TACOMA, Wash. – Yesterday’s State of the City Forum event gathered roughly 200 community members together with City leaders and staff where the spotlight was on the community’s questions and concerns.
Mayor Victoria Woodards chose to flip the script this year and forgo the traditional State of the City speech, and instead give community members the opportunity to voice their opinions on the state of the city. The issues of addressing homelessness and improving community safety emerged as the top priority issues for community members in conversations, facilitated group discussions, and on written comments left on comment boards posted throughout the event space at last night’s open house event.
“I am grateful for all the Tacoma residents who took time out of their evenings to attend and share their ideas and concerns with us,” said Mayor Victoria Woodards. “We heard you, and we look forward to upcoming conversations to dive deeper into what we heard last night and share how we are serving our residents.”
Yesterday’s State of the City Forum kicks off a series of public engagement events and opportunities coming this summer, and more information will be available on the City’s social media as they are announced. Community members who were unable to attend last night’s event in person can still submit their feedback through an online public comment portal through April 7.
Comments and questions gathered over the next several weeks will be used to help shape several more State of the City Forum events coming later this spring and summer where Mayor Woodards will lead a series of focused dialogues with community about specific concerns raised and what the Mayor, City Council, and City employees are doing to address these concerns.
Community members can access the online comment portal between now and April 7 at cityoftacoma.org/stateofthecity. The State of the City webpage will also announce the details of the upcoming focused dialogue events as the information is available.
Too late. The damage has been done.
It will take years of serious commitment to get back to law AND order and a civil society.
Sad for all those lives damaged by reckless “reimagining.”
No problem – send your homeless, and their drug, crime and mental illness problems, to Spanaway. Out of sight, out of mind.