Meet Tacoma City Council candidate Treyvon Dunbar
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.
Treyvon Dunbar is running for the Tacoma City Council District 5 seat, which serves the South Tacoma and South End neighborhoods.
The seat is currently held by Council member Chris Beale, who is not seeking re-election.
Dunbar, 27, is a father of three and is a 20-year Tacoma resident. He serves as the sergeant at arms for the 29th Legislative District and is a state committee member for the Pierce County Democratic Central Committee. He’s also on the the executive board of the South End Neighborhood Council and Pierce County Young Democrats.
Dunbar said he decided to run for council after years of helping other people get elected but not seeing much change.
“This entire time I’ve watched people get into office, get elected and do nothing. I’ve sat here for too long, expecting other people to do it, and if they can’t, I have to be the one to do so,” he said.
There are a variety of issues Dunbar said he wants to tackle, including action on climate change, police reform and increasing affordable housing.
Dunbar feels there should be more of an effort to inform people about the major issues in Tacoma.
“That’s my main goal, is to get Tacoma so involved that we evolve,” he said.
When asked about the City Council’s efforts in regulating use of fossil fuels in the Port of Tacoma, Dunbar said the council should be moving away from the use of fossil fuels and believes in tightening restrictions.
“The regulations in the port should be tightened. They should be more efficient and effective,” he said.
Dunbar said that the climate crisis inequitably harms communities of color.
“Tacoma itself really needs to take accountability for what it’s doing to its people,” he said. “For a long time Tacoma has been known for the Tacoma aroma, simply because we as Tacoma have allowed corporations to do whatever they want without regulating them in order to keep the people within Tacoma safe.”
When asked about the city’s efforts in police reform, Dunbar said an audit of the Tacoma Police Department’s budget should be done to determine where money might be overspent, and then reallocate that funding elsewhere. Dunbar feels there should be sub-tiers within the police department with officers who are trained to respond to a specific crisis.
“I really do believe that the training that they go through is much too short and does not involve enough focus on mental health aspects. A lot of policemen don’t know how to not only deal with their own emotions, but the emotions of the people that they’re interacting with,” he said.
Dunbar believes that the case of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was killed in March 2020 by Tacoma police, is a “dark spot on the name of Tacoma,” and was unimpressed with what he feels was a lack of City Council response to the issue.
“(Council) didn’t feel like it was a thing until (the community) made them acknowledge it. It would have easily been swept under the rug, and that is a problem,” Dunbar said.
On the issue of homelessness, Dunbar feels the city’s actions have been “small Bandaids” to address encampments and that there needs to be more attention on “Housing First” options.
Dunbar looked to efforts in other countries where cities paid to refurbish city-owned buildings and house people in them.
“I definitely feel like we should focus on housing first — establishing programs that use funds that we already have, to make sure we can use buildings that we already have, and put people who are out on the streets in those buildings,” he said. “One room is better than one tent.”
Dunbar said that there’s a problem in Tacoma with residents being priced out as people come from other cities, like Seattle, seeking cheaper rents. The city needs to find ways to hold developers and landlords accountable for keeping rents affordable.
“We can’t keep allowing money to dictate how we build our city,” he said.
What do you pay in rent/mortgage?
“I pay $1,600.”
What is the median home sale price in Pierce County?
“I do know for certain sections of Tacoma, like the 29th LD, they’ll be, I believe, $250,000.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
