Some bits of business…
Sure is quiet out there. Yeah, too quiet…
This has been the longest stretch without a meeting this year. However, since councilmembers are paid by the meeting, I can tell by looking at my pay stubs that 2024 will be the most meetings in one year the Council has had in a very long time. And it’s all due to this nine year long… er… nine month long City Manager search. My bank account thinks we should do this every year! My sense of humour does not.
But as you can see by my itinerary this week, it’s about to get busy!!!
More than one of the applicants for City Manager actually commented on something I’ve referred to as ‘load balancing’. Our City Council tends to compress our schedule and without predictability. There are a ton of important decisions at the beginning of the year. This slows to a trickle as the year progresses. Then there is an absolute gusher of decision making at the end. And many issues are scheduled at different times every year. All this tends to make for poor decision making.
What these applicants suggested, which many governments do, is set aside certain weeks every year for the same issue. For example, I can tell you right now what week of the year the Port of Seattle will discuss most recurring issues. Then they balance issues across the year to afford more time for education/updates, and not to have to rush a ton of decisions at any single meeting.
In fact, we got at least one very useful idea from each of the four finalists. And I hope we all were were listening. Because each of the four are professionals and they were analysing us as objective outsiders as much as we were analysing them.
Happy Labour… er… ‘Labor’ Day
I may never get ‘American’ spelling right, but the idea of celebrating organised workers is something I’ve been on board with since before I got here (labor, …er… labour… in Ireland was a big part of our Independence movement. So whether or not you get Monday off, I hope you are in a position that pays you fairly and treats you with dignity. Whether you are currently in a union or not, we all benefit from proper representation.
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 on hold
I got more requests for these than I expected. I gave the ones I had to people on the City’s ‘official’ list of theft-prone vehicles. They still have some freebies at the Police Station, so if you like, go there and ask.
However, I’m meeting with the Chief next week and will ask for more. If I get them, I will start handing them out to the rest of you on my list. 🙂
City Manager Stuff
City Manager’s Report August 30, 2024
Always good info. Especially the sporting events I know nothing about. 🙂
SR-509 Web Site
WSDOT has a new web site for SR-509. Oy, this gets complicated. It some of the first piccies that show the path of Stage 2, which is what most of Des Moines cares about since that is the path along 200th east to I-5. You should mos def check this out.
But it also has piccies of an upcoming Barnes Creek Trail. And for the umteenth time, every mega-project like SR-509 always comes with at least some ‘mitigation’. but, But, BUT… that mitigitation does not have to be where the mega-project is actually located. The uber-case in our area is that all the wetlands destroyed by building the Third Runway were ‘mitigated’ by building a completely new wetland. In Auburn. I reflexively vote against anything to do with these mitigations, not because I hate the environment, but because it shouldn’t be an either/or. We deserve both.
This Week
Tuesday: Meeting with State legislators on environmental agenda. This is a funny thing. The SAMP is coming up and we have zilch-o preparation.
Tuesday 6:00pm: Executive Session. This is the ‘de-briefing’, ie. a private discussion on the applicants. We’ll consider our interviews, the comment cards from the community meeting, the Citizens Advisory Committee, the Community Panel (with selections from each councilmember), and of course all your letters to citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov (keep sending them in!) There will be no decision made in private. Truly.
I will have more to say on ‘the process’ after the choice is made, but for now, the comment cards I saw from the Community Panel were very valuable.
Wednesday 6:00pm: King County International Airport Part 150 Wait! Wasn’t there just a Part 150 here? Yes there was. For Sea-Tac Airport. People forget that we share the air space with KCIA. And they add over 200,000 flights to that airspace every year, in addition to our 450,000.
And both airports are about to expand. By a lot. People don’t seem to ‘get’ that you can add operations now without expanding the air field. But all the new flights whizzing about for both air fields is gonna suck hard for us. Especially if we don’t get some money to compensate us!
In the case of KCIA, ‘the plan’ is to make it the unmanned aerial vehicle hub for the region ie. ‘drones’. The idea will be to have thousands of drones doing package deliveries into Seattle and the Kent Valley every day. whiz. Whiz. WHIZ! If that sounds harmless to you, I hope you attended the drone show last July 4 and stood next to the launch area. These things are not unobtrusive little birds silently flying by.
Thursday 10am: Port of Seattle SAMP Study Session. The most important meeting of the year you probably won’t hear about. The SAMP is the kick-off for the next airport expansion. The SAMP will increase flights, and alter the trajectory of this City as much as the Third Runway And without ratting anyone out, I’ll tell you why most people don’t care… including my colleagues. They don’t believe it. But the Third Runway is the single biggest reason Des Moines never achieved ‘lift off’.
Thursday 5:00pm: Public Safety_Emergency Management Committee – Sep 5, 2024 Agenda.
According to a story in the Seattle Times, SCORE Jail has registered seven deaths since 2023. Which is about seven more deaths than the jail used to get. I’m hoping the committee asks about this.
Thursday 6:00pm: City Council Study Session Sep 5, 2024 – Agenda. Highlights:
Budget Presentation We have been advised that this is not a ‘strategy’ session. Even though the City has put info forward that is suggestive. This kinda burns my bread because it’s like going to the doctor, they tell ya yer BP is 190 and then make ya schedule another appointment to talk about ‘solutions’. The whole point of the Finance Committee was to be pro-active. To have more information ready to go now.
But here’s $9,000, just from July, that I’d like to have back…
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- 7/18/2024 PASSENGER FERRY SVC GRANT WRITING 3,000.00
- 7/18/2024 EXECUTIVE COACHING-MICHAEL MATTHIAS 500.00
- 7/18/2024 FERRY CONSULTANT MONTHLY RETAINER 5,500.00
There’s a point to this snippiness.
I feel pretty good about 95% of my votes during my tenure. But sometimes I get it wrong. When I signed on to various things like ‘tax levy’ and ‘biennial budget’ at the beginning of the year it was with the hope that the urgency of all the oncoming red ink would encourage my colleagues and the staff to be more collaborative and to think outside the box. That has not happened.
There has also been a real doubling-down on the same financial moves we’ve done in previous downturns. Blaming everything on ‘COVID and inflation’ but ignoring the structural problems that have been dogged us for decades. Same thing happened during ‘the Great Recession’. Every Council either kicks real reforms down the road or responds to with some cockamamie ‘If you build it they will come’ projects that do not make more money!
Perhaps my mistake was time. Most of my colleagues, and the staff, have not seen this movie play over and over. And over. Every few years.
The fact that we’re about to cut useful stuff, but retain things like the bloated Marina Steps, Ferry, etc. without any review, the fact that we’ve done zilch on strategic planning, better digital communication, permitting, airport, is exactly what previous councils have done. Over and over. And over. And it absolutely burns my bee-hind.
People are mistaking me for a reflexive ‘anti-tax’ person. No. As I said before, I’m a DON’T GIVE ANY CEO ANOTHER DIME UNTIL THEY TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT person.
Almost everyone wanted to replace our last City Manager. But a majority continue to vote for all the same policies–without considering that if he was that ‘bad’? Maybe his decisions were also not that great either.
- City Manager Selection Discussion: It is possible, but not certain that the Council will take a vote on the next City Manager. We’re reading public comments this weekend ahead of that Executive Session on Tuesday.
This will be the first time the Council has actually had such a dialogue. Up until now, and I mean for nine months, we’ve simply been getting ‘input’ and filling out score cards, in a very ‘civil service’ format. There’s not been been much real ‘discussion’.
Last Week
Monday: My first meeting with new Chief of Police Ted Boe who was sworn in last week. May he have a long and productive tenure. The new logo on the other hand? I hope it takes early retirement. Soon. 😀
Tuesday August 27 6:30pm City Manager Candidates Meet and Greet Got some great feedback. I was gratified to hear all four applicants say Deh Moynz. Checkmate! 🙂
Wednesday: 5:00pm StART I dropped out of physics before I learned how to be in two places at once, so I’m not sure how I attended both. But the feedback I heard from our community members is a growing unhappiness with the process. They ‘get’ what the SAMP means and that’s good for you.
Wednesday: 5:00pm – 9:00pm City Council Executive Session In this marathon, we interviewed the four finalists for City Manager. It was a highly structured process where each applicant answered the same nine questions and then split.
And they want to raise our taxes or try to again in November! This is just more craziness. Still paying a Ferry Consultant for a project that is not going to happen, the City cannot afford it and then we are STILL paying former CM a some coaching fee? Thank you for letting us know.
JC, it takes a big man to admit when they are wrong, especially for an elected and in a public written document. Thank you for your honesty on the levy lift (aka tax increase) and the biennial budget. It is rare these days.
Maybe your colleagues should take a lesson from this. We all make mistakes. It is rare when someone humbles themselves and admits it.