Some bits of business…
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.
The SAMP Comment Helper
Our friends at Sea-Tac Noise.Info have created a presentation Commenting on the SAMP. I did not write most of it, which is good because it’s a lot better than what I woulda come up with. 😀 Attend the City open house, for sure, but read this before you write your comments to the FAA. The thing we try to get right at STNI is this: positive change is within reach, but only if we talk about things which are possible. These issues are so complex, and we’ve gotten nothing for so long, it’s easy to use the SAMP as primal scream therapy rather than to accomplish anything useful. 2025 doesn’t have to be the worst of times. It can be the best of times. Airport-wise, at least.
City Manager Stuff
At press time. I see no City Manager’s Weekly Report. Given the holiday, and the fact that the SAMP community meeting and the next meeting are properly noticed on the City’s web site, that’s fine. Oh, and did I mention that the last two meetings are likely gonna be no day at the beach for the new City Manager? 🙂
I’ll just plug a couple of holiday thingees…
Monday 5:30pm – 7:00pm 
Santa Parade and Canned Goods Drive (North Hill)
Monday 7:00pm – 8:00pm Santa Parade (Zenith)
Tuesday 5:30pm – 7:00pm Santa Parade (Woodmont)
Be sure to follow the ‘Santa Tracker’! which usually doesn’t go live until just before they hit the road.
Tree lighting at Big Catch Plaza, aka ‘Dollar Tree Plaza’, aka ‘the guy kissing the giant fish in a vaguely lewd manner plaza’, will be next Friday @ 6pm. Don’tcha dare miss it!
This Week
Monday December 2 Port of Seattle Commission planning meeting. To their credit, they do it right: Instead of paying a ‘facilitator’, they book lunch at a very nice Indian restaurant. Even if I learn nothing, any excuse for a tax deductable Chicken Vindaloo works for me. 🙂
Tuesday December 3 6:00pm SAMP Community Meeting. Sustainable Airport Master Plan Public Meeting – City of Des Moines, WA
To participate via video:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81185738221?pwd=byE4KD2VLyoIgtbffrgfJ0ahVo5Agn.1
To participate via phone:
1 253 215 8782
1 301 715 8592
Meeting ID: 811 8573 8221
Passcode: 100927
Wednesday: Budget briefing with City Manager. This should be good. 😀 I kid because I love.
There’s kind of a point here. I’m nervous about giving Ms. Caffrey a big head, but basically every week she is breaking a new record in terms of (cough) ‘transparency’. For example, this is the first year the City Manager asked my opinion re. ‘the budget’. I don’t take it personally because even if you were another member of the City Council, unless you also happened to be the Mayor, your opinion probably wasn’t requested neither. So, this is great. 🙂
But here’s the funny part: none of my colleagues seemed to think that previous state of affairs odd. Or at least, not enough to mention it publicly. Get it? There was nothing preventing the Council from directing the previous City Manager to do better in about 327 ways. But if neither the Council or the City Manager or the public insist on various norms, over time, what is abnormal becomes normal.
Whenever a new staff member comes in (up to and including the new City Manager), we should assume they are good at their job. But just bringing a new perspective isn’t some superpower. The same transformational effects could be achieved by other means, including just by taking a look around a bit more often.
And it shouldn’t have taken a change at the top just to get a weekly report–something the last CM simply stopped doing in 2017.
Thursday 5:00pm Finance Committee – 05 Dec 2024 – Agenda – Pdf
First of all, any financial report that mentions a trimean is totally awesome. Like that scene in 300 where the Greek ships ram the Persian fleet and… Sorry. I may have misread that. 😀
It may instead be that the Finance Director is trying to express our cash flow challenges more clearly using another superpower known as statistics. And if so, that would also be totally awesome. Besides ‘trimean’ sounds a lot cooler than my ‘farmer’ example below. 🙂
It is also very cool that the Finance Director is now routinely mentioning (and linking to) the State FIT Tool. That never happened in the previous regime. I always caution residents not to read too much into comparisons with other cities (especially on the revenue side.) But this thing can be very useful. One number seems to indicate that we were at a 32 day cash supply in 2023.
Here is a voice memo I wrote myself after reading packet in advance of my budget meeting with the City Manager.
Monthly reports may not be super useful. It makes people freak out during the months when there’s no cash coming in. We need some form of quarterly/longitudinal flow of funds chart. Five year period? Council needs to develop feel for trends, not rely on F/D to interpret these swings. Need for consistent budget book. Even if yer not some financial wiz, if you get paid twice a month, you can guesstimate what you can ‘afford’. If you’re a farmer, and only get three checks a year it’s a lot tougher. Somehow we need to learn to think more like that. I’ve tried to hint nicely “Why do we need a large cash reserve?” Residents don’t get 16%. Should describe more like cash in the checking account. You want to have enough so that you don’t have to think before you write a check. I mean it’s nice to be on top of your bank balance, but you don’t want to have to check your account before every payroll.
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Tax Levy originally sold as ‘increasing public safety’. It is now being (correctly) perceived as the ‘Oh shit, we’re having a cash crunch levy’. That will make trust rebuild harder.
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I nag about SWM, not because it’s ‘large’ but because, as at the last meeting where we’re writing a $124k check for ‘bird balls’. Concerned it will get used for ‘water adjacent’ things not directly associated with purpose as storm water utility. The reason that $124k flew under the radar (see what I did there? 😀 ) was that staff could say “It’s budgeted in SWM.” Fine. But if it had been $124k out of the G/F? A much more appropriate level of outrage would have been on display. It’s easier to ignore bad spending when someone reassures you, “Don’t worry. It’s paid for.” We do that too much. Bad spending is bad spending.
Thursday 6:00pm Study Session – 05 Dec 2024 – Agenda – Pdf Highlights: Legislative Agenda, Budget
I hope to modify the Airport section, which explicitly supports the Port’s Shared Legislative Agenda–something our own StART members (and those in Burien) do not. Our interests really only align with the Port at the Federal level and it’s time we stop pretending otherwise–especially with the SAMP.
The full Council will also get a budget presentation in advance of voting to approve our first Biennial Budget. This too will be interesting. Unlike last time, I’m making a note to bring all four sets of reading glasses and all three types of anti-migraine pills. 🙂
Every time we get a financial report, I focus on one thing and this time I wanna mention Sales Tax. We get a breakdown by category, but that is also a fairly recent development. Whenever I see these categories it makes me wonder which specific businesses are in each category. Neither you or I can see the sales tax receipts for specific businesses. But the Finance Directory can. Lucky guy. 😀 Call it one of my trivia games.
Until the 1990’s, ‘bedroom communities’ like Des Moines, did not depend on sales tax to pay the bills. But now we have this (cough) ‘three-legged stool’ where we also need utility taxes and a variety of business taxes to survive. I know a lot of you like the results of the various ‘Eyman Initiatives’, but although they reduced car tabs and property taxes, they really put the screws to cities like Des Moines–cities with no intention, and certainly no skills to become retail centers. There are years where the ‘sales tax’ seems sorta ‘healthy’ (sorry for all the air quotes). But those are mis-directions. In fact, the ‘sales tax’ we depend on most is construction, which I wish were kept off to one side because construction is not structural. I mean, there is only so much building one can do in a city like Des Moines. I’d like these reports to focus more on real ‘sales’, ie. the stuff that doesn’t leave every few years when the construction cranes go away.
Last Week
Holidays. Unfortunately, I missed the opening bell for ‘holiday’ stuff here. Sorry. For most of you, Saturday is the day for events in Des Moines. For moi, it’s usually the only day I get to catch up with family/fishing/crabbing… not necessarily in the order. 🙂
In my defense, I did do some local spending and I’m taking notes on the state of retail for 2025. Once Ms. Caffrey finds her feet, it’s time to have a serious discussion about how the City can promote local business better. Over the past decades we’ve tried to swing for the seats: Cape Cod In Des Moines (remember that?), building heights, Business Parks, ferries, etc. It’s time to hit a few singles. For example, after four frickin’ years, the Council finally got round to assigning an address to the Backstage Alley. Great. But that’s only fifty percent of the job. Now, we need to change signage rules. It’s kinda nuts that restaurants throughout Des Moines can’t have tasteful, but prominent displays; not just here but especially on Pacific Highway.
Lady Throckmotron Contest Repeat!
I only got one correct entry. That’s either because the issue is too ‘hot’… or… because people were anesthetised with holiday stuff. But I’m running it one mo’ time because this one should be easy, peasy. The prize will be extra special. Anyone who watched our last meeting and read my last Weekly Update will get this. Here’s all ya gotta do…
- Look at the 11/17 Weekly Update (paying particular attention to the Council Meeting Highlights.)
- Watch this week’s meeting
- Find one error of fact/mistake/difference between them. There are at least three biggees.
Hope you win!
1The name doesn’t matter. She just had to sound posh. 🙂