Weekly Update 10/05/2025

Some bits of business…

Who is running?

King County Council

For the first time in a dozen years, we will also choose a new KC District #5 Councilmember. People often get confused what the County Council does (zero control over police, Sea-Tac Airport, land, etc.), but this is a big deal! Their biggest impacts for us generally concern grants, usually parks, public health and human services. For example, they provided significant money for Midway Park and storm water upgrades. Watch this video to decide on Peter Kwon or Steffanie Fain.

City Manager Stuff

City Manager Report – October 3, 2025

The Marina dock replacement is on schedule! You can watch videos of progress in action here: https://www.youtube.com/@CityofDesMoinesMarina

Restaurants!

There have been more restaurant changes in town. So this is a good time to remind you of the local restaurant guide TakeOutDM.Com or TakeOutDesMoines.Com. There is a sign-up form which emails signees when various establishments are offering specials! If you are a new restaurant owner, you should also let them know when you are having said specials so they can spread the woid.

This Week

Wednesday

Emergency Management Advisory Committee. We’ll be discussing Infrastructure & Transportation

6:00pm Port of Seattle SAMP webinar

Thursday

City Council Meeting (Regular Meeting – 09 Oct 2025 – Agenda) Two highlights:

This will be the opening presentation of our budget process, which is a bit weird. It’s the second year of our first year of having a biennial budgeting system. Confused yet? 😀 I voted to shift to the new system. But that was when we had a Finance Committee. If I had known my colleagues would choose to scrap all committees I would have been a hard no. This is a mistake.

We will also finalise our agreement on a management contract for the Steven J. Underwood ballfields. It seems reasonable, but it will be a change having so much more activity there. If you have concerns please let me know.

Last Week

Tuesday

Part 150 Workshop at Parkside Elementary School. If that doesn’t make any sense, or if you couldn’t make these events, STNI did a very good article on how it all works here.

Thursday

Study Session – 02 Oct 2025 – Agenda Recap below.

Friday

University of Washington Ultrafine Particle Workshop. This was a gathering of researchers and a few electeds such as Senator Tina Orwall, SeaTac Cm Peter Kwon and moi to discuss the status of research and to consider future studies. We took several polls. One bit of good news: the air quality monitoring station we’ve been planning looks like it is under budget and on schedule for installation by the end of the year!

October 2, 2025 Study Session Recap

Study Session – 02 Oct 2025 – Agenda

Cm Grace-Matsui was not present and was excused. As has become a custom, Cm Nutting was remote. Very remote. 😀 I believe he left the meeting around 7:15-ish.  There were no public comments.

Technically, this began as a Committee of the Whole Meeting, moved into an Executive Session then followed by a Study Session. But just between you and me, girlfriend? As expected, these first of the month meetings have all turned into One. Big. Cow. I defy anyone to distinguish one from the other.

Executive Session: We did a ‘third quarter review’ of the City Manager.

Planning Commission: We finished our discussion. There will be seven members, one of which will be a business owner and they are not required to live in the City. We groused back and forth on what the duties of the group might be. I honestly don’t know if it matters. As I say with so many things: this is an experiment. If done well, it could be a tremendous asset to the City. If done not great (which frankly was the last one in 2013) it could actually make things worse.

Public Safety Sales Tax: The Council voted unanimously to move forward on this. I am fine with it for several reasons.

• It will bring in $450,000 a year.
• Unlike last years’ property tax levy, it will be monitored more clearly by a state audit system. It must be used for public safety.
• Which means, officers (particularly GPS Monica), the court, and animal control.
• It’s one tenth of one cent per dollar, and only on taxable purchases in Des Moines. The City’s graphic was actually kinda depressing. It pains me to ask this but honestly, how many places are there to buy shoes in Des Moines? 😀 How much of your annual taxable purchases are made here? Probably not that much. Remember: food is not taxable.

Easy Formula: Estimate the total amount you spent on taxable purchases all last year, in Des Moines. Multiply by .001. For me it was less than a cup of coffee.

I get how people hear the word ‘tax’ and reach for a blood pressure pill. But it will provide a lot of help to police. It will be audited. And as a practical matter, I do not see this as having a major impact on residents.

Legislative Agenda: We had our initial discussion. The airport piece, near and dear to my heart, is noticeably better. With one glitch.

• We will continue to advocate for more state effort to help recruit more police officers. Absolutely. 🙂
• We actually dropped support for raising property taxes by as much as 3% Woo hoo!
• Support State funding for a City-led, independent airport community impacts study to evaluate the ongoing impacts of the SAMP. Excellent, Wayne. 🙂
• Support further enhancements to SB5955 and RCW53 to provide more opportunities for sound insulation repair and replacement, and to also allow unconstrained funding for mitigation of the public health impacts of airport operations. Most excellent, Garth. 🙂
• We removed explicit support for the joint StART Airport Community Legislative Agenda. Outstanding!
• Support historic preservation funding opportunities in Des Moines. You bet! It shoulda started with the Masonic Home 🙂  (sorry, that leaked out.)
• Ferry Development. In the one real downer, the City Council backed away from endorsing electric ferries to support for any kind of ‘passenger ferry’ — including fossil fuels like the one we used in that stupid trial. Totally predictable. So much for ‘environmentalism’. If the current Council weren’t changing, I could see us also going back to having the City pay for the service and lose more hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Like the Marina Steps it was never about facts. It was more like a religion.