City Council - Regular Meeting

At this time, I would like to call the May 14th, 2026 Des Moines City Council meeting to order. Council Member Jeremy Nutting will lead us in the pledge. Please stand if you are able.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Please let the record show that all council members are present. We're going to start today with a proclamation. Thank you. Is there a motion? Oh, I'm sorry. Council Member Nutting.

I move to approve the proclamation recognizing May 10th through May 16th, 2026 as National Police Week.

I'll second that.

Thank you. Moved and seconded by Councilmember Desmone. All in favor please raise your right hand and say aye. Aye. That passes. The motion passes seven to zero. Thank you. Whereas in 1962 President Kennedy proclaimed May 15th as National Peace Officers Memorial Day and the calendar week in which May 15th falls as National Police Week and Whereas the dedicated women and men of the City of Des Moines Police Department dedicate themselves to protecting the lives, property, and rights of our residents, upholding the law with courage, integrity, and professionalism. And whereas these officers serve as guardians of our community, responding to emergencies, fostering public safety, and building trust through their commitment to justice and compassion. And whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the duties and responsibilities of their police department, and that members of our police department recognize their duty to serve the people by safeguarding life and property, defending them against violence or disorder, and guarding the innocent against deception and the weak against oppression. And whereas our police department has grown to be a modern and well-respected law enforcement agency, which unceasingly provides a vital public service, and whereas U.S. flags should be flown at half-staff from May 15th for Police Officers Memorial Day in honor of all fallen officers and their families. Now, therefore, the Des Moines City Council hereby proclaims May 10th through the 16th, 2026 as National Police Week, signed this day. Yoshiko Grace Matsui, Mayor. AND I UNDERSTAND THAT ASSISTANT CHIEF BENE IS HERE TO ACCEPT US TODAY?

We appreciate the time for the recognition. As an agency that has lost an officer in the line of duty, I can tell you that the men and women of the police department are very appreciative of the time for the council to take the time to recognize this police week. So on behalf of the police department and all of law enforcement in Washington state, thank you for the proclamation.

Thank you. Is there any correspondence not previously received by the council? No, Mayor. Thank you. Now it's time for comments from the public. We ask that you keep your comments respectful. When I call your name, please come up to the podium and you'll have three minutes to speak. Please state your name and your city of residence. Today I have Judy Grandy.

Hello, everyone. My name is Judy Grandy, and I'm a resident of Des Moines. I will first talk about flock safety and then about a moratorium on warehouse detention facilities. I have asked numerous people if they know what a flock camera is. Most do not know what an automated license plate reader camera is. Some think it is the traffic infraction camera. It is not. It's a separate camera that records license plates, make model color, bumper stickers, and dents that can be searched quickly thanks to AI. Last time I was here, I asked if the City Council members had had a chance to find the 15 cameras in Des Moines. I hope by now that you've had a chance for you to see for yourself to see whether or not we're in compliance with SB6002. The Des Moines Police Department has a contract with Flock Safety. Flock Safety, not the Des Moines Police Department, has complete control of the data from the 15 cameras. How can the city confirm that flock safety is in compliance with SB6002 when the city does not see the inner workings of flock safety? Flock safety can tell us whatever they want, but you have no way to verify that that is what they are doing. If someone from another state asks flock safely directly for Washington information, we have no way of verifying that flock safety did not share that information. ALPR cameras are a form of mass surveillance. I urge the City Council to vote to deactivate the flock cameras. Now I will shift to talking about requesting that Des Moines adopt a six-month or a one-year moratorium on warehouse detention facilities. Thank you, Chris De La Rosa, for sending the City Council and city staff a recent email entitled Public Testimony Defending Des Moines Land Use Against Federal Detention Conversions. Chris references why a moratorium is needed so that businesses and federal agencies cannot go around the current Des Moines City zoning laws. Neighboring cities like Tukwila and Seattle have recognized their zoning shortfalls and have enacted moratoriums against federal detention centers. I get the impression from communications with city staff that Des Moines does not want warehouse detention facilities. Please enact a moratorium so you can tell residents that none of the many available Des Moines warehouses will become a detention facility. Thank you for this time to speak.

Thank you. Next, I have Christy.

Hello. My name is Christy, and I am a Des Moines resident. I have lived here for over 20 years. I've also worked in the Highline School District as a teacher for almost 20 years. Gaining the trust of young scholars can be heartwarming as it can also be heart-wrenching. I had a kindergarten scholar tell the class the other day that ICE may come and kidnap her because she is brown. This student is an American citizen who was born here. The fact that her family is talking about this at home shows me they are concerned about detention centers. We have school buses that run up 216th Street and over to 24th. right by all those warehouses. Could you imagine the cruelty that we would inflict if one of those gets converted to a detention center and kids have to drive by it daily. Let's try to be proactive and ban detention centers in Des Moines. Zoning laws have loopholes. So rather than chance any nefarious actors by corrupt parties let's just fully ban them now. Seattle has signed a one year ban. CTAC, Tukwila, Renton, and Kent just passed moratoriums to block these as well. Let's make Des Moines the next on the list and ban warehouse detention centers in Des Moines. Thank you. Thank you. And I have Chris.

Hello, everybody. Chris, Des Moines resident. I'll just follow up a little bit of what was already presented about the warehouses. IT IS TRUE THAT THE CITY MANAGER SAYS THAT WE HAVE ZONING CODES, BUT ZONING CODES AREN'T ENOUGH FOR ICE AND CBD OR CBD. YOU KNOW, THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE LAW SO THEY CAN FIND LOOPHOLES INTO THE CONTRACTS THAT WE CURRENTLY HAVE. SO IT'S IMPORTANT TO FOLLOW THE REST OF THE CITIES THAT ARE SURROUNDING US. RIGHT NOW, WE'RE THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT. WE HAVE SEVERAL WAREHOUSES WHERE THEY FIT THE SIZE REQUIREMENT THAT ICE IS LOOKING FOR TO CREATE THESE DETENTION CAMPS. ON MAY 1, SABE, A COMPANY THAT RENTS OUT TO ICE AND DHS, HAS WITHDRAWN SOME OF THEIR LEASES ALREADY DOWN IN TOQUILLA BECAUSE OF THE PUSHBACK THAT PEOPLE IN TOQUILLA HAVE DONE SO AMAZINGLY THEIR WORK. SO WE'RE JUST ASKING THAT BE PROACTIVE. I KNOW SOME OF YOU FOLKS ON THE COUNCIL HERE DO NOT WANT OUR WAREHOUSES BECAUSE YOU HAVE ZONING CODES ALREADY IN PLACE FOR THIS. BE PROACTIVE AND YOU KNOW, GRANT A SIX-MONTH MORATORIUM, SO WE DON'T HAVE TO SEE ANY KIND OF, YOU KNOW, BIG PROTESTS OUT ON OUR STREETS, BECAUSE IT'LL COME TO THAT, RIGHT? I MEAN, WE'RE SEEING IT IN OTHER CITIES. I HAVE WHAT I DID SEND IN AN EMAIL, JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T RECEIVE IT. I'M JUST GOING TO PASS IT ON OVER THERE. AND I APPRECIATE IT, AND THANKS FOR HEARING US OUT. AND I WANTED TO MAKE A NOTE, BECAUSE PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THIS. ON MOTHER'S DAY, LAST SUNDAY, WE HAD A 20-YEAR-OLD abducted up at Harbor Freight. Car window smashed, handle busted, pulled out of the car, taken on Mother's Day. This is what the world is that we're living in. We need to put protections into place. We need to show the neighborhood, the neighbors that are afraid to come out, the groceries, to go just do normal life. That people in authority, white people, WE'LL PROTECT THEM. WE'LL STAND UP FOR THEM WE'LL PROTECT THEM. WE'LL STAND UP FOR THEM WE'LL PROTECT THEM. WE'LL STAND UP FOR THEM THE BEST WE'LL STAND UP FOR THEM THE BEST WE'LL STAND UP FOR THEM THE BEST THEY CAN UNTIL WE GET THE BEST THEY CAN UNTIL WE GET THE BEST THEY CAN UNTIL WE GET THE ADMINISTRATION THAT'S IN PLACE THEY CAN UNTIL WE GET THE ADMINISTRATION THAT'S IN PLACE THEY CAN UNTIL WE GET THE ADMINISTRATION THAT'S IN PLACE RIGHT NOW OUT, OKAY? ADMINISTRATION THAT'S IN PLACE RIGHT NOW OUT, OKAY? ADMINISTRATION THAT'S IN PLACE RIGHT NOW OUT, OKAY? SO IT'S HAPPENING EVERY DAY.

RIGHT NOW OUT, OKAY?

SO IT'S HAPPENING EVERY DAY. RIGHT We are currently running Committee of the Whole meetings. However, council members do serve regionally on other committees. Do any council members have any items of interest to the public or to the council? Council Member Harris.

Thank you. I attended Wednesday's Emergency Management Advisory Committee meeting and everything. It's all FIFA all the time. An item of interest to The city is that they are putting together a shared document and to the public as to all of the traffic impacts, not only in the area but regionally, and they are profound. It's just amazing how much traffic is going to be highways, freeways, surface, link, light rail, even around the airport. and it's really hard to get it all in one place, and that will be the goal in the next few days. That's it.

All right. Time to pass the mic or press the mic over to City Manager Catherine Caffrey.

Mayor and Council, I don't have any items planned for tonight, but I do want to actually address the comments that our speakers are making, because we have all received emails, and this is an issue the city does take really seriously. So ahead of this, we actually asked our city attorney to again look at our existing zoning code versus a moratorium and provide us with some guidance. So I'm going to ask Tim to give a briefing on that.

Yeah. Thank you, City Manager. I just want to say, I guess, that we're ahead of the game. because detention centers are not allowed in the city of Des Moines. The council could certainly declare a moratorium and not allow any applications to come in for a period of time. If an application were to come in now, we would deny it based on our zoning code. And at the end of the moratorium, the question would be asked to the council, do you want to allow them or do you not want to allow them? Well, we already don't allow them. So the question is, if we're going to do a moratorium, is that to consider allowing them, which I don't think that the council wants. I don't think that's what the citizens want. So I think there's a lot of misinformation out there. They are currently not allowed under our zoning code. So that's not going to stop any actions that ICE is taking in the city. But there will not be one built based on our current zoning in the city. So that's where we're at.

Thank you, Mayor. Were there any questions? No, I'm sorry, to the council. Councilmember Harris.

As I sent to the city manager, I intend to just ask for the council's support to, I think the city attorney framed that extremely well, and to place that on the city website. I think what the planning director did was admirable, but it could be far more concise and my only question this is a direct question is does this mean that the city would basically if somebody applies and are denied will the city continue to defend that position absolutely just like we would with any other use if it was not permitted we would

We would defend that position. And I just also want to clarify when I said that you can't build one, you also can't convert an existing building into that use. So the use is prohibited in the City of Des Moines.

I think the public has this notion that somehow a zoning or a permitting does not have any force of law, that it's some sort of thing that can be overridden all the time. I appreciated the letter you wrote because zoning permitting is the law. And I hope the council will support just putting something 100 words or less on our website to do that.

We can discuss updating our statement that we put out in March about this issue. How does that sound? Thank you. All right.

Let's move on to the consent agenda. Item 1, approval of vouchers. Item 2, approval of minutes. Item 3, surplus property vehicles. Item 4, collective bargaining agreement. Teamsters local number 763. And that concludes the consent agenda, Mayor.

Council Member Nutting. I move to approve the consent calendar as read.

Seconded by Council Member Steinmetz. LET'S GO AHEAD AND ASK IF ANY COUNCIL MEMBERS WOULD LIKE TO PULL AN ITEM. SEEING NONE, ALL IN FAVOR OF THE CONSENT AGENDA AS READ PLEASE RAISE YOUR RIGHT HAND UNTIL I CALL YOUR NAME. Deputy Mayor Ochsinger, Councilmember Steinmetz, Councilmember Harris, Councilmember Desmoni, Councilmember Nutting, Councilmember Blass, and myself. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. On to unfinished business. Our first item in unfinished business is a presentation. And I hear that Principal Engineer Kai Lay will be presenting today.

Good evening, mayors, council members, city manager, Kyla, principal, engineer. I'm here tonight with Chris from Transport Group to give a presentation on the Vision Zero resolution. So for tonight's presentation, first we would like to go over the background or just a roadmap of staff effort on ESTABLISHING A SAFETY FRAMEWORK FOR THE CITY, THEN WE'LL TALK ABOUT WHAT IS VISION ZERO. THEN WE'LL PROVIDE AN UPDATE ON THE WASHINGTON STATE COLLISION DATA AND WHY IS VISION ZERO IMPORTANT. THEN WE'LL TALK ABOUT WHAT IS SAFE SYSTEM APPROACH AND HOW IT IS A TOOL FOR THE CITY TO ACHIEVE VISION ZERO. AT THE END, WE'LL GIVE AN OVERVIEW ON THE COMPREHENSIVE SAFETY ACTION PLAN AND THE UPCOMING NEXT STEPS. AT THE END OF THE PRESENTATION, WE'LL PROVIDE MOTIONS FOR THE COUNCIL TO VOTE ON. SO, IN 2024, THE CITY ESTABLISHED ITS LONG-RANGE TRANSPORTATION PLANNING horizon through the transportation elements of the 2024 comprehensive plan and the 2025 to 2044 transportation improvement plans. And during that process, the public engagement results show very strong interest of the community in improving roadway and pedestrian safety. And so with that goal and the focus on the safety framework, staff has been working with Transport Group on developing various road safety plans and on the lookout for different grants out there. And so back in March of this year, we presented to the Council the 2026 Local Road Safety Plan and a grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation called the Highway Safety Improvement Programs. So for tonight's presentation, we'll be talking about Vision Zero. And we plan to go back to council to present on a comprehensive safety action plan in August of this year. And the ultimate goal is to have the Vision Zero resolution and a comprehensive safety action plan in place so that staff can be on the lookout for various state and federal safety grants in the future. With that, I would like to pass this on to Chris to go into more details about the vision of the zero.

Good evening, Council. Thank you very much. Chris Como, Senior Transportation Planner with Transpo Group, and as As Kai mentioned, we've been helping the city look at safety issues and crashes throughout the city. We produced the local road safety plan and the next thing we would like to do is take that and translate it into a broader document that goes deeper called a comprehensive safety action plan. And one of the key pieces is a vision zero ordinance or commitment to safety. Vision Zero is internationally recognized as a systematic approach to looking at safety. Instead of isolating incidents and looking at spot locations, you look system-wide and try to establish patterns and trends and look at how the entire system works for all users using all modes. What you can see up here is that there's a comparison contrast between the way things have been done in the past, the traditional approach, and the Vision Zero approach, which is essentially what's considered best practice these days. And as I mentioned, it's based on the safe system approach. It's proactive versus reactive. You don't wait for things to happen. When you look systemically at a transportation system, you're looking at Things that might have happened in one location may have similar characteristics to another location where something hasn't happened yet, and you can be proactive and try to do something there so you don't have a collision or something bad happen and somebody get hurt. What we do is we identify patterns. We look for where crashes have happened. We identify what's called a high injury network as well as a high risk network. And this approach has been adopted by the Washington state department of transportation and the strategic highway safety plan you're probably all familiar with the term target zero that's the strategic highway safety plan. The state has had that in place for many years they've taken it a step further now they've adopted the safe system approach they've adopted vision zero. This has also been adopted by the puget sound regional Council and the regional Council in 2025 past a regional safety action plan. The City of Des Moines Comprehensive Safety Action Plan will be built off of all of these. Let's see, is this the... How do I make that go forward? There we go. There we go. Oops, backwards. Okay, why? Why are we doing this? Well, as you can see on the screen, there's been a trend over the last 10 years and right around the COVID period, we watched this increase in collisions and this is statewide. This is from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. And it's been a problem across the state and all the cities that we work in and Des Moines isn't alone. What we're trying to do is drive these numbers back down. And despite the commitment that the state has made with Target Zero, we're seeing this increase in fatalities and serious injuries. And so it's critical that we take some additional steps and try to be more systematic about how we go about this. Again, we want to adopt the best practices that are being used across the board. Another thing that this will do is establish a policy basis for future safety efforts that could include things like automated traffic safety cameras for enforcement purposes. One of the hardest things to do with this when it comes to trying to prevent collisions is deal with speeding and human behavior issues, and those can be driving under the influence or distracted driving or other things. And really, you have to have some way to deal with that. Automated enforcement allows the city to save resources and deploy those limited resources in other places. There are also proven safety countermeasures that reduce speeding and make the system safer for vulnerable users across the board. As I mentioned, the safe system approach. This is the internationally recognized system that's being adopted and incorporated into all of the state and local systems around Washington State. Up in the right corner, you can see that I've identified in Washington State here, unlike the rest of the country, DOT adopted safer land use as an additional element into the safe system approach. And this is critical because when we develop a comprehensive safety action plan for the city, this is something that we want to help the city do, identify key and integrated land use and transportation approaches to addressing how people move about from place to place. And that has a lot to do with land use. That's what generates trips to begin with. So the safe system approach looks at all these things on the screen. You can see the very top one is a commitment to vision zero. What the city is saying essentially is that fatalities are not acceptable. We're going to set a goal to try to drive those down. Same with serious injuries. These are all the different components that the safe system approach includes. I'm not going to read them. You can get more information both on the state highway strategic safety plan as well as this with the link there. In terms of what we're trying to help the city do, we will take the local road safety plan and we'll add these elements to what is already identified in there and point to other plans such as the existing comprehensive plan that you've just adopted All the public engagement from that plan will be helping to inform this safety plan. And all the public engagement from the Puget Sound Regional Council plan as well. In addition to that, the safety analysis that was done in your local road safety plan will become the foundation for us to move forward and come up with a new prioritized list of safety projects that is something that the city will be able to focus on. And as Kai mentioned, will allow us to go after or be on the lookout for other opportunities for state or federal grant funding opportunities. So there's a resolution in your packet. We're working right now to help the city develop this comprehensive safety action plan. And as Kai mentioned, later this summer, we'll come back to you, present that plan. And if you adopt it, that will be the document that's pointed to in state and federal grant applications. I can tell you, that right now, even though it's not technically required by some of these agencies, they're already asking the question, does your jurisdiction have a safety action plan to base your grant application on? If you have one, you will be more competitive for grant funding. And here's the motion to council that Kai mentioned.

Council, do you have any questions, please? Questions only at this time. Council Member Nutting.

Thank you. Thank you, Kai, for the presentation. Thank you for being here tonight. My question is, is this solely going to be based on Kai's department to come up with, once the action plan's in place, to traffic calming or anything like that? Or is it going to be in partnership with the police department and that department?

Yeah, we definitely going to take in, you know, feedback from the community feedback from the police department that combined with, you know, the priority that we identified from our tip plans to present the priority to the city council.

I just like to add to that real quick. It's a fantastic question. And and the answer is, It will primarily be Public Works that's implementing the plan, but it will be a broad-based, multi-departmental approach to looking at the entire system, including land use, including police enforcement, and other things going on in the community. So it really is a way to bring different city departments and perspectives together into looking at a different way to treat the safety issue.

And just to follow up on that, so then my next question would be, so the assumption would be that some of the grants that could be gone after would shore up some of those departments that might have to add extra time or add extra FTEs to help out with that, implementing that plan.

Grants are typically for capital improvements, meaning major projects, construction projects, but there are some out there that can help programs that the city might be running, and it may do what you suggested by saving FTEs and things like that. So yeah, there's definitely a lot that goes into this.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Steinmetz.

Yeah, I really like the goals and everything involved here, and especially setting us up for more grants down the road. That's a very a very good approach to this. Is there any mechanism built into this plan for regular updates where you come back in front of the council and report on how things are going?

Another great question. So yes, one of the most important things about a safety action plan is what you're doing to track and monitor progress. And so yes, over time, the city will go back and look at the trend of safety collisions and locations and all that. And the great thing about having a plan like this is you've got a framework, and then all you really need to do is update the actual data, redo the analysis, and kind of have a rolling window of crash trend. And what you can do is you can report on that yearly or every couple of years as you update the plan to let the council know what's going on about this time, about the same time you're doing your six-year TIP work.

And you would be open to coming back on a regular basis? I'd be happy to come back. I think this is a good idea in demonstrating that on at least an annual basis of how this plan is working. It would be wonderful. Thank you.

Council Member Harris.

Kai, maybe I misheard, but you used the word, the acronym, SEPTED, or did I mishear that?

You didn't.

You're looking at me like you didn't.

Yeah, and I don't believe I mentioned that.

Okay, then I misheard. Thank you.

Council Member Blas.

Well, I support this Vision Zero, so thank you for giving the presentation today and for working on this. My question, is this solely on land-based transportation? Do you also look at marine-based? We have hundreds of boats in the marina. We have a boat launch in Redondo. There's potential for collisions and injuries there. Are you looking at that at all?

Not in this particular plan. It's something that the city could certainly do as another initiative, but this is specifically about surface transportation, particularly vulnerable users and vehicles.

All right.

Thank you.

Anyone else before I go back to Council Member Nutting? All right, Council Member Nutting.

I move to approve draft resolution number 26-003, adopting the Vision Zero goal and timeline for the City of Des Moines and to apply the safe system approach to achieve this goal.

Seconded by Council Member Vos. Any discussion? Council Member Steinmetz.

I'D LIKE TO JUST AMEND THE MOTION BRIEFLY. SO AT THE END OF THE PHRASE TIMELINE FOR THE CITY OF DEMONIANS, WITH ANNUAL REPORTING, BACK TO THE COUNCIL.

OKAY. SO I HAVE A MOTION TO AMEND AND A SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION ON THE AMENDMENT? COUNCIL MEMBER HARRIS.

That's fine. In fact, I was going to ask for just if there was some way to I was just going to ask offline if there were some sort of more specifics because I'm sorry, you're speaking to the amendment now. I am and I'm like I would like some kind of definition of what that update might entail because I'm in favor of the broad strokes but I would have preferred to have sort of THIS ALL STRUCK ME AS A LITTLE ABSTRACT. SO AN ANNUAL UPDATE IS A GREAT IDEA. I WOULD JUST LIKE IT TO BE PROVIDE SOME KIND OF METRICS OR DETAIL OR SOMETHING.

NEW SPEAKER I'M SORRY. NEW SPEAKER WHEN WE BRING BACK THE NEXT STEP IN AUGUST WE CAN INCLUDE THOSE DETAILS.

NEW SPEAKER ANY OTHER DISCUSSION ABOUT THE AMENDMENT? SHOULD WE RESTATE IT JUST SO WE MAKE SURE WE HAVE IT? NEW SPEAKER YES.

Then I am moving to amend the resolution to insert just after the phrase timeline for the City of Des Moines, comma, and report back to the council on an annual basis, comma. So inserting.

Okay. And that sounds good. All in favor of amending the motion, please raise your right hand. All right. That looks like it's unanimous. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Simons, or Deputy Mayor Ochsinger, Council Member Simons, Council Member Harris, Council Member Desmoni, Council Member Nutting, Council Member Floss, and myself, 7-0. Okay, and let's move on to the amendment itself. Is there any further discussion, or I'm just going to call for a vote. All in favor of the amended motion, please raise your right hand. DEPUTY MAYOR OXFORD, COUNCIL MEMBER STEINEMANN, COUNCIL MEMBER HARRIS, COUNCIL MEMBER DESMOND, COUNCIL MEMBER NUTTING, COUNCIL MEMBER BLAS, AND MYSELF, PASSES 7-0. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ALL RIGHT. MOVING ON TO OUR SECOND ITEM, WE HAVE AN UPDATE ON THE PHOTO ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM GIVEN BY OUR CITY ATTORNEY, MR. TIM GEORGE.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL. TIM GEORGE, CITY ATTORNEY. I FEEL LIKE IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I'VE BEEN AT THIS PODIUM, SO HELLO, EVERYBODY. TONIGHT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A PHOTO ENFORCEMENT UPDATE. JUST TO CLARIFY, THIS IS FOR OUR TRAFFIC SAFETY CAMERAS. WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE FLOCK CAMERAS TONIGHT, BUT NEXT WEEK CHIEF BO WILL BE GIVING A PRESENTATION ON THE FLOCK CAMERAS AND ANY SORT OF COMPLIANCE ISSUES WITH THE NEW STATE LAW. SO THAT WILL BE NEXT WEEK. TONIGHT, I AM VERY HAPPY TO INTRODUCE FROM VERA MOBILITY, ALEXANDRA YACOB, AND SHE IS THEIR REGIONAL ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE, AND SHE'S GOING TO COME UP HERE AND GIVE US, WALK THROUGH SOME OF THESE SLIDES ABOUT WHAT VERA PROVIDES TO THE CITY. AND THEN JUST AS A NOTE, WE INSERTED THE FIRST THREE SLIDES THAT YOU'LL SEE ARE NEW SLIDES THAT WE GOT FROM VERA. THOSE ARE NOT IN THE PACKET RIGHT NOW, BUT WE'LL UPDATE THEM AFTER THIS. AND THEY TAKE THE PLACE OF THE FIRST SLIDE THAT I PUT TOGETHER. SO THESE ONES LOOK A LOT NICER. SO I'LL HAND THIS OVER TO ALEX.

THANK YOU. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS. HAPPY TO BE HERE. BEFORE WE GET INTO THE SLIDES, ON BEHALF OF AEROMOBILITY, I JUST WANT TO THANK THE CITY FOR THE LONGSTANDING PARTNERSHIP AND THE CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR IMPROVING TRAFFIC SAFETY. I FEEL LIKE OUR PRESENTATION VERY WELL TIES IN WITH THE PREVIOUS ITEM, WHICH WAS YOUR VISION ZERO PLAN. GOING INTO THE SLIDES, AS THE CITY ATTORNEY MENTIONED, THE FIRST THREE SLIDES WOULD JUST COVER SOME INFORMATION ABOUT WHO VERA MOBILITY IS. WE ARE THE INDUSTRY LEADER IN AUTOMATED ENFORCEMENT SOLUTIONS. WE ARE CURRENTLY PARTNERED WITH APPROXIMATELY 300 CUSTOMERS IN NORTH AMERICA, EUROPE, ASIA AND AUSTRALIA AND WE CURRENTLY OPERATE OVER 12,000 LIFE SYSTEMS PROVIDING VARIOUS TYPES OF SOLUTIONS FROM SPEED ENFORCEMENT TO RED LIGHT, SCHOOL ZONE, SCHOOL BUS AND BUS LANE ENFORCEMENT. I DO HAVE THE CLICKER. BUSY MAP HERE, BUT THIS IS WHO WE SERVE IN NORTH AMERICA. ALL THE STATES IN GREEN ARE STATES WHERE WE HAVE A PRESENCE, AND THE LIST ARE PARTNERSHIPS THAT WE HAVE WITH VARIOUS COMMUNITIES WITHIN THOSE STATES. AND THEN THE SYMBOLS NEXT TO THE CITY NAMES OR JURISDICTION NAMES ARE THE TYPES OF ENFORCEMENT THAT ARE BEING PROVIDED FOR EACH ONE OF THOSE JURISDICTIONS. So specifically for Washington, we've been in the state for nearly two decades and we have nearly 30 partnerships here that go back quite a long time in the state. Again, one of the longer partnerships is with the city of Des Moines as well. So some information about the program that is here in the state and has been in place since 2011. The program started with school zone enforcement. The first two cameras were installed in 2011 and then followed by two additional cameras for school zone enforcement in 2012. THE PROGRAM FURTHER EXPANDED IN 2016 BY THE ADDITION OF SEVEN RED LIGHT ENFORCEMENT LOCATIONS AND THEN FURTHER EXPANDED IN 2024 BY THE ADDITIONS OF FOUR SPEED CAMERAS WITHIN THE PARK ZONE. DES MOINES IS THE FIRST CITY IN THE STATE TO ENFORCE SPEEDING IN PARK ZONE. AS FAR AS PROGRAM PERFORMANCE, I'VE GATHERED SOME STATS TO KIND OF SHOW HOW THE PROGRAM HAS EVOLVED AND HOW IT CHANGED BEHAVIOR THROUGHOUT THE YEARS. SO THE TOP LINE SHOWS PERFORMANCE IN, OR I SHOULD SAY MAYBE MONITORING IN 2025. SO FOR THE TOTAL OF THE 14 LOCATIONS, THE TRAFFIC THAT WAS MONITORED, MEANING VEHICLES TRAVELING THROUGH THE ENFORCEMENT LOCATIONS, THERE WERE OVER 18 MILLION VEHICLES TRAVELING THROUGH THE ENFORCEMENT LOCATIONS. And there were about 22,000 citations issued, which really translates in a very small percentage of citations issued versus the significantly high traffic counts that have been observed. AS FAR AS REDUCTION, I DID A COMPARISON FOR RED LIGHT SPECIFICALLY FROM 2017 WHEN YOUR PROGRAM WAS FULLY OPERATIONAL FOR RED LIGHT ENFORCEMENT IN COMPARISON TO 2025, AND THERE HAS BEEN A 78% REDUCTION IN CITATIONS ISSUED FOR SCHOOL ZONE, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE PROGRAM, IN COMPARISON TO 2025, THERE HAS BEEN A 67% REDUCTION. AND THEN FOR YOUR PARK ZONE, WHICH IS THE MOST RECENT ENFORCEMENT TYPE, I COMPARED 24 WITH 25, AND THERE IS ALREADY A 33% REDUCTION IN CITATIONS. ADDITIONAL STATISTICS ABOUT THE PROGRAM, SO IN THE BEGINNING OF THE PROGRAM, IF WE LOOK AT THIS GRAPH, SO IN ABOUT 2012, The percentage of citations that were issued to the residents has been significantly higher compared to the 2025. So in 2012, about 32 percent of the citations issued were issued to local residents of Des Moines. Fast forwarding to 2025, that has dropped to only 10 percent, meaning your citizens are complying with your safety. laws and the program is protecting your citizens against transient traffic through the city. AND SIMILARLY, SOME OTHER STATISTICS ABOUT THE PROGRAM, LOOKING IN 2024 WHEN YOUR PROGRAM WAS FULLY BUILT OUT, INCLUDING THE PARK ZONES, THERE WAS A HIGHER RATE OF RECIDIVISM, MEANING FOR PEOPLE THAT RECEIVED THREE-PLUS CITATIONS, THAT PERCENTAGE WAS 3.8 IN 2024. IT FURTHER DECREASED IN 2025 TO I'M SORRY, THAT'S A LITTLE HARD TO READ, 2.7%, SO THAT MEANS THAT PEOPLE IN GENERAL ARE STARTING TO COMPLY MORE AND MORE WITH THE PROGRAM AND THEIR RECIDIVISM RATE KEEPS GOING DOWN. AS FAR AS PROGRAM EXPANSION, WE WERE INFORMED THAT THE CITY IS FURTHER CONSIDERING ADDITIONAL EXPANSION FOR 24-7 SPEED ENFORCEMENT AND POTENTIALLY ADDITIONAL PARK ZONE ENFORCEMENT. SO WE'VE DONE SPEED SURVEYS AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS. THE SPEED SURVEYS WERE OVER A THREE-DAY PERIOD, AND WE'VE MONITORED A TOTAL OF, I BELIEVE, 22, FOR SAKE'S SAKE. ABOUT 20 LOCATIONS, 16, 18 LOCATIONS, AND WE'VE GATHERED TRAFFIC FLOW THROUGH THOSE LOCATIONS ALONG WITH POTENTIAL VIOLATIONS. THE SPEED THRESHOLD THAT WAS SET WAS AT SIX MILES OVER THE POSTED SPEED LIMITS, SO WHAT WE SEE AS FAR AS TOTAL POTENTIAL VIOLATIONS ARE NUMBERS OF VEHICLES THAT WERE GOING SIX MILES OVER THE POSTED SPEED LIMITS IN THOSE AREAS. WE THEN TOOK THAT DATA AND WE KIND OF TRANSLATED IT IN POTENTIAL VOLUMES EXPECTED SHOULD SYSTEMS BE INSTALLED THERE. SO WITH THIS TABLE HERE, WHAT WE DID IS WE TOOK THE SPEED SURVEY RESULTS AT SIX MILES OVER THE THRESHOLD AND WE TRANSLATED THOSE INTO MONTHLY VOLUMES. Additionally, to give an understanding of the expected volumes once the systems go live and are in place for quite some time, we only took 5% of the speed surveys to give an understanding of the number of events that would be captured by the cameras. Furthermore, there is a certain throughput, so not every event that's captured by the camera ends up being as an issued citation. So the last column there shows potential number of citations issued from each one of those locations. As far as implications for the additional expansion, similar to what has been done in the past, any new locations would not bear any kind of upfront cost to the jurisdiction. We would continue to collaborate with the city to confirm viability of the new locations to make sure that there is good justification and safety benefits from additional enforcement at those locations. And then probably collaborate with the city attorney furthermore to work on a contract amendment. And then I'll let him take over.

Yeah, I'm gonna take over for one slide here. So as far as next steps go on the city end and on the city council end, we are preparing an ordinance to bring forward to the council that would authorize what are essentially known as general speed cameras. These are new that have been authorized by the state legislature. Based on our population, we're allowed three. You get one per 10,000. So we're qualified for three. They've put in a lot of requirements for locations on those. And some of that information is detailed in the packet. But there are certain studies that the city has to do to bring forward to have approved involving equity issues, speed, and all that. And so that's kind of why we're here tonight following the Vision Zero. is that that vision zero is part of it. And the council also heard about the local road safety plan in February, which looked at these sites that we studied. So all of this is being integrated into essentially a report that the council will approve that will meet all of the new requirements of state law to say that, you know, we didn't just choose these locations because we wanted them there. We chose them because they meet the requirements and there's legitimate safety issues. So that's kind of been, the basis for this whole buildup to where we're at now. But we're almost there, and we're going to be bringing that forward to the council soon. We'll be bringing forward the contract amendment with VERA to install the cameras like what was just mentioned. So in your packet, attachment two shows the map with the locations that we studied. I think what Alex, if I just jump back here, All of these sites had a lot of infractions. And if you were to kind of multiply these by fines and all that stuff, I mean, it's a serious issue. And there's also some serious financial piece that would be involved here too. But we can't put cameras at all these locations because we only have so many that we can do. But what we looked at is our three most severe sites. And so what we're going to be coming back with is the recommendation at Pacific Highway northbound. If you see that one, that was one of our biggest sites. Also, 24th, that's in the business park leading up to the new freeway entrance. We believe that we can do northbound and southbound on that. So that would be our three general location cameras. We have also identified 20th and Kent Des Moines Road is having a serious speeding issue and that shows up as one of the top ones on here too. That one we've actually classified that as a school walk zone because it's within a mile of the schools right there. So we're going to be doing some final analysis on that just to confirm that we have students walking to and from. And then that kind of puts us under a different prong of eligibility, just like our school zones and our park zones. So that one, it won't be while lights are flashing, because it's not a school zone, but it's a school walk zone. So it'll be 24-7. And then we're also, in the same vein, we're looking at 16th Avenue in front of Woodmont, activating those 24-7 as school walk cameras during The drop-off and pickup, the lights will flash. The speed limit will lower. During all other hours, the cameras will be active at the 35 or 30 or whatever it is out there. So we're looking at about six total camera locations or seven total camera locations, five new cameras, and two activating 24-7. So that's what we're currently working on. And that's what we'll be bringing back to council for full approval. We're also looking at these other sites to see if maybe they can qualify under something else. But for now, that's going to be the general recommendation from staff that we'll bring forward shortly. And then this is the fun part. This is where Alex gets to tell you everything about what her company can do, but we're not necessarily allowed to do in Washington state at the time. So I'll turn it back over.

Yeah. So I am not the technical expert in technology, but high level, I do understand that there is some interest in technology for noise detection. VERA Mobility does provide that solution and we actually have it live in the state of Hawaii. The state of Hawaii is the first state that has adopted noise enforcement as a statewide initiative. They started with a pilot program that consisted of two locations. With the last legislative session, they actually passed a law that makes noise enforcement legal and they're looking to start adding with the first phase ten new locations for noise detection. So the way the technology works, and I have a picture of it here, it includes multiple class one microphones along with a LPR camera and a high resolution video camera that provides a 1080p video. The evidence that's captured by the noise enforcement system is the same as it is for your current automated enforcement program, meaning you would receive still images and then a video triangulating the offending vehicle. The system is fully configurable to detect whatever level of decibels is desired for enforcement. For example, Hawaii does detection at 95 decibels. And I believe if it plays, I have a sample video for you of a noise violation. This is in Waikiki Beach, a lot of noise violations in that area. So the state was very happy when they were able to pass legislation. Additionally, another technology that I understand might be of interest is point-to-point speed detection or average speed detection. So the way this solution works is actually our traditional fixed THAT CAN DETECT BOTH RED LIGHT AND SPEED. SO THERE ARE TWO SYSTEMS INSTALLED WITHIN A CORRIDOR, ONE AT A POINT OF ENTRY AND ONE AT A POINT OF EXIT. And what it does, it calculates the average vehicle speed traveling through that enforcement corridor. And that's how we obtain distance over time. We obtain the vehicle's average speed. So that's how point-to-point speed detection is performed with the fixed system. In the U.S., there are no live systems because there is no supporting legislation anywhere yet. But this system is very popular in Europe and other continents. And it is popular on highways and freeways, so longer corridors. Again, same evidence is captured as your current program. You get the still images, the crop of the license plate, and a video, a 12-second video.

And then we can answer questions. But I do want to mention that the noise cameras, Alex and I have been talking and with others at VERA And we're exploring the ability to do a pilot program here in Des Moines. It would be something that obviously wouldn't issue infractions, because we can't do that. And it also wouldn't do the back office stuff. It wouldn't notify people. But it would collect data that I think could be helpful in advocating with our state representatives. So that's something. There may be a cost to the city for that. SO WE'RE IN DISCUSSIONS ON THAT, SO THAT WOULD BE JUST PUTTING THAT OUT THERE. THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE CAN PURSUE, AND SO WE'RE HAVING THOSE DISCUSSIONS RIGHT NOW.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, ALEX. THIS IS AN UPDATE, A PROGRAM UPDATE, AND SO WE HAVE TIME FOR QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. COUNCIL MEMBER BLAS.

THANK YOU. TIN, ARE WE LIMITED ON SCHOOLS ON CAMERAS, THE NUMBER OF SCHOOLS ON CAMERAS WE CAN HAVE?

NOT ON NUMBER. But every camera we put in, we have to justify with the data.

Okay, because I'd be in favor of having more automated enforcement cameras by all the schools. My son goes to North Hill, and there's definitely speeding there. And it doesn't look like it captures any of the data, but I would be in favor of having something there and really in front of every school and every daycare. Would that be included in the school zone? Daycares are not. Okay, then every school. At least getting the data to see if we should install them in front of All of them.

Yeah. And we can do, Vera's very good about helping us out on those studies.

And then when we have the little radar with the speed, there's no cameras to it. We can take that data and see if there's how much infraction we have, right? So that data is already there for some of these locations. That captures it. OK.

Thank you.

Council Member Steinmetz.

Yeah. Very nice presentation. in terms of helping us really understand, at least to some degree, how all this works and the value of it, which is really clear by some of the studies that you've done. You made a mention of point-to-point cameras. My impression was that they have point-to-point, but they're based upon plates in the ground right now. Is that not the case in Washington State? Do you know?

I think the question that we got about point-to-point was more over longer distances. The plates that you're referencing are, I believe they're only like 20 feet apart, and that was some of the early technology that we used, so it was all caught on the same camera. This would be multiple cameras over a longer distance.

And the plate-to-plate is much more expensive to install than... what we're talking about in the point-to-point that's just using an electronic beam, whatever. Correct?

Correct. So I think you're talking about the differences in technology. The earlier versions of speed enforcement technology was done with loops that were installed in the ground. The newer technology talks about radar enforcement. So there would be two different systems, two different radar systems installed at a specific distance throughout a corridor that would monitor vehicle speeds. So it would be done with radar.

And just lastly, I really appreciated the statistics over time that shows the reduction in the number of citations. Having been responsible for donating to the city coffers through those devices on a number of occasions, earning my nickname of Larry Leadfoot from my family, you know, it really does change behavior. And I'm glad to see particularly the citizens of Des Moines are the ones that are really changing their behavior. I think this is a good program.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Oxker.

Yes, just for clarification, thank you for the presentation. Just for clarification, On the noise cameras, the State House did approve last year the noise camera system, but it did not pass the Senate and it did not come back. So they're already in the process and they're already aware of the process. The second thing is on the point-to-point, the Washington Traffic Safety Commission has conducted a study and that report has gone to the legislature and I believe it is recommending point-to-point for the state. So it's not like we're starting from ground zero. Some of this stuff is already in process.

Councilmember Harris. Thank you. Just let's see. First of all, do you have any general sense of how we compare with other states cities in WA or across this great country? In other words, are we more or less scofflaw-y than? No, it's a real question. I mean, in other words, did we have more of a problem, average, or less than? I mean, are all cities having this similar issue?

For Washington specifically and for Speed specifically, I WANT TO SAY THAT UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS A STATEWIDE PROBLEM AS FAR AS SPEEDING SO YOU ARE NOT THE LEADER FOR SURE.

RELATIVE TO THE REST OF THE COUNTRY.

SO 24-7 SPEED ENFORCEMENT MONITORING BECAME LEGAL LAST YEAR. BEFORE THAT ONLY SCHOOL ZONE SPEEDING WAS ALLOWED BY THE STATUTE SO SINCE LAST YEAR We are seeing more and more jurisdictions that are enabling 24-7 speed, and their initial volumes are pretty high, but we're counting on what you've seen for statistics for your other types of enforcement that automated enforcement systems will change that driving behavior. That's why even when we did those assumptions for potential number of events and citations, we looked at nationwide reduction, which from speed surveys to about 10 to 12 months into a program, it's expected that 95% of the initial speeding observed is reduced.

This will be the noise thing. Does it find motorcycles? IN ANY WAY CHALLENGING? CAN IT DO MOTORCYCLES?

IF THEY ARE LOUD. SO IT DETECTS SOUND, RIGHT? LEVEL OF SOUND.

NO, THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM. I'M SAYING BECAUSE YOU'VE GOT THE TINY, TINY IDEA.

BECAUSE IT'S SO SMALL? It would, yes, because it does it for your regular red light or speed enforcement.

Yeah, I don't know why. I just never – and is there anything on the horizon since you mentioned Europe regarding crosswalks? I'll take that as a – never mind. I mean, no, no, if somebody invents a crosswalk detector, that's a major thing. Okay.

Well, one of the other programs that Vera offers is – stop sign cameras, which are, you know, usually associated with crosswalks. But again, that's not something that's authorized in Washington.

No, I just wanted to know if it was technologically possible. Okay, thank you.

So it ultimately is the same technology, meaning as the city attorney mentioned, the threshold for detection for speeding would be set at one, right? Meaning if They didn't come to a complete stop at a crosswalk or at a stop sign. The technology has the ability to detect any speeds, right, even if it's just one mile. So the technology is available. It's a matter of what the statute allows for automated enforcement. Thank you.

Anyone else before I go back around through? All right. Council Member Vosk.

I'm wondering on those cameras that are on the border, like cameras on the border of Kent and Des Moines, do we work with Kent? Do we share revenue with Kent? Or do we look where the car is at when the picture is taken? How does that work?

Yeah. We don't share revenue. It's where the infraction is occurring is the jurisdiction that's handling all of it. So we do have multiple cameras at Kent, Des Moines, and Pacific Highway intersection. And at least one of those is Kent's. And that operates independent from our programs. It's where the camera is located? It's where the infraction occurs. So if it's a stop bar and you're driving through or a red light, we would look at the jurisdictional boundaries. And if it's in... You know, I even get confused about, you know, what's going on. I was always curious about that. So, yeah, it's where the infraction occurs. So they would set the line up, right, to make sure it's within their boundary. Yeah.

And in the presentation, you had mentioned about school bus automated cameras, are these on the school bus themselves? And is that allowed in the state law? And that probably would be a high-length school district thing anyway?

Yes, those are allowed, but that would be something the school district would do. And I just want to remind the council that these are great. They do an amazing job. They allow us to enforce traffic laws without officers involved and make the most of our resources. But every camera has an impact on our court staff and our prosecution and just our levels of staffing and all that. You know, as we look to add more cameras, it's kind of a team effort to make sure we have the staff and the buildup, and then even on the officers, because a police officer has to review every ticket manually and confirm that there was actually a ticket. So, you know, it's not just the cameras are great, and they do an amazing job, and the, you know, safety is increased, infractions go down, but there's also, you know, there's a lot of staff that are working on it, too.

Councilmember Harris.

Thank you, Tim. You actually just, I would just, my only thing about bringing in new cameras is that when they are proposed, if we could somehow quantify, I'm just thinking back to when the original ones were done, and it really was quite a, the court thing initially was, and if somehow there was a way to provide the cost or the staff time in processing those, because we see the top line revenue deal, but somehow it might be. Anyway, moving on, in the, I was just, are all of the proposed ones north, south? I just.

For the most part, because that's, you're going to get your commuters, and that's, you know, people are speaking to and from work, unfortunately, and that's where you get your highest traffic levels. The Kent-Des Moines Road, I think that might say north-south, but that one's really east-west because you're connecting the highway.

Most of the complaints to the public, they'll be people going down 223rd or they'll, you know, 272nd.

And there's certainly some areas, but a lot of those have less traffic. And so you'll have some outliers where you'll have a vehicle go very fast or you'll have one an hour. And then on these north-southbound routes, you'll have 10 an hour or 20 an hour. SO THAT'S REALLY WHERE WE LOOKED AT. AND I'LL JUST TELL THE COUNCIL TO SELECT THESE 7 LOCATIONS OR 14 LOCATIONS THAT WE STUDIED. WE USED DATA FROM THE POLICE DEPARTMENT FOR INFRACTIONS AND THEIR KNOWN SPEEDING LOCATIONS AND THEN WE ALSO USED ACCIDENT HISTORY FROM ENGINEERING STAFF. SO WE WERE ABLE TO COMBINE THOSE TO FIND THESE LOCATIONS. BUT CERTAINLY EVERYONE KNOWS A LOCATION WHERE, YOU KNOW, THEY'VE SEEN SPEEDERS. AND SO THERE'S CERTAINLY PROBLEMS EVERYWHERE. These were our seven highest.

And last but not least, regarding signage, just if you convert a school zone to 24-7, I guess my concern would be it's now a dual purpose thing. And so is there some different, some way we could do the signage so that it makes it clear Because I can see people getting a ticket at 7 p.m. and going, like, what's the deal here?

Yeah, and so there's, you know, traffic engineers, they have a whole book on what signs need to look like and for what reason and why and all that. And so there are very specific signs that we would have to install, and there's periods that they have to be up for. And so we would meet all of those because if someone were to challenge it in court and we didn't meet that, you know, they would all get thrown out. So, yes, there are specific signs. They would have to be very clear, and we would put those in. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. I had one more. In regards to the general location speedcams, could you go over again who sets the limit on how many we can have per city and what that is based on?

Yeah, the state legislature authorized that in recent law, and we are allowed one camera per 10,000 residents. Okay. For now, we're allowed three, but maybe a few more years, we'll get our fourth.

Right. Maybe, but just to clarify, the number of cameras is different depending on what its function and where its placement.

Absolutely.

So it could be tempting to generalize and say, oh, if we can have unlimited number or a camera at every school, then why can't we have them everywhere else?

Yeah.

So we are limited by state law to that three number. PER 10,000. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE UPDATE. I APPRECIATE IT.

HAVE WE DETERMINED THE JURISDICTION ON FIRST AVENUE? IS IT SHARED JURISDICTION WITH NORMALTY PARK OR IS IT SOLELY THERE? TERRITORY OR OURS.

I'M LOOKING AT TOMMY AND TRYING TO READ LIPS.

NORMANY PARK. FIRST AVENUE IS TOTALLY NORMANY PARK. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU.

ABSOLUTELY.

ALL RIGHT. THE PURPOSE OF THIS NEXT AGENDA ITEM IS TO GO INTO A PUBLIC HEARING. ON THE 2027 TO 2046 TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PLAN, ALSO KNOWN AS THE TIP. I WILL NOW OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING. WE WILL BEGIN WITH A STAFF PRESENTATION WITH CITY ENGINEER TOMMY OWEN.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL. TOMMY OWEN, CITY ENGINEER. THIS EVENING I WILL BE PRESENTING THE CITY'S 20-YEAR UPDATE TO THE TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PLAN. So what is the Transportation Improvement Plan? Well, I've given this presentation the third time in the last six months now, so it'll be very familiar to most of you, I think. But what it is is a prioritized list of 89 planned transportation projects. This list is not financially constrained. And the prioritized list, I want to just be very clear on this too, whether a project is listed as or 60 staff is always focused on looking for grant opportunities partnership opportunities any way to make those projects happen because the reality is is we have about seven or eight annual projects they're typically just funded by city funds but beyond that Most all of our transportation improvement projects, they're all partially funded by grants, partnerships, and those other opportunities that we can partner with. And so that's really how our projects come to fruition, is finding partners and bringing those projects forward. So a little bit more about the list. It is derived from the Comprehensive Transportation Plan, which is a long-range transportation plan of about 20 years, which sets the policies, goals, and strategies to help guide decisions for transportation systems in all modes of travel. It also defines a manageable network of arterial roadways, pedestrian networks, bicycle networks, and transit services to support the city. So how do projects get into the TIP? As I mentioned, they get in the TIP from the comprehensive transportation plan, which has safety, capacity, pedestrian and bicycle needs, and also supports transit. It's also from the analysis of the city's own transportation system, whether it's from traffic engineering studies, citizen input and concerns. We're always listening. Whenever a fix it form gets sent in and we see that there may be a safety issue around some area, we can analyze that and potentially bring that into a project. IT'S ALSO FROM INTERAGENCY AND UTILITY COORDINATION. SOME EXAMPLES ARE WITH OTHER CITIES, SOUND TRANSIT, WASH DOT, AND A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THAT RIGHT NOW IS OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH MIDWAY SEWER DISTRICT, WHO IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON 16TH AVENUE. CURRENTLY VERY TORN UP, BUT THAT IS THAT WE PARTNERED WITH THEM in interlocal agreement so that we could maximize some of the paving on there. So the sewer district was going to pave mainly the east side of 16th, and the city was able to partner with them to pave the remaining portion of 16th Avenue. And unfortunately, due to weather, the paving of 16th was pushed back to next week. So we were hoping to get some asphalt down yesterday, but that'll be pushed to likely Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, weather dependent. So how is the TIP used? It provides direction to staff for development of our capital improvement plan. It's for, as I mentioned, planning and coordination with utilities in neighboring cities. It is required by state law to submit annually by the end of July. We also report it to WSDOT and the Puget Sound Regional Council, and it positions projects for future grants and loans. So some of the discussion and process for the TIP. So about two months ago, I presented the draft TIP to the Committee of the Whole. Since then, we gave a public notice in the Seattle Times for tonight's public hearing. And then there's obviously the opportunity for public comment at tonight's hearing. And to date, we have not received any public comments. So looking back at some of the accomplishments and highlights, especially over the last year, so right now we have the Barnes Creek Trail project on 240th, between 16th and 20th, that's under construction. That project will wrap up likely in spring of next year for the final paving. Most of the improvements will be likely done this year, but just due to weather conditions, I can likely see the final paving of that early next year. right now we've completed the water line which was another partnership with Highline Water District and next week we'll be starting the joint utility trench for more utility work priority 9 the neighborhood traffic calming program so this was a formal project formal program that was adopted last year and we brought a contract to Council I believe late last year for construction of a pilot program for some speed bumps throughout the city. Those are in five locations, and I'm happy to say that the first one will be constructed next Monday is the start of those. So you'll see that going on in the next couple weeks as well. Priority 12 is the 24th Avenue improvement project. This is the next segment of the 24th Avenue improvements. and which we received a $5 million grant from WSDOT. The design of that will be likely bringing that to the council later this year. So some revisions from previous years. These first three projects have all been completed over the last year. The 24th Avenue improvements project, sound transit light rail, and the WSDOT SR 509 gateway and 216th bridge. The other proposed revisions is to create a new project for the Marine View Drive downtown corridor, which would revitalize the downtown corridor. I've mentioned in what I brought forth this project at the Committee of the Whole that we are likely going to be in some discussions with WSDOT to turn over the Marine View Drive downtown corridor to basically city ownership for maintenance in the future. So I think this would position us well to have a improvement project that we can use for negotiation purposes at least. So last December, staff was also directed to investigate including a last mile project into the TIP. So we've brought forward that as a priority 23 for last mile transit service. And really it's to improve the last mile services within the southern portion of the city. There are some limited areas which are beyond one mile by road to existing transit routes, which you can see in the red highlighted portions, kind of on the south end of the city. And so that's why we've included it in this year's TIP update. Regardless, we will continue to promote the existing King County Metro and Sound Transit options. And that concludes my presentation, and I've left you with the motion.

Thank you. Now it's time for public comment portion of this public hearing. We'll ask you to keep your comments respectful. Did anyone sign up? No, she says. Great. Is there anyone who didn't sign up who wishes to speak? Second call, is there anyone who didn't sign up who wishes to speak? The third and final call, is there anyone who didn't sign up who wishes to speak? All right. Now it is time for your council questions. Council, do you have any questions? Questions only, please. We'll start with Councilmember Harris.

Thank you, as always. As Dan used to say, I ought to be good at it by now. I've done it four times. This is a real question. The city uses the term in capitalized complete streets. That has a formal definition, I assume, that I can look up. In other words, if I see complete streets, I should know what that means.

Typically, that would include curb, gutter, sidewalk, any multimodal uses. Yes.

Like a bike path?

Yes.

Are bike paths, again, another idiot question, is there anything precluding bike paths on both sides of a street? Like is there a certain type of road where you can?

So really, we would go, typically we'd go back to our comprehensive transportation plan. And in that plan, which... We updated a few years ago now. It's probably due for another update. But in that document, we would identify routes that would be future bicycle routes. So that way, we kind of have a plan for a priority bicycle network. So when we do do improvements on those streets in the future, we already know that, yes, this is a route that would have bicycle lanes.

No, I just meant like just Is there any formal thing where, like, a road that is just a two-lane thing shall have a bike? Because I'm just always struck by how a bike path will be on one side of the street for a couple of blocks, and then it just kind of goes over there, and then it turns this way. And it doesn't look like there's any sort of coherence to it sometimes. So I was just asking if there's sort of a formal protocol to that at this point.

A lot of that typically goes back to frontage improvements with developments. And so you may have a development where they were required to build up to the current standard. And the current standard may show a bicycle lane in front of their frontage, so they would put in place those improvements. Whereas down the street, that parcel has not developed, and so those frontage improvements don't exist.

Okay, so this is something we could, a council could consider, just sort of having some kind of standard for.

Yeah, and we have all that in our street standards.

Okay, you do?

Yes.

Okay, good, I will ask you about it offline, thank you.

Councilmember Simons.

Yeah, Tommy, good list. I do appreciate the addition of downtown in your strategy with that. I think that's a great idea. Probably a decade or more ago, the council got pretty proud of themselves because they had finally built in regular repaving of the streets. Is that something that would fit in the TIP, or is it just a budgetary issue to be addressed as we can?

So that is number one in our TIP currently. is our annual payment program and it is funded in our CIP on an annual basis of around I believe a million dollars. Sometimes we utilize those funds for other projects such as like our Barnes Creek Trail project. So we may not be doing necessarily a overlay project this year and honestly we don't have the staff resources to do that right now but we can put some of that paving money into those projects so that we can do more paving than we originally maybe anticipated.

I think it's always good to reiterate that's a real high priority to try to get that done, because I think it slips by. If you can do it in the Barnes Creek Trail, there's a significant part of the street that's being torn up. I am assuming that's where we might deploy some of those funds. Any plans on 16th? 16th.

What area of 16th?

The part south of the bridge over Saltwater State Park.

So that was paved about three years ago, basically from 250th to 260th with our paving fund.

Okay, maybe I'm confusing the street because it just got torn up for the pipe.

So yeah, from 240th to 250th, so north of the bridges, yes. So those... The funds that we used in partnership with Midway did come from the annual paving program.

Great. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Oxiger.

Yes, thank you for the presentation. Do we have any kind of time frame on the next segment of 24th?

The segment from 223rd to 216th? Yes. So, yes, that is the one that we received the $5 million grant for, and so we will be going to design, hopefully, by the end of this year.

Yes, but I mean, beyond that, as far as actually then proceeding to construction?

I would say that design and right-of-way acquisition would take about two years before we could get to construction.

Okay, and then if construction is anticipated to be... 28, 29?

ABOUT A TWO-YEAR PROCESS.

YEAH. OKAY. THANK YOU.

COUNCILMEMBER DESMOND.

THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION. I DID HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT PRIORITY NINE. THOSE WERE THE SLOW, I FORGOT THE LANGUAGE, I'M SORRY, SLOW ZONES, SLOW DOWN.

BRING IT UP.

TRAFFIC CALMING. THAT'S WHY I FORGOT IT.

YES.

I WAS WONDERING IF THOSE PLACES WERE CHOSEN KIND OF FROM THE PRESENTATION WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT, THE PLACES THAT SEEM WHERE THAT NEEDS TO BE more safer were those areas of places that were decided already?

Right. So those were really decided already. And as part of our traffic calming program, it's really a program that is based on community feedback. And so the locations that were picked on that were based on just input from the community. Our staff would go out there and do a traffic study of those areas, and then it would get ranked in a list. And so we basically chose those as the top five locations throughout the city.

And is the list somewhere, or is that a secret? Yes.

We can provide it to you. We've been featuring it in the last few city manager reports. OK, cool. Have you seen that? But I can also give you the full list.

OK, thanks.

All right, we will now close the public hearing. Is there a motion? Council Member Netting.

I move to approve draft, excuse me, draft resolution number 26-039, adopting the 2027 to 2046 Transportation Improvement Plan for the City of Des Moines.

I heard a second from Council Member Steinmetz. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving draft resolution number 226, or no, number 26-039, please raise your right hand and say aye until I call your name. No, just kidding. Just raise your right hand until I call your name. Deputy Mayor Oxiger, Deputy Mayor, or no, I'll just call everyone Deputy Mayor. Council Member Steinmetz, Council Member Harris, Council Member Des Moines, Council Member Nutting, Council Member Blass, and myself. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much Mr. Owen. All right now it's time for some new business. Number one usually and almost always are agenda items for consideration. New agenda items. This is a time for proposing new business items for discussion on a current or future or current no a future agenda. ANY RECOMMENDATION, WE'LL SIMPLY NEED A HAND RAISE OR A NOD FROM THREE COUNCIL MEMBERS. DO ANY COUNCIL MEMBERS HAVE NEW BUSINESS THEY WOULD LIKE TO PROPOSE? COUNCIL MEMBER HARRIS.

THANK YOU. I JUST, YOU KNOW, TALKING ABOUT WHAT WE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT, BUT I WOULD LIKE THE COUNCIL TO CONSIDER MR. GEORGE'S FINE MEMO TO THE CITY COUNCIL BE REDUCED DOWN TO ABOUT 50 WORDS AND PLACED ON THE CITY website I think the public just it would help the public understand the City's position and people obviously have deep concerns which I certainly share and yeah I just the statement that the City put out is formally great but it's a bit dense.

Councilmember Harris, I want to make sure you mean about the current zoning that doesn't allow detention centers or facilities. We did agree to that earlier in the meeting.

I'm just, the city manager asked me to raise this, and so I'm done.

But we are, in this meeting, we already said yes earlier.

You've shaken your head up and down, and okay, good, then go for it, yeah. Proposal.

OKAY, THANK YOU. LET'S MOVE ON TO COUNCIL MEMBER REPORTS, WHICH ARE LIMITED. OH, I'M SORRY, THAT'S NOT... OH, I'M SORRY.

OH, I'M SORRY, IT DOES SAY THAT.

TO MOVE INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION TO DISCUSS PENDING LITIGATION UNDER RCW 42.30.1101I FOR 25 MINUTES WHICH WILL TAKE US TO ABOUT LET'S DO ACTUALLY CAN WE ASK FOR A FIVE MINUTE ADDITIONAL BREAK OR BREAK BEFORE WE GO INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION Sure. Let's do 30 minutes total, and then we will come back here at 7.58. Thank you.

Question. Yes. We're doing council member reports afterwards. Yes.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. Returning back from executive session, no formal action will be taken on that. And now we're moving into our Councilmember reports, which are limited to four minutes. Let's start with Councilmember Nutting.

Thank you, Mayor. I have nothing to see me.

Councilmember Blass.

Thank you, Mayor. I have nothing to report this evening.

Council Member Simons.

Had a great time at opening of the voting season and had a good meeting with the city manager.

That's it. Council Member Harris.

Thank you. It's always, you know, I wish the public... Our comments and their comments are at the opposite ends and nobody sticks around. But I appreciate the people who show up to speak about the thing with ICE. I am fortunate enough to fit in, but when I first came to this country, I did not. And what is going on now is horrifying. And it comes off as flip to people who are not impacted. It's terrifying to me. And same thing with flock. Entitlement is basically like, hey, man, if you ain't done nothing wrong, you got nothing to worry about. That's entitlement, just by definition. A lot of times people will get 99% of the details right, but that don't mean they're concerns are not legit and I appreciate putting something straightforward on the website about that detention thing. I attended the last airport meeting and there's this thing called the Overton window in politics. It's just things move in a certain direction and even After you change, there's no going back. The city, I watched the last airport meeting, and people were still talking about a third runway usage agreement that never happened. And if you have to pay people to relearn things every two years or so, Of course you're going to screw up continuously. Cities that care about certain things, we don't make mistakes when it comes to land use and actual things we really care about. That tip thing, that's the magic wand. That should be in every department. And it is interesting to me that the state makes us do six-year magic wands for the departments that really matter to people. You have to have a plan for certain things, and the things you don't are things that you obviously do not care about. Regardless of what happens with the airport over the next couple of years, the best thing that could possibly happen would be to have some kind of system in place where people four or five years in the future don't have to reinvent the wheel, because what you're calling the SAMP is actually phase one. There's an LTP coming in 2032, and that's where the real fun begins. And we haven't even, we talk about it, this is just phase one. And that's about it for now, thanks.

Council Member Desmoni. I have nothing to report. Deputy Mayor Oxiger. nothing to report all right well thank you very much you all I wanted to highlight a couple of things that have come up recently one thank you to all the folks that were able to join us for my chat with the mayor I think it turned out to be breakfast with the mayor pizza with the mayor and pod tie with the mayor which I think was actually really fun I'm wondering if I should just do pizza at different locations throughout the city when we do this again perhaps in the fall or next time. It really was a very nice opportunity to have some more in-depth and personal conversations with residents about some of their concerns, and I want to say thanks to those restaurants, Alina's, Tandoori Slice, and Emerald Tie 2 for hosting us for those events, and thanks to Bonnie and others for helping me put those on. I really appreciate it. We have some really important issues that we'll talk about, some ribbon-cutting-type activities that are coming up in the future, including the reopening of the Redondo Pier. I'm sure you'll hear more about that coming up very soon, but please keep your eye out for celebrations around that coming up in mid-June. I had the privilege last night, and I know Councilmember Blass was there as well, to go attend the Des Moines Dollars for Scholars reception for scholarship awardees and recipients down at the Yacht Club. This is a program that is heavily supported by the Yacht Club First Mates, by Rotary, Recology of King County also sponsors a scholarship. SOME FAMILIES IN THE AREA, INCLUDING THE SNUR FAMILY, THE MILLHAUSLER FAMILY, AND SOME OTHER ORGANIZATIONS. Legacy Foundation, of course, as well as the city. We have a scholarship that we were able to award that is dedicated to Officer Steven J. Underwood. It's the Memorial Scholarship. And I want to say congratulations to Mirelia Diaz for her receiving that award. It was a really nice occasion to hear students talk about their plans for the future. folks who want to go into immigration law, folks who wanted to become pediatric nurses, folks who wanted to go into aeronautical engineering, and another student who I believe is studying abroad at Tokyo University in Japan. And it was just really an awesome opportunity to hear about their passion, all the activities that they are participating in in their local communities, and to see all the proud families that were there as well. So I'm hoping that we can continue to support regional scholarships like this and maybe even invite some students to come in and talk to us about it in the future. Thank you very much. We are at the end of our meeting. Our next meeting will be a regular city council meeting on May 21st, 2026. I am looking at Council Member Nutting for a motion to adjourn.

So moved, Mayor. Second.

All right. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion passes and we are adjourned. Thank you.