By Stephanie Smith

The school sat abandoned for over a decade with frequent calls for police and fire response and neighbors voiced frustrations with Tacoma School District's nuisance property. Neighbors around Gault Middle School have been frustrated for over a decade and the frustration only gets worse as the building burned for days with very little communication about how to handle the smoke.

City Council Member Catherine Ushka shares her neighbors' frustrations and concerns, particularly around the communication regarding smoke that settled in the Dometop and surrounding neighborhoods.

Ushka is working with the City Manager's office and meeting with Tacoma Public Schools to discuss the smoke being an issue in people's homes for such a long time with no one really saying anything. Her priority is more regular communication across the board. Seeing neighbor’s struggles and some of the posts and comments on Facebook with not enough being said from the city departments to citizens was difficult for her to bear.

Dometop Neighbors Vice Chair Tara Scheidt echoed that some neighbors did feel abandoned throughout the week, with Ushka being a lone voice reaching out from the city trying to provide information and get communication. It was a comfort that she could easily get a hold of Catherine Ushka for her support and assistance.

Tacoma Fire Chief Tory Green recognized and personally apologized for the lack of communication and that the Fire Department fell short of expectations. Instead of talking at the group, he opened up for questions letting the neighbor's concerns guide his information.

The first concern voiced was by Chair Lynnette Scheidt who wanted more information on the smoke from the fire, that many neighbors were having breathing issues and headaches. One woman living near the school passed away, and her heart condition was likely affected by the smoke. Another neighbor was worried, and called the Scheidts for help when his breathing issues worsened, and he ended up in the emergency room. The neighbors talked of headaches, and difficulty breathing, and the smoke seemed stronger in some homes than it was outside.

“All smoke is bad…All fire smoke, whether it's from Gault fire or any house fire is bad. It’s all bad. It’s all chemicals. It’s all stuff you should not be breathing in. It will give you headaches. It will make you sick. It will make you short of breath and it could kill you.”  – Tory Green, Tacoma Fire Department Chief.

The presence of asbestos in the building wasn’t the main issue, in this case. The bigger and more unusual problem lay in the settling of the smoke over the neighborhood for an extended period. This was not quickly noticed by on-scene personnel. Chief Green has two important messages.

First, he wants people to subscribe to Tacoma Alerts so you can be notified if there is an emergency in your area. Tacoma Alerts is a system is designed to reverse 911 call to landlines, unless you subscribe for alerts. So, subscribe today. Now. Like, right now. I can wait…

https://www.cityoftacoma.org/government/city_departments/fire/emergency_management/tacoma_s_emergency_notification_system

Done? Good.

Second, Chief Green says if people feel like they are not getting heard or the response they need he would like direct contact. Reach out to him at 253-973-0088 so he can make sure people are getting the information and the help that they need. In the future, the department will send out a notification if a fire is going to burn for a long period and provide updates.

Ushka was visibly upset and frustrated that there was not sufficient communication from the various departments in the City. After hearing that there was a system available to alert residents she was concerned that it hadn’t been used enough and that community wasn’t aware of the Alert.

“Hurts my heart to watch my community suffer over a week and to reach out and think that something is going to happen because as a Council Member when you hear that people are being informed you anticipate action on the other end. I wasn’t even aware that you sent out that alert.” Council member Catherine Ushka.

Ushka was hearing and seeing comments from neighbors that departments were more concerned about staying in their lane and whose job it was, rather than getting the information out. Being unaware of the alert and the fact that she was on the phone all week trying to get communication, all while having just gotten out of the hospital, you could see and hear her frustration.

This might seem, from the outside, like a comedy of errors but in this case, with deadly consequences. Multiple disconnects and broken loops of communication, with one department passing the responsibility to another whose response was basically “Why are you asking us?”. The bottom line is that some response is better than none and the neighborhood was effectively ghosted by the City and departments they count on for guidance.

“The silence was really, really heartbreaking.” -Councilmember Ushka

Let’s hope that going forward the communication is better. It needs to be. Fire Chief Tory Green being there at the Dometop meeting to face the neighbors with Council Member Ushka was a good first step but, the Fire Department shouldn’t bear the full weight of the silence. Other departments and agencies need to step forward, acknowledge their responsibilities, and work more cohesively to communicate safety and health information with residents.

“Let’s figure this out.” Tara Scheidt, Vice Chair Dometop Neighbors

The Tacoma Town Center project, a $300-million project, has stalled once again. The reasons are typical: developers can’t get financing, that leads to delays, permits expired, liens, lawsuits and all the common issues. So what does that mean for the site, and in turn, for Downtown Tacoma?

Though the “Tacoma Town Center” moniker is branding. But maybe in Tacoma it is actually indicative of a desire to make the space operate like the experience of the name.

Ruben Casas points out some “city centers” that we could take a lesson from, Portland’s Pioneer Square, Spokane and Boise too.

READ MORE

[[image]] church

The queen and namesake of The Church Cantina, “Church,” has crossed over. She was a huge part of the family and what they named this business after. A recent post of Facebook explains, “We loved her so much. We found church on Halloween on 6th ave in 2012. She was almost 13 and lived longer then we were told when they found cancer in her arm and throat about a year ago. She lived her ultimate best life with us and we treated her like royalty because she was a luxurious princess. 👑 Rest easy lil’ kee. We will miss you so much 🌈 💔”

Show The Church Cantina some love by stopping by to make a toast in her honor.

5240 south Tacoma way, Tacoma, WA

Tacoma Police Department’s Internal Affairs investigation clearing officers Matthew Collins, Christopher Burbank and Timothy Rankine of most department violations the night Ellis died in their custody. All three officers agreed to resign Tuesday in exchange for $500,000 each.

Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards used the end of the last City Council meeting to address that changes will come to the Tacoma Police Department in the wake of the case.

Here’s what we know

From the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council:

The Tacoma Police Department now offers a vast collection of crime data that is open and available to the public. Spanning five years and growing, the Tacoma Police Crime Dashboard can compare and contrast data sets by various time periods, by neighborhood, by crime category, and much more. Updated each business day with new data, the dashboard can help you track trends and analyses almost in real-time.

Tacoma Police Dept. update from Lt. Malott (taking over for Lt. Katz): The TPD Homeless Outreach Team is finally reaching full next month. They will have 4 officers and a supervisor. For over a year they have running very short and that has added pressure on the CLOs who have essentially been doing 2 jobs. So we hope to get the CLOs back to their core function of addressing neighborhood and business complaints that are chronic in nature (i.e. problem house, etc).

Also, the department is hiring about 10 civilian staff who are limited commission to assist officers in lower-level calls for service. The Citizen Safety Officers (CSO) will be up and running in April. This will hopefully free officers up for higher priority calls for service and increase response times. Both the the HOT and CSO programs will be administered through Operations and Community Policing.

T/Lt Shawn Malott - Operations / Community Policing - South Sector Commander - SWAT / Hostage Negotiator Team Leader / CIT