[image] trees

Join together with Tahoma Bird Alliance (formerly Tahoma Audubon) to give nature its best hope. Tahoma Bird Alliances offering free bare root native trees to the Pierce County community. Native trees are important for better health, water conservation, soil enrichment and provides a home, food and shelter for all native wildlife.

Go to https://tacomaweekly.com/free-trees-for-the-pierce-county-community-p7076-117.htm

A video with instructions for planting the trees is on the same site. You can pick up your trees at Adrianna Hess Wetland Park, 2917 Morrison Rd. W, University Place, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. March 13-16. Written planting instructions will be included with the trees. All you need to plant the tree are a shovel, some mulch and water. Please help improve Tacoma’s tree canopy and native habitat.

News Source: Tacoma Weekly

The City Council has approved Resolution 41371, introducing the Proctor Neighborhood Plan in Tacoma, Washington. This plan is a long-term strategy to implement community priorities and city policies to improve the Proctor District. Deputy Mayor John Hines, also the Council Member for District 1, expressed his support for the plan and acknowledged the City staff's efforts.

The Proctor Neighborhood Plan was created with input from residents, businesses, and community organizations. It outlines five main goals: Pedestrian Safety, Human-Scale Design, Community Space, Sustainability, and Affordable Housing. The plan was developed through 1,800 community engagements, including public events and online surveys.

During the planning process, 700 community members voted for their top priorities, including a tree replacement project and a summer event series. Planning for these projects is ongoing, with local residents and organizations involved.

The plan aligns with the City's 2025 Strategic Priorities and the One Tacoma Comprehensive Plan. It aims to improve livability, enhance civic engagement, promote equity and accessibility, and support economic growth. With the plan's approval, staff will work with the community to identify resources and implement the recommended goals over the next two to three years.

Residents can monitor the plan's progress at cityoftacoma.org/ProctorNP. The Proctor Neighborhood Plan is a significant step towards preserving the neighborhood's character while encouraging positive change.

Click here for more details

[image] eviction

Due to a staff shortage in the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, writs of restitution in Pierce County are facing a significant delay in processing. As of February 16, the Sheriff’s Office has unprocessed writs that go back to January 24th.

This delay has occurred as a result of understaffing in the Sheriff's Office, as two support staff have left their positions at the beginning of the year and only one Legal Assistant continues to process writs at the office. The Sheriff's Office anticipates bringing on new support staff team members in March.

As of February 16th, the Legal Assistant at the Pierce County Sheriff's Office said that she "can't even guess" when the Sheriff's Office will be able to address the backlog of writs. The recently passed Tacoma Landlord Fairness Code allows for a cold weather defense to evictions that protects most residents of rental housing from eviction between the dates of November 1st and April 1st. The Sheriff's Office is expected to receive hundreds of new writs once the cold weather eviction protections end on April 1st. When asked if the Sheriff's Office had a plan to deal with the influx of writs coming down the pipeline, the Legal Assistant admitted that the office did not have a plan to address all the new writs.

Landlords in Pierce County should expect significant delays in processing of new and pending writs in the coming months.

[image] DoNR

The Washington State Department of Natural Resources has allocated over $8 million for tree planting in various communities. This funding is part of the agency's largest Urban and Community Forestry Grant Program, benefiting over 40 communities from Seattle to Spokane. The grant amount is significantly larger than the previous single-year record of $550,000 and nearly triples the total grants awarded by the department for similar projects since 2008.

Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz highlighted the need for tree equity, especially in lower-income and communities of color. These areas often have less greenery and more concrete. Franz emphasized the need for adequate tree canopy in all neighborhoods, citing benefits such as improved air quality, shade provision, and enhanced quality of life. She noted that areas with sufficient tree canopy can be cooler by up to 14 degrees during heatwaves, which is beneficial.

The department received 122 applications, requesting over $23.5 million in funding. More than half of these applications were from areas with poor environmental health and low tree equity. Due to the high demand, the department added an extra $1 million from the Climate Commitment fund to the grant program, increasing its total contribution to $3 million. The department received the remaining $5 million from the USDA Forest Service in 2023.

The emphasis on equity and environmental justice in the grant applications indicates a change in Washington's approach to urban and community forestry. In 2019, the department received only one equity-focused grant application. This year, over 65 applications focused on equity and environmental justice. All 122 applicants will be invited to join the Washington Tree Equity Collaborative, a partnership with American Forests.

The grant funds will support projects across the state. Five projects in Tacoma will receive over $1.3 million to improve tree equity and enhance urban tree canopy. Currently, Tacoma neighborhoods have an average tree canopy coverage of about 20 percent. Lowell Wyse, executive director of the Tacoma Tree Foundation, expressed appreciation for the recognition of urban forestry as an important environmental justice issue and the allocation of resources to communities most in need of trees.

By Aardë Writes 

Last night, small business owners in downtown Tacoma's Theatre District gathered as they discussed the safety and profitability of their community. They welcomed each other warmly in the beautiful space. I picked the ghost pepper cider to keep me alert as the meeting opened.

The host reminded the attendees that the focus for the night was to create a clear list of asks and trackable action items to request from the City.

First up was the ongoing issue of broken storefront windows. A long-standing brick-and-mortar owner mentioned the already-in-place "broken window program," where Spaceworks coordinates small business owners with local artists, who then create murals on the boards replacing storefront windows.

"As lovely as art is," she points out, "it fails to reflect the replacement cost, visibility issues, and lack of consequences of property crime."

She then referred to a conversation where a city representative cheekily rebranded the broken storefront windows as "The new graffiti," causing a distasteful uproar within the group. She mentioned the high cost of replacing the large sheet glass and her recent decision to restructure the building's framing to encase smaller windows, which are more cost-effective to replace continually.

Another business owner rhetorically asked the group if the City believes that dealing with drug-induced mental illness raging the district is equal to handling 'graffiti' and how they can reduce both issues to unenforceable petty property crimes, and then walk away from the business owners?

Another long-standing businesss owner joined the conversation by stating that she had been sharing her parking stall with a tent for the last couple of days and laughed ironically that the city attendants will not enforce the 'no camping ban' in public parking spaces but are not hesitant to write an infraction if parked 1 minute over the 2-hour parking limit.

A newer business owner lamented over the third time his employee's tip jar was blatantly stolen in broad daylight. He recounted his phone call to the police, which resulted in zero police presence and a directive to file a report online, which was a disservice as the event took place in a full restaurant with willing eyewitnesses to report. "This phone call is my report. I've done everything I'm supposed to do. What happens now? How do I follow up? Where does the thumb drive of my security tapes go? Does anyone look at them? Nothing happens," he concluded.

Another owner asked, "How do we enforce the Theatre District as a drug-free zone?" and continues to express his frustration about being unable to allow his young daughter to walk into their family business due to human feces leading to their doorstep, more often than not.

Another business owner with properties in Olympia and Tacoma shared that his Olympia property has a recurring issue with fire damage, and his Tacoma property faces broken windows. "When I called 911, they asked if it was due to a homeless camp and if it had caused $1500 or more in damages; I told them I wasn't an expert and that they should send someone out to determine that."

"Why are our struggling entrepreneurs doing the police detective work?" he asked.

He admitted to spending over $200k securing his properties, including concertina wire. "It's as if we are in a lawless state," one member says.

The conversation pivots from broken glass to a broken system. A flurry of voices; "There is no room in the jails," “The police are understaffed," "No one wants the job of cop or jailer," and "Out of 375 officers, only four are assigned to the downtown districts", "Are any of them trained in mental health?"

"Who else can we call?" "Why does the City elude scarcity while it openly wastes resources, like sending multiple fire trucks to a trespasser call from the North End?" comes from a man sitting on the couch. "Pushing these people to the margins is not solving the problem; it's just pushing the can down the road," a business owner said.

"Why are these people treated as liabilities and not humans?" comes from another.

One member trails off about speaking with a Tacoma officer who stated, "I can't lasso them up; this isn't Yellowstone." A tapping of the cider glass and the room settles.

The host goes over the additional options available, such as BIA patrol (Business Improvement Area - paid for with implicit business taxes), HOPE (Holistic Outreach Promoting Engagement - whose office is 'only' open Tuesday-Thursday from 2-5 pm), HEAL (Homeless Engagement Alternatives Liason - a public/private partnership with the City to be fully rolled out by the end of this year containing a liaison of 14 people who approach and offer resources, such as housing, food, and other help to those in need.)

The attendee's distress over how these departments seem to work in a silo, with no collaboration; it's like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing; "It's not enough."

She then redirected the discussion back to highlighting the critical "erosion of our norms" - the City's acceptance of petty crime, the lack of consequences for open drug use, and damage & theft to our community's small business owners. Questions erupt: "How do we pressure the City to show that they care about the success of a barely thriving entertainment district?"

"How do we get the City to show that they care about the SOTA (School of the Arts) high school students who have to walk past, over, and around multiple safety hazards every few feet to get to and from class?" “There has to be an intermediate place for our compassion to exist," states an attendee.

“We have an adversarial social institution where our community members have a common goal of finding a solution that benefits everyone, yes, including the ones causing the riff-raff, yet it's met with the passing of the baton." says another.

The jails are full or understaffed; the hospitals can't handle the influx of drug abuse and violence. The City finds itself mired in the complexities of financial procedures, the slow political decision-making processes, and bureaucratic red tape to gain much-needed state funding while the businesses flounder. The City says they support small businesses but don't step in to help them succeed. "They give you a $5k grant with a $100k bootstrap", a frustrating anecdote someone offered.

Another attendee then shared a recent experience at the City building, where he had to step over human feces in the City building's doorway, only to be met by the City Council member, who had been escorted by security, to express his deep concerns within the echo chamber of the lobby. The group collectively agrees that the City's inability to clean up human feces on their doorstep raises concerns about their ability to clean further down the block, which happens to house a small convenience store business.

This establishment has met all of the requirements necessary for the revocation of its business license, including an employee complicit in two murders, evident prostitution, open-air hard drug use, and extensive property damage.

Speculation abounds that the City is suspect of allowing the business to remain active due to a potential sale of its building, disregarding the rollover of the business's lease to occupy. The meeting concluded with a return to the action items - qualitative questions that the Theatre District business owners demand their elected city officials answer, such as: "How much money do they allocate for mental health services?" "What is your vision of our district, and how will you attain it?"

One is left to ask, where is the City's compassion for this profoundly systemic issue affecting the shopkeepers, visitors, customers, residents, students, and homeless community? Someone stated that the City Charter is due for review every ten years, and luckily, we are in the tenth year.

The meeting adjourned just as my ghost pepper cider went dry. It was delicious!

By Samantha Wohlfeil | INLANDER

Until this week, Washington lawmakers were considering a groundbreaking bill that would've capped annual rent increases and added a slew of other tenant protections to address housing instability across the state.

Now, that bill is dead, after the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which counts among its members state Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, decided not to take action on it on Monday, Feb. 26.

Under Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2114, rent could not be increased by more than 7% in any 12-month period, and landlords would need to give tenants a 180-day notice of any rent increase of 3% or more. Smaller rent increases would still require the current 60-day notice.

The bill would've also capped the combination of move-in fees and deposit to no more than one month's rent, restricted late fees to no more than 1.5% of the monthly rent, and prevented landlords from charging higher rent for tenants to be on a month-to-month agreement instead of a longer term lease.

The new rules would not have applied to newer units that got their occupancy within the last 10 years or to housing provided by nonprofits or public housing authorities.

The bill passed the House 54-43 (with one lawmaker excused).

On Monday night, state Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, who was one of more than two dozen sponsors for the bill in the House, said that nothing is ever totally "dead," until the end of session, but it would take a highly unlikely procedural vote to get the bill heard on the Senate floor before the session ends on March 7. As the former House Democrats majority whip, he says the fact that the bill didn't make it through committee in the Senate means the votes clearly weren't there.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

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Dockyard Roller Derby soon will no longer have a place to practice. They are in search of a new space. If you know of a place that the team can practice at temporarily or even long term, e-mail them: dyddadmn@gmail.com. Despite losing Skate World, we still have bouts coming up on March 23rd and May 4th at Pierce College.

The league has been around for 20 years. The League was founded in 2005, as Dockyard Derby Dames, and is a fully functional skater-run, non-profit organization. Skate World closes at the end of March and the League currently doesn’t have anywhere lined up to practice. They are looking all over Pierce County for an 8,000 square foot space that is derby friendly and affordable – and the fear is that if they don’t find something soon it could be the end of their league.

Meg for Mercy said, “A lot of derby leagues have been struggling for space.”

“Much like other leagues, we’re really scrambling to find a new space. Losing this space isn’t just about our roller derby league, it’s about everybody, it’s about community.”

Skate World is closing based on a decision by the landlords to not extend the lease, citing a desire to reclaim the space for a personal business venture of one of the property owners.

Keep an eye on their social media pages for more information about those.