Some bits of business…
I updated this article slightly to coincide with a mailing list update to highlight the two Committee of the Whole items on ADUs and Traffic Calming. (See Thursday meeting @ 5:00pm.)
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.
Update: We just deep-sixed our standing committees. But for what it’s worth, each committee’s planning calendar here. 🙂
Puget Sound Gateway Toll-Rate Setting Online Open House
Yes, tolling is coming to SR-509. Learn more here:
Fare Inspection
King County Metro is re-instating fare inspection on buses. There will be teams of two individuals who will (gently) help people make payments. If you recall, this was put on hold during COVID.
One-week countdown: King County Metro restarts fare enforcement
Dow Constantine named Sound Transit CEO
Speaking of transit, I heard about this shortly before I learned that Angle Lake Station was shut down ( because of the huge storm that did not happen. 😀 ) I was asked a few times this week why they chose that ‘insider’. And the real answer is that we tried several ‘outsiders’ and the results have not been exactly tip top. 😀
Call To Action: Port Packages!
The Governor’s proposed budget cuts the $1 million in funding that was secured last for fixing failed port packages, which were meant to insulate homes from airport noise but have deteriorated over time. Please mail key these legislators and let them know how important this funding is for our communities.
Call To Action: Save State Funding for Port Package Updates! – Sea-Tac Noise.Info
Contest Winner: Camp Khaos!
Last week, I offered an exceedingly fun-filled prize for the answer to “Why is it spelled ‘Camp Khaos'”? Gift card on the way for the correct answer. 4Which is…
Kids. Having. An. Outrageous. Summer!
In years past, I remember that being plastered on signs and banners. Haven’t seen it in a while. But it has been an award-winning program and I would love to see that slogan displayed more prominently. Because the program is outrageously good. I also wish we had trademarked it. 😀
City Manager Stuff
The City is now offering an e-mail sign up for City Manager Reports – which I strongly encourage.
City Manager’s Report March 28, 2025 The recipe this week involves Turkey Burgers. I am skeptical. However, as an elected official, it is important to keep an open mind. 🙂
Run for City Council
The City Manager’s report also beat me to the punch in noting that this is election season. These four seats up for election on our Council. You should run. But first, you should find out what yer getting yerself into.
Tuesday, April 1 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Register for the April 1 session
Monday, April 7 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Register for the April 7 session
You should also go to King County Elections and look at the Candidate Manual. Above all? Do. Not. Be. Intimidated. But please do study. 🙂 And let me know if you have questions.
Dueling Taxes
And if you need an issue to run on? Taxes! 😀
Every year, there is at least one bill at the State hoping to give city councils like Des Moines the ability to raise property taxes automatically up to the rate of inflation – without giving you a vote. This year, there has been a particularly strong push including a letter by our Mayor in the Seattle Times. The idea, of course, is to obtain support from the large populations of wealthier, more tax-friendly communities like Seattle.
I believe it is a terrible look for our city to promote this so aggressively — only a few months after Des Moines voters decisively said ‘No’, twice, to more property taxes.
I am not anti-tax. I simply because that property tax is the one tax people expect to have a say on. Taking that sense of choice from voters is wrong.
If you agree, I hope you will click the link and Sign In ‘Con’ on SB5798. https://app.leg.wa.gov/csi/Senate?selectedCommittee=456&selectedMeeting=33213
This Week
Thursday 4:00pm: Finance Committee – 03 Apr 2025 – Agenda Highlights:
Long-Range Financial Plan and Development Impact Analysis. I’ve grown so cynical about ‘studies’ I can’t afford to gush. But this is something I’ve been talking about since I ran for office. If the results are what’s on the tin, this would be (I can’t believe I’m writing this) a game changer. 😀 Sorry, couldn’t help it. But these are some great looking bullet points and City Manager Caffrey deserves big ups for proposing this.
- Analyze historical budget trends
- Model the impact of up to four development types
- Estimate recurring and one-time revenues
- Calculate service costs for each development
- Evaluate financial risks and opportunities
- Recommend sustainable revenue and cost strategies
- Analyze financial impact of new developments
Thursday: 5:00pm City Council Meeting
This feels weird. We’re having the first ‘Committee of the Whole’ deal at 5:00pm, followed by a ‘Study Session’ at 6:00pm. Is it just me, or is this basically two Study Sessions in one? Like those two-sided breath mints. However, I promised our City Manager to give this a sincere try. But speaking broadly? This is a lot of ‘stuff’ for one evening.

5:00pm Committee of the Whole
- Neighborhood Traffic Calming Procedures: this looks really interesting!
- Contracting Alarm Management
- Accessory Dwelling Units

6:00pm Study Session
- City Logo Discussion (see header image) All this fluff – which people cannot help but care about, could be a time-waster. My main comments:
1Look familiar? 😀
- People love to stress about ‘how to pronounce Des Moines’. Wanna know something else people obsess about? Making sure everyone knows we’re not in Iowa! 😀 If you’ve traveled around the US a bit, you’ll see the same city name in a dozen states. I honestly don’t see why we need ‘Washington’ on our logo. But, as my kids used to say, what-evehhhhr. 🙂
- Comprehensive Plan Update: This should be a big deal. I honestly don’t know if it will be. Frankly, it has been presented over the past two years as (mostly) a huge PITA compliance procedure. I’m probably being unkind; it is a ton of work. But my concern is: what can we do with it? What tools will it give us to build more places for people to live? To encourage more productive business formation?
- City Council Protocol Manual Review
The City Council follows two ‘books’, the Municipal Code – which has all the ordinances (laws) that govern the City, and then a separate Council Protocol Manual (CPM) which, as the name implies, concerns the City Council. It’s based on something you may have heard of called Robert’s Rules of Order. The CPM doesn’t have the force of ‘law’, but it’s important because, in the immortal words of Michael Matthias “He who controls the agenda, controls the meeting”. Where it goes outside the ‘standard’, it’s generally to do with extending the authority of the Mayor. In other words, in RROO, the person swinging the gavel has very limited authority. They run the meeting in a fair manner and that’s basically it. In fact, you don’t need a ‘mayor’. You could have basically anyone do it.
When the City was incorporated in 1959, we created a bog standard rule document, according to the State’s recommendation. We tweaked it every so often, but it was basically the same. The tweaks were often to do with extending the mayor’s authority in certain ways we now take for granted.
In 2023 three members of the Council (Buxton, Mahoney, Steinmetz) formed an Ad Hoc Rules Committee and decided that it didn’t just need a few tweaks, it needed to be completely re-written as a Protocol Manual, based on the one from Bothell. It was a terrible experience. It unnecessarily wasted enormous amounts of time, City Resources, and actually made the Council process worse than before. To give you a sense of the political ugliness…
- Meetings were held with 24 hour notice (the bare legal minimum) at the Police Station – not at City Hall – and unlike any other Council committee – were not recorded.
- Committee members objected to me wanting to record these public meetings; which is illegal.
- Draft versions had language like “…public expression of dissent and protest outside the open public meeting is inappropriate unethical behavior.”; which is unconstitutional.
- Required attire specifically excluded ‘hats’.
To prepare for this item, I simply need to bring my list of (common sense) failed amendments from that debate.
A big part of City Council is ‘process’ – which no one cares about. That’s what makes it so tough to improve local government. My metaphor is manufacturing. People don’t care about ‘the assembly line’, they just want their car to work. If they get what they want, they think the process was great. If they get a lemon, they just want that product fixed. Either way? People generally don’t give a hoot about the assembly line that made the product. I do. Because if it isn’t working right, not only is the quality hit or miss, everything is a lot more expensive than it needs to be.
That has been my ‘thing’ since running for office.
Better process = better decisions.
Last Week
Every week seems to have a theme. And last week’s was virtue signaling.
Wednesday: Highline Forum in Federal Way
There was a briefing on the SIRRPP (ie. Port Packages) which was covered by Sea-Tac Noise.Info Their Port Package Update program is terrible. Total virtue signaling – the Port wanted to look like it was doing something, without actually doing something. I had hoped that Councilmember Mahoney (our official rep) would speak to this during his end comments at the City Council meeting, but he chose not to.
Thursday: Economic Development Committee
There were two big deals…
Sound Code
Sea-Tac Noise.Info covered this and you should read it.
Des Moines currently has no active sound code after repealing its 2007 ordinance in 2012. Over a year ago, Council agreed to have the EDC revisit the issue. The staff memo (which was excellent) discussed hiring a sound engineering consultant to draft a more modern version of that code – and put us back on par with Burien and SeaTac – the two other cities with Port Packages.
But the entire discussion ended up being through the lens of a builder. Not one word as to public health or what it means for the community. After more than a year of dithering, the Committee was still divided – asking staff to come back with maybe a scaled back proposal? We had absolutely no business dropping sound code. As STNI said in its scathing coverage:
“Budgets are moral documents… Why should the Port, or the State or the FAA invest in any programs if Des Moines shows no willingness to spend anything?”
Harsh. But fair. At the moment Des Moines does not care about airport issues. Just more virtue signaling.
Short Term Rentals
The City presented a draft ordinance regulating short-term and “amenities” rentals (e.g., pools or sports courts). The City Attorney made it clear that we were new to this. I’ve said previously that I support this (in general), which I do. However, in reading that draft, I was struck by all the ‘detail’. My initial reaction was “Why do we need all these rules? Can’t we simply rely on some existing code and the common sense of our code enforcement?” In software, the more rules (if/then/else statements) you need to make a thing work, the more things there are to worry about.
And then there was the City Council meeting… 😀
Thursday: City Council Regular Meeting
City Council Meeting Recap
City Council Regular Meeting Agenda
Public Comment
I think the word to describe this section of the meeting was ‘awkward’.
The meeting opened with a presentation from King County Councilmember De’Sean Quinn. Quinn was on the Tukwila City Council for a long time and was appointed to the seat left open when Dave Upthegrove went off to pursue his 2dream job as Commissioner of Public Lands. However, the seat is up for election in November so there may well be someone different in the seat next year. It was awkward for me because, while I very much appreciate him showing up, he was presenting new information verbally, which is still in flux. And then he split and the Council discussion, which was based on different information, happened 2.5 hours later.
We then heard one comment from a resident who wants to utilise the Short Term Rental Ordinance discussed at the EDC.
We then we heard a passionate ‘No’ from the next door neighbours. And as I’m listening, I was thinking about Jurassic Park. “Oh. That’s why the ordinance is about two million lines of code.” 😀
Sorry. It’s no joke. I’ve been a landlord for a good while. It’s a two-way street with neighbours. You have to live together. As an engineer, if you need a lot of ‘code’ it probably means you’re expecting errors – in this case people not being able to work things out amicably. I’m not sure the specific conflict the Council heard can be resolved by any ‘code’. Regardless, we do need code and it was important to hear both sides of the story. In fact, I’m sure there aren’t two sides. I’m pretty sure there will be a many ‘sides’ – and if you are interested in the topic, please reach out to me with your perspective.
Consent Agenda
Item of note:
SKHHP Funding Allocation South King County Housing/Homelessness Partnership pools resources from 12 cities to fund affordable housing across South King County. Des Moines has already contributed the funds; this resolution formalizes how they’ll be spent. We’ve been at this since before I joined the Council. And it has yielded no new construction in Des Moines and only a few remodels. As with the airport, it is simply more virtue signaling. We pay a (relatively) modest amount every year into this fund, to look like we’re doing something – rather than actually building housing here.
New Business
2025 Poverty Bay Blues and Brews Festival Proposal
My colleagues voted 5-1 to accept Rotary’s three year proposal to put on their Blues and Brews event. The event was not the reason for my ‘no’. And I want to be clear that the event is fantastic and 3their proposal had some very good aspects which are much better for the City than in previous years.
However, I encourage you to watch this portion of the meeting. Any notion of parliamentary procedure broke down – with members of Rotary literally joining in on the discussion – something I have literally never seen in any other local government. That’s a ‘process’ problem in Des Moines. It tends to happen here because we’ve normalised councilmembers having such personal interests in various issues. Get it? We simply cannot be objective about these kinds of decisions.
Why does this matter? Last November the Council spent thousands of dollars to decide (this time) to really, really, really, really, really, really, really commit the City to becoming “the Premiere Waterfront Destination in the Pacific Northwest”. Other than the Fourth of July, and the Waterland Parade, Blues and Brews is the only reasonably well marketed event we do. And we don’t do it – they do.
So I didn’t call it a ‘partnership’. I called it a leveraged donation. Basically, we are donating $10,000 – and that helps Rotary do $40,000 in fund raising towards good organisations we also support in our Human Services Budget. One of our dollars yields four. Great.
But the argument seems to be that this event drives repeat business – helping to make the City a ‘destination’. I have absolutely zero doubt that it drives repeat business to this event. People who like various niche musics show up year after year. Blues here. String Quartets in Kitsap. Ukuleles in Astoria. Fantastic. But that is not the same thing as leveraging the City.
Long-established groups are great. But they receive preferential treatment that would be unavailable to any potential new group. It’s already hard enough to stand up a new organisation. This sort of thing ends up discouraging the formation of new initiatives that might broaden possibilities for Des Moines.
Fact: since I’ve lived here we never had a marketing plan that increased our reach. It’s completely unrealistic to ask the City Manager to develop one this year. So instead of doing a one year agreement – and letting the City, have time to at least start figuring a better system – one that encourages other groups to engage in various events – we’re now locked into the same approach we’ve tried for decades. “Premiere Waterfront Destination” is more virtue signaling. We want to look like we’re doing something new and improved, while actually doubling down on exactly the same things we’ve always done.
All that said, I have absolutely no doubt the event will be a success.
Executive Session
POTENTIAL LITIGATION RCW 42.30.110(1)(a)(i) – All I can tell ya is that this was 20 minutes of my life I wish I could get back. It’s only worth mentioning because it came in the middle of the meeting, which meant we emerged from the Cone of Silence to an empty room. A lonely feeling, my friend. 😀
King County Parks Levy
As I wrote, the meeting opened with County Councilmember De’Sean Quinn making a presentation about this item. This discussion, 2.5 hours later was the reason for his appearance.
Your property tax bill includes a bajillion slices. One of the smaller ones is the City of Des Moines – which you vote for. However, there are several levies which are automatic. The Port gets one. County Parks is another. The Deputy Mayor had expressed concern as to a possible rate increase and whether or not Des Moines was getting a fair share of that slice and wanted the Council to do something. But it was hard not to feel like the discussion was premature because we don’t yet have a clear idea of what the County’s proposal is.
My comments were
- To ‘automate’ the process. That’s shorthand for developing a simple annual formula for cities like Des Moines rather than having a project-based grant system. Grants are great. But they lack certainty. If we knew every year that we were getting (x) dollars for parks, it would make it a lot easier to plan for park space improvements.
- I’d like the City to have a more defined ‘wish list’. Yes, we have a Parks and Rec Master Plan. And a Comprehensive Plan (see above). But realistically, we focus almost all our energy on grants (what seems doable in the moment) rather than acting like ‘plans’ actually make a difference.
New Items For Consideration
I asked the Council to direct the City to prepare a letter in support of the Municipal Research and Services Center. MRSC is a non-profit organisation that provides educational resources to all cities and their electeds in WA. Much of the information is available to the public.
One proposal in the State budget is to gut their funding. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be… hang… er… lose their employee parking spot. 😀 What makes it so annoying is that the legislature threatens this every few years. But cutting access to educational resources for lawmakers? Seriously?
1A NP friend calls this ‘the sailing trees’.
2That’s Dave’s quote. I actually agree. The job completely aligns with his personal interest in the environment going back decades.
3In previous years, the event would be allowed two days for set up and break down. So the City will have one more available day of rental. It will be a mighty long day for Rotary to set up and break down in one day.
4Who says I don’t put in the work on graphic design?