The Tacoma City Council might ask voters to reach into their pockets this November to fund a six-year, $180 million levy to fix the city’s ailing streets and sidewalks.

Taxpayers would see their property taxes rise by about 12 percent, City Manager Eric Anderson said after the plan was unveiled during a committee meeting Tuesday afternoon. That would add up to about $350 per year on an average home worth $250,000, or $139 per $100,000 of assessed value.

The six-year plan is actually the first of four phases of improvements totaling about $750 million, Anderson said.

“It’s the beginning of a massive undertaking,” he said. “It’s a massive undertaking because it’s a massive problem. It’s the single largest infrastructure problem we’re facing.”

The council has roughly until the end of July to approve a finalized plan in order to get it on the ballot in November.

Councilman Mike Lonergan raised a note of caution. Serious consideration should be given, he said, to the timing of the measure given “the pain people are in right now.”

“It’s not an easy sell from a financial standpoint,” Councilman Jake Fey said.

The list of projects put together by city staff was a “good starting point,” he said, but he wanted to “make sure we’re in touch with the people who drive the roadways” for additional input.

The proposal looks like a super-sized version of the failed 2006 levy for streets and sidewalks. That $48 million levy over six years would have raised annual property taxes by $48 per $100,000 of assessed value, or $120 per year for the owner of a $250,000 house. It failed by 52 percent to 48 percent.

Mayor Bill Baarsma pointed to the precedent set by a 2005 Metro Parks bond that failed on its first attempt but later passed, even though the district asked for more money the second time around.

Like the parks bond, he hoped that dollar-by-dollar details about which arterial and residential streets would be repaired would help voters feel more comfortable about how the money would be spent.

The six-year-project breaks down into:

 • 19 lane miles of residential streets (a lane is 12 feet wide).

 • 91 lane miles of arterial streets.

 • 46 miles of sidewalks.

 • 49 miles of bike lanes.

The levy would also provide $4 million for warning beacons at school crossings.

The streets slated for attention first scored the lowest on the city’s 100-point rating system – from 0 meaning “failed,” up to 50 for “fair.”

Councilwoman Marilyn Strickland, who is running for mayor, said fixing the streets was something she’d been asking about “since my first day on the council.”

She pointed out that the list of repair projects compiled by city staff provided equity across neighborhoods, so that certain areas of town were not favored over others.

Anderson noted that the project also strove for equity between residential and arterial streets.

City staff had been conservative, he told the council members, in creating a repair agenda that could actually be met within the time frame and budget. One potential wildcard, he noted, was fluctuation in the price of gas and oil.

Councilwoman Julie Anderson asked the city manager whether the city was planning to do any polling to see how likely voters would be to support a tax hike.

“I’ve been advised that’s best done by others,” he responded.

John Miles, who serves as the vice chairman of the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council and who is running for a spot on the Tacoma council, was also in attendance.

Before the meeting he joked that the city’s street problem might be solved by ceasing crime-fighting efforts.

“When the crime rate was high, people didn’t care if the streets were bad,” he said.