Mayor of Tacoma outlines big plans for city
DEBBY ABE; Staff writer
Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland laid out an ambitious agenda Monday night for the City of Tacoma in 2011, starting with finishing projects the city already has under way.
In Tacoma’s first State of the City address in recent memory, Strickland told a crowd at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center that the city needs to support previous investments while pursuing new opportunities that build on Tacoma’s strengths.
Among the most high-profile tasks on the city’s to-do list that Strickland cited:
• Finish renovation, in time for the April opening, of Cheney Stadium, “home of the Pacific Coast League champion Tacoma Rainiers, in what will likely be the nicest minor league stadium in the entire United States.”
• Finish construction of LeMay – America’s Car Museum for its fall opening.
• Make $4 million in repairs to residential streets, including construction of accessible curb ramps, and spend another $11 million on overall street improvements.
• Develop a long-term plan for the Tacoma Public Library and find a way to fund it.
• Improve and beautify downtown Tacoma’s Pacific Avenue from Seventh to 17th streets, the section she called Tacoma’s front porch.
Strickland spoke at the BE Green/Tacoma Shift Happens gathering at the convention center, a daylong sustainability seminar and networking event. An estimated 250 to 300 people heard her speak.
The talk was billed as the first-ever State of the City address by a Tacoma mayor. Audience members chuckled when Strickland playfully ended the speech like a president giving the State of the Union address: “Thank you, very much, and may God bless Tacoma, Washington. Good night.”
While the speech may have been the first State of the City address delivered by a Tacoma mayor in recent decades, former Tacoma Mayor Harry P. Cain wrote what amounted to a State of the City address on Sept. 11, 1942, according to an e-mail Monday to The News Tribune by C. Mark Smith, whose biography of Cain is about to be published.
Monday, Strickland emphasized the need for Tacoma to form public-private partnerships.
“Twenty years ago, the city made strides with significant public investments,” she said, referring to the renovation of Union Station and construction of the Washington State History Museum and the convention center.
“It’s really easy to spend your own money. What’s tricky is to get people to invest in your city,” she said. “We now must focus on attracting more private investment. This will require a shift in how we approach business and how government approaches business.”
The city has taken steps the past year to support small business, including elimination of the city portion of the business and occupation tax for firms making $250,000 or less in annual gross revenue.
But Tacoma needs to market itself as a convention and event destination and work with business to attract private investment to build more hotels, she said. It can encourage job creation and growth in health care by focusing on Tacoma’s Medical Mile, with St. Joseph Medical Center on one end and MultiCare on the other end of Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
“Instead of chasing the shift, Tacoma, let us be the shift,” she said.
Daniel Briggs, who plans to open a “slow food” deli in Tacoma later this year, called Strickland’s speech “fantastic.”
He originally planned to start up in Seattle but opted for Tacoma after discovering how the city had cleaned up the downtown core. Strickland exemplified what he finds attractive about the city’s business climate.
“I liked how she focused on small business and talked about the investments we’re making for the future,” he said.
Debby Abe: 253-597-8694
debby.abe@thenewstribune.com
