City of Tacoma

There are six people running to be the next mayor of Tacoma. On Aug. 5, voters will decide which candidates will advance to the general election. Ahead of the August primary election, Tacomans had a chance to hear from five of those mayoral candidates. Community groups including Tacoma For All, Common Good Tacoma, the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367 held a forum for candidates running to be the city’s next mayor. All candidates except Tom Ginn participated in the forum.

The Tacoma City Council adopted its next two-year budget, after months of working with city staff to balance for a predicted $24 million structural deficit.

As the city of Tacoma works to manage its $24 million budget deficit, council members have been making decisions on what to cut. At Tuesday’s council meeting, the electeds considered two amendments. The first amendment was brought forward by Council member Jamika Scott, who worked in collaboration with Council member Joe Bushnell to find a way to protect the city’s cash reserve. The initial proposed budget would have used the city’s over $8 million reserve to make up for the shortfall. That’s money the city can use to pay overtime costs for police and fire, fund shelter beds and other emergent costs.

The City of Tacoma has a budget problem; its expenses are higher than its revenue. That means the city has a projected structural deficit of $24 million for the 2025-26 biennial budget.Staff and city council members have been working to balance that, and one thing they’re proposing cutting has a lot of community members upset.

The next phase of Tacoma’s attempts to address housing shortages will soon be implemented, as the Tacoma City Council has voted unanimously to adopt the second phase of the Home in Tacoma zoning package.The package of changes to city zoning standards aims to create more opportunities for different types of housing across the city, including by allowing more units to be developed on a standard city lot.

In season four, episode 19 of the sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” actor Bradley Whitford plays a city council member in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Whitford tells Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, “City council isn't about making everyone happy. In fact, every decision you make is going to make a lot of people very unhappy.” Right now, the Tacoma City Council is considering a set of planning commission recommendations under the second phase of Home in Tacoma, the housing action strategy the city has been implementing over the last few years.

This weekend, big service changes will go into effect for Pierce County’s public transportation system. While Pierce Transit makes service changes throughout the year, Rebecca Japhet, who handles communications for the public transit operator, said these service changes are the biggest the company has made in seven years.

Since Tacoma voters approved a ballot initiative that introduces new regulations called the Landlord Fairness Code to the Tacoma Municipal Code, there’s been a lot of questions about the initiative. The City of Tacoma has answered some about the process and what happens next. The Landlord Fairness Code was adopted into the Tacoma Municipal Code and is a city law as of Dec. 8. City Manager Elizabeth Pauli reiterated this in a study session of the city council on Dec. 5.

After Tuesday night’s general election, Tacoma’s Citizens’ Initiative Measure No. 1 was failing by a slight margin.Still, the mood at Real Art Tacoma, where supporters of Measure 1 and City Council candidate Jamika Scott gathered Tuesday night was electric.

The City of Tacoma is facing a gap in funding, a gap equal to paying for 307 beds in emergency shelters set up across Tacoma.Tacoma and other area municipalities have recently enacted restrictions or bans on homeless encampments.