Weekly Update: 06/09/2024

Some bits of business…

Future Agendas

Future Agendas is the closest thing the City currently has to a calendar of upcoming City Council topics. It’s not dynamic, ie. you have to click it every time you want to see a new version. And it’s not always accurate. But until we develop a genuine calendar, this can be very useful if there is a particular issue you don’t want to miss.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager’s Report June 07, 2024

• Apparently I missed a chance to see the Interim City Manager running down 216th as part of a Special Olympics fundraiser.
• Also, the City is on now on ‘The Gram’. Check it out @waterlandcity
• The City has also published the job listing for City Manager. If I read this? I’d apply. 🙂

ADU RFI

I’ve gotten several responses to my request for interest in ADUs. THANK YOU! As you may know, we are updating our Comprehensive Plan, which will change City zoning rules for a generation. I don’t have to many specifics for you yet, except:

• There are a lot of you out there. But you have different needs. Many of you want to create multi-generational living so you can age in place with your kids and grandkids. Others want to create cottages on a large property to add income.
• I want you to have as much notice as possible when these hearings come up and I want you to show up so you can show the City that this really is a big deal.

I’m hoping the City can make these updates as flexible and inexpensive as possible.

This Week

Monday: Regional Transit Center I’m taking a tour of THE NERVE CENTER OF OUR BUS SYSTEM! 😀

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission (Agenda) The Commission will be approving bond sales/refunds of about $850,000,000 (that’s a lotta ‘m’s, Martha! 😀 ) to fund several large projects to be included in the SAMP (airport expansion.)

Wednesday: King County Emergency Management Committee

Thursday 4:00pm Transportation Committee. (Agenda) Highlight: Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) Final Plan

Thursday 5:00pm Environment Committee Meeting 5:00pm. (Agenda) Public Works Yard Groundwater Remediation Update; CIP Project Update; StART Update. Sea-Tac Airport Roundtable is a combo-platter of two community members and someone from the staff to discuss community impacts from the airport. We have two brand new community members and the Committee will get to hear how they think things are going.

Thursday 6:00pm City Council Meeting 6:00pm (Agenda) Highlights:

• 2023 4th Quarter Financial Report
• Juneteenth Proclamation.
• Gender neutral references to City Manager in DMMC
• South King County Housing/Homelessness Partnership (SKHHP) Annual Budget. I think this is our sixth year in this thing and… spoiler alert… I still don’t think we’ve built a single new unit of housing with it in Des Moines.

Last Week

Wednesday: I attended this Highline School District Listening Session at Mt. Rainier High School with our School Board Director Azeb Hagos and Normandy Park Director Melissa Petrini. It was an absolute model of community outreach. There were two tables, one for each Director, and it was fascinating listening doing a ‘split-screen’. There were parents with passionate feelings and totally opposing ideologies. But somehow, the process remained not only civil but actually constructive.

Thursday 4:00pm Finance Committee. Agenda I gave this one the Action-Packed Seal Of Approval and I was not disappointed. Recap below.

Thursday 5:00pm Public Safety Committee (Agenda) Highlights:

Staffing update. Apparently, we’re down two officers. And this is a discussion we (I mean ‘the United States’) needs to have. There is this constant discussion about the difficulty in recruiting police officers. That’s true, but it isn’t the whole truth. We (and again everyone) do get applicants. The difficulty is in getting people who can pass the background check. In my first year on the Council there were something like eight applicants and zero passed. The profession is simply not attracting enough of the right kind of people at the moment.

Thursday 6:00 City Council Study Session Recap follows. (Agenda)

Saturday: South King Fire Open House 223rd and 16th Ave. I went to take a picture of the Fire Engines. But what I really wanted to see is information on this: Fire Benefit Charge | South King Fire & Rescue, WA – Official Website. In short, SKF is putting their own tax on the August ballot. They’re not calling it a ‘tax’ because it is not based solely on property value, but instead factors in how much each home may require their services. It’s an interesting discussion and I encourage you to read their flyer carefully.

Saturday: Part 150 Study Workshop

The airport has begun a new Part 150 Noise Study. ‘Part 150’ refers to a section of FAA regulations whereby airports analyse their noise impact on the surrounding community. The traditional purpose has been to determine the Noise Boundary called DNL65. A couple of us from Sea-Tac Noise.Info attended and left with real concerns over how this might affect the possibility of new Port Packages and updates for homes with existing sound insulation. Read about it here.

Finance Committee Meeting Recap

Parks and Recreation Finances

We got a much more detailed report than in years past, but it’s kinda organised around place rather than function. ie. it groups events at the Des Moines Activity Center together, whether they’re softball or senior or whatever.

That may seem tiny, but it’s one reason I voted against the whole Events Planning Enterprise Fund last year. If we had proceeded to make Events Planning an Enterprise Fund, that just would have meant that we treat ‘events’ as a business–with its own profit/loss statement. Guess what? We should be doing that regardless! We don’t need an Enterprise Fund. We just need to organise our reporting better so we can see what’s making money– and then act accordingly.

(And to be clear: a lot of ‘parks’ stuff isn’t supposed to make money. But wanting to know the true cost of everything we do? That should be standard equipment.)

Closing the Budget Gap

According to the packet:

Ways to raise revenues

1) Review Parks, Recreation, and Senior Services program fees
2) Review possibility of raising B+O Tax Rates and Business License fees

Ways to reduce expenditures

1) Freeze Vacancies
2) Review Ongoing Long-term Extra Hires
3) Review Professional Services contracts
4) Restructure Departments for Efficiencies

Standard stuff. People get irritated when I say things like that. But saying something is ‘standard’ is not the same thing as ‘painless’. Having a baby is, usually a standard process. 😀  (I kill me.) But my hope is that we can do a lot more. On both sides of the ledger.

Five-Year Forecasts

The Finance Director presented one for “if the Levy Lid Lift passes.” And one for “if it doesn’t.” Spoiler alert: they’re both worth a big gulp soda. And ironically, that is why I’m less concerned for 2025. The real pain isn’t for a year.

My final comment during the meeting was to say that I was probably the most optimistic person at the table. I wasn’t being cavalier. We’re nowhere near where I hope we can get to, but this really is some of the best financial information I’ve seen in many years. And not feeling quite so blind feels like real progress.

May 2024 Sales Tax Report

This is also a real upgrade. I just want to point out that what these reports call ‘sales tax’ is not what you call ‘sales tax’ (ie. ‘retail’). We group together a ton of one-time fees into ‘sales tax’, including home sales (REET) and construction fees.

I don’t like lumping them together because, as I wrote last week, they perform very different functions. And this is important: it’s not just that you take in different pots of money, these sources are used for different things and they each have their up and down cycles. As we’ve recently learned, depending on a constant churn of home sales or construction (or low inflation) is not a great idea.

As I say over and over, building is not the same thing as economic development. IOW: when you build a box, you get a sweet chunk of one-time money. Then, the community has to live with what is inside that box for 40 years. If it’s taxable property, we get some property tax. Cool. And if it’s the kind of business we should be encouraging, some reliable sales and B&O taxes–which is even better. But if the box is tax exempt (Port of Seattle), or no one rents it, or whoever rents the space doesn’t make any money? The City suffers. Building is not economic development. It’s the

What we’ve done since I’ve lived here is to equate building boxes with economic development. Probably because so many Cms have been contractors/realtors/property managers. Building is not economic development.

June 6, 2024 City Council Meeting Recap

Mayor Buxton was MIA with no excuse. But since this is the first meeting she’s missed that I can recall, I did not stress. Deputy Mayor Steinmetz acted as presiding officer.

Every meeting tends to have a theme, and this one was “JC, you’re too nice.” So true.

Ferry Update?

BOMBSHELL!

Speaking of professional service contracts I want to review… 😀 We had a presentation from Ferry Consultant Peter Philips. According to the presentation, he has something along the line of a verbal agreement from King County to foot the bill for a Water Taxi between Des Moines and Seattle in the next couple of years. King County would buy the Chilkat Express (the 62 passenger boat used in 2022) and run the entire service themselves at no cost to the City.

And in 5-6 years or so, King County would hope to upgrade this ferry to an electric version.

And then there’s a concept of a (literal) docking station. The dock would float off shore and charge the boat while ¹Dr. No and the rest of SPECTRE debark. However, as my example implies, since this tech only exists in the next James Bond movie, I am somewhat skeptical.

Plus, the Dept. Of Commerce has given $132,000 to do an Economic Impact Study. Which I also don’t understand. If this is King County’s plan why do we need to do an economic impact study?

Success?

I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy too nice. When someone is telling you how great something is, it’s hard to say, “Ummmm… no, not really.” He gave a recap of this glowing Ferry Presentation & Final Report – 01 Dec 2022

I got chided for wanting too much ‘detail’ and not wanting ‘surprises’. Which is a bit odd considering these are supposed to be (cough) ‘study sessions’. But here is something I am certain of:

We lost a ton of money running that Ferry in 2022. Thank God the boat died in 2023 or we would’ve lost even more. How much did we lose? I’m honestly not sure because there has been no straightforward accounting. All I can say for sure is that we started on April 14, 2022 by dedicating $975,000 for a ‘pilot program’. And now, after two years, we have $400,000 left in ARPA money–to be re-allocated somewhere else in the 2024 budget. However much we lost? That was your money, folks. Here is my best guess based on public records from 2022 actuals.

So when Mr. Philips says things like “We got 400% more passengers than we expected”? I cry foul (language 😀 ) Actually, the Council received no forecast of any kind before the 2022 sailing. I know because I asked for it.

But even with that 400% ‘boost’, we averaged about $6 in revenue per rider. Guess what? The true cost of running any ferry is actually about $24 a ride. That’s not me saying so. That’s King County saying so.

Alley Naming goes nowhere

After three years, and even after the Citizens Advisory Committee did a community poll narrowing the choices down to three, still the Council could not agree on naming a frickin’ Alley. An alley. Did I mention that the entire decision was to name… an alley? 😀 Not a city. Not a galaxy. An alley.

As I said last week, my preference was to name it “Jack’s Alley” But I did not speak. There were three ‘factions’: Two for Waterland Way, two for Backstage Alley, one for “let’s do another community poll.”

I did not want to screw around, because the real value in naming the thing is to allow businesses located in the <whatever you call it> to be found on mapping software. In other words, if you were to look for Cubanos On Wheels (now closed) you might be directed to Marine View Drive, not the alley. And until we improve our signage and marketing, that’s our best shot at helping more people find our businesses!

So I gave my vote to the initial motion from Mahoney/Nutting, which was Waterland  <something>?

Switching gears: Why is it even controversial to not name an alley after Jack? We already have Cecil Powell Park, Mary Gay Park, Sonju Community Garden. People live in Delrose Manor.

And in Seattle, nobody seems to have trouble finding things to do on Mercer Avenue or in Post Alley. By the logic I heard for other options, Seattle should immediately rename Alaska Way to “Waterfront Road.”

It’s normal to name a street or park after some bloke named Jack that no one will know about years from now. It gives you a story to tell. And a story is what creates a sense of place. You don’t need to label something ‘Backstage’ to find the back of the theatre. You just need an address so you can find it on Google Maps. 🙂

Communications Study

In last month’s BOMBSHELL! our former Parks Director was reassigned to be Communications Director. But with no budget. Also a lot of the items she seems to be working on are not exactly the ones the Council seemed to agree upon at our last Communications Study Session (we’ve had so many ‘communications study sessions’ we should start giving them names–like hurricanes.)

I was, however, pleased to see that Director Nordholm had looked into some app solutions. You’ll be shocked to hear that they are as I’ve described–off-the-shelf solutions we can implement. The goal being to give everyone in Des Moines at least one reason to get the City on your phone: be it events calendars, coupons, business marketing, news, public safety, emergency alerts, reporting concerns, permitting, pet licenses, and on and on. There is a good reason for everyone in Des Moines to want to do this. Right now.

Director Nordholm also brought in an example of a wooden suggestion box, made by residents of Wesley. Very nice. She mentioned that the City might carve the City logo into the boxes as part of a branding update. After the alley naming thing, I quipped, “Might wanna hold off on that one…” 😀 Because if the seven of us can’t agree on a frickin’ alley, imagine how any conversation over “New City Logo!” will go.

In fact, I don’t have to imagine it. As I suffered through the alley naming thing, my mind wandered back to a previous and very ‘thorough’ branding discussion around 2010. At the time, the Council was deciding on those Gateway thingees. You know… at the corner of 216th and Pac Hwy and again at Kent Des Moines and Pac Hwy. And it reminded me how we got here. Every few years the Council likes to add some new design’flair’ rather than developing one good brand and sticking with it. And that’s how we ended up with (no exaggeration) at least a dozen.

I mentioned ‘Rorshach Test’. Well, I would suggest that all the various ‘branding’ ideas you see all over the place in Des Moines tells you something about how much of a shared vision your City Council has been able to maintain over time. 😀