I know you do want something better for the future. But you cannot get there if management avoids telling Council the unpleasant facts; by constantly passing off these kinds of mistakes as ‘politics’ and avoiding any accountability.

The only difference? All those other instances where we shoot ourselves in the foot, are unfortunate, but have become acceptable as the ‘normal’, silly, politics mistakes many towns make. The airport is fundamentally different. It’s the one unforgivable policy mistake because it never ends. You can get snookered into a bad relationship once. Happens to most of us. But choosing the same bad relationship year after year and decade after decade? Oy. That’s not ‘politics’. That’s an illness.

February 12, 2026 City Council

February 12, 2026 City Council Meeting Agenda Packet

Public Comment

There was a great comment noting the presence of The Roadhouse at Angle Lake Station. The venue hosts music events and the ones I’ve been two have been great. Check it out!!!

There were several comments on Flock. One mentioned the tracking ability. Again, having worked in the Soviet Union, I am truly shocked at how quickly Amerikansis adapted to (and now seem to appreciate) being constantly watched. Honestly, with all the ‘freedom’ jazz that seemed so baked into American culture, it is truly surprising to me how quickly it became nbd.

City Presentations

• Presentation from Seattle Southside Chamber of Commerce
• Update from Citizens Advisory Board on Strategic Plan Public Engagement
• Update on the City’s Automated License Plate Reader System (Flock)

I’ve gone on about Flock enough, but it really does bother me that people do not see the long-term risks. It comes down to personality. If you like your City Manager, your Chief of Police, your mayor, Why, why How dare you suggest! 😀

Business

Density Bonus for Religious Properties Ordinance – 1st Reading

This is yet another new thing under State law where we have no choice but to approve. Frankly, cities are rarely transparent about land use issues for a very simple reason: it stirs up trouble. If you print out a map with colours for wherever any low income housing might go, or a treatment clinic might go, or a shelter might go, people do go mental. 😀 So… we say things like “We can’t possibly map that.” And leave things vague. 🙂

Honestly, I have no idea what this means, if anything. But I have ‘structural revenue’ on the brain lately, and basically any square foot of land that sounds like it might not be paying for itself causes heartburn.

Establishment of a Salary Commission 

I voted no because it’s stupid. 🙂 This city needs another commission like a fish needs a bicycle. Electeds can simply vote for (x)% increase, save staff time, and move on. Instead, we created yet another new commission with five members, with no requirements, and who may also serve on multiple other committees. Sounds legit to me. 😀

Planning Commission

• Of the fifteen applicants, two were former councilmembers, and five were serving on other committees–despite the fact that the ordinance clearly stated that Planning Commissioners may not serve on any other boards/committees. They knew it and chose to apply anyways. To solve this little problem, I voted for everyone else. 🙂

It was also not the most transparent process I’ve ever seen. Don’t believe me? Congratulations to ¹Applicants 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and… how could I forget 11? 😀

(Don’t bother comparing with the spreadsheet in the agenda packet. The list we voted for used a different number system. Tricky, no?)

Again, this is not some ‘woke philosophy’ as someone wrote me. You get better results in group situations by widening the pool. That’s what all the research says.

One applicant who is currently serving on a City commission, withdrew after learning of that. For that, very civic-mind person, there is a very nice Valentines Day Gift on its way.

New Items for Consideration

I proposed bringing forward a discussion of downtown parking to a study session. It got support, but surprisingly not unanimous. Merchants throughout Des Moines constantly grumble about various issues. The challenge is that business owners tend to be the last entities to complain. Literally every merchant I’ve spoken to along MVD is unhappy with the parking situation. What that means specifically? No agreement. What solution? Not that either. But they all agree–something needs to happen. Especially if we are sincere about increasing business activity. You know “Destination Des Moines”. 🙂

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¹Danielle Anderson, Traci Buxton, Charles Coleman, Michelle Curry, Barton DeLacy, Colleen Gants and Nicole Gunkle. I voted for Anderson, Curry and Gunkle.