Meet Tacoma City Council candidate Sarah Rumbaugh
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of interviews with candidates running for Tacoma City Council. In each interview, The News Tribune asked every candidate two questions: what they pay in rent or mortgage, and if they could correctly state the median home sale price in Pierce County, which is around $500,000 as of April 2021.
Sarah Rumbaugh is running for Tacoma City Council District 2 seat, which serves parts of downtown Tacoma, the Port of Tacoma and Northeast Tacoma.
The seat is being vacated by current Council member Robert Thoms, who is term limited.
Rumbaugh, 53, runs a consulting firm in Tacoma and serves on the City of Tacoma Human Rights Commission, the board of Associated Ministries of Pierce County and as a board member at Temple Beth El. She was previously employed as a city planner for the City of Kent. She’s also married to Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stanley Rumbaugh.
Rumbaugh, who also ran for Pierce County Council last year, said she was compelled to run for City Council in part because she wanted to be a voice for businesses, which suffered during the pandemic.
“Independent contractors like hairdressers and people who do nails and massage therapists and people in that kind of industry were really harmed by the pandemic, and they need a voice,” she said.
When asked what she felt was the biggest issue facing Tacoma today, Rumbaugh said a lot of the issues Tacoma faces are interrelated.
“Racial equity is a big issue in our communities,” Rumbaugh said. “But I also think the homeless crisis is something that we really need to tackle.”
Rumbaugh said she supports looking into solutions like purchasing hotels to provide more permanent housing and that the city needs to be thinking about mental health services.
“As long as we are still doing just sheltering, it’s hard, because I think that when people actually have a place to live, like a permanent place, you can really help them better,” she said.
Rumbaugh added the issue of homelessness should be addressed on a county-wide and regional level, not just in Tacoma.
When asked if she supported bringing back the city’s law banning camping on public property, Rumbaugh said she understands the need for it to help keep spaces like parks safe but questioned whether right now was a good time due to the impacts of COVID-19 and the need for more available shelter space.
Rumbaugh said finding more affordable housing is important to her.
“I’m looking at trying to make sure that people who are at 30 percent of average median income actually have housing — and not just the poor, but also ... the elderly and veterans who are really traumatized by the economy because they’re on fixed incomes,” she said.
Rumbaugh said she felt City Council passing the one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax for affordable housing was a smart move and encouraged finding ways to use American Rescue Plan Act funding to help expand affordable housing.
When asked about her stance on police reform and the City Council’s effort to transform the city into an anti-racist organization, Rumbaugh said within the past year the fact that people of color are more often arrested and prosecuted has become more noticeable.
“I think people knew that, but this has been the moment, the reckoning point of — yes, that is happening way more often than it should, and there’s something wrong with that. And so we need to be looking at who we’re hiring to be police officers,” she said.
Rumbaugh said the city needs police but supports looking at alternative methods to responding to emergency calls.
“It seems to me that there are things that possibly the police don’t want to go to. Maybe they don’t want to go to a homeless encampment to talk to somebody who’s suffering mental illness — maybe someone else should be called to that,” she said.
Rumbaugh spoke to the death of Manuel Ellis by Tacoma police and how as a citizen she feels disappointed with how long the wait has been for a decision in the case.
“That’s another thing that’s really troubling, is that we have these cases that have come up and we don’t have closure,” she said. “And I have to think about these families. And what that must be like for them.”
When asked about the City Council’s efforts in regulating use of fossil fuels in the Port of Tacoma, Rumbaugh said that creating a healthier environment at the port doesn’t need to come at the expense of the economy, and she supports investment in renewable fuel jobs.
“I don’t know how many more places to hold fuel we need to have on our port, in our Tideflats area — I mean, we have a lot of them,” she said. “I think it’s time to be looking at renewable fuels and other options for what we do.”
Rumbaugh has raised nearly $30,000 for her campaign so far. Her top donors are individuals Edward Klopping ($2,000), Christine Ray and Rodney Ray ($1,100) and Claire L. Spain-Remy, Claude Remy, Bill Robnett, Catherine Carruthers and company Schnitzer Steel Industries ($1,000).
How much do you pay in rent/mortgage?
Rumbaugh said she pays $2,800 a month for her mortgage.
What’s the median home price in Pierce County?
“The median home price in Pierce County has gone up to, I want to say, $500,000.”
