TNT letters to the editor, 8/10/2021
Tacoma housing
Re: “Tacoma housing crisis is self-imposed but solvable,” ( TNT, 8/1).
This guest column makes no mention of one possible solution: Tacoma has numerous previously developed properties, vacant for years. We need policies that encourage redevelopment.
With skyrocketing property values, gentrified Tacoma should prioritize tax breaks for development of vacant, underutilized lots, not Point Ruston and Proctor.
An advantage of redevelopment: Roads, sidewalks and other infrastructure to access these sites already exist. Space for parking may also exist.
Another advantage: Vacant lots, currently trash-collecting eyesores, would be repurposed for housing.
The columnists lament “increasingly restrictive and exclusive zoning laws and building codes.”But these restrictions have the positive purpose of protecting some, though not nearly enough, mature trees.
Because previously developed vacant lots are already cleared, redevelopment would rarely require tree removal.
So as not to contribute to another urban heat island, we must preserve our tree canopy, which provides cooling shade for people and habitat for birds.
What better way than to give tax incentives to redevelop vacant lots?
The Home in Tacoma Project will help provide much-needed flexibility in housing types. Redevelopment should be part of that mix.
Celia Warren, University Place
Police protection
Re: “Ammo shelves bare as US gun sales stay high,” ( TNT, 8/1).
The News Tribune had three separate articles on Aug. 1 dealing with increased restrictions on police and increased gun and ammunition sales.
Are we headed for NRA nirvana where everyone is armed because we have to defend ourselves because the police are not allowed to?
On a police ride along, I saw how pulling people over for minor issues got impaired drivers off the road. At 2 a.m., we saw someone running from a car, leaving a baby behind. A man walking nearby denied having anything to do with the child, then ran off; once cuffed, he turned out to be the baby’s father.
At 4 a.m., a walking man was arrested for mail theft.
Many such interventions are no longer going to happen because of the hysteria coming out of Olympia. Law changes designed to benefit the Black and Brown community are going to result in more crime for all of us.
The TNT is partially to blame for its constant negative reporting on police. It has forgotten who the good guys really are.
Richard Parco, Lake Tapps
Climate change
The weather doesn’t care who you voted for, does it? Recent events have made it lights-and-sirens clear: Politics aside, it’s time to seriously pay attention.
President Trump once said: “I don’t think science knows,” but how much should you care when your house is burning?
Death and destruction are in full swing, so could we possibly, maybe, please, just for once, focus on the firenado in the room?
Backing Republican politicians who are slowing climate action on behalf of fossil fuel industries is flatly dangerous to everyone’s descendants.
It’s time to write your friends and relatives in red states to push their representatives to fix climate issues with urgency, without all this Trumpian foolishness.
On this topic Trump was wrong, has always been wrong and will always be wrong, but now the cost of being wrong is the future for your children and grandchildren.
That’s it; that’s the fight. Argue about the border and how to pay for the budget, etc., all you want – after we make sure there will be a usable planet for our descendants.
Thomas E. Walker, Fircrest
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 12:16 PM with the headline "TNT letters to the editor, 8/10/2021."