Weekly Update 04/05/2026

Some bits of business…

The Future of Blake Island

Most boaters, and many, Many, tourists, know about Blake Island (the little island just across the Sound) and Tillicum Village. But as with so many things, a lot changed with COVID. Please read the following articles and survey on the Future of WA state park Blake Island and make your public comment known! Blake Island Master Plan- Alternatives Survey

Des Moines Historical Society Cruise

Join the  Des Moines Historical Society on a 3-hour south Puget Sound cruise on Argosy Cruises ship the Lady Mary. Sunday, July 19 1pm from the Des Moines Marina. A speaker from SR3 (SeaLife Response + Rehab + Research) will be narrating portions of the cruise. The last time such a cruise was offered was 1989 so don’t miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Tickets are now available online.

[I don’t have anything to do with this particular event, but I proposed the idea of a cruise last year. For me the Masonic Home is (literally) ‘the landmark on the sound’. It’s a visual reference that all sailors have used to to recognise ‘Des Moines’ for 100 years. If you haven’t seen the building from the water, you haven’t really seen Des Moines. This may be your last chance.]

eBike Rebate Lottery

Last year’s eBike Rebate program was so popular, the State will be offering a second round. In fact, it is a lottery-based approach, so sign up now! Hope you get chosen. Washington’s e-bike rebate program opening second application round March 30

About the Cover

This reminds me of the value of presentation. Some people really will read the documents. Most will not. That’s just reality. Not always, but sometimes, you really can knock it out of the park with one slide. It just takes forever to figure out what ‘that’ is. This is excellent presentation.

The City has been slowly under, and even de-funding, various programs for years. It is the price of never having enough money we keep under wraps with all the proclamations and tearful thanks to service providers.

Over the years, I can recall even the hardest-right members of our Council promoting the notion of ‘Two percent of budget for human services!’ Then it was 1.5%. But truthfully, the only time since I’ve been watching, that we’ve even gotten to one percent (uno) was during the pandemic.

It’s all in that one slide.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Reports! April 3, 2026

The highlight for moi is the Salary Commission apply here. This is your chance to give the Council more money. So, please… Dream Large, my friend! 😀

I did not support this. But, the Council has not received a raise since 1999 and some of my colleagues felt strongly that pay should be increased to encourage more people to run for office. FWIW, I continue to favour an approach based more on hours of assigned work rather than a flat fee. It’s an uncomfortable discussion, but it’s always been the case that some of us put in a lot more time than others.

This Week

Thursday

City Council Meeting  (April 09, 2026, City Council Meeting Agenda Packet) Highlights:

• Human Services Grant Funding PowerPoint
• Economic Development/Ferry Eernissee Consulting

I already mentioned the HSAC above. The economic development presentation spends even more time on the notion of a passenger ferry. But to be fair, it does seem to provide some fairly obvious facts. A stake should have been driven into this thing’s heart in 2008–because this thing keeps rising from the dead every few years.

What’s also annoying is how little hand-off there is from one Council/Administration to the next on what we’ve studied. What worked. What didn’t. And I mean on everything.

In contrast with last week’s discussions concerning about $100,000,000 in capital spending, this one has literally zero new business. This is what I mean by ‘load balancing’. The administration can pile on any amount of consequential ‘stuff’ into a single meeting and then have other meetings where people get in and out in record time. That’s efficiency! Great meeting, guys! 😀 But with no committees, how on earth can new electeds learn?

This is classic mushroom management and has been more than norm than the exception since I’ve lived here.

 

Last Week

Thursday

City Council Meeting (Recap below).

April 2, 2026 City Council Recap

I said that this one should get the Action Packed! seal of approval and it did not disappoint.

April 02, 2026, Updated City Council Agenda Packet

https://www.youtu.be/BUOpQntxBFw

5:00 pm Committee of The Whole

2026 Des Moines Marina 10-Year CIP

As I said last week, this was not a Capital Improvement Plan. There is simply no way to get any member of the Council up to speed on issues these complex, or what they mean for the City long term in 50 minutes.

The City also said a number of things about the Marina that were, well… not exactly 100%. Which was slightly disappointing to say the least. 😀 The notion was that we’ve had no Marina Master Plan since 2007. Not exactly. We had a very good update in 2015. We got a full update on boat storage as recently as 2025. Ironically, ‘the plan’ Michael Matthias proposed starting in 2017 was not significantly different from the 2007 ideas.

For all you oldsters, remember how handsome Mickey Rourke used to be? But every year, rather than simply becoming the next DeNiro, he would do ‘something’ goofy. But everyone would say, “He’s young. Give him time.” But.. little by little, over time, he became almost unrecognisable. That was the Marina Master Plan. It just got a little weirder every year. So by now, it’s so exaggerated, people can’t see what it was always supposed to be underneath. The really sad part? Both he, and we, paid a crap ton of money to do that to ourselves. If we had done the work as intended, most of the work we have had to beg and borrow to get to today would have paid for itself.

6:00pm Study Session

Permitting Software: The City’s permitting system–and software–has been a source of aggravation for a lot of people for a very long time. It’s great to see the City taking action. It’s tough to get too jazzed about screen shots, but the City had all the right answers, and as I said last week, it’s gotta be better than what we’ve been doing.

Amenity Rentals: The City proposed a three-tier approval system for people to rent out their homes for outdoor activities (swim parties? Dog parks? Tennis? But again, with no specifics the Council seemed to like. I have been strongly against this because we will be the first city in WA to attempt it. And in my opinion, we have no business being ‘first’ at anything unless we ourselves are in a completely unique situation–specifically airport or Marina.

The impetus of this seemed to be to promote new home businesses.  But as they say: be careful what you wish for. It is a bajillion hours of staff time trying to codify something that, ironically, still involves a judgment call from a human being.

Future Capital Projects Report:

For the first time in my tenure the Council decided to refuse a design grant. Perhaps for different reasons, Councilmember Nutting and I agreed that this was a mistake.

And perhaps this was a version of “the day after problem.” The original project was a completely grandiose, $60 million re-wiring of the entire downtown stormwater system in order to create an ‘urban creek’. (There were slides of an actual waterfall at the bottom.) And that was just one part of the last city manager’s vision. It was also only 30 months ago.

Functionally, this current project was nothing like that; although it would still provide not only a tremendous water filtering benefit. But in my opinion, if properly done, would also perform an even more valuable gateway function than the Steps. The current guesstimate of $13-17m still seems eyewatering. I get it. But I wish the City had simply provided a similar guesstimate for doing ‘just a sidewalk’.

For example, in our CIP, the North Hill Safe Schools project is described like this:

Installation of approximately 800 linear feet of curbs, gutter, sidewalks, ADA curb ramps, bike lane, storm drainage, retaining walls and driver radar feedback signs on both sides of South 200th St from 8th Avenue
South to 10th Place South.

That’s over $4,000,000 — which was also funded with a variety of grants we scored much higher on because of the special circumstances (kids). Funding for a project that has a high environmental benefit may be much easier to obtain than ‘sidewalks;. But without better information there was no way to be sure.

Perhaps people were sick of Michael Matthias and thought anything proposed during that time was blech–even if it was not the same project. As I wrote, his ideas were always grandiose, and he was terrible to me personally. But in fact, he kept the notion of a boat storage building, which was the right thing to do. He did want to do a gateway project.

For 25 years, instead of doing the ‘normal’ version of projects the City has always known it should do we keep relitigating all the “what do we want the place to be” blather rather than just seeing what this place has always told us it needed; neither grandiose, or ‘value engineered’.

Please take a look at the updated Midway Park. This may end up being that better version. As with 223rd St. and the Marina Steps, it’s not the same thing we saw a few years ago. But in this case, it’s much better. Is it taking too long? Sure. Would I prefer a full-size soccer pitch? Obviously.

But I’m hoping everyone can look at that and see the value of both urgency and patience. We need more money now because there are so many things that need doing. But on the other hand, if it’s on City land, we only get one chance to do it right.