Meet Victoria Woodards, candidate for mayor of Tacoma
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.
Victoria Woodards is running for re-election as the mayor of Tacoma.
Woodards was first elected as mayor in 2017 and served on Tacoma City Council from 2009 to 2016.
Woodards, 55, is a three-year U.S. Army veteran who’s lived in Tacoma for more than 50 years. She graduated from Lincoln High School and currently resides in the South End.
Woodards decided to run for re-election in part to help lead Tacoma out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think there really is an opportunity for Tacoma to recover even better than we were before,” she said. “That means everything from making sure our small businesses can reopen and be sustainable, making sure that our workers can get back to work or find good-paying jobs. Making sure that our kids get back to school and get all the support they need to re-enter the school system.”
Woodards added that the city’s work around the issues of homelessness and affordable housing has to continue. If she were re-elected, she said she wants to keep the focus.
Woodards supports Home in Tacoma and the city’s effort to increase density to allow for a range of housing options.
“Not everybody is going to be able to purchase a single-family home,” she said. “Some people are going to live in apartments, some people are going to live in townhouses, some people are going to live in condos. Some people will never own, although everyone should have an opportunity.”
She said she believes Home in Tacoma will need to be tweaked and allow for density in areas where it makes sense, speaking to concerns from residents about the potential changes to their neighborhoods.
“While we’ve got increased density, I don’t necessarily think that density has to change the entire neighborhood,” she said. “So I think design standards are going to be really important.”
Woodards wants to see more projects like the new Arlington Youth Drive, which opened last year and houses homeless young adults.
“What makes that program successful is the fact that they provide wraparound services. It’s permanent supportive housing, and we need more of that in Tacoma — We have very, very little of that,” she said.
Homelessness is increasing in Tacoma, which Woodards contributes in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic and loss of shelter beds due to social distancing. Woodards wants to see more types of shelter in the city to cater to all needs; specifically a low-barrier shelter site. Woodards said this doesn’t mean it won’t be a managed site, but rather that there would be fewer conditions for people to enter.
As mayor, Woodards was supportive of a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax increase to support affordable housing and also pushed to use federal American Rescue Plan Act funding toward housing and homelessness.
Woodards wants to find ways to de-stigmatize homelessness in Tacoma in the hopes that people will be more open to having a shelter site near them. She said that neighbors who were at first concerned about microshelter sites are now partnering to help the people within the shelters.
Woodards said it’s critical that the approach to the homelessness crisis is a regional one and is pleased that a new Pierce County Ad Hoc Committee is taking the lead on a new plan for homelessness, which Tacoma is participating in. This new committee is also working on a plan to end street homelessness by November.
“It’s a great goal — I don’t know if we’ll make it or not, but you’ve got to have a goal,” Woodards said. “It’s something to push towards, and it brings everybody to the table around the common cause and common solution.”
Woodards said that in coming out of COVID-19, she wants to find ways to boost family wage jobs in Tacoma. When asked how, she pointed to the Port of Tacoma as an opportunity. A subarea plan is in the works for the community to decide the future of the port, which includes which industries will be able to operate there. As mayor, Woodards voted to pause the expansion of fossil-fuel industries at the port, which some businesses spoke out against. While the motion failed, Woodards stands by her vote.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said. “We can grow family-wage jobs and we can make sure that we have an environmentally safe port. We can do both.”
Woodards would continue to push for clarity at the port with completion of the subarea plan.
“I think if we can provide that clarity, make it easier for businesses to grow, to expand, but in a responsible way, then I think that’s how you grow family wage jobs,” she said.
On the topic of police reform, Woodards said the city has taken bold steps to transform the Police Department, including hiring a firm to review use-of-force policies and recommend changes, allowing two people to sit in on police union bargaining, and conducting a study that identifies which calls for service can be diverted from police and to a civilian response team or mental health professionals.
“We have great people who are in our Police Department who want to do a good job, but they are working in a system that is designed to do exactly what it does, and we need to redesign it, as opposed to just trying to change it,” she said.
Woodards emphasized that she wants to look at all issues across Tacoma through a lens of equity.
“Making sure that those who have access to opportunity the least get the support they need,” she said.
Woodards has raised $102,000 for her campaign so far. Her top donors are Holland and Lauren Cohen, Bill Stauffacher , Douglas Palmer, Mikal Thomsen, Gerrit Nyland ($2,000 each).
What do you pay in rent/mortgage?
Woodards pays a little under $1,000 a month for the house she’s owned for 20 years.
What is the median home sale price in Pierce County?
Woodards said the median home sale price is between $420,000 and $450,000 in Tacoma and guessed the median home sale price in Pierce County to be “somewhere around $500,000.”
