07/24/2026
Once again, I'm learning about a major City decision from a news article instead of through direct communication.
That shouldn't be normal.
As a City Council Member, I don't expect to agree with every decision made by the Mayor or the City Manager. But I do expect that significant actions affecting our city are communicated to the full Council before they become headlines.
What makes this especially frustrating is that I was told we needed to address the use of one-time dollars to fund ongoing programs. That's a legitimate budget conversation. What I was *not* told was that those ongoing programs included homeless shelters that hundreds of people rely on.
Those are two very different conversations.
I do not support balancing our budget by reducing shelter capacity. If one-time funding is ending, the question shouldn't simply be, "What do we cut?" It should be, "Why didn't these investments reduce the underlying need, and what proven strategies should we be funding instead?" We should be investing in approaches that actually reduce homelessness over time, not accepting recurring crises as inevitable.
I also voted **yes** on the 0.1% Public Safety, Criminal Justice Sales and Use Tax because I believed it was an opportunity to implement a modern, comprehensive approach to public safety, one that invests not only in emergency response, but also in prevention, diversion, behavioral health, housing stability, and the community-based strategies that stop crises before they happen.
That vote was not an endorsement of business as usual.
Before we continue pouring more money into existing systems, we should be asking whether all of our City services are structured to address today's challenges in the most effective way possible. That includes our Police Department. If the proposed use of these new revenues is weighted primarily toward traditional policing, then we owe the public a clear explanation of how that aligns with the vision presented when this measure was approved, and whether we're making the transformational investments our community was promised.
Transparency matters. Council Members can't effectively represent our constituents if we're learning about major decisions after they've already been announced publicly.
And if major decisions are going to be announced publicly before they're shared with the Council, then the public should also expect to hear my perspective publicly. Transparency shouldn't flow only one way.
Tacoma could scale back homeless services amid $40M deficit, officials say
