Weekly Update 09/20/2026

Some bits of business…

About the cover

The University of Washington will be opening their new air quality monitoring station this Thursday.  It sounds unbelievable but until recently there were no, nada, nichts, zero air quality monitors around the airport capable of detecting aircraft-specific emissions. So, whenever you’re seeing ‘green’ on all those air quality monitor web sites, they are invisible to the 1,200+ flights that go over Des Moines every day.

Why this matters: You cannot regulate what you do not measure.  Thanks to UW and Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, we will now have permanent measurements at both the north and south end of the airport. This is especially important since so many of the flights go directly over our schools!

PS… a few people thought someone was just ‘removing trees!’ Absolutely not. There were only a few low quality (mostly dead) trees near the gizmo. Those had to be removed because the intakes must be kept free of leaves and seeds and critters. 🙂

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Reports!  September 18, 2026

This Week

Tuesday

Port Commission Meeting (Agenda) The second in their series of budget meetings. This one provides a good look at their community programs–of which we are currently getting over $1,400,000 less than SeaTac. We need to do something about that. 🙂

Thursday

AQM – see cover.

City Council Meeting: Agenda for September 24, 2026. Every meeting seems to have a theme, and this one’s is: votes I hate. Things I want to vote ‘yes’ on but can’t, things I don’t want to vote ‘no’ on but can’t.

Highlights:

• Economic Development Update – Business Climate Survey and Roundtables
• City Hall Suite A Restroom and Kitchen Remodel $195,987.07
• Marina Tenant Restroom Replacement: The tenant restroom has been in bad shape for years. I’m a bit distressed that the design and budget keep changing. It’s gone from $400,000 to now over $1,000,000. I hate these kinds of votes!
• 24th Ave S Improvement Project (Segment 1). This is a series of three votes on beginning the final phase of redoing 24th Ave S. I will vote ‘no’ on Item 3 — where we (once again) avoid undergrounding utilities.

• Development Agreement Ordinance – 2nd Reading. I’ve written about this a few times. DAs are great. The one the City put forward did not thrill me.
• Consideration of the City’s 2027 Legislative Agenda
• Discussion on 223rd St. Pedestrian Project. The City was awarded a grant by Ecology to develop a water filtering system — if we began design on a complete streets project. This would be grant funded, but take several years to obtain. The Council voted ‘no’. The City brought it back last month and the Council again voted ‘no’. So, apparently we’re now getting a third crack at it–installing ADA curbs and sidewalks with no water quality piece. I will vote no.

• Discussion on a Multi-Family Tax Exemption Program
• Additional Sales Tax for Children and Family Services – 1st Reading: this is a teeny, tiny tax that will target the kinds of programs we need a lot more of here. Third teeth-grinding vote. I hate sales taxes. But they are now the only thing the City (or County) can implement without a vote–and that’s why you’re seeing so many of them.

Friday

Recology tour with our SWM team!

Last Week

Monday

Des Moines Airport Committee (canceled). I was not in favour of another ‘ad hoc’ approach to airports, but apparently the City canceled this unilaterally which I was not thrilled about. It sends a terrible signal as to our commitment to delivering relief to our residents. The members of the committee are passionate and talented and want to help.

Tuesday

Burien Airport Committee. Their committee is not in danger of ending, but it’s also having something of an existential crisis.

Wednesday

Regional Transit Committee: ORCA cards offer fantastic low-and-no-cost services for buses, light rail and even water taxis! The challenge is getting them in more hands–especially kids. The other item we discussed is that the Tukwila Base is deploying a fully electric. This is amazing progress.

Thursday

King County Flood District Advisory Committee: We finalised our budget recommendation letter to the Board (ie. the King County Council.) The good news is that it looks like funding for projects affecting Des Moines (beach park, urban flooding) will be preserved.

It was also the first year there was no heartburn about the word ‘climate change’. If you recall, there were two emergency situations last November and then again in February. So nobody’s arguing any more.

I got into the FCD when I first got on Council mainly to promote funding for ‘urban flooding’. This was a new concept and our neighbours (like SeaTac) had been better and pursuing grant funding. As budgets have tightened, the group is getting back to the core mission so grants for things like the Beach Park are no longer

One thing that is very interesting: members are all over the political spectrum here. Some want to use flood control funds to build higher concrete walls and push for a lot of old-school dredging. Neither the County or State have been on board with that because both practices had a lot to do with destroying salmon in WA. A lot of the money we get to deal with funding must be used in ways that aren’t used to defend properties. In other words, we’re having to accept the fact that some of these areas will need to be permanently surrendered. That is a very tough message to hear.