Tacoma City Council

Tacoma has joined a number of Washington cities and at least one county in a growing movement to make enforcing activities related to the use of psychoactive substances, such as psilocybin mushrooms, a lower priority for law enforcement.On Tuesday, the Tacoma City Council unanimously passed a resolution to lower enforcement priorities for entheogen-related activities. Entheogen has become the preferred term for chemicals that are psychoactive drugs. These have impacts on people’s consciousness, according to Science Direct.

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 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.

Twenty-five years ago, the Olympic Pipeline ruptured in Bellingham, Washington, killing three people. In the aftermath, Washington state created its Citizens' Committee on Pipeline Safety, meant to advise on regulation to keep communities around pipelines safer.The committee still functions today, but Amanda McKay, who serves on it, said that increased interest and awareness of pipeline safety issues in the early 2000s has now fallen. Groups that advocate for pipeline safety and regulations, like her’s, want to change that.

Since early Monday morning, hundreds of protestors have been blocking the three road entrances into the Port of Tacoma in an attempt to stop workers from loading a United States military supply vessel, the Cape Orlando, with weapons and military equipment.

With the deadline looming to secure enough signatures to get their initiative on the ballot, volunteers with Tacoma For All canvassed across Tacoma Friday.Zev Cook, field manager for the campaign, led a group of eight volunteers in the late afternoon around a South Tacoma neighborhood.

Organizers from the housing justice group Tacoma For All and their supporters gathered with signs and megaphones Thursday afternoon to show their support of the initiative, known colloquially as a tenant bill of rights, which Tacoma For All hopes to get on the ballot for voters this fall.The rally took place before a meeting of the city’s Community Vitality and Safety Committee, where city councilmembers Catherine Ushka, Keith Blocker, Sarah Rumbaugh, and Kiara Daniels were briefed on the city’s proposed changes to the Rental Housing Code.

The Tacoma City Council passed an ordinance to ban camping within 10 blocks of emergency shelters in the city.Zev Cook, a staff organizer with Home in Tacoma For All, says they’ll be taking the city to court over the ordinance.