Weekly Update: 06/16/2024

Some bits of business…

This is a longee. Partially because last week was action packed! And partially because I’m hoping to take next week off. 😀

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.

A passing of note

Kaylene Moon passed away suddenly and peacefully over the weekend at Wesley at the age of 374. Or maybe it just seemed like it because I can’t imagine a time when she was not here. However, until just a couple of years ago, she could’ve passed for someone decades younger than her real age– which I chalk up to one of the most positive attitudes I’ve ever encountered. Her combo-platter of genuine sweetness, service, and an energy level one usually associates with hamsters made me feel so inadequate by comparison–Between you, me and the wall? Frankly sometimes I could barely stand to hear her voice when she called–which was also uniquely pleasant, come to think of it. D’Oh!

I saw her last only a few days ago at the Legacy Foundation Bayside Ball. And of course, she was schlepping boxes.

(See what I mean? Absolutely maddening! 😀 )

Saying that she served on the Senior Services Advisory Committee or listing her numerous public service activities over the decades would not begin to describe her importance to both the senior community and the City of Des Moines.

In short, Ms. Moon was exactly the kind of resident the City used to have awards ceremonies for.

She will be dearly missed and I will post details on how you can help celebrate her life very soon.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager’s Report June 14, 2024

This week’s #Bombshell was the hiring of Ted Boe as our new Chief of Police. I have somewhat mixed feelings. I’ll get the negativity out of the way first.

• This is an impulse buy, something we engage in far too frequently. The circumstances concerning the departure of Tim Gately should be investigated. Just as the circumstances concerning the hiring/departure of Michael Matthias should be made clear. Just as the circumstances of the hiring/firing of the previous police chief should have been made clear. It’s a pattern. And to be clear a lessons learned is never about ‘blame’. It’s about accountability and improving the organisation.

• 

  On the other hand, I have had a chance to observe Ted Boe pretty carefully for the past six years, first because his presentations to the Burien City Council on public safety were so much more informative and transparent than the ones our City would receive. Plus, he engaged in community outreach superior to our previous Chiefs in pretty much every way–so he was simply more places to be seen. And, if you’ve watched Burien at all in the past few years, he’s demonstrated an ability to maintain his cool under  circumstances that would make most sane people quit.

So if I sound equivocal, it’s only because opportunistic decision making is fine in small doses, but when it becomes a habit, any sense of strategic planning goes out the window. We truly cannot imagine doing anything other than snap decisions with no accountability. If Mr. Boe turns out to be a success, as I assume will be the case, that’s great. But my concern is that it will simply enable even more impulse buys.

This Week

Who knows! Trying to take a few days off. But if something comes up? Don’t let that stop ya. Call me any ol’ time. (206) 878-0578. 😀

Last Week

Monday: Regional Transit Center I took a tour of THE NERVE CENTER OF OUR BUS SYSTEM! 😀 It’s actually pretty fascinating. I also learned about the concept of microtransit which is sort of like Uber for public transit. Metro has a version of it called Metro Flex. running in other parts of King County and it looks like something worth checking out for several areas in Des Moines which have no good connections to bus or Light Rail.

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission (Agenda) The Commission approved 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 coming airport expansion.

Wednesday: King County Emergency Management Committee

Given my various comments on the absolutely terrible passenger ferry program 😀 , you may think  this is a set-up. Not true. EMAC does mock exercises on how to handle all kinds of major emergencies.

This meeting ran through how to handle a disaster on a Water Taxi. I’ve written about it a bunch in the past, but one of the first initiatives by our last City Manager was another #bombshell–moving then police chief Delgado over to a completely new position called ‘Emergency Management Director’. At the time there was a lot of talk about using the Marina as a ‘key strategic point for regional disasters’. It was all hooey of course. But it shouldn’t have been. When (not if) there is a genuine regional emergency, Des Moines Marina really could be the center of the action between Seattle and Tacoma.

Also during the absolutely terrible passenger ferry pilot program you the City talk a lot about ‘multi-modal transit options’. Which was also hooey. But in terms of genuine emergency planning it’s totally not. When (not if) there is a large-scale emergency here, a key question for most people in Des Moines will be, How do I get up to Pacific Highway or down to the Marina?

Emergency Management people have really amazing solutions for handling smaller issues. However, there’s simply no realistic plan in place for handling a large regional disaster of any kind. But to the extent that there is, as with transit, the discussion tends to be dominated by other parts of King County. My interest in both EMAC and RTC are kinda the same-at least getting Des Moines into conversations about moving people in a real way.

The problem, of course, is money.  If we do end up getting some sort of plausible ferry service, hopefully we will also be eligible for some form of grants which will help us with the real emergency management challenge.

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

Thursday 5:00pm Environment Committee Meeting 5:00pm. Recap below. (Agenda)

Thursday 6:00pm City Council Meeting 6:00pm. Recap below. (Agenda)

Friday: Redondo Food Trucks! Strictly speaking, this isn’t really a ‘government function’. But most of the City’s promotions center on ‘Marina’. And someone needs to speak out on the critical issue of those amazing egg rolls are at Momo Express! 😀 A variety of wonderful Food Trucks every Friday this summer in Redondo from 4:30 to dusk.

June 13 Environment Committee Recap

(Agenda) We packed more interesting stuff into 50 minutes than many three hour full City Council meetings. Well, I thought so. 🙂

Public Works Yard Groundwater Remediation Update. We’ve had an ongoing issue with a long ago de-commissioned fuel storage tank out in back of the engineering building. I made a cheeky comment that, years ago, as a homeowner, I was able to pay once to clear an old underground oil furnace, and as far as ‘environmental remediation’ I was ‘done’ with it.

What I’ve since learned is how hard it is to really mitigate any groundwater leaks because they tend to keep coming back again and again, even after you think they’re done. The City, recognising this site’s proximity both to Water District 54, and surrounding neighbourhoods, has gone above and beyond to continue to monitor and mitigate the site. Well done.

Capital Improvements We heard about about several capital improvement projects concerning storm water, specifically one in Redondo. It’s not like there’s a ‘decision’ point, but I hope people pay attention because I don’t think the public understands that when you annex an area like Redondo into your City you often get more than you bargained for. There are a myriad of ongoing drainage issues between Marine Hills on the top and the beach. In my free time, I should put together a graphic of all the work the City has done to make the area safer from flooding. Until then, imagine a plate of really old spaghetti. That was the state of the storm water grid when Redondo came into Des Moines in 1996.

6PPDQ and Coho Salmon Engineer Beekley mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that the City was optimistic about receiving a grant to test a new process for filtering 6PPDQ from storm water. Long story short, Coho salmon (my personal fave, yum), have been almost non-existent here for a long time now. UW researchers discovered that a major cause is a chemical called 6PPD used in every automotive tire since the ’60’s. 6PPD is the miraculous goop that basically made tires immune from catastrophic failure. But microscopic bits of it are constantly sloughing off onto the road, which goes into the water, which gets converted to 6PPDQ,(there will be a quiz) and 6PPDQ just kills baby Coho. I would be absolutely thrilled for Des Moines to be a part of this testing phase and I’m grateful to the City for doing this.

StART Committee

The Committee invited our two new community members of the Sea-Tac Airport Roundtable. They provided the Committee their feedback on how StART is going and they were not shy–plus some really good reports which most people don’t see.

Look, asking anyone to summarise ‘the airport’ in 20 minutes is like asking someone to explain ‘The Middle East’ in 25 words or less. In fact, that’s the problem. The Port is only too happy to tell you how complicated all this is–and also how everyone is already doing their best. They’re totally not.

For example, the Port is currently conducting a Part 150 Study, which is exactly the kind of complicated, boring thing that makes people’s eyes glaze over. But it will determine everything from who gets sound insulation to what kind of impact fees the City will be able to negotiate (if it so chooses.) If you are interested in airport issues–especially sound insulation, I would strongly encourage you to read this… Part 150 For Dummies.

Public Comment We also had two most excellent public comments.

• The first was from a resident who wants to add multiple cottages (ADUs) onto her property. She has correctly identified the real challenge–namely hookups. There are now some really nice, and very affordable pre-built structures, as well as pre-approved templates for builders. The problem is that our building code and zoning were designed more for independent services (electric, water, sewer, storm) for every building, ie. the traditional ‘single family dwelling’. The question is: can we provide code which provisions these types of ADUs much less expensively, while still maintaining performance, health and safety? She provided some really great research and my hope is that we can get answers (and solutions) implemented as part of our upcoming Comprehensive Plan.
• The other commenter was concerned about tree canopy and a possible grant opportunity from the Department of Ecology. Again, this is exactly the kind of feedback I’d hoped the Committee could receive–useful ideas we can research to expand the mission.

June 13 City Council Meeting Recap

Public Comment

• We had another public comment from District #5 School Board Director Azeb Hagos, which is already two more than her predecessor. 😉 Seriously, this kind of communication is always appreciated.
• A representative from Waterland Pride invited the public to various events on June 22 and 23. He mentioned first seeing the Pride flag when he and his husband moved here in 2022. I think he meant the police station–officers from the police department began raising the flag there. And now City Hall follows suit. 🙂
• We had a report from King County Library System. They are killing it with programs of interest to basically everyone. I hope we can find a way to integrate their events calendar with ours–er… when we get one. 😀 Seriously, they have so much ‘stuff’ of interest to the community it kills me that more people don’t know about it all.
• We had a very disturbing comment from a resident concerning mishandling of a complaint she had with the police. It is not the Council’s place to comment on this sort of thing, except to say that if you watched the meeting it is disturbing and I want you to know I am taking it seriously.

Consent Agenda

• We removed gender (ie. male) references to City Manager in our municipal code. I confess, I’d never read the previous section of code (how often does the issue of hiring a City Manager come up?) But once you see it? Yikes. See below.
• 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. And whether you’re a fan of ‘affordable housing’ or not, you do like money, right? See below.

We had a proclamation on Juneteenth. Getting real here: My wife, like most of the Black community in Detroit, was always familiar with Juneteenth. It was  discussed a lot in the 1970’s and there was a genuine debate as to whether to celebrate Juneteenth (the ‘real end of the Civil War’) or January 1st–the day of the Emancipation Proclamation, which others felt was more meaningful as ‘the official end of slavery’.

But since we’ve lived here, frankly, I don’t think I heard too much about any of it until relatively recently. I only mention this because a lot of cultural changes seem to happen ‘suddenly’. Many people work on them in the background of course, but all of a sudden they sort of reach a tipping point and everyone gets on board.

Port of Seattle Grant

I pulled Item #7, a $33,000 general-purpose economic development grant from the Port of Seattle which we apply for almost every year. In past years we used the dough (supposedly) to do some Marina Development planning. This year it’s to help us pay for doing our Comprehensive Plan update. Whatever.

I always object because, for some unknown reason, we always include a few seemingly ‘harmless’ sentences in support of something the Port calls their Century Agenda. These sentences are not required to obtain the grant.

Because these sentences seem harmless, most years my colleagues look at me like I’m nuts and the vote is 1-6. This year it was 2-5. Progress! 😀 But those five are completely wrong.

Mayor Buxton made several comments saying that, while the Port is not living up to its own aspirations to reduce the negative impacts of the airport, instead of not supporting the Century Agenda, we should support it but also ‘hold their feet to the fire’ to live up to those aspirations. I don’t know what to do with that.

The Century Agenda is the Port’s strategic plan. And it’s hard to talk about ‘strategic plans’ because most individuals, and definitely not the City of Des Moines (sorry), ever have a strategic plan. But big businesses, like the Port, most definitely do. 

I think the problem is that we tend to think of the Port as being a ‘government’. And all governments have a ton of big aspirational crapola (life, liberty, the pursuit of whatever.) So perhaps electeds think of the Century Agenda like all our proclamations, not anything to be taken seriously.

But the Port is not a ‘government’ like Des Moines. It’s more like a serious set of businesses created by the State of Washington, called a Special Purpose District.

So underneath the pretty brochure, with all the wonderful aspirational blather about Diversity! Environmental Stewardship! Economic Empowerment! ¹Marzipan Rainbows! are hundreds of pages with equally serious, and specific business targets, such as air cargo tonnage, landing fees, airport property development.

If you were to watch the 2012 Port Commission meeting where the Century Agenda was born, and compared it to where they are today, you’d see that they were hitting all their targets. All the flights? They didn’t just appear out of thin air. The Port hired professionals to go out and compete (hard) against other airports, to recruit new airlines, to move operations to Sea-Tac, to promote tourism. Like any successful business they willed all those flights to come here. And they will continue to do everything possible to hit their future targets. Because flights are 80% of their revenue. That is the Century Agenda. It’s a business plan. And the idea that we would be naive enough to believe anything else is ridiculous.

This does not mean that various programs the Port engages in (apprenticeships, salmon recovery, etc.) are not real. It just means that if you look carefully none of them ever do anything to address our concerns.

The reason we needed to remove that ‘male’ language from the municipal code is that it creates an unconscious bias as to what a ‘City Manager’ should look like. The language changes how you think about the job.

The reason we should remove ‘Century Agenda’ from any dealings with the Port of Seattle is because whether we realise it or not, we have developed an unconscious bias as to what the Port is and what our relationship should be.

Three decades ago we made several major choices in our relationship with the Port. They could have yielded millions in annual revenue and we would not be where we are financially today. Every year we have opportunities to change direction. But until we stop letting ‘harmless’ language like that slide, we cannot hope to obtain better than $33,000 a year.

City Manager Recruiting Update

We were told that, so far, ten people have applied for the position. Apparently three of those leads came directly through the City, not the recruiter web site. I did not say out loud, “If we provide the majority of the leads, do we get a discount?” 😀 We will start reviewing applications at the beginning of July.

2023 4th Quarter Financial Report

Too much to go into, but one ‘detail’ the Finance director mentioned was how Federal Way moves a million dollars around to optimise returns. Lucky them. The City of SeaTac does something similar with impact fees they get from the Port of Seattle (see above comments on Century Agenda–that’s one of the choices we could have made.)

Transportation Improvement Plan Update

One needs to conduct a public hearing whenever the City updates the Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP). Nobody ever shows up, unless they have some financial interest because they are incredibly boring.

Speaking of ‘lessons learned’ I asked the City if they had done a lessons learned on 24th Ave. First of all, because we owe the public an explanation, and second because we don’t want it to happen again. According to Interim City Manager George, the City is trying to go after the various utilities for some of these costs. Good.  One of my colleagues shrugged off my concerns by saying that all projects have these kinds of issues–particularly the 216th rebuild a decade ago. I hate to contradict a colleague, but he was not here during that build and I live near there. That project was nowhere near as fraught as 24th Ave.

Apparently I unintentionally blind-sided the City in asking about a project referred to as a Bike Lane at the Marina. I’m honestly curious about this. For a long time, the City and County have had a ‘master plan’ to create a continuous bike/walking trail connecting the Des Moines Creek Trail with the Lake To Sound Trail with Barnes Creek Trail. The idea is that you’d be able to bike from, say Des Moines Elementary at 240th, west to Marine View Drive, make a left at the Red Robin, north to the Marina, and then over to the Beach Park… and off ya go to Woodinville! 😀

The thing is… I’ve never seen even a drawing of that Bike Trail. And since we’re supposedly at 60% Design on the Marina Steps project, I figured somebody had a clue on this. Apparently not.

But the more that I think about it, the more irritated I’m getting. To have something on a Transportation Improvement Plan without even a frickin’ drawing as to where it will go doesn’t seem like something that should be an item on a planning document.

Again, the Port of Seattle has a plan. Businesses have plans. They’re for realz documents.

Building Code Update

One needs to conduct a public hearing whenever the City updates the building code. Nobody ever shows up, unless they have some financial interest, because they are incredibly boring. This one involved fire code, which is hyper-mega-boring. And since no one (say from the fire sprinkler industry 😀 ) showed up either to support or object, I assume it’s fine. 🙂

One bit of code is to require building signs to be easier to read–so the fire department can find the building. I asked the fire department to write the City a ticket so they would make the sign over City Hall easier to read. In my mind. 😀 Seriously, the sign over City Hall is really hard to read.

Final Comments

¹One of these may not actually be in the Century Agenda.

²OK, one time, they gave us some money to help improve the front of 216th. But that was only so they could develop their property, which brings in almost no revenue for us.