Some bits of business…
OK, I was hoping to take the week off, but there’s a lot going on. 🙂 Maybe I shoulda checked the…
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.
Parking Gates…
Not trying to ‘start’ anything, but… there have been a series of complaints concerning the scanners on the new parking gates. I believe people because (sorry) I’ve had these same issues. That said, as of this writing one is marked out of service. Please don’t go mental, but do contact Marina Staff if you have any issues.
FWIW, the gizmos actually have multiple reader mechanisms: one for tenant fobs and annual passes (which are magnetic). Another for a license plate reader (freaky, right?) Then there is the red lasery paper ticket bar code reader. I think the bar code is behind the majority of the issues–because that’s the only problem I’ve had. But, I think we’ll get an update at the Municipal Facilities meeting on Thursday (below).
For whatever reason, I think yer supposed to hold the ticket flat against the reader. I do not think you’re supposed to wave it back and forth like a Chinese fan. So maybe suggest that if you see someone flailing away you give them a hand.
To try to lighten the mood, I mentioned to one frustrated user: There are Tenant Passes, Annual Passes… and the extra special Hotel California pass. 😀 One of us thought that was a scream. And the other person doesn’t count because he does not live here and does not vote. 😮
World-class comedy aside, there’s a point I want to make about that guy. It pertains to feedback I’ve gotten along the lines of “Everyone just needs to get an annual pass.” I respectfully disagree.
The thing should work flawlessly for everyone, but especially single-use tickets! In fact, if the mechanism were going to mess up, I’d rather it do so for annual pass holders. Why?
- Well first of all, single-users generate more money! If someone finds more value in paying one-time? Who are we to discourage them?
- People who pay for annual passes may grumble, but at least we have multiple chances to make it up to them. But if you seriously aggravate a one-time visitor, who knows when they come back?
- Sorry, but telling people who have had a bad experience with the single-use pass that the solution is to purchase an annual pass is terrible marketing. If you received poor service at a restaurant, how would you feel if the owner told you that ‘the solution’ was an upsell to an annual dining plan? 😀
All that said, I know the Marina staff are on it. And I never want to sound snippy. But this is business, Sonny. The gates are the key friction point to making the Marina a (cough) ‘destination’. It’s not a small thing. And we have to have a system with basically zero hiccoughs. Because, frankly, Sisters, we’ve spent the money. (Twice, come to think of it. 😀 ) And there’s no going back. So tell the staff if there’s a problem, and help anyone who needs it. There’s no point in Schadenfreude.
A passing of note
Services for Ms. Kaylene Moon will be at St. Columba on July 16 at 1pm.
City Manager Stuff
City Manager’s Report June 21, 2024 Key items:
- The Midway Park Open Space Design web site is closed but still taking comments. Contact Nicole Nordholm for more.
- The Redondo Floating Docks should be installed by the end of this week.
- Camp Khaos has opened registration for summer camp. These are seriously great and one of the City programs I’m most proud of.
This Week
Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission (Agenda) Highlight: Director Metruck will be offered a three year contract extension for $474,000 a year. I only mention that to make two points: He is making less than 2x what our last City Manager made, but is governing an organisation forty (40) times the size of the City of Des Moines. But, if the PortComms fire him? His severance will be half that of our last City Manager.
Tuesday: 7:00pm The Des Moines Historical Society is having their Annual Meeting Tuesday June 25 at 7PM at the Oddfellows Hall on 225th St. There will be presentations on the history and future of SR-509, a fifty year project that has (literally) changed the shape of the entire City.
Hope to see you there!
Wednesday: Sea-Tac Airport Roundtable (StART)
Thursday: Municipal Facilities Committee – 27 Jun 2024 Highlights:
- Rental Facilities Update: Staff will provide details on revenue/expenditures and future plans.
- Events and Facilities: Beach Park Buildings Discussion
- Marina and Beach Park Paid Parking Operations and Financial Updates: Staff will present machinery operations status, including financials up to 6/26/2024
Thursday: Economic Development Committee – 27 Jun 2024 Highlights:
- The Sound Code discussion. We have the option to adopt what is known as Appendix AK of the 2021 IRC. From the packet “…that would help address sound transmission between dwelling units, but not airborne transmission from outside sources such as airplanes.” Correct. For that we simply need to re-instate Ordinance 1407–the one we rescinded back in 2012. Which is exactly the same code that remains in place in SeaTac and Burien. Simple.
- They will also discuss two major aspects of the Comprehensive Plan:
- Capital Facilities, Utilities
- Parks, Rec and ‘open spaces’.
The first is kind of an amalgamation of all our utility districts and buildings and aspirations for things like electrification and ‘historic preservation’. The second also seems slightly outdated to me, conflating ‘parks’ and ‘open space’. I get the correlation but it kinda leans towards considering all undeveloped land as either a ‘park’ or a development opportunity. Anyhoo…
If you care about the grid, public buildings, historical preservation, parks or enhancing open spaces? This meeting has something for you. 🙂
Thursday: City Council Meeting – 27 Jun 2024 Highlights:
- City Manager Recruitment Update. As of today, we’ve gotten twelve applications. We’ll be having an Executive Session before the holiday to go over that list. The updated timeline seems to indicate that the finalist interviews will begin on August 28.
- Q1, 2024 Financial Report. Look, I’ve railed against our accounting reports for a good while. But–the information we are getting is improving. 🙂 But since I’ve been meaning to ‘rant’ about these financials for a while from the public POV…
Apart from the results, what we never get enough of is management detail useful to either the Council or to the general public (sorry! 😀 ). It’s improving, but it’s gonna take a while. And that’s not a slam against Des Moines. Every local government could be better.
I just need to point out that there is a cavernous difference between the G/L reports all City Councils tends to see and data that would be useful for oversight. When the public (or the Council!) asks to dive into ‘the budget’ it’s almost a fool’s errand. There are ‘tells’–but only if one is ‘following along’, like a beat reporter, with years of prior information.
There are simply not enough ‘explainers’ for Council (or the public) and (sorry, sorry) that is why many bad decisions happen. In any organisation. Not. Picking. On. Des Moines. Why?
- CFOs? It takes forever to create financial docs that hand hold dumb board members through all the same damned materials over and over. And over. 😀 I cannot stress this enough: small cities require almost as much accounting effort as large ones–but without the IT budget. They also only know what they know. Maybe their predecessors did not provide the world’s best knowledge transfer. Maybe various documents are no longer available.
- CEOs have no strong incentive because, why give board members enough rope to hang you? That can only lead to pesky ‘micro-management’!
- Des Moines City Councils also have few incentives. We are essentially volunteers. There are no competency ‘tests’. And the materials are hundreds of pages. (And that’s without going into previous years!) Many of us have day jobs. We balk at ‘long’ meetings such that we are the only local government I can think of with a three hour hard time limit on meetings. Most matters are handled in a single reading. We speak twice on any matter and there is no genuine ‘dialogue’. So the incentive for any ‘real’ discussion is in private. Given those variables, who wants to be the one board member who admits they don’t understand what is going on before voting? Who wants to be the one board member who has more questions than will fit into a five minute window?
- And it’s not like the public are clamouring for this stuff. Partly because we have a history of not so great public engagement. So only a very small set of people tend to engage–and only on the ‘macro’ stuff. And when residents complain, they often have no idea what they’re talking about, which makes it easy for every (and I do mean every) staff member and elected to become slightly cynical over time. It’s like when yer kid goes through one of those crying phases. They can’t always explain the problem correctly, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
The practical effect is to create sort of an Emperor’s New Clothes dynamic. Councils often act on faith. If we generally ‘like/trust’ the CEO or the direction of the organisation, we look at the General Fund reserve, see a black number and assume that all is as good as it gets in the kingdom. If we don’t? It’s all crap. 😀 And if it turns out the CEO was slightly less than fully-clothed? Hey, we’re just well-meaning volunteers who got bamboozled. How dare you blame me the board member trying to serve our community!
I am not implying anything here. I’m just telling you some of the incentives that should be acknowledged in every organisation like ours. Most everyone I’ve served with means well and adds value to the Council. But one would be foolish to pretend that these incentives do not exist if one wants to achieve a well-functioning organisation. And it’s hard because nowhere in there do you hear the phrase ‘humility’. None of us get points for saying things like, “I was wrong. I need help. I need to do better.” That’s just not how local politics tends to work.
But to respond to a question I’ve gotten several times since we voted for Ordinance No. 1773 $26M LGTO bonds for Marina and Redondo June, 8 2023.
Here’s a little morsel I liked in the section about asset accounts:
…Other funds are invested in either the Local Government Investment Pool (LGIP) or in government bonds. The net earnings rate in the LGIP at March 31st was 5.4066% a decline of .0834% from the 4th Quarter of 2023. Interest earned in 2024 through March 31st is $449,949 In 2023, interest earned at the end of the 1st quarter was $175,326. The increase in interest is primarily due to bond proceeds being transferred to the LGIP.
As I’ve written, the State provides a ‘savings account’ (LGIP) for cities. And as savings accounts go a 5.5% rate is pretty good–especially as a place to hold all that bond money, right? Which is why we got $450k in interest in three months! Now that’s my kind o’ economic development, sister! 😀
So when residents who still want to rehash ‘the bonds’ ask why we can’t do something else with the money, it’s not entirely bananas. I mean, we’re kinda doing it at the moment. 😀
Unfortunately, both the State and IRS take a fairly dim view of this kind of arbitrage. Sadly, a City isn’t a State University. We can’t simply borrow a crap ton of money at 3% and then buy shares of NVidia or invest in ‘presidential gold coins’. (sigh) 😀 We’re supposed to spend this money on the 1three specific purposes indicated in the ordinance and we’re strongly encouraged’ to spend the money 2as quickly as possible’. A question I have, which may be totally out in left field: What happens if construction bids continue to come in higher than expected (eg. the Redondo Fishing Pier bid was twice as expected.) How long can we just sit on the dough and earn interest?
- We’re going to name the Alley behind the theatre. Only took three years. 😉 For what it’s worth, I have always supported the name “Jack’s Alley”. And in fact, it was tied for the top vote getter in the Citizen’s Advisory poll. I also like the name “Waterland Way”, which came in third. But a resident pointed out that, since ‘Waterland’ is the City’s ‘brand’ that name should be reserved for a more prominent location. She suggested 223rd from Marine View Drive down to the Marina Steps. And that makes sense to me. After all, that is the way to the water, right? 😀
- We’ll vote to give up about $9,000 in revenue for the Blues and Brews event. The upside? FREE PARKING for the event! 🙂
People sometimes give me the sour face when I mention ‘costs’, but look peeps… I’m not sayin’ I ever vote against this stuff. I love all of it. What I am sayin’ is that we need to (finally) not shy away from that sort of language, for some very practical reasons:
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- So we start acknowledging the true costs (and returns) instead of just assuming that whatever we throw at various things will someday bring in millions. I’ve started calling this The Destination Myth and it’s a story we like to tell ourselves. It’s the reason the hotel thing, the ferry thing, the steps thing, the over-priced drone thing, and (apparently) another ferry thing in the future keep happening. There are certain things people want to believe.
- Â Maybe if we can talk about these things more directly will get people to be a little less enthusiastic about supporting things when we cannot afford. Or maybe it would incentivise all of us to find new ways to fund them.
Given all the events at the Marina during the summer–this is probably not the best time to say this, but: the City has thrown a bajillion dollars at the Marina over the years. Whenever something sounds fun we say, often without evidence, that it ‘attracts tourism’ or ‘generates money’, and as a fallback position, that it presents that ‘unquantifiable benefit’.
Look. It’s a Marina, not the Bellagio. I’m thrilled to support the Marina and various events, but I also believe that the constant attention we place on it sometimes blinds us to possibilities throughout the City that are less sexy but would actually generate more money (and improve the experience of more residents).
Last Week
Saturday: Midway Park Community Party, sponsored by Port of Support!
Speaking of “I was wrong”. I totally screwed up. I spaced on promoting this event, one of my fave annual events in Des Moines.
As an Irish person, raised by an Orthodox Jew, I sometimes think shame and guilt has gotten a bad rap. It can be overdone, but on many occasions these have been the things that got me in gear. And this was one of them. 😀
In fact, just as I was getting ready to leave town, by total accident I had a short call with Stephanie Taylor. She thought I was calling about how I could help promote ‘the event’. At first, I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, the event. Sure. sure. I’m all in!” I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. 😀 So I showed up… out of shame and guilt.
And it’s a lucky thing I showed up! Summoning years of STEM training, I was able to get the Bouncy House working–by closing one of the velcro flaps.:) My sole contribution.
Or.. I needn’t have worried. Hundreds of people showed up for said bouncy house, other fun stuff, music, BBQ, games, toys, etc. The star was, of course, Stephanie Taylor, who runs Port of Support and Reach Out Des Moines. Ms. Taylor is a former resident of Pacific Ridge and organises these events every year using, basically, her family and an F150. She does so to continue the essential mission of Reach Out Des Moines–harm reduction and improving childhood outcomes.
So all the fun stuff also come with free gun safes, lock boxes, narcan, and educational materials for parents. It’s some of the most important work in the City. These simple techniques: awareness events, after school activities, just taking an interest in kids, are among the best public money you can ever spend. They have been proven to reduce crime and improve outcomes for kids and neighbourhoods, and we should be doing a lot more–throughout Des Moines. To put it bluntly: if you want a safer city and thriving children, these programs are as essential as ‘guns and badges’.
If you would like to support this important work, please contact Stephanie Taylor at stephanietaylor@portofsupport.org or on Facebook: Port of Support.
But friends, if you are, like me, too old to understand the magic of a bouncy house, this thing had been laying out in the field for two hours, with the motor running, without a kid in sight. The moment it started inflating (and I mean even before it was full) more small children appeared out of thin air than you can shake a stick at. And at that point? Party On, Garth! So in addition to the mission, this was just an amazing, kid-friendly, community event we need a lot more of in Des Moines! And it told me something: If she can do this, basically on her own, surely, we as a City can do a lot more.
Shame and guilt… working hard for Des Moines. 😀
PS: If you haven’t visited Midway Park (29th Ave and 221st St.) recently, you really should. Now that it’s being spruced up, you can really see how beautiful it is: plenty of open space, shaded areas, walking paths, and some of the best old trees in the City. Plus some unique bits like the ‘street lanterns’ along the paths. When you visit, you’ll likely see people playing sports, dance groups, picnickers. Kids doing homework. It’s the only real, full-service ‘city park’ in Des Moines come to think of it.
1Although, gotta say, the definition of “Projects” is kinda ‘flexible’. “Projects ” means the design, construction and/or improvement of (1) a dock replacement at the City marina; (2) new public steps and plazas adjacent to the City marina; (3) improvements to the Redondo Beach restrooms, parking facilities, and fishing pier; and (4) other related public amenities and capital improvements, as deemed necessary and advisable by the City. Incidental costs incurred in connection with carrying out and accomplishing the Projects, consistent with RCW 39.46.070, may be included as costs of the Projects. The City reserves the right to adjust the timing and specific elements of the Projects, as necessary, in its sole discretion.
2Spend down on construction bonds is something like 1-3 years?