Some bits of business…
- September 3, 2026 — Committee of the Whole, 5:00–5:50 p.m.
- Des Moines Creek Estuary Restoration - 30% Design and Public Outreach Update
- September 3, 2026 — City Council Study Session Joint Meeting with Planning Commission, 6:00 p.m.
- Downtown Planning Scenarios & Zoning Workshop
- September 24, 2026 — City Council Regular Meeting, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
- Centennial of the Seashore Club Proclamation
- Update on the Port of Seattle Economic Development Grant
- Development Agreement Ordinance – 2nd Reading
- 2026 City Hall Suite A Restroom & Kitchen Remodel
- Judge Pro Tem Compensation – 2nd Reading
- Marina Tenant Restroom
- Midway Park ORLP Grant Authorization Resolution
- Legislative Agenda
- Comprehensive Safety Action Plan
- Discussion on MFTE Program
- 24th Ave S Improvements Project - S 223rd St to S 216th St - Transportation Improvements Board Grant and Professional Services Consultant Agreement
- Discussion on Capital Improvements on 223rd
- October 1, 2026 — City Council Regular Meeting, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
- Canopy Preservation Program Update
- Draft Funding Recommendations from Human Services Committee
- October 29, 2026 — City Council Regular Meeting, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
- Public Hearing – 2027 Property Tax Levy – 1st Reading
- Public Hearing – 2026 Budget Amendments – 1st Reading
- Public Hearing – 2027/2028 Biennial Budget – 1st Reading
- Executive Session: Property Acquisition Under RCW 42.30.110(1)(b)
Future Agendas is the closest thing the City currently has to a calendar of upcoming City Council topics. It’s not always accurate. But until we develop a genuine calendar, this can be useful if there is a particular issue you don’t want to miss.
About the cover
This is a search page from the old web site, not the new one. This is the one we just replaced.As you know, transparency has always been my #1 priority. It was pretty terrible when I ran for office in 2019 and I worked hard to make it better. It is beyond disappointing to see things move backwards.
Unfortunately our new website is, in many ways, worse. And it is terrible in a way you should find concerning because it looks better–even though access to meaningful information access is, in many ways, much worse.
There are two ways to search for information on the new site. From the home page and from the separate site where City Council materials are stored. Try searching for anything on either. For example, I tried ‘ferry’. First at the main site:
https://desmoineswa.portal.civicclerk.com/search?q=ferry
Now at the City Council site:
https://desmoineswa.portal.civicclerk.com/search?q=ferry
Spoiler alert: it isn’t just that many of the results are flat out wrong. It’s that even when the result (a document, a meeting) is ‘correct’ there is no context. Eg. the word ‘ferry’ may show up in these results only because it was mentioned once during a three hour meeting.
This is completely unacceptable for any professional web site, but especially one that serves information for public decision making. And ironically, the Council portion of the old site functioned very well. The search results were usually the best among nearby cities. We went from best-in-class to worst.
What is most discouraging is that I’ve reported all these issues to staff and the City Manager, as far back as March. Nothing has been done. Which means that having a site that looked better important. But having a site that even worked properly was not.
The Amazon approach to government
This is an interesting question of democracy: if access to information is not a core requirement of government, the government can simply choose only to present the information it finds useful. Poor search puts the information you should know on Page 5. And nobody looks on Page 5.
What you want from any organisation is one that shows you the good and the bad with equal dispassion. Otherwise, it’s not a government, it’s a marketing program.
Shame.
Traci Buxton
At our last meeting, Councilmember Steinmetz announced that former Mayor and Chamber of Commerce President Traci Buxton had fallen ill. Please join me in expressing my best wishes for a speedy recovery.
City Manager Stuff
City Manager Reports! September 4, 2026
Usually I present a highlight of the City Manager’s Report. Usually I try to present some highlight. Above is my first-ever low-light.
This Week
Tuesday
Port of Seattle Commission Meeting. Not much for Des Moines this week. (Agenda)
Wednesday
Emergency Management Advisory Committee (Renton)
Thursday
September 10, 2026 City Council Workshop Meeting I don’t have a lot to say about this because, well it’s another Council Workshop. Frankly,
Saturday
There is a Budget Workshop Saturday morning, which should be of interest to the public. But the web site says:
“If required, the agenda information will be here once published.”
Wow.
Last Week
Wednesday
Southside Chamber of Commerce/Sea-Tac Airport Luncheon. These meetings are a chance to schmooze with at least one or two airline people. This was the first time in my tenure on the Council that the City paid for my ticket. It may or may not be a coincidence, but the salmon was pretty good this year. 🙂
Thursday
Commercial Aviation Workgroup (CAWG)
Some call this the ‘second airport committee’. But there will be no second airport in our lifetime. The group has the unenviable task of trying to find some way to add capacity. I attend whenever I can because, second airport or no second airport, their work influences what happens at Sea-Tac.
City Council
This week’s combo platter of COW/Study Session had two big items.
CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
5:00 p.m. – 5:50 p.m. Des Moines Creek Estuary – 30% Update This presentation (aka the Beach Park) featured the still one-and-only video of a project in Des Moines history. You’re welcome. This should be the standard for all future projects here.
Estuary 30% Update PowerPoint
Going back into the depths of time, you may have thought that the Beach Park was ‘restored’ as of 2010. But that was at best incomplete–including some mistakes need to be corrected.
The original ‘plan’, the bones of the entire trail, down to the beach was to restore what was essentially a dead creek. The source is the airport plateau and decades of airport use had ruined by the water. In 1997, the first Des Moines Creek Basin Plan was created, which ultimately led to the Trail and the Beach Park building restoration. In 2017, the estate of former Mayor Don Wasson donated their property (the blue house), completing the current configuration.
- Unfortunately, we got nowhere close to completing the functional goal of salmon restoration–salmon get blocked past the rear parking lot.
- We also did not take into account climate change which has made the flooding greater with each passing year.
- Several of the structures built by the Covenant Church were never restored and a couple–including the Founders Lodge–were not done in a sustainable manner (asbestos has been found.)
The current design addresses all these challenges and does so in both environmentally, and fiscally sustainable ways. We will lose some buildings, we will surrender some beach area, but we will finance it as we should all park projects, via grant programs that will take time, but not take your tax payments to the City.
The logs
One detail that doesn’t get enough attention: the logs. They may look random, but they do a ton of the energy management that seawalls do, but without the environmental damage and big costs of manmade structures.
CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION
Downtown Planning Scenarios & Zoning Workshop
Downtown zoning has been heavily constrained for a very long time. You will hear people talk about ‘more height!’, which means ‘views!’ But there’s a lot more to it. Every slide had an important piece of a very complicated story.
Des Moines Downtown Assessment PowerPoint
During my (cough) political career, I’ve tried to have one speed–what you’re reading now. A major part of the current polarisation in America does not strike me so much as ‘left’ or ‘right’ as a struggle between direct and indirect. So much of the outrage I hear from people is a desire for authenticity–which often gets portrayed as angry/cranky. People in Des Moines are notorious for not wanting to appear stroppy.
At the last meeting — with members of the Council and Planning Commission — the discussion portion was conducted in ‘small groups’. You could say that was done to make chatting easier. Or you could say that it created an excuse to turn the mics off. 😀 People really let their hair down in a way one does not hear from the dais. Which is unfortunate. We should encourage one speed–a mode of speech that is friendly, but consistent and direct.
The slides talked about a survey of residents. This was not true. The consultants only talked to a handful of people.
There has been this mis-characterisation of residents near MVD as completely resistant to change. That is untrue. People in the area have known that upzoning and more height are coming for a long time. Besides, zoning changes don’t force anyone to move. They’re usually about the next generation. What has held the City back are not intransigent residents, but a lack of clear intent and communication from the City. As I keep saying, the City could have been much clearer regarding its longstanding development agreement on 216th and avoided a lot of contention when Des Moines Creek West was built. If
There was a slide concerning ‘absentee landlords’, which I feel is another unfair characterisation. I totally get the sentiment. But blaming alone is unproductive. In a healthy system, rational incentives lead owners to property development that benefits both the City and their bottom line. What code/laws have we not pursued to make that incentive structure more balanced? We should avoid any ‘explanations’ with no factual information behind them.
Beyond all that, I found the discussion to be mostly a ‘dream session’. We were asked to determine what goals the City should have for the downtown based strictly on zoning. I have no idea what to do with this. How does zoning drive retail? Does zoning drive more market-rate housing? Affordable housing? What do these ideas mean for City budgets? We got no answers to these.
I wish the meeting had simply ended after the question period. We should leave the goal setting until after we understand our market potential, our revenue potential. In short: how possible these wishes, hopes and dreams are, and what implementing them might mean for the rest of the City.
One last thing: the presenter said that our downtown has a high ‘walkability’ score. I think many people who try to navigate MVD from the triangle to 227th might disagree. The strip malls and endless traffic that feel so clunky to many of us today were considered totally the way to go back in 1970. An earlier group of civic leaders happily chose to swap large portions of a commercial area for condominiums–because that was the configuration expected to drive prosperity.
The thing I keep trying to drive home is this: It shouldn’t be about what I want or what you want today because these projects take so many years to achieve. By the time these things become real, you and I may not even be here and the people who live here (and the world) may be very different.
We have much better, data-driven, tools to predict the outcomes of these types of decisions than in 1970. We should use all of them to make the next generation of Des Moines better.