Tacoma Urbanist

Jan. 11, 2012 at 12:18am

WATCH VIDEO: Anders Ibsen Being Sworn in to Tacoma City Council!

Godspeed Councilmember Ibsen in leading the City of Destiny at a critical time!

comments [2]

Dec. 28, 2011 at 12:01am

Today at 2:00: Anders Ibsen Sworn in as member of Tacoma City Council!

Changing of the guard in the City of Destiny

The ballots are counted and the election is complete and certified.

Today, Anders Ibsen will be sworn as the newest and youngest member of the Tacoma City Council. He will take the seat of Spiro Manthou in Tacoma City Council position #1 at a critical time in Tacoma's history.

When: Today Wednesday December 28th at 2:00 p.m.

Where: Clerk's Office: 2nd Floor of the Municipal Building 747 Market Street in downtown Tacoma.

Beverly Marie Ibsen and other VIPs likely to attend as well!

God Speed Anders!

comments [6]

Dec. 16, 2011 at 12:01am

Partial City of Tacoma Funding Solution #2: Sell off Swaths of City Owned Blighted Lots and Buildings

(from Tacomaness) "See all that green area downtown? That’s not an urban park system, it’s vacant land. That’s money spent in the 1950s and 50s on slum clearance. Back when the federal government was in the business of tearing down cities."

The City of Tacoma's land and building holding is immense. Every few years, it is listed in massive excel spreadsheet. Much of it is property that the City of Tacoma is holding onto is vacant and/or blighted. Some of it is being held as part of former city manager Eric Anderson's misguided effort to move city hall out to the outskirts of downtown in a suburban campus.

Some the vacant land is creating a massive dead zone around the edge of downtown.

The city should start vetting ALL of it's land holdings and if the property is not going to be used for a city purpose in the near future, sell it off.

There should be three categories:

1) Land and buildings to keep.

2) Land and buildings to sell but with restrictive building criteria

3) Land and buildings to be sold off to market with no criterial

Reducing the immense and unnecesarily large land holding would result in more land being placed on the tax rolls bring in revenue for the city.

Money would be made from the sale of the land and the land could be developed to add vibrancy to Tacoma. Both would add funds to the City of Tacoma's coffers. Especially around and above UWT where student housing is badly needed. Much of the housing shortage, blight, vacancy in the city is self imposed.

Selling off the unneeded land would result in win-win-win.

comments [28]

Dec. 14, 2011 at 10:14am

Miracle on Yakima Ave: Jackson Building Nearly Completed

The new look of the three sectioned apartment building on 25th and Yakima in downtown Tacoma on the edge of Hilltop. Much needed affordable market rate housing.

Tacoma Tacoma needs a few more hundred buildings like this in downtown (but taller) and the city might have a thriving downtown again.

Previously, Jackson Building Grinds to a halt.

comments [16]

Dec. 7, 2011 at 12:01am

Partial City of Tacoma Funding Solution : Tax Billboards!

While the City of Tacoma debates whether non-profit tickets should be taxed on struggling theaters and how many police and firefighters should be cut, the City of Tacoma seems to be missing a MAJOR source of revenue that 95 percent of Tacomans would support.

There are approximately 250 billboards in the City of Tacoma. If each billboard were taxed at $4,000 for each billboard, that would bring in $1,000,000 the first year and offset all of the proposed fees below:

Increasing yearly business licenses fees from $80 to $90 ($220,000).

Eliminating admission tax deductions on tickets to performances and other events hosted by nonprofit groups ($300,000).

Establishing a half-price annual business fee, starting at $40, for businesses with gross revenues under $10,000 ($200,000).

Increasing false alarm service fees from $60 to $100 ($156,000)

In March 1, 2012, 190 of the non-conforming billboard are (thankfully) supposed to be removed. The city would still receive 60 x $4000 = $240,000 per year each and every year.

In addition, the City of Tacoma could impose a "billboard blight fee" which would impose a $500 fine each and every time a billboard was permitted to be left in disrepair. Given the documented poor state of billboard maintenance in Tacoma, this fee could bring in hundreds of thousands of extra funds each year.

Why not?

comments [9]

Nov. 23, 2011 at 12:37am

What Combination of New "Revenues" and/or Budget Cuts Should Tacoma Make?

Today, the Tribune reports that multiple potential sources of new revenue are being considered to reduce the budget cuts in the budget.

Which new revenue sources (aka tax increased) should be implemented if any at all? Here they are:

1) Increasing red light camera ticket fines from $101 to $124 (to raise about $419,500).

2) Increasing yearly business licenses fees from $80 to $90 ($220,000).

3) Eliminating admission tax deductions on tickets to performances and other events hosted by nonprofit groups ($300,000).

4) Establishing a half-price annual business fee, starting at $40, for businesses with gross revenues under $10,000 ($200,000).

5) Increasing false alarm service fees from $60 to $100 ($156,000).

6) Establishing a $20 city car tab fee to pay for some transportation programs;

7) Eliminating business and occupation tax reductions long provided to health-care nonprofits;

8) Instituting a 1/10^th of one percent sales tax to partially subsidize some mental health and chemical dependency programs.

What other revenue sources or budget cuts should the Tacoma City Council make?

How about selling off some of the vacant (and some blighted) property that the City of Tacoma owns and placing it on the tax rolls?

comments [3]

Nov. 16, 2011 at 12:01am

City of Tacoma's "Rain Garden" as Part of the Pacific Avenue Streetscape Project Could Require $500,000 Removal Fee

Background:

The City of Tacoma's efforts to clean up downtown Tacoma and repair the sidewalks and curbs are good.

However, the ill advised plan to place a multiple suburban "rain gardens," also known as a ditches over the objection of local businesses and property owners as part of the Pacific Avenue Streetscape project will be detrimental for businesses downtown and could cost Tacoma taxpayers $500,000 to remove as one did in Ballard. See below.

This is a misguided effort for the city to be "green" by trying to inappropriately force a ditch on Tacoma's mainstreet where businesses are just lately moving in.

Seattle removes rain gardens in Ballard

Just a year ago, Seattle was promoting its roadside rain garden project in Ballard. Now, the city is spending half a million dollars to dismantle huge sections of it.

Some neighborhood residents say, despite good intentions, the whole thing has been a fiasco.

When you hear the phrase rain garden, you think of lovely, watery greenscapes that help save the planet by keeping dirty storm water out of Puget Sound.

Mark Early, who is with the group Sustainable Ballard, says thats exactly how Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) sold the street side rain garden project. Early says he thought it all sounded great. But, he says, the reality was a different story.

"What was actually installed, instead of looking like the photos we had seen, the rain gardens were just deep, muddy ditches, Early said.

Ditches, that he said, filled with rainwater and didnt drain at all.

They smelled, even in the winter, it was really quite surprising, Early said.

After great hue and cry from the neighbors, the city did more research. It found that the clay soil in Ballard is particularly hard.

It was a surprise to our people that the ground there in Ballard did not drain as well as we expected it to. For whatever reason it was like concrete,said Mike Egan, spokesman for Seattle Public Utilities.

You might think thats something that would have been discovered before more than a dozen gardens were installed. Egan says SPU did the same pre-installation investigation in Ballard that it had done in other areas of the city. In retrospect, he says, perhaps more testing should have been done.

At the time, the city was under a tight deadline. The $1.8 million dollar project for the roadside rain gardens in Ballard was one of those shovel ready projects that qualified for federal stimulus dollars.

Now, Seattle is spending $500,000 to remove one-third of the gardens. Some of the strips are being planted with grass. The other gardens are being revamped to avoid the muddy ditch problem.

But some residents, including Early, remain skeptical of the redesign.

Theyve just made them into attractive landscaping that doesnt hold hardly any water at all even though theyre going to be very expensive to put in,Early said.

What everyone agrees on is the need to better handle storm water pollution in the city. Ballard is a focus because it accounts for a majority of the overflows into Puget Sound.

comments [195]

Nov. 8, 2011 at 8:37pm

Tacoma Election Results

Anders Ibsen, David Boe, Lauren Walker and Ryan Mello lead City council races so far....many, many more votes to count!

Vialle and Heinze lead as well for Tacoma School District. Vialle has won, Heinz leads by 3 percent.

Next update 9:30 p.m.

comments [3]

Nov. 4, 2011 at 12:01am

TONIGHT ONLY: Joan Rivers at the Pantages Theater! Don't Miss it!

Now that Sykes and Cho have warmed up Tacoma, it is time for the MAIN EVENT:

Weekly Volcano coverage:

Since her days on The Tonight Show in the 1970s, Joan Rivers has been a comedic icon. Now 78, Rivers, as captured in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (last year's film documentary about her life) seems to fear just one thing: a blank calendar. Co-host of E! Entertainment TV's Fashion Police, she also stars with her daughter, Melissa, on their reality show Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? - which has been renewed for its second season on WE network starting in January. When not lambasting celebs for their sartorial mishaps or videotaping Melissa in the shower, Rivers travels the country performing stand-up. Ahead of her gig Nov. 4 at the Pantages, Rivers dished with the Weekly Volcano.

WEEKLY VOLCANO: Joan, lots of people in Tacoma have tattoos. Do you think tattoos are sexy?

JOAN RIVERS: Tattoos are no longer a sign you are low class, just a sign you are an idiot. Then again, I work with Kelly (Osbourne), who has tattoos. But what about in 10 years when you start to fade and sag? Melissa has a tiny bumblebee (tattoo). (The name) Melissa comes from the word honeybee in Greek; she has a blue bee because of her name and Cooper (her son).