Meet Tacoma City Council candidate Brett Johnson
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.
Brett Johnson is running for the Tacoma City Council At-Large District 6 seat in the 2021 election.
The seat represents residents citywide and is being vacated by City Council member Lillian Hunter, who did not file for re-election.
Johnson, 39, was born and raised in Tacoma and graduated from Stadium High School. He left the Pacific Northwest for about 10 years after high school when he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and worked as an air traffic controller stationed in Afghanistan. He moved back to Tacoma in 2010 and is now the owner for Wane & Flitch, a custom-made furniture company in southeast Tacoma.
Johnson is also a member of the Sound Transit Citizen Oversight Panel and an elected Precinct Committee Officer in the 27th district for the Republican Party. He previously ran for City Council At-Large Pos. 7 in 2019, but lost a tight race in the primary election after a recount.
Johnson said that over the past 10 years he’s become increasingly frustrated with what he feels is city government being more reactive than proactive on certain issues.
“I’m really legitimately running as a nonpartisan person, and I believe that I can get more done for more residents than any other candidate,” he said.
One of the major issues Johnson said is important to him is homelessness. He said he has a relative with an untreated mental health issue that results in substance misuse.
“At this point, at least in my experience here around the area, the encampments that we experience are largely people that are pretty severe into drug addiction, or have untreated mental health issues or both. And when I see those people, I see my family member,” he said.
He thinks the city has done a good job of creating resources for people who want to take advantage of them but thinks the city can do better.
Previously, Johnson has been vocal about his support for creating a voluntary or involuntary treatment center for people experiencing homelessness and taking them there. He said it occurred to him recently, while sitting in on a Tacoma-Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness meeting, that a low-barrier encampment is what is needed to get everyone where they need to be to access and accept help.
“(I’m) very new in supporting that, but as a result of my experience in the meeting ... with the coalition, it’s become clear that that’s probably a necessary component of getting everybody, logistically, in an area where we know we can get access to give them the resources they need,” he said.
The city is searching for placement of a low-barrier shelter, which typically admit people regardless of sobriety, criminal backgrounds or lack of identification.
Johnson said he’s interested in looking at unused commercial spaces for a shelter that would be secure and have bathrooms.
Johnson also has been vocal in his support of a public property camping ban that City Council is considering. He’s said it’s not about wanting to see encampments being swept and people put into jail, but is instead about public safety. He’s tried to raise awareness about the encampment along the railroad tracks near his business at Wane + Flitch, saying it’s an unsafe environment not only for the people living and working around it, but for the people living in it.
Johnson said there are laws on the books that aren’t being followed when it comes to homeless encampments, and he worries another ordinance won’t get the city anywhere.
“I think it may be, again, to tie with that reactive instead of proactive (approach), because I think if we were already enforcing a good portion of those laws, that we may not have even gotten this in the first place,” he said.
On housing, Johnson said the city also needs to be more proactive about building and creating zoning in the right places.
“I think that the building that’s contested over in the Proctor area is a pretty good example,” he said. “It’s a perfect building — it’s just in absolutely the wrong place.”
Increasing Tacoma’s housing stock is going to take a multi-prong approach, Johnson said. When asked whether he supports the city’s Home in Tacoma proposal and allowing for more types of development across Tacoma, Johnson said it’s a “very precarious road to walk down.”
“We do need to respect developed neighborhoods and residents who have been there for years, but at the same time we should all need to be a little bit flexible that things are gonna change, because our city is different than it used to be,” he said.
Johnson sees an issue with single-family homes being purchased and flipped to sell at a higher price.
“Maybe exploring (ways to) incentivize owners to hold a property longer than a year, or taking a look at an additional excise tax when a property is held for under a year, just so we can slow that down a little bit and try and get control of it, which is a tough position for me to hold because I have previously flipped houses and I don’t want people to not make money, but there is a point where we’re gonna look at the greater good,” he said.
Another priority for Johnson is to boost living wage jobs by working with local labor and economic development groups to find ways to attract new employers to Tacoma. One way to do that is to leverage the Port of Tacoma, he said.
“Looking at ways that we can be supportive of that to get more cargo through the port faster is an easy way for us to attract more customers, which in turn, is living wage jobs to operate it, living wage jobs for infrastructure to expand to support it,” he said.
When asked about the city’s efforts for police reform, Johnson said that for years police have been asked to do a lot. He said he supports looking at alternative responses to calls that can not only help alleviate burden on police but also make sure the people responding are best equipped to handle the situation.
“The more we can get the right tool, or the right entity to respond to a call, the higher success we’re gonna have for everybody because you know you might have,” he said.
What do you pay in rent/mortgage?
“I pay $1,800.”
What is the median home sale price in Pierce County?
“I haven’t looked recently but I guess we’re probably approaching somewhere around $400,000 right now.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
