Good place to live gets even better

When Job Carr, Tacoma’s first white settler, postmaster and mayor, built a tiny cabin in 1865 near the shore of Commencement Bay at what is now Old Town, he had at least two things in mind.

First, he thought there was a good chance the Northern Pacific Railroad would built its western terminus near Commencement Bay. He thought a city would eventually prosper there.

Second, Carr, like many others, saw an abundance of timber, fish and clean, flowing water. Both the land and Puget Sound itself were rich with opportunity.

To Carr and other pioneers, “quality of life” meant the chance to prosper, to improve their fortunes, raise families, start businesses and build a city.

The newspapers that eventually sprang up in the growing town had the same view. They were champions of growth and prosperity. They hailed everything that propelled Tacoma’s development as a city, and lamented every fault that held the city back.

Now in its 125th year, The News Tribune still has a similar purpose. The newspaper believes part of its mission is to use news coverage and its editorial bully pulpit to help improve the quality of life in Tacoma and Pierce County.

“Quality of life” hasn’t always meant the same things over the years. Early in Tacoma’s history, few quality-of-life issues mattered more than paved streets and electricity.

By 1890, Tacoma looked like a city of some substance, with a “downtown” of stores, offices, banks, hotels and saloons. But the streets, more often than not, were rivers of mud.

The pathetic condition of Tacoma’s streets was a top civic concern. A few years earlier, the City Council had part of Pacific Avenue planked, but “skunk cabbage grew in the moist soil” of that major artery, reported the Tacoma Daily Ledger, a forerunner of The News Tribune.

“It was great entertainment to watch pedestrians hop, skip and jump from one piece of treacherous and shifting driftwood to another in the sea of mud,” The Ledger said on another occasion.

Nothing, leaders and residents agreed, would do more to improve life in Tacoma and attract new inhabitants than building decent streets. Newspaper articles and editorials were full of complaints and sarcasm on the subject.

The city experimented with wooden paving blocks, but they didn’t last. Cobblestones made of Wilkeson sandstone were laid in some places, but it was hard to find skilled labor to do the work.

Then reports of “bituminous macadam” – coal tar or asphalt – reached Tacoma from the East. The stuff was a godsend. It was largely impervious to the weather. Soon “Warren’s Bit Mac” and similar asphalt paving covered many of Tacoma’s streets.

Durable, well-paved streets did wonders for the city’s quality of life. But the tradition of griping about the state of Tacoma’s streets continues, as today’s readers of The News Tribune know well.

The arrival of electric power was another milestone in the city’s growth, and this newspaper played a crucial role in that development as well.

The first power plants were built to serve booming lumber mills, which could then operate around the clock for the first time. The first home was lit with electricity in 1890, after Charles B. Wright, the Northern Pacific Railroad baron, had formed the Tacoma Light & Water Co. and provided the first streetlighting.

But soon residents and civic leaders were unhappy with both water and electrical service. A huge civic battle ensued over whether the city should buy Wright’s company. Proponents of publicly owned utilities were called communists. Opponents were called shills for greedy capitalists.

The city’s newspapers split on the question. The Tribune, a direct forebear of The News Tribune, backed public ownership. In 1893, citizens voted by a slim majority to allow the city to purchase Tacoma Light & Water for $1.75 million.

The city got suckered on the deal. Wright was accused of fraud; his estate eventually settled with the city for a fraction of the purchase price. But the foundation was laid for Tacoma Public Utilities, which by any reckoning is now a success.

Echoes of that epic battle over public power still resonate. In 1997, the Tacoma City Council had to decide whether to let TPU “wire” the city with an advanced fiber-optic network. It meant the city start a cable TV operation competing with a powerful but unpopular private cable monopoly.

The News Tribune editorially backed the move. With popular support, the council plunged ahead, getting Tacoma in on the ground floor of the Internet revolution.

In recent years, The News Tribune’s news coverage and editorial priorities have focused on “quality of life” in a different sense. Instead of embracing growth and development whatever the cost, the newspaper has championed progressive land-use regulation, or “smart growth.”

The newspaper’s reporting on the abuses of Pierce County’s “anything goes” general zoning led county officials to adopt the county’s first comprehensive land-use plan. When voters subsequently repealed the plan, The News Tribune kept banging away at the issue. When legislators passed the state’s landmark Growth Management Act – requiring populous counties to adopt land-use plans – Pierce County’s reputation as a “poster child” for uncontrolled sprawl played no small part.

Similarly, The News Tribune rarely misses an opportunity to promote acquisition of land for open space and parks, essential amenities of healthy communities. The News Tribune’s reporting and editorials helped defeat a referendum aimed at killing the Foothills Trail in the Orting Valley. Today the trail is a popular recreational asset.

More recently, The News Tribune backed Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg’s controversial bid to build a championship-caliber links-style golf course on a county-owned gravel pit near Chambers Creek in University Place.

Opponents focused on the expensive greens fees, calling the course an exclusive playpen for affluent golfers. This editorial board focused on the public recreational benefits of the course: three miles of trails, parks and picnic areas and, eventually, access to two miles of unspoiled Puget Sound shoreline.

We believe the Chambers Bay Golf Course will one day be regarded as an act of civic foresight on a par with the vision of the early leaders who created Tacoma’s magnificent Point Defiance Park.

People of good will can disagree on civic issues. The News Tribune makes no claim to infallibility. It makes a point of publishing debate in its opinion pages. But watching out for the public interest and protecting all the things that make the South Sound a great place to live will remain one of our core values.

Editorials represent the opinion of The News Tribune editorial board. Members include David Zeeck, executive editor and vice president for news; David Seago, editorial page editor; Patrick O’Callahan, chief editorial writer; and Cheryl Tucker and Kim Bradford, editorial writers.