Tacoma’s mayoral candidates have a lot in common. What sets them apart?
The stakes for Tacoma’s mayoral election this year are high, as the winner will lead a council tasked with tackling big issues like the city’s budget, hiring a new city manager and more.
Tacoma voters looking to decide between the two candidates who emerged from the primary, John Hines and Anders Ibsen, will likely note that the two have a lot in common. They both have represented Tacoma’s council District 1, which includes large swaths of the North End and West End. They both hold public safety among their top priorities, and they’re close in age – Anders at 39 and Hines at 43. They’ve both expressed support for improving working conditions and fair wages in Tacoma.
So what sets them apart?
The News Tribune attended several candidate forums. Across the forums, patterns emerge specifically on the topics of public safety, business and more. But a larger theme is clear: Neither candidate has a platform that’s dramatically opposite to the other, but a close look at the topics they emphasize and the organizations that have endorsed them reveal how a Hines administration would look different from an Ibsen administration.
Tackling Tacoma’s budget deficit
Moderators at forums and debates in Tacoma this fall have all in some capacity asked Ibsen and Hines about their approach to tackling Tacoma’s budget deficit. The city faces a structural deficit, meaning that expenses continue to outpace revenues in a manner that can’t be addressed with a one-time use of reserve funds. City officials forecast a $15 million deficit in the 2027-2028 biennial budget, The News Tribune reported last year.
Hines has made the case that the city can boost its revenue by attracting more businesses to Tacoma – in turn boosting sales-tax revenue. He’s also a proponent of encouraging employees to return to the office in downtown Tacoma, which he says could also help boost sales-tax revenue.
“If we really want to attack the budget deficit, the critical thing is we have to grow the number of people doing business in the city of Tacoma,” Hines said at the Tacoma Rising candidate forum, receiving a round of applause from the audience.
While Ibsen isn’t necessarily opposed to drawing more business to Tacoma, he typically suggests strategies that include a greater effort to include Tacoma residents in the city’s budgeting and decision-making process, ultimately to build trust with Tacomans so they’ll be more likely to vote in favor of additional local levies, especially since the city’s recent streets levy failed. He has also said that the state’s tax code is “broken,” and that Tacoma should be a “regional leader” in doing something about it.
The difference points to an overall theme – that neither candidate is “anti-business,” but business is a topic that Hines hinges a lot of his platform on.
Public safety
Both Hines and Ibsen have said that they’re supportive of the city’s alternative-response teams. The city’s Homeless Engagement and Alternatives team, also known as HEAL, helps homeless residents get connected to services, and the city’s Holistic Outreach Promoting Engagement, or HOPE team, responds to people experiencing behavioral health crises.
When asked about how they would address concerns about public safety, Hines has often emphasized boosting staffing, and Ibsen has focused on bolstering the city’s alternative-response teams.
Hines often says that Tacoma police officers are stretched so thin that they can’t be proactive in managing public safety – they’re just able to respond to 911 calls. By ensuring that the department is fully staffed, he says, the department’s quality of service will improve and its relationship with Tacoma residents will improve accordingly.
The council in September approved an incentive program that city officials have said has boosted staffing at the department – new hires from other police departments in Washington with a certain amount of experience and credentials can receive a total $50,000 bonus over time if they are hired at the Tacoma Police Department. The program has been so effective that union leaders working for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office are sounding the alarm that too many officers are leaving for positions at TPD.
Ibsen is in favor of the lateral incentive program and of boosting hiring at TPD, but he doesn’t emphasize it as often as Hines appears to. Ibsen also suggests relying on the city’s regional partners to improve public safety in Tacoma, including the Puyallup Tribe and law enforcement in neighboring cities. He has also emphasized relying on the city’s alternative response teams.
Reputation and endorsements
Hines and Ibsen, despite their similarities, have solicited varying levels of support. Ibsen leads the way in terms of fundraising. As of Oct. 14 he has raised $270,509.90 compared to Hines’ $239,318.42, according to the state’s Public Disclosure Commission.
Ibsen also boasts the endorsement of several large and well-known unions, including the Tacoma Education Association and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367 – which has recently led the fight to put a Workers Bill of Rights on the Ballot. While he also has endorsements from former local politicians, including former Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg and former council member Keith Blocker, notably absent from his list of endorsements are that of current Tacoma City Council members.
While Hines might lack in union endorsements, he makes up for in other ways. Hines has the endorsement of Mayor Victoria Woodards and current council members Olgy Diaz, Kristina Walker, Sandesh Sadalge and Sarah Rumbaugh – the latter two are running for re-election. Hines also has endorsements from three of his opponents in the primary: Steve Haverly, Jesse “Jesus” Carlos and Tony Ginn, though third place mayoral candidate Whitney Stevens did not appear to have endorsed either candidate.
Hines and Ibsen ran against each other for the District 1 council position in 2015, and Ibsen won by a single-digit margin despite Hines receiving endorsements from seven of the nine city council members at the time.
Hines is in the middle of a four-year term for District 1, and if Ibsen is elected mayor, he’d serve on the council alongside Hines for two more years. Ibsen directly addressed how he’d do so at the Chamber of Commerce’s forum in September, saying he’d do what he did when he won against Hines in 2015.
“In 2015, seven of my City Council colleagues directly endorsed my opponent, and after winning, what I did is I literally met with every single one of them, and I said, let’s get back to work, because there’s zero time for regret in all the problems that we face,” he said.
Camping ban and homelessness
In the few weeks leading up to Oct. 17, the day ballots go out, a potential camping ban has started to dominate debates between candidates over addressing homelessness in Tacoma. Hines this month introduced an amendment to an ordinance that would extend the prohibition against camping and the storage of belongings to more parts of Tacoma.
Hines and Ibsen exchanged tense words over the merits of that policy.
In response to a question about addressing housing instability and homelessness at The News Tribune’s mayoral forum, Hines expressed support for the county’s unified regional approach to homelessness – an ongoing project to coordinate efforts to reduce homelessness in Pierce County. He didn’t mention the ordinance he introduced amending the city’s camping ban.
Ibsen criticized Hines for not mentioning it, saying the ban “directly contradicts the spirit” of the county’s unified regional approach to homelessness.
“What we’ve seen with homelessness is that repeatedly moving these encampments into another neighborhood without a direct link to enhanced follow-through just results in more of the same,” Ibsen said at the forum.
