Weekly Update: 09/11/2022

Except for one moment of dark humour, the Budget Study Session was, as expected, an eventful non-event. The most frustrating thing for me, as your representative, is to have to explain that our meetings are a lot like the UN or some really boring Russian Spy Novel. There’s a lot happening, but it doesn’t look like it.

The City always breaks long meeting videos into two parts, which is unfortunate because, as of this writing 140 people watched the non-event (the first two) hours) and only 40 people watched the 40 minute Q&A, which is most of the important part.

Pro tip: at least with this City Manager, focus on the overview, fast forward through any presentations without numbers, then listen for the questions.

Here is that second part, with subtitles.

Some background for people who do not regularly attend these things.

They are theatre and they should be torn down and remade completely. You can stop reading here. 😀

I made a point of order at the beginning of the meeting to protest the format, as I have each year. Because every year, each department parades to the podium, gives their three minute overview and… after two hours of that… we break and then we ask questions. Think about your college days. You attend several classes in a day. And then, at 3:00PM, all your lecturers would re-convene and then you’d get to ask allllllllllllll your questions for the day! No one does that. And in fact, more than one dept. head had to restrain themselves from saying “Questions?” at the end of their bit. Because that’s what normal groups do.

Each department prepares a slide show in advance. But the Council does not see the slides until the meeting. First of all, I’m visually disabled so I can’t see them, but every other government hands out presentations in advance, so the Council is actually prepared.

Oh… and after the break, but before we ask questions, CM Nutting will make a motion for a hard stop after 30 minutes of questions. So…. we get 30 minutes to ask all our questions for the year on every department.

And this was new, our new Mayor tried to insist that all questions be directed to the City Manager; not to the actual department heads. Which makes one wonder why we bother with the whole ’round table’ format, right?

Residents do ask me what the point of that is. Here’s the answer: There is no point. No other City does that. All it does is make it impossible for people to make eye contact. It also makes video and audio more challenging (like that aspect of our meetings needs more challenges, right? 😀 )

Summary

1. We have a Budget Study Session, with no financials, just a preview of coming attractions.

2. Where every question is dodged with:

• “There will be plenty of time” (not true) or…
• “We’ll have that information for you at the Budget Presentation.” (why can’t we have it now, you know, at the study session?)

3. The City Manager gives a short overview, which is basically the most real part of the thing.

4. We then sit through two hours of presentations, which we could simply look at on our own.

5. We then get thirty minutes of ‘questions’ and… basically I’m the only one who asks any real questions.

6. And it doesn’t even follow the stated purpose of a Study Session, which is to have a discussion. The whole purpose of the ’round table format’ is to encourage the back and forth which is supposed to happen at a Study Session; not the usual formalities of “I recognise you, then you and you and you”, which the Mayor tried to conduct the even like any other meeting.

One thing, I repeat from time to time. Those who meet me in public recognise that I am not a chronic stammerer as it appears on these videos. There’s an old joke that dads constantly stammer to avoid using profanity when they see their kids screwing up–the self-censorship (to avoid bruising delicate young feelings) makes them appear like blithering idiots. Just so, I struggle to put sentences together that will not start a fight at these things. I take all these notes and then I listen to all my colleagues ask no questions, but simply compliment the staff on their awesomeness or make speeches, and in my mind, I’m tearing up my notes and having a confetti party. In my mind. 😀

The fact is, I try very hard not to create tension. And I’m willing to go this far to lighten the mood:

Councilmember Harris: I think I could almost die happy if we could get a for realz balance sheet, or a p/l or something, to that effect, at least a couple of times a year.

City Manager Matthias: If you’re able to commit to that promise, I’m more than able to commit to [doing that].

Of course, I know I’m asking for a snappy reply like that. But… can you imagine the shit storm if any CEO did not have some self-control and said something like that to any elected, anywhere else? Or even if the City Manager made such a crack to any of my colleagues? A CEO who feels that ‘unfiltered’–with that little respect for basic decorum? That person is telegraphing something. And it ain’t good.

Regardless, the whole thing is theatre. All these are tactics, that waste time for an already over-burdened staff. And if we cannot do something real, the whole thing should be scrapped. Why? Because… news flash… I hate wasting anyone’s time. Why should the staff be required to stay late and do a completely unnecessary party piece? You want to motivate people? Give them a hearty handshake and tell them they let them go home early. 😀

Specifics: The cat on the roof…

We were sent very mixed messages about the future which reminded me of a very famous Yiddish joke known as the cat on the roof story.

On the one hand the reserve is very good. That has been the point of pride for the City Manager and the current majority. In 2015 the City was at a point of insolvency. Today the reserve is at the recommended level, we have a new accounting system, we pass all our audits. We’re successfully rebuilding outdated infrastructure like the North Bulkhead and the Redondo Fishing Pier. Excellent.

Now, apart from the fact that I completely disagree with the City’s Marina Redevelopment strategy, the ferry is completely insane, and the fact that we’re actually complicit with the Port of Seattle in their upcoming airport expansion, which will be as damaging to the City as the Third Runway?

Here’s the bad part. 😀

1. Employees are stressed out, hard to recruit, and they are about to become waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more expensive. Increases of 9% where mentioned which would add at least $1.3MM to the budget or 5% to our budget. My concern was that money is not a cure for stress. Because one of the draws of municipal work through the ages has been the work environment. It wasn’t meant to compete with the private sector. If it’s no longer a better work environment than we do have a problem.

2. Services are already stretched. We have about a dozen fewer police than we did back in 2007. It’s just a fact. The City Manager is constantly praising the heroism of our staff. Tech can help with that somewhat, but… (keep reading.)

3. We have already voted every year since I’ve been on the Council for a couple of things:

• Not to raise your taxes. We have not taken even our measly allowed 1%. You’re welcome. And even when it came to piddly things like stormwater utilities, we actually raise rates less than the recommended amount to save you all about $7 a month. You’re welcome. But… it came at the cost of pushing back necessary replacements by three years. We’re betting that there won’t be another Woodmont Landslide. Fingers crossed!
• The City Manager is proposing to continue to use one-time money, not meant for the general fund, in order to keep that healthy general fund balance and to pay salaries. That is what he was referring to by ‘Fund 105’ and ‘Fund 114’ in his intro.
  • Fund 114 is ARPA Stimulus money, which was supposed to be used for ‘recovery’ and ‘future projects’, not to fund new hires which will require payment long after that money runs out!
  • Fund 105 is one-time money from construction projects. It’s set aside for our future capital projects (parks, community center, etc.)

This is exactly what former Mayors Kaplan and Pina swoooooooore we would stop doing. That they were the reasons we got into trouble. That we would neeeeeeeeeeeeeeever go down that road again because one time money is not sustainablllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllle!

And they were right. We’re using it to hire new police officers and as soon as that dough runs out in 2-3 years? If construction stops? Oops. Now where do you get an extra million or two? Wait, I know! THE MARINA! Which is what we did in the 2000’s… and why we have no money to pay for the docks now. One time money. Bad.

4. Also: the City Manager was telegraphing cuts in services, at exactly the time when we need more people.

5. Which I do not quite get because if you look out past 2023 (when the one-time money is used up, the forecast makes an assumption that our revenues will just blast off to make up the difference. But again, because there are no for realz financials, there is no way to know where that money is coming from. And in my three years on the Council, I have never received an answer to a basic question:

Please show me the forecast model on which these assumptions are based.

The City Manager and Finance Director simply refuse to provide that basic information. And for that reason alone, I will welcome a change.

6. Then there is IT.

• The one real question I heard from my colleagues came from CM Achziger, one which I already knew the answer to. There will be no new digital presence this year. Probably not next year. Our IT manager is retiring. Our CFO is retiring. The City Manager bemoaned the fact that hiring people in those fields was extremely challenging. However, I will note that we’ve already spend $70,000 on marketing, including a new web site, just for that damned ferry. You can hire talent, but it’s a struggle to recruit it.
• On the other hand, apparently we will develop the hybrid meeting system (zoom and in person) I asked the Council to budget for last year–simply because we use the Council Chambers to hold Municipal Court and the Court will require it. So Judge Leone will do what we should have started doing last year.

My concerns..

See why this reminds me of the Cat On The Roof joke? The airport expansion is on the way, which no one even mentions. And our Council is betting everything on some future date when ‘marina redevelopment’ will create ‘the destination’, rather than focusing on the blocking and tackling of business development using the great things we have here now. Instead of creating a decent marketing program (like every other City) we’re throwing the kitchen sink at that ferry and if it has any benefit, it won’t be because of the ferry. It will be a bit like the Court, where we’ll spend money on something else to fund the thing we should have funded in the first place. Except that the Court is definitely something we should spend money on. 🙂

Because the truth is? We’ve had some restaurant openings. The Beach Park is doing great. Boating is doing well now. We have some opportunities to earn a sustainable business community if we develop a digital presence and put a bit of stick into it. Nooooow! I complimented our new Events Manager because the Beach Park is going through the roof. A lot of that is pent up demand and it will definitely decline next year, but even with a terrible web site and almost no marketing we have things to draw people. No ferry required.

There was actually very little talk of the Marina Redevelopment, beyond the costs. In fact, nothing that will actually generate new money is coming on line for at least five years. It’s all spending. So depending on that ‘waterfront’ as our new cash machine that far out, without better numbers is like depending on a grand slam to win a baseball game. And if we continue on our present trajectory, we’ll be giving up land we spent decades acquiring just for that one swing.

The Ceiling

Here is an audience frame from last Wednesday’s Marina Tenants meeting. Sorry guys, but notice something about the audience? Anyone? Do I have to even say what the boating demographic is? The boating community is 80% non-residents and that is not the future of our City, which is becoming younger and more diverse. The boating community is super important. I’ve been one of them for forty five years. But boaters are not what will drive “tens of thousands of visitors and millions of dollars” to Des Moines (as our Mayor likes to say.)

The Marina is beautiful. It was perhaps the smartest decision our City has ever made. (And note that It was a 100% public project.) But there has been and will always will be a ceiling to boating revenue. The Marina was meant to do a particular job, it does it very, very well, and as such it should be well maintained. But no one should try to make it out to be something it is not and can never be. We are never going to be the San Juans. Never. That’s not our place in the universe.

Do I have some ‘crystal ball’ as the City Manager likes to say? No. I just read the forecasts from agencies like the Puget Sound Regional Council as well as every other State agency that studies economic growth. They have all looked at our City and already figured out our place in the region. Their leadership will come here and say encouraging things about us, because that is their job; in public. But their real work is to do studies, modeling and planning. And their numbers tell a very different story.

And, at the risk of being a tease, as soon as our City Council gets some real numbers, I’ll do an A/B so you can judge for yourself. Of course, if I’m struck down the day they’re delivered, I may have to take a rain check on that comparison.

If that’s what it takes to get some real numbers in Des Moines? Just know that I was happy to give my life for the cause of financial transparency. 😀

The Moral

But, all kidding aside ladies and germs… given the constant flux our City has undergone since the late ’90’s, financial reporting should have been priority number one for Des Moines. It never was and hasn’t been over the past three decades, regardless of administration. We held onto antiquated systems for decades because we just didn’t value information. We always thought we could wing it and that there was always some crisis that was more important. And now, even with newer systems in place, and with all the grand ‘economic development’ being proposed, it’s still about the last thing the administration thinks to spend money on. So even today, the Council is still in the dark.

In fact, in 2022, the Council gets poorer financial reports than in 2007.

Other cities, no matter how small, kept moving with the general flow of progress and left us far behind. So today, we can’t see the kinds of numbers that every other City in the region takes for granted.

None of my colleagues seemed to think that worth even mentioning. Perhaps they’re not aware how far behind we are. Perhaps they want to avoid public embarrassment and think they can fix it ‘in private.’ Perhaps their trust is so implicit it doesn’t matter.

But that right there tells you everything you need to know about Des Moines. It’s what I’ve been trying to change since day one. For any company, especially one of our size, where public money is on the line, giving the Council (and the public) the numbers should always be our top priority. Always.