Weekly Update: 12/11/2022

Get get that 3rd COVID Booster (the new ‘bivalent’ model.) Now. Deaths are slowly rising. Again, again, it takes about a month to achieve full efficacy. They’re doing walk-ins now pretty much everywhere. 🙂

This Week

Monday: Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (CACC) Workshop. If you are interested in learning more about the possible ‘second airport’, there will be a public workshop on Thursday.

Tuesday: Port of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda)

Friday: South King County Housing and Homelessness Partnership (SKHHP) (Agenda)

Saturday: 11AM-3PM North Hill Espresso. Santa! COVID Boosters! Orca Lift Cards! 😀

Last Week

Thursday: MRSC Land Use Case Law Update Winter 2022. It covered homeless shelters, what the Growth Management Act does/does not control and also how wetlands can/cannot be repurposed for future development. This was very timely given the Land Use item on the meeting agenda below.

Thursday: City Council Meeting (Agenda) (Video Part #1) (Video Part #2) Our final meeting of the year was a fitting end to the first year of the current Council. Hoo boy. 😀

December 8 Meeting Highlights

This was our last meeting of the year. As has become the norm, there was a fairly packed Consent Agenda and several surprise presentations from the City Manager.

Public Comment

As has become more and more common there were several excellent comments from the public. A small note: Until about 2018, the Council Comments would occur directly after Public Comment, near the beginning of the meeting. I can only speculate as to why they were moved to the end of the meeting, but since everyone left, no one was around to hear me compliment those members of the public for their great work.

One woman used the word ‘progressive’ in describing her opposition to a hotel in the north parking lot. And I agree with that. Wasting money is the least progressive thing one can do, because (channeling my very conservative father-in-law) “You cannot help people if you don’t have any money.” A city should spend the resources it has on things that demonstrably provide the greatest benefit for the greatest number of residents.

Also: if you want to see the emails we receive from the public, they are now showing up attached to each Agenda Packet the day after the meetings. Here’s what you do:

1. Go to the City of Des Moines WA Council Portal – Meeting List
2. Find the meeting you want and click on the link to view the PDF
3. Under ‘correspondence’ there should now be a link which takes you to another PDF with all the emails.

It looks as though the staff are starting from the most recent meetings and (hopefully) working backwards. But the most recent ones are now there. Hurray.

City Manager’s Report

Farmers Market Update

There was also a presentation given by the Farmers Market’s President Kim Richmond and Manager Suzy Novak. I made a reference to the following gag from Blazing Saddles: “My mind is a raging torrent flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives!” Nobody appreciates the classics anymore. :D.

Perhaps that sounds a bit sarcastic (c’est moi? 😀 ), but for most of this stuff? I just wanna see a piece of paper throughout the year. Yes, I know that a part of City Council Meetings is meant to give groups a chance to shine, but in the current regime, the Council gets no report on any of these groups’ operations during the year so take this comment more as a failure of our ‘liaison’ system than any grouse about the groups per se.

(Would you drive five hours to make $518? That’s what our farmers do for us. Thank you. 🙂 )

But that’s the information I want to see–and without having to bring it up. Because, for the 27th time, the City web site used to have all that info. Every group and advisory committee posted their essential deets on-line at least a few times a year.

I’m only banging on about the Farmers Market because last year the City started using them as a pitch for ‘Marina Redevelopment’–talking about it as some possible revenue source if only it could be made year round!!!! Not. Cool. That false hope mines people’s desperation for a grocery store and I resent it. Because I resent having to keep reminding people that the Farmers Market does not make money, the City actually subsidises it, and will continue to do so for many years to come. Using the Farmers Market to ‘sell’ all these bogus “public/private partnerships” is not as shameless as the ferry. But close.

If we put the information on the web site, then, when various groups showed up, they can simply take a bow–and engage in rivulets of thought. 😀

RULE 30. All statutory boards and commissions and Council citizen advisory bodies shall provide the Council with copies of minutes of all meetings… Reports to the City Council shall be made during Administrat,on Reports as needed to keep the Council apprised of the actions of the body. Not less than one time per year, the board, commission or citizen advisory body shall have a representative provide an update to the Council of the body’s activities.

But to end on a positive note, Ms. Novak is a born raconteur. And I mean that as a real compliment. I made a remark, which was not a joke, about the wall behind the podium. The City is doing a remodel and it would not be the worst idea in the world to simply place a green screen there (think: news stations) so that great speakers such as herself could provide compelling backdrops to augment their presentations. I’d love to see piccies of the vendors, the market events, happy customers, etc. displayed behind her as she spoke.

Oh one last thing while I’m on a roll… am I the only one who thinks the podium could be lowered a few inches? Ms. Novak is an average size human being. But on TV, I think it makes everyone under 6’2″ look short. Please let me know your opinion on that burning issue of the day. 😀

Consent Agenda

City Manager 5% increase

The full contract and its history here.

I voted no. In my first year, I said that I could not value Mr. Matthias performance. And then Mayor Matt Pina got a bit cranky and said

“Twenty Nine Million. The proof is in the pudding.”

Meaning that he was deeply impressed by the fact that our General Fund that year was $29 million. OK, fine. But this year our General Fund is $25.4 million. So… 😀

This year, Councilmember Steinmetz mention a resident’s Facebook comment to support Mr. Matthias’ managerial skills. Well that’s good enough for me! 😀

I hear residents spouting all the time about how ‘great’ a job the City Manager is doing, or how ‘terrible’ a job he’s doing. And I have absolutely no idea how they come to these conclusions. I mean, I read the financials and I struggle. When we say “The City is doing great” I’m like “compared to what, exactly?” Des Moines 2012? Or comparable cities? Or…?

My feelings about ‘management’ in general come down to the Parable of the Centurion. We can’t possibly know what’s really going on. So the less  open the communication is on the web site, the reports, the presentations, the more it makes me wonder what is going on that I can’t see. If the City isn’t transparent, even when something good happens (which is a lot!), my first thought is, “Yeah, but how are things going in city[a,b,c…]” A lack of transparency makes one unable to take anything for granted.

And despite what you heard, these raises are not automatic. And I can prove it. You see, we actually have to vote for them. 🙂

Also, the mid-year performance review we never perform has nothing to do with COVID. We’ve crammed lots and lots of things into meetings in my three years on the Council; some important and some? Eh… not so much.

I always go back to Deputy Mayor Buxton’s 2020 motion to get rid of that clause of the contract entirely. Neither the City Manager or the Mayor want to do it, so it doesn’t get on an agenda. Full stop.

• Court Room Audio system

This is to do with that green screen (er side wall 😀 ) Actually it’s an item that should have been on a main agenda. Last year I made a motion to budget a permanent A/V upgrade for the City Council so that we could provide hybrid meetings (Zoom) after we went back to in-person meetings. Got nowhere. Now? We’ll end up doing it anyhoo and the costs seem more expensive than the quotes I saw from other cities when I researched their hybrid systems. This will give us the capability to do hybrid meetings, but who knows if we’ll vote for it. And of course, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot by taking away the opportunity for the public to participate remotely.

Public Hearing (Land Use Moratorium)

There was also a Public Hearing on that 216th land use moratorium which so many people were puzzled about (including moi.) For example, I expected residents along 216th to show up. Instead two people showed up to express concerns about the southern end of the area (which are now zoned residential and are wetlands near Barnes Creek Trail left over from WSDOT SR-509 surplus.) Those homeowners were/are concerned that this might be a repeat of an issue from years ago.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about it for now because… there’s literally nothing else to say about it. 😀

I voted against it because I’m sick of all the ‘SURPRISES!’ Planning is supposed to be, well… planned. There should be no ’emergency’ nothing for a while unless there is a genuine emergency.

And by the way, again, again, this moratorium was not (as a colleague claimed) ‘routine’. The last time we did something similar was twenty years ago, right next door. I wrote about the history of that emergency moratorium here and that event was definitely not a routine situation.

New Items For Consideration