Matt Driscoll: Outspoken councilman trades political life for horse manure

Finding an esteemed urbanist usually doesn’t require a drive past a seemingly endless stretch of strip malls, bikini barista huts and fast-food joints.

Typically, you don’t have to spend at least half an hour traveling in a car to track down a noted proponent of smart and sustainable city planning.

And, most of the time, you wouldn’t expect to find the home of the man responsible for the respected architectural blog “Imagine Tacoma” to be, well, anywhere but Tacoma — and certainly not in Graham.

But, these days, to see former Tacoma City Councilman David Boe — at least on a Friday — a trek through the wilds of unincorporated Pierce County, where the sprawl is staggering and the political yard signs alternate between Jim McCune and Donald Trump, is exactly what’s required.

I know, because last week I made just such a journey.

“To be a true urbanist, you have to embrace the rural,” Boe tells me, with a smile but in all seriousness, from the large ranch where his wife, Sandra, runs the nonprofit Changing Rein — a program that offers therapeutic horsemanship, equine-assisted learning and equine-assisted psychotherapy.

Sandra tells me the program’s clientele ranges from riders living with physical and cognitive disabilities to middle school kids benefiting from a Hands On Horses program. “I’ve been horse crazy for as long as I can remember,” she tells me. “It’s something I always wanted to do. I always wanted to work with teens, and animals, or people with disabilities and animals in some way.”

The Boes bought the property in 2010 as a home base for Changing Rein, and Sandra moved here full-time in 2012 — a decision that left David alone in Tacoma for much of the week at a condo he rented near Wright Park.

After finishing his term on the City Council last December, David followed Sandra and their nine program animals (including a team of horses, a donkey and a hinny) to Graham — though, even today, he still works as an architect out of his downtown Tacoma office four days a week. He calls it “the first time in my entire life I have a commute to work in a single-occupancy vehicle that’s more than 10 minutes long.”

Then he changes the subject.

“I’ll show you my manure bins,” Boe says, without missing a beat. “I’m quite proud of them.”

As promised, Boe’s manure bins are a sight to behold. But beyond the visual, the piles of composting horse dung — and the program that helped produce them — offer a glimpse into the reasoning that led Boe to decide not to seek re-election to the Position 7 City Council seat he’d held since 2010, when he was appointed to the post by unanimous vote. (Later, in 2011, he was elected to a four-year term.)

“At the end of 2012, Sandra said, ‘You know what, the kids are off at college, I’m tired of maintaining two places. Let’s sell the house (in Tacoma) and I’m moving out here, you do what you want,’ ” Boe explains. “So I had to decide, ‘Well, do I resign from the City Council, or do I live in the city during the week and come out on the weekends?’ … So that’s what I did. I was downtown during the week, and then I’d head out here on Friday night.”

While Boe’s decision not to seek a second elected term last year came as a surprise to some, and was a disappointment to others, the move makes sense when you consider the personal sacrifice that went into serving — and the opportunity that awaited him away from the dais.

“That played into my decision not to run (in 2015), because I did three years of that, and it was stressful, but we got through it. I couldn’t imagine doing four more years,” Boe says.

In truth, David Boe was always a strange fit for political life — even in Tacoma. It’s one of the reasons he refers to his former job as an elected official, not as a politician.

These days, he’s still engaged in civic life — helping to lead the monthly Knights of Pythias Commencement Lodge-sponsored Market-tecture tours and getting more involved in the University of Washington Tacoma’s Urban Studies program. But Boe seems to fit in well with the horses at Changing Rein. They’re animals Sandra knowingly describes as “very straightforward and very honest … They’re very perceptive; they’re just straight-shooters.”

The same description could be applied to her husband.

“I miss the people on the council, and I miss the staff. I do not miss the process,” Boe explains when I ask if there’s anything he regrets about his decision to leave. “As an elected officials … there were times when it tried the patience.”

As for his new, expanded role in Graham?

“He puts the man in manure,” Sandra says with a laugh.

“I find that it was very good training for political life, because the first thing you have to be able to do identify it,” the former councilman adds.

This story was originally published June 29, 2016 at 10:24 AM with the headline "Matt Driscoll: Outspoken councilman trades political life for horse manure."