Weekly Update: 04/10/2022

Public Service Announcements

This Week

Monday: Meeting with Poulsbo Mayor Erickson. I hope to learn more about their promotional efforts, their Marina and their excellent reporting and web site. Considering their small size they do a fantastic job. For example, they track sales tax by geography, something I would very much like to do here. (See  below in the meeting recap.)

Wednesday: Meeting with Justin Taillon, who runs the Hospitality program at Highline College and is a board member of Destination Des Moines. As a (former) small restaurant owner I’m interested in seeing what an organised approach to that sort of business might be. 😀

Wednesday: Meeting with Senator Claire Wilson 30th. Sen. Wilson is a big fan of the Redondo Fishing Pier and Boardwalk and has passed significant bills to help families with child care expenses.

Wednesday: Des Moines Marina Association Annual Meeting

Thursday: 3:00PM Transportation Committee Meeting (Agenda)

Thursday: 4:00PM Environment Committee Meeting (Agenda)

Thursday: 5:00PM City Council Meeting (Agenda) Two big items:

1. 1. For those of you who watched last week’s um, er whatever, our Ferry Consultant Peter Philips did a thirty minute pre-presentation of a fuller presentation on the 14th with specifics on a ‘pilot program’. And here is the reason why. The City is requesting $975,000 of our capital budget.

      On the agenda for next Thursday is an ask by the City for about a million dollars to fund a Passenger Ferry ‘pilot’ program. This is a project that gets to the heart of my differences with my colleagues.

      The PSRC has studied adding Des Moines to the ferry system for decades and each time it’s come up a total loser–the last time being 2019.

      Not being one to take ‘no’ for an answer, in 2019 the City Man… er, the City Council 😀 commissioned a private demand study for $65,000, which was finally completed in August 2020. I kept asking to see it, but ultimately, I had to resort to a public records request to finally see the results. Since completion, the firm has not come before the Council to take questions about their methodology. I’m not even certain whether any of my colleagues have actually read it because there has been no discussion as to its results or conclusion.

      The sampling was 329 working people throughout King County, not residents of DM or people who might need to come here specifically

      During the meeting, CM Pennington spoke repeatedly about ‘multi-modal’. Does that mean ‘park n ride’? What do 100 parkers do to the Marina footprint? If we don’t want that, are there hundreds of people in DM who will buy monthly parking passes and walk to/from the Marina?

      The packet also provides no explanation on possible environmental impacts, where in the budget the money will come from, what this start-up money will be used for, why we’re expected to pay the start-up costs, and how long it might take to recoup those costs.

      There may be excellent answers to all these questions and more. But once again, we will get a presentation with all those details and then immediately have to vote yes/no. There is simply no excuse for that.

      This is a longstanding pattern. In 2017 the City spent $700k to put in paid parking. It was/is problematic (the machinery was designed for underground parking structures, not outdoor.) But a small group of residents who live near the Marina so passionate in support of it, warts and all, that the City re-branded it away from “pay for the seawall” to “security!”

      The value of transparency is not primarily optical or even to do with ethics. Being thorough makes for better decisions. “measure twice, cut once” Isn’t that the expression?

   2. There will be a hearing on a zoning modification for a new development from 216th and 14th Ave. If you live near by you likely know there was a previous attempt to develop the area in 2019 that enraged many of neighbours. This is not like that. It’s twenty three town homes with a single point of ingress/egress on 14th. The hearing is only to decide if the proposal complies with the code and thus merits the modification. But still, I urge residents to read the packet starting on pg. 48 and show up for public comment. Given the fact that we have no Planning Commission and that our Comprehensive Plan is so poorly understood by most residents, it is in your interest to get a sense of where the City’s is going.

City Council Meetings are scheduled for Thursdays at 6:00PM at City Hall 21630 11th Avenue S., Suite #C Des Moines WA 98198. They can also be viewed live on Comcast Channel 21/321 or on the City’s YouTube channel. Committee Meetings are either at 4:00PM or 5:00PM, also on Thursdays.

You do not have to sign in to attend a meeting!
The sign-in sheet is only for people wishing to make a Public Comment.

There are three ways to provide Public Comment:

• In person: Show up a few minutes before the meeting and sign the sheet. Public Comment is usually conducted at the beginning of the meeting.
• By e-mail: All e-mails sent to citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov are considered public comment. They are instantly available to all members of the City Council and the City Clerk who includes them into the record of public comments at the next meeting.
• By US Mail: Attn: City Clerk Office, 21630 11th Avenue S., Des Moines WA 98198 no later than 4:00 p.m. day of the meeting. Please provide us with your first and last name and the city in which you live.

All letters or e-mails requesting a specific action are referred by the City Clerk to the appropriate City department.

If you would like a follow up from me, personally please indicate that or call me (206) 878-0578.

The Clerk does not read e-mails to the Council in full; only the subject line. However, we do see them as soon as you send them. Your comments are added to the Agenda Packet available on the City web site following each meeting.

Last Week

Tuesday: Police Advisory Committee. I had hoped to hear more about the implementation of our new towing ordinance but the general sense seemed to be that it was one of the longest hours in Council history. 😀 Basically, the sense was that any concerns were overblown. People want the derelict cars to go away. I’d like to see an option for on-street permits. They work very well in other cities. Residents use the stickers to tell who belongs and who doesn’t and they generate revenue.

Thursday: Public Safety/Emergency Management Committee:  (Video) Traci Buxton was chosen as Chair and Vic Pennington as Vice Chair. It was kind of Tuesday redux. 😀

Thursday: City Council Study Session (Agenda) (Video)This was our ‘Strategy’ meeting. If you recall, the Mayor instructed each of us to submit our top five priorities by March 18th. Recap below.

Saturday: Release the Coho!

April 7, 2022 City Council Meeting Recap

Or “Well, there’s four hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

Seriously. This is the first meeting I have witnessed or participated in that, in my opinion, had no practical value for the public. But at 240 minutes, there sure was an awful lot of it. My comments are more for the political junkies among you.

Part I

Communications

I guess you’d call this ‘the website discussion’. For the third time, I presented my proposal for a digital presence that is mobile first and focuses on notification. You can read the proposal in full here.

And since the discussion was so vague, the City Manager presented his idea for how to move forward. He’ll hire his choice of consultant, then have them interview us individually and then we reconvene with a solution.

I made a motion to have the City write to the four major vendors that create the off-the-shelf (OTS) applications used by most cities and have them send us some educational materials before the consultant–which I already did that last year.

Marina

Our Ferry Consultant Peter Philips, interrupted near the beginning to do a 30 minute presentation. We were told that his group would present a fuller presentation on the 14th with specifics on a ‘pilot program’. I found it a bit odd that we were being given a pre-presentation. And you can see the reason why on this Thursday’s packet.

Public Safety

I also sent a separate request with two other items, neither of which seemed to have been included in the final Agenda. Here they are:

• Research a property tax lid lift dedicated solely for public safety. We actually had this for many years. It compensated for the loss of State revenue sharing in the 2000’s. The voters rejected it in 2012 and that’s a big reason why we have at least a dozen fewer police now than fifteen years ago.
• Research the possibility of annexing the remaining bits of Kent west of Pacific Highway. As far as I know, the issue hasn’t been seriously discussed in over a decade. The commercial property owners are mad as hell about the crime and deeply concerned about the impacts of Sound Transit. And ditto for the residents. This may be the only time it will ever be possible in our lifetimes and in my opinion we should at least look at it seriously.

Economic Development

We’re all for it. 😀

But seriously ladies and germs, my colleagues talked about attracting developers and construction. And I did my usual speech on how ‘building is not the same as economic development’. I also once again suggested that we should hire professionals to mentor retail and restaurant owners because many struggle to be good managers. I was (for the 42nd time) lectured on free business advice, which almost never works. What-ehveeehr.

The City Manager offered to give the Council a tour of the Des Moines Creek Business Park. I asked why we couldn’t have a report (like other cities do) which breaks out revenues by geographic area–so we could find out exactly how well individual areas are doing. Crickets. How can you possibly talk about how well the Business Park is doing if you can’t show us the numbers?

Councilmember Research Process

I again raised the need for Councilmembers to have the ability to obtain research.

Part II

Parks and Programs

I said that we should expand programs like Reach Out Des Moines to include the entire City as a great method of crime prevention. I also want to focus our spending more towards less affluent parts of the City which are under-served. We keep being putting resources and events in the same places, which are, frankly, the wealthiest spots.

Committees, Process, Structural changes, yada yada

I asked the Mayor to skip over these topics because we had covered the items in other sections of the discussion. He seemed a bit irked. I had to interrupt him to explain that these headings were not my idea. Whoever put together the packet came up with this nutty list of categories.

Conflicts of interest

Councilmember Steinmetz wanted to focus attention on Councilmember Achziger’s continuing to be a board member of the Legacy Foundation. He also mentioned the fact that our former Mayor Dave Kaplan took a job with the Port of Seattle about eight months after leaving office. But not just any job. Mr. Kaplan took the position of lobbyist–to the City of Des Moines.

I also went into the incest problem, which I’ve gone into many times. It’s so prevalent we don’t even notice it. I forgot to mention that as soon as Mr. Kaplan left the City Council, during those nine months he also had a contract with the City as a transportation consultant. Essentially, he was now getting paid to do what he had previously done for free as a member of the City Council. I asked the State Auditor to review the contract as part of our annual review process and…. they simply did not do it. That’s another reason I’ve become a bit skeptical of those audits. But that’s a rant for another day.

The point was that, we have this complex web of electeds, former electeds, spouses of electeds, civic groups, prominent business owners and there is no professional distance. Whether or not there are any legal conflicts of interest, the fact that one is constantly rubbing shoulders with people who wear multiple hats is awkward. There is a constant risk of unconscious bias. I think it’s notable that the State goes out of its way to protect developers with the Appearance Of Fairness Doctrine, but in almost every other case, it’s basically the Wild West when it comes to the inevitable biases that will develop in a small town like ours.

And that prompted the second attack of the night–from Councilmember Pennington, who felt it was his duty to lecture me about leadership and not being ‘superior’ and…

And when it began, I set a timer on my phone and just listened. But when the alarm went off after four minutes, for the first time in two years, I raised a point of order. Enough is enough.

Anyhoo said it for years: the City should have a clear no-compete clause in our City Code. If you’re an employee of the City you may not go to work for someone else which has any relationship with the City for a certain period.

I am less strident about CM Achziger’s situation, but I do believe that electeds should voluntarily avoid serving on other boards (elected or not) while in office. I’m reluctant to make it an official ‘rule’ right now only because it’s so troubling to me that others do not see why holding multiple elected positions and being on non-profit boards is problematic. It’s been obvious to me since I got here.

Because it’s not even about potential conflicts; it’s about giving the proper amount of attention to the job. The job of Councilmember here now is big enough and complex enough that it deserves undivided attention. The fact is that we should all be doing a lot more training, study time and networking. It’s no longer a ‘volunteer’ job.

By holding only one position, it opens up the field for the next generation of people to provide public service. It also reduces the possibility of all that ‘shoulder rubbing’ that has made it so hard to make objective decisions over the years.

Sustainable Airport Master Plan

Councilmember Pennington wanted to make sure the City was keeping its eye on the process. I was nice and did not make any snippy remarks, but we lost this game many years ago. The SAMP is like this meeting–on a scale about 100 times larger.

My only comment, was to recommend to the new members of the Transportation Committee to take a look at WSDOT’s new video of Stage 2 of SR-509. That is going to be the game changer.

Multi-Modal Transportation

Councilmember Pennington wanted to make sure we’re thinking multi-modal. I am too. The City’s request for a million dollar Ferry ‘pilot’ program makes me wonder exactly why we haven’t previously discussed how all those passengers would to get to and from the Marina. It’s like most things I’ve seen here: we’ll figure it out later.

Final thoughts

1. We’re going to be the only City that does not offer hybrid meetings. We will go back to not recording committee meetings, which will render them inaccessible to the vast majority of the public. This is a real setback for democracy. We had a meeting with ‘communication’ as the most important item, but we actually moved backwards when it comes to transparency.
2. Apart from Deputy Mayor Buxton’s insults, she spoke for the Council in not making it clear that “I have all the information I need.” I don’t even know what to say about that. The City Manager stated in his opening presentation that he does not consider the Council to have any job of oversight. And my colleagues agree. If the Council is not there to provide oversight, that explains why the Marina ran into trouble years ago–and also why you should not trust any current planning.
3. Although it was called a 2022 Strategy Session, the City Manager repeatedly answered questions with “we’ll bring that up in the Budget”, which means that anything we discussed was actually not going to be put into action until September–for 2023 spending.
4. I cannot think of anything that actually got ‘planned’ or agreed upon other than the City Manager bringing in that ‘web site consultant’.
5. I’m not speaking out of school here. I’ve written to both the Mayor and Deputy Mayor to say the same thing: the meeting was poorly run. 46 minutes of the show had nothing to do with the agenda.
   1. Ten minutes for the City Manager’s intro civics lesson. The City Manager has a slot for his report. But once the discussion on strategy and planning had begun, he had no business going off the res like that.
   2. There was a 30 minute presentation thrown into the agenda unannounced. Not. Cool. The presiding officer may re-arrange items during the meeting, but he cannot insert or delete them unannounced. Technically, it’s not illegal I guess because no ‘action was taken’. But it not in the spirit of Robert’s Rules of Order.
   3. There were three more personal attacks, neither of which the Mayor or Deputy Mayor addressed. Civility, right? And another ten minutes of the public time wasted.