Weekly Update 08/11/2024

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.

Free Steering Wheel Locks!

As you’ll read below, the police are giving away free steering wheel locks. But… I got two. Checkmate! If you send me a note which demonstrates that you a) live in Des Moines and b) have a make/model of vehicle that is highly susceptible to theft (eg. in my case it’s been a Honda CRV and Ford F150 😮 ) I’ll happily deliver one to you.

Free Trees!

Many people do not know that residents -anywhere- in the City of Des Moines are entitled to FREE TREES from Sound Transit as part of the new Light Rail. What is new this year is that Sound Transit has created a more convenient pick up system. So… sign up now and get your trees in the fall when it’s planting time. The sign up form has more information, but here are your choices…
–Bitter Cherry (~30’ at maturity)
–Cascara (~30’ at maturity)
–Douglas Fir (~120’ at maturity)
–Pacific Crab Apple (~35’ at maturity)
–Vine Maple (~25’ at maturity)
–Western Red Cedar (~150’ at maturity)

https://bit.ly/treegiveaway2024

City Manager Stuff

City Manager’s Report August 9, 2024

Always good info, especially…

Tax Levy Lid Lift

For those of you who just fell out of a 1coconut tree, the Des Moines Property Tax Lid Lift has narrowly failed. If you wanted it to win? Not to worry! We will all get another chance to vote on exactly the same darned thing in November. 😀

If I sound snippy, sorry. It was expensive to file, it will be expensive again, and as I said before, there are only two votes that should be 7-0: hiring a City Manager, and putting a Tax on the ballot. The fact that the Council vote was 4-3 doesn’t mean it was unthinkable in principle. It just means the proposal we voted on was not ready for prime time. Thank you, Des Moines for making the right call. Since the November proposal will be identical, I trust you to make the same right call then. 🙂

This Week

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission meeting. (Agenda) Strangely enough? Not much goin’ on Des Moines-wise, except this: The Port has published its Q2 Financials and unlike us, they are rolling in it. The airport continues to achieve record-breaking year on year revenues. If you want to learn how it all works? Hey, join me @ Pier 69 anyhoo. I’ll buy ya a plate o’ clams. 🙂

Wednesday: King County Flood District Advisory Committee. We’re havin’ a whirlwind set o’ meetings to make up a fairly ginormous budget shortfall. (See below.)

Last Week

Tuesday: National Night Out! I attended four of these neighbourhood events and they were all great. This is one of the few times the Council gets to see the real Des Moines, which is highly diverse, forty years old, and loaded with kids.

Wednesday: King County Flood Control District Advisory Committee Speaking of taxes, you will have an increase. At the Council meeting below, our King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove mentioned that King County operates a special purpose district (like our water and sewer districts) which manages floods. King County operates like a lot of places in that it will have one or more special governments that are considered completely independent but where the board members are exactly the same people as the Council. I know that sounds weird but the nine people who are members of King County Council are also the governing board of the flood District. We kinda/sorta do the same deal with our Storm Water Utility.

Why am I a member of this group? Because Des Moines is loaded with creeks and urban flooding is a real thing here. We will recommend a funding strategy to make up a fairly staggering long term deficit of over $900,000,000. We shifted from in the black to in the red almost ‘overnight’ and that bears some explainering…

Most taxing districts are subject to that 1% annual property tax cap. But every government can choose not to raise taxes. For some reason, the Flood Control District chose not to take that 1% in 2018 and kept not taking it. And, after six years of no increases, more projects, and now inflation, this is what happens. One year you just fall off a cliff. But you can use banked capacity. When you don’t take that 1% for six years, you can then choose to raise taxes six percent in one year. The Flood Control District has a ton of banked capacity. So we could choose to raise taxes a lot, without going to voters. Or we could choose to go to voters for a bond, which spreads the pain out gentler-er over many years. We’ll likely recommend a mixture. However, unlike the City of Des Moines, the Flood Control District must go to voters to borrow money.

I’m going through all this because it points out something about short-term thinking. The Flood Control District thought it was being super sweet by not taking its annual 1% increase all those years. Your City Council did the same during COVID–we kept property taxes flat, even though the 1% was only a tiny owie for the average homeowner. People were getting all those stimulus checks and personal savings were actually up. Instead, we relied on ARPA money. If we had simply taken the 1% few people would’ve noticed and we would not be in as deep a hole we’re in now. We wanted to look good. And now we’re paying for it.

One last thing: since we did not take that 1% for three years the City also now has banked capacity. And we will probably use it next year. So if you see a property tax increase beyond one percent? That’s banked capacity.

Thursday: Environment Committee – 08 Aug 2024 – Agenda. Recap below.

Thursday: City Council Regular Meeting – 08 Aug 2024 – Agenda Recap below.

August 8 Environment Committee Recap

We reviewed version five of this thing called the Des Moines Creek Basin Plan from 1997.

King County divides various these systems into areas. The jurisdictions inside these areas come together to create management agreements called Basin Plans. So there’s a Des Moines Creek Basin Plan, a Miller Creek Basin Plan a Walker Creek Basin Plan, etc.

Sea-Tac Airport is sited on a 430ft hill. And as you can see, the source of several major creek systems are on that hill, including Des Moines Creek.

The Des Moines Creek Basin Plan originally came together in 1997 with the Port of Seattle, Des Moines, SeaTac, King County (because some of the land at that time was unincorporated) and WSDOT (because some of the land, even then, was planned to be used for SR-509.)

The Plan was devised to address several realities: Development had dramatically impacted the tree canopy, there was a ton of erosion which threatened the entire area with slides, salmon were on their way out, there was a ton of e-coli, the airport was polluting the living snoodle out of the water system, and SR-509 was coming. Oh, and by the way, there was the urban flooding I mentioned above.

Beach Park flooding November 14, 2001

It’s reasonable to say that, in many ways the Plan has been a measured success. We certainly would not have the Des Moines Creek Trail without it, or the Beach Park Restoration.

Still, there are challenges.

  • Salmon have not returned. This new plan adds monitoring for 6PPD which we now know is deadly to Coho.
  • Flooding is still a problem at the Beach Park.
  • Septic system issues and e-coli persist.
  • There’s still a lot of work to do to remove invasive species, improve tree canopy and general forest-y health.

Speaking of which: our cost share is likely to be $60,000 which sounds good until you realise that the entire budget is less than $350,000. What the ecosystem actually needs will cost a lot more than $350,000. The four lane highway known as SR-509 will drive right through the Basin and yet WSDOT is no longer part of the committee–and thus contributes  no ongoing fees for its upkeep.

Now back in the day, there were tons of volunteers that helped create the Des Moines Creek Trail. I wonder where we’ll get that next generation of volunteers, because frankly, we can’t do  much more than slow the decline of many aspects without them.

The biggest unknown is still that 430ft hill, and this is where it is good that electeds are not staff. The people on the Plan Committee have to work together. But the Des Moines City Council can set policy to push for goals the other governments do not share. Part of the Environment Committee’s job is to develop that policy.

Part of what made the Des Moines Creek Basin Plan possible, and then the Des Moines Creek Trail, were a series of complaints made by airport activists in the early 1990s. People who did nothing more than wander around the perimeter of the airport taking photos and water samples. They found that, for fifty years, the airport had been dumping untreated chemicals straight into the storm water. There was no water treatment at the airport and no run-off control of any kind. The Port installed a $110,000,000 water treatment system to manage that. But they did not do so willingly.

Recently, we’ve been learning about the dangers of chemicals that were previously considered ‘safe’, such as PFAS, which is used all the time at the airport and was never monitored. Oops. So now, it’s in our water system.

Here is the existing web site for the Des Moines Creek Basin Plan Committee which provides some good outline and next steps.

August 8 City Council Meeting Recap

Public Comment

There was one public comment concerning a street closure on 194th from SR-509. The commenter was one of the numerous people who live right next to where SR-509 will go and have absolutely no idea what is about to hit them. More below.

Hi Dave…

We were fortunate to have a presentation from our King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove. This was his first appearance at City Hall. Thanks to Mayor Buxton for extending the invite. He gave a useful outline of what King County does and does not do. However, he kinda under-sold the grant making aspect of the KCC, which is a huuuuuge deal for us, as you will see below. If his luck holds, he will be heading back to Olympia (he used to be our State Rep.) as Lands Commissioner. The Seattle Times wrote, “No one person or entity, other than the federal government, has more influence over Washington’s landscape than the state lands commissioner…”

City Manager’s Report

This consisted of several presentations

Second Quarter Financial Report. I nitpicked about some aspects of the report which are hard to understand. They’re not ‘wrong’, they’re just confusing. In this case, the City planned to spend $8M of that bond money this year on the Marina. We won’t due to permit delays and that makes it look like we’re losing millions, which is not true. It just means that the report is not user-friendly. I nag because I love. Which I’m sure the City totally appreciates. 😀

There was a presentation on the expansion of Midway Park. I called it Oysters Rockefeller, which is my world-class humour for any recipe that seems too complicated.

The thing I like best about Midway Park redevelopment is that, so far, it has been totally grant funded. What we’ve been doing is proceeding in steps. Get a grant, do the work we can, then wait for the next grant to do something bigger. It’s taken several years, but it’s been a success and transformational. Speaking of ‘steps’, that’s  how we shoulda proceeded with the… wait for it… Marina Steps. 🙂

There was a discussion of the City Manager Recruitment process. Which has now been going on for eight years… er… months… I forget which.

There was a significant item on Consent concerning not one but two WSDOT very different projects: Barnes Creek wetlands from 220th south, and a road termination at Blueberry Lane (194th).

I shoulda voted ‘no’ on principle, but did not because my colleagues were obviously fatigued. But this presentation was like every interaction we’ve had with the Port of Seattle and WSDOT over SR-509, Des Moines Creek Business Park, and the Barnes Creek Trail mitigation. They have been and are all terrible deals for Des Moines.

 

 

I shoulda voted ‘no’ on principle, but did not because my colleagues were obviously fatigued. But this presentation was like every interaction we’ve had with the Port of Seattle and WSDOT over SR-509, Des Moines Creek Business Park, and the Barnes Creek Trail mitigation. They have been and are all terrible deals for Des Moines.

 

Barnes Creek Trail Mitigation is beginning now. You can see already property being cleared along 220th, 222nd and 223rd near 15th Ave.

I shoulda voted ‘no’ on principle, but did not because my colleagues were obviously fatigued. But this presentation was like every interaction we’ve had with the Port of Seattle and WSDOT over SR-509, Des Moines Creek Business Park, and the Barnes Creek Trail mitigation. They have been and are all terrible deals for Des Moines.

I keep trying to make this clear: the Port of Seattle/Airport and SR-509 are one and the same when it comes to development here. Every. Single. Deal. We’ve Made. Has. Been. Terrible. I do not blame WSDOT or the Port. In the case of Barnes Creek, that’s totally on us.

What I’m not thrilled about is WSDOT’s public engagement on SR-509 Stage 2–the part that affects Blueberry Lane and the Des Moines Creek Trail.

My beef is this: WSDOT has had internal renderings of the project since 2021. I saw them. In one of the stupider things I’ve done, I honoured their request not to make them public immediately. They are adding these images only now. And? They’re not particularly easy to figure out. For example, every white thing is a house. Can you tell the difference between the commercial buildings and the houses. For a $2.69B project, how about some better drawings, fellas? 😀

Here is the full current slideshow: https://bit.ly/SR509map

Open houses begin September 4, 2024. People at Blueberry Lane can (and should) ask for their own community briefing–which WSDOT has said they’d be happy to provide.

New Items For Consideration

I successfully put forward an item to have the Environment Committee create an update to our Tree Code. Thanks to all who supported this, especially Mayor Buxton. Currently we require developers to replace removed trees at a 3-1 ratio. The proposal is to increase that to 4-1 to match the Port of Seattle’s Land Stewardship Plan standard.

My hope is to borrow some other improvements from the LSP. They have serious expertise on these issues that we can borrow from at no cost. The irony, however, is that they don’t apply it to any of their own properties outside the immediate airport. That’s why there are essentially no trees at the current Des Moines Creek Business Park. And why we as a City need to implement the highest possible standards.

Comments

A couple of my colleagues mentioned the failure of Tax Levy, which I discuss below.

An example issue of the Des Moines News announcing the Marina opening. It contains a treasure trove of information on how the Marina began and what the expectations were.

I mentioned an item I will be bringing forward with the budget, namely this:

The owner of the Des Moines News/Highline Times has agreed in principle to have all those back issues scanned and made available to the public. This is literally 100 years of local history!

Why is he doing this? Because the City is eligible for grants to make this possible that an individual is not. Simple as that.

The goal now is a) to locate the appropriate grant and b) to obtain an agreement with a public archive to scan the documents and keep them available in perpetuity.

Comments

  1. I have a question about the tax levy lift. Are homeowners the only ones burdened with this tax? I want to understand if all those that reside in nursing homes, retirement homes, homes that care for multiple residents, apartments, shelters and businesses and house rentals have the same burden or if you only taxing homeowners? I would assume that nursing homes, retirement homes and apartments have many calls compared to a homeowners residence. I want to understand the parameters prior to another vote.

    1. Non-profits like Wesley do -not- pay property tax. Neither does any Port owned property. Apartments are businesses and they -do- pay property tax.

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