Submitted by Claudia Finseth, Parkland, Washington.
Dear Duke [Paulson, Tacoma Rescue Mission],
How will you write your story?
My name is Claudia Finseth and I live in Parkland. This last week I have been trying to endure the preparations for the air show, which is today. I have had a close formation of fighter jets flying extremely low right over my house. The noise is deafening, and sets up vibrations in the body which are so intense that it feels like one is going to explode from the inside out.
Duke, have you spent much time in Parkland-Spanaway? Do you know residents here? Do you know the noises here that can trigger people with PTSD?
Do you have any idea how important our waterways and lakes are to those of us who live on them? How we feel protective of them, and in so doing, are serving the entire county?
Do you understand the impact that development on an important wetland can have on all the water downstream from there, right into Puget Sound at Chambers Bay?
Your comments in the TNT July 14, 2023 story, “If the ordinances are repealed, it leaves Tacoma Rescue Mission in an awkward position where it would be operating in a zone that doesn’t fit its use” (Yes, you should have respected the PSM Communities Plan from the beginning to avoid this)—“We’re basically locked into everything we plan right now. We kind of lose our ability to change or adapt. (Your problem, not ours.)— “It also puts us in a really awkward spot” as the organization that stepped forward to take on this shared housing project to have the council consider repealing the ordinances. As for environmental concerns, “We’re completely in line with all the county codes and regulations and ordinances.” (do you care about the letter of the law or the spirit of the law, and do you care at all about the people who live here?)—these show your lack of connection with the community and the environmental experts to an extraordinary degree. All of your planning was without community participation. In fact, you worked on it, and set your plans for almost a year before the first community hearing was held.
You did not do due diligence, Duke. And the fact that you bought the site in Spanaway without a lick of community input puts that mistake squarely on your shoulders. For you should have had hearings with the Parkland-Spanaway community from the beginning. If you had, you would not be in this predicament now. And Tacoma Rescue Mission’s reputation would not be tarnished in this part of the county now.
Duke, how will you write your story? Will it be that you built your big tiny home village for the homeless on wetlands and destroyed them, adversely affecting the lakes and waterways all down the way into Puget Sound itself?
Will your story be that you ignored what was important to the residents of Spanaway-Parkland? That you adversely affected that residents all along those waters by the toxic elements you introduced with said development?
And back to the air show this week and the fact that you will be building your development close to Joint Base Lewis McChord, nevermind the annual air show, every week I am impacted by the touch and go exercises of large transport planes flying very low over my house. Regularly I am impacted by the loud explosions from war games at the fort. Will your story be about siting homeless people, many of whom are veterans and abused people who suffer from PTSD, on a site where that PTSD is regularly triggered?
Why are you supporting one big homeless village sited away from easy access to every service they will need to get on their feet again? Where public transit is not readily available? When such homeless villages are a controversy in America right now? And when such homeless villages are viewed by some as concentration camps for the poor; anything but good for the homeless?
This is what happens when you listen only to developers whose bottom line is always profit (including the developers who are the County Executive and certain Council members), and leave the community you are planning to affect totally out of the process. I’m a Christian, and I don’t believe that is how Jesus would have handled it.
So you may end up being stuck with land you cannot build on. Again, that is on you, and you must take responsibility for this mistake. But all may not be totally lost. Perhaps you could sell it to conservation groups or to the county for Conservation Future funds and so regain the trust you have lost with this community. The county may have misled you in this, and perhaps they could be held responsible for some of your cost. You may not recoup all your losses, but it could relieve some of your financial debt from this fiasco.
Grace and peace,
Claudia Finseth
Parkland resident on Spanaway Creek
I have read the words here. Unfortunately you have not presented and alternative suggestion from the platform you speak from. Is it better to have the situation now of having the roof challenged on our sidewalks and empty lots? You speak as a “Christian” and offer no suggestion or plan to help these people. Just words of “poor me” sounding words. Nobody wants these tiny house developments in their back yard. I understand this. And I also understand that without compromise, solutions will not be given. I understand we need to protect the environment and the habitats for our wildlife. We also need to protect the humans and get them in better living enviroments.
They had other options for land. It was closer to puyallup but the council member who lives out there didn’t want it. This land was close to bus lines resources and had the space. This government created the addict problem, they are addicts from all over the place going to be housed forever there. They will ve allowed to do their drugs and we the tax payers will pay for them. The government uses them as props for money sympathy and GREED! The rescue mission is greedy! Tiny homes don’t work they had to go to Texas to find 1.and the community hates it. Crime drugs assualts..that is what will happen here. The land should be preserved wetlands that is why we have Codes! Our Council should support the rule of law. The citzens and community not self interest greed and ignorance
The government did not create the addiction problem. Individual people choose what they put in their bodies. Nobody forces that on anyone. But I do believe that as a country, our morals and values have gone so sideways that we have left generations without a moral compass, traumatized and without social and family support. Generations numbing themselves from the trauma they’ve suffered. Treating the symptoms without treating the problem is not helping anyone. We need to get back to supporting our children, our families and communities and teaching good morals and values. Right now we have an epidemic, but what will happen to these younger generations that are being told lies. You can be any sex you want to be you can even relate to being a furry an animal or unicorn! Taking away children from their families if the families won’t go along with their deception! These are all lies designed to undermined God and destroy families. There will be a huge cost to individual lives, and to our society as a whole.
Stan Lee, I am not an expert on how to help our homeless, I am a resident on Spanaway Creek. The intent of this letter is to speak to the importance of protecting our waterway.
Comment are like flies on cow poop. Just hanging around. Citizens feeding off each other.solutons are forced out because it comes from Black Female entrepreneurs and Contractor. You one of the top quality builders livingin this area willing to build single homes. Not tiny coffin.
All the developers and planners in the Pierce County area have done is destroy the natural resources and wildlife without any hesitation or remorse.
The only trees that get pardoned are the ones that somehow got labeled as a landmark or historic element. These people and their plans care for naught.
I agree about the noise factor triggering PTSD, and living near the VA hospital at American Lake I am always concerned about patients at the hospital. My own pets get very distressed and panic. There is really no escape from the noise torture of 4th of July or the Airshow. Animals don’t understand, and you cannot give a reasonable explanation to people to justify it either. Daily exercises from Mcchord with the helicopters are so deafening that the foundation of homes shake, traveling into the ground, which is what the animals feel. It is as frightening as an earthquake, and veterans that I know from Vietnam are hit with flashbacks from that era by those loud sounds.
There are so many animals that no longer live near my house because of the incessant overkill of constructing apartments and family dwellings.
It is shameful. The noise has nothing to muffle it anymore since all the trees and plants have been irradicated.
All that is, or has been accomplished is allowing a few in that field of employment to gain work for awhile, and to increase the population around here astronomically. It’s hideous and embarrassing.
But “revenue” and “progress” knows no bounds nor has any moral concerns.
Thank you, Kar. I sat on the Parkland-Spanaway-Midland Communities Plan Committee called together by the county in the early 2000s. Developers were also appointed to that committee, but mostly chose not to participate in a citizen process. In the Plan, we worked hard to protect the natural beauty that is here. And there is so much! We tried to protect our Garry Oaks (some 400 years old) from being cut down by protecting any of a certain diameter. We deliberately set the Spanaway Wetlands as Rural Resource to keep development on it to a minimum. Unfortunately, the Republican developers now in the executive office and on the council reversed that without asking for community input. All our work, just run over by their bulldozer.
Though not stated in this article, multiple alternatives have been suggested in the past. Sites with better infrastructure that would better serve the unhoused while simultaneously reducing environmental impact. However, as the article states, TRM and the local politicians pushing this project through have little to no regard for community input and refuse to “compromise.” Additionally, you mentioned the writer’s faith, lets not forget that TRM is also christian based and the shady business practices it has made is far from Christian. So let’s not throw stones if we live in glass houses shall we? Bottom line is that, like many tiny home village projects, TRM and the politicians associated with it are in it for the money. The evidence is clear, they don’t care about the community, the unhoused, or the environment. Since this village is being constructed within the headwaters of our watershed, what is done there will have lasting, irreversible consequences throughout Pierce County. This is not just a case of “poor me, not in my backyard,” there are a large number of people outside the parkland community that think sending the unhoused to live in a swamp and damaging critical environmental features is wrong. Maybe if TRM spent less time fighting and more time listening, both the wildlife and the unhoused would have a home.
People like Duke and Sharon Lee rake in tax dollars, contributing to their elite life, Tacoma politicians enjoy these corrupt benefits, encouraging homelessness because of their lawless agenda, lavishly spending on themselves, corruption is disgusting!
Rant Warning – if your live in Spanaway you already know this, and may not want to read any further.
Spanaway is screwed. I can’t see any way out of it. Money and out of area politicians are in control, not those of us living here. I fear we are stuck living with: the congestion and noise from taxpayer supported large corporations (Port of Tacoma Fredrickson industrial area); the concentration of low income housing, sponsored by the social services/political cabol, without adequate support services for those unable or unwilling to support themselves (I don’t know of subsidized housing complexes going in around Gig harbor, Bonny Lake, Dupont, Steilacoom, or even on County owned land in University place); crippling property taxes, largely in support of an underperforming school district; disappearing open space, to include golf courses for housing developments; crowded parks as more people move in and county owned acreage is sold off for further developments (e.g. Mountain Highway and 224th St E.); crime and vagrant squatters; and a sheriff department that often, out of frustration and stark realism, encourages citizens to protect themselves with firearms, because they can’t.
It’s not a pretty picture.
Drsmythe, perhaps incorporation is a way out. Part of why our area is “dumped on” more than other areas is we are not being watched out for by a mayoral government. (Look at the improvements in areas that have incorporated, like Lakewood and UP.)
Claudia, I have wondered about that too; but I fear it would just be another level of taxation and bureaucracy. However, what we have now clearly isn’t working. What do you think about Spanaway Concerned Citizens (https://spanawayconcernedcitizens.com/)?
Drsmuthe,
Perhaps more taxation and bureaucracy, but you can’t have it both ways. Either be at the mercy of officials who don’t live here or pay for officials who live and are invested here.
I have deep respect for Spanaway Concerned Citizens. The people who are running it are great, and so committed. They are worth supporting. They have taken on the heavy lifting of trying to protect our wetland, having hired a good land use lawyer. On their website is a way to donate to help pay the considerable legal fees. Donate as much and as often as you can, since we don’t presently have a mayoral protection.
If you want more control, form your own city like Lakewood did when we were unhappy with the services from Pierce County. Now we pay our city taxes for improvements.
Y’all should move to Texas like we have done. No messing around down here pure and simple. So happy I did.
A high concentration of anything is generally too much for sustainable environment.
The denser it gets around here, the worse off the quality of life becomes.
Take a road trip.
Look around.
There are many good options.
Tiny houses are a thought product of the perpetually-numb.
First of all, this location has been challenged due to being in a wetland that feeds into other lakes and streams all the way to Puget Sound since the public found out about it. Many other locations that are not environmentally challenging have been suggested but the powers that be for some reason seemed determined to build here……begs the question why? Surely there is property some where else in all of Pierce County that could be developed to suit the needs of the village. It could also be in an area closer to services and not so isolated. Since the Rescue Mission states that this particular site is to house the chronically homeless, older people, it may also be disturbing the amount of noise that comes from JBLM. I also strongly disagree with a direct statement from Duke Paulson that because the tenants are paying rent, which I am positive is in the form of a voucher given to them, they can do what they want in the privacy of their own home…..meaning drugs. This should not be allowed! If you are giving them housing and all the resources they need they should have to follow some rules…..we all do.
Secondly, there has been much media coverage stating how we need to address the homeless issue. I believe the first thing that needs to be done, is to define homeless. To truly be transparent and help those who need/ want help we need to have sub categories, ie homeless wanting services, mental health issues, and drug issues. Since we as the taxpayers are being asked to support the homeless through our tax dollars we need to have a voice. I for one do not see how offering housing , food, and all other services to people who refuse it is helping. Those who truly want to get out of their situation should receive help! Spending millions on housing situations to have a majority say they don’t want it is not fiscally responsible.
In closing, I hope that at the Pierce County Council meeting next Tuesday they repeal the rezoning that was pushed through against community protest. The County should not be allowed to change zoning laws that others would never be able to do in a critical wetland area.
Providing free housing is actually cheaper for taxpayers than having a bunch of homeless people roam about different parks and street corners. Yes even for drug users.
Thank you, Claudia, for sharing this very important and informative letter with us all. Our community need answers now.
This opine falls flat for me. It reads as a comfy college educated white lady griping. As a wildlife rehabber I care immensely for all the damage the endlessly populating humans inflict onto ecosystems. But we need housing and small homes provide an above average solution compared to hotels, hospitals, mental institutions, jail or the street itself. Not sure what “controversy” you allege. Every low income housing brings about controversy. And it’s usually people who don’t want the homeless near them. PTSD? Please do better with your justifications. Every single alternate land for development had issues. There was no perfect choice. Side note that the majority of houseless persons are not drug addicts.