Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson wants to reduce crime in the city by 50 percent in 14 months. Approximately 250 city employees from a cross-section of departments met for two days this week at Tacoma’s convention center to discuss how the city might reach the target, a goal that surprised some City Council members for its sheer ambition.

The same group is charged with developing a plan to clean up the city, an equally lofty aim that’s not as easily measured as the crime rate.

Both ideas grew out of the City Council’s recent updating of the city’s strategic plan, but they go far beyond the stated desire of the council to make Tacoma an efficient, livable and safe community.

Anderson is quick to note that the goal might not be possible. But he wanted a target that would challenge city employees. The city’s previous strategic plan initially called for an 8 percent crime reduction that was later lowered to 6 percent over fears that the higher number was out of reach.

“Well, a 6 percent crime reduction is within the normal variance,” Anderson said in an interview. “You can sit in a chair and reduce crime by 6 percent. I said, ‘Let’s reduce it by 50 percent. Let’s do something significant, a quantum leap.’ I don’t know if we can do it.”

The Tacoma Police Department’s strategic plan, completed last year, calls for Tacoma to have the lowest crime rate of comparable cities by 2011.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS

As if the target wasn’t difficult enough, Anderson said he hopes to accomplish both goals using money from existing budgets.

To accomplish the goals, Anderson is employing some of the same tactics that he’s brought to bear in the near-elimination of homeless campsites within the city, and in tackling neighborhood concerns via a program called Community Based Services. Specifically, he’s relying on “cross-functional teams” of city employees. Anderson is restructuring his own office, in part, to allow his assistant city manager to oversee the city’s cross-functional teams, groups of employees that could represent everything from the police or fire departments, public works, planning or finance.

At the end of the two days, city employees identified 28 objectives, ranging from promoting home ownership and changing the city’s image to changing requirements for a city business license and creating a citizens code of conduct. A full list of the objectives will be available this week on the city’s Web site.

In addition to the objectives, the employees developed plans for carrying them out. The next step is for the city’s teams to reach out to citizens and businesses for their ideas and help, Anderson said.

Anderson emphasized that reducing crime is not exclusively a police issue, though Chief Don Ramsdell was part of the two-day meeting.

“We don’t reduce crime except in partnership with the citizens,” Anderson said.

‘I THINK SOME JAWS DROPPED’

Mayor Bill Baarsma called Anderson’s plan an “incredible goal.” “It’s the first time a city manager put down that gauntlet,” he said.

“I think some jaws dropped,” when the City Council first heard about the goals, Baarsma added.

Yet Baarsma and the City Council seem to support the effort. Baarsma characterized their attitude as, “If you can get us there, let’s see what we can do to make it happen.”

Baarsma noted that since Anderson arrived in Tacoma in 2005, he has cut 41 positions from City Hall, eliminated a department, persuaded the majority of the city’s employee unions to go along with 1 percent pay raises, and beefed up staffing in his own office, all without major resistance.

“He’s been able to pull of these changes without upsetting people,” Baarsma said.

Councilman Mike Lonergan said he questioned the time frame, 14 months. A longer period, such as three years, might be more realistic, he said. But Lonergan said he understands that Anderson wants to create a sense of urgency.

“As long as it’s recognized as a ‘stretch goal,’ or something to drive us, I do support it,” he said.

Lonergan said the push to reduce crime and clean up the city is a welcome change from several years ago, when city officials chose to put public safety concerns “on hold” in order to concentrate on economic development.

Tacoma’s crime rate and appearance are two subjects Anderson said he hears about frequently as he talks with people. And creating a safe and attractive city are priorities for the City Council, he said.

He believes that by empowering city employees to come up with their own solutions, and by getting citizens to participate, Tacoma can solve a pair of problems that have lingered for years.

“We’re going to the heart of the problem,” he said.

Jason Hagey: 253-597-8542

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