By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
David Kaplan’s got work to do. The second-term Des Moines city councilmember originally ran for office in 1997 because he saw a need for economic development and an intransigent council standing in the way. Today, his platform is based on those same issues, though with different circumstances.
“It’s a very difficult economic climate,” Kaplan told JTNews. “It’s horrible. There’s a lot of businesses that have closed just this year, and we anticipate that there’s going to be others before it all shakes out.”
This small city of about 29,000 (according to 2006 figures) and almost seven square miles has long had trouble attracting business development, Kaplan said, and one of his ongoing goals has been to make the town more business-friendly.
“The city’s at a crossroads and…we need to continue to make some progress in terms of [having a] business base in town if we’re able to sustain the services that the city’s currently providing,” Kaplan said.
Though he does see some of the city’s council unwilling to move forward, the majority, he believes, are in favor of doing what it takes to strengthen the Des Moines economy.
This next term, should he be reelected — he’s got two challengers for his seat — will be about addressing the city’s revenue streams and business base. Kaplan said that in its current state, since the passage of Initiative 695, Des Moines has been running off of one-time infusions into the budget. I-695 is the 10-year-old initiative that reduced the state’s motor vehicles excise tax to $30. While the initiative itself was declared unconstitutional, the gist of the bill was later passed into law by the legislature.
“There are no more one-time projects to bail our butt out,” Kaplan said. “We need to make the budget sustainable and we need to bring in revenue.”
Some of the ideas he said he is working on include development of about 90 acres of land purchased by the Port of Seattle when it developed the second runway at SeaTac Airport that have gotten “nibbles” from developers, he said, as well as sprucing up the limited number of commercial areas in the city.
“In the past we haven’t been able to take advantage of it, and we can’t afford to do that anymore,” he said.
The four-year gap in Kaplan’s council career came from a scandal that resulted in the resignation of the city’s appointed mayor Don Wasson in 2003. Wasson was alleged to have stacked the Des Moines council with candidates who would have been in favor of building SeaTac’s third runway, a position the city was firmly against. A developer who had hoped to create a conveyor system on the city’s waterfront to provide the runway’s infill was alleged to have given $1,000 to Wasson and $49,000 to the three candidates’ campaigns, which they narrowly won.
The total expenditures for all nine city council candidates in this year’s race was, as of Oct. 21, less than $17,000.
When the expenditures were not filed with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission, Kaplan said he filed a complaint that resulted in the investigation that led to Wasson’s resignation.
Kaplan won reelection in 2005, and he said the first two years of this term were spent fixing the issues that had been neglected during what had been a four-year stalemate.
Kaplan considers himself somewhat active in the Jewish community — he attends Bet Chaverim, his hometown synagogue, and has gone to events at Kol HaNeshamah in West Seattle. He is a contributor to the Federation campaign, and going back a ways, he says, “I belonged to ZBT back in school.”
Kaplan took his first trip to Israel about a year and a half ago.
“I was so inspired I wound up writing daily e-mails to myself, keeping track of what I did,” he said.
Upon his return, Kaplan turned those e-mails and his photos into a small book, which he gave to family and friends.
He is also one of between 15 and 20 openly gay officials that serve in Washington State. It’s a position he hopes to keep, for the sake of finishing a job he and his fellow council members have started.
“I’ve been blessed with two terms on the council and I’d like one more to be able to complete the changes the city needs to be able to survive in the long run,” Kaplan said.