Election Campaign Party:
In this month’s newsletter you’ll find information about Jani Hitchen and her re-election campaign. In the last four years she was a leader on the County Council making a difference on environmental issues and many social issues that were not possible before the Democrats became a majority on the Pierce Council in 2020.
Her campaign kickoff is next week and you are invited to a fundraiser on February 29, 2024 at 5.30 p.m. at 3001 N 33rd Street, Tacoma, WA 98407
For more information about Jani Hitchen and her campaign, visit:
www.forevergreencouncil.org/endorsements
City Council takes lead in preventing “dislocation” in neighborhoods where new housing replaces homes and apartments where low-income people live and work. ____________________________________________
City Council & housing dislocation program:
One of the big news stories of the month happened on February 6 when the Tacoma City Council, passed significant changes to their housing dislocation policy. Since 40% of the people in Tacoma live in a neighborhood below the poverty line, it is important that the city’s zoning changes passed last year do not lead to displacing people in the city who could be forced out of their apartment or rental home by new construction in underserved neighborhoods.
For more information, visit www.forevergreencouncil.org
State Legislation and Cut Off Date in both Houses.
Down in Olympia the excitement was focused on passing our favored legislation out of the House or Senate and also defeating legislation that would have allowed increases in rural housing where the water and sewer infrastructure cannot support it.
This is a short session in Olympia, so it is going to take a major effort by the Futurewise team to get support for bills about Transit-Oriented Development and Rent Stabilization to the governor in the remaining weeks. When they take effect this summer, these bills contain language that will help during the review of Pierce County’s Growth Management Plan.
For more information, visit forevergreencouncil.org\news
Florida‘s growth of 1200 new people a day.
The third-largest state in the country has a Growth Management Act similar to ours. With 1200 people a day moving to the state, it’s challenging to keep up with infrastructure for housing and roads — and the needs of wildlife.
Despite this challenge, their taxing structure has worked well enough to expand and add wildlife refuges and corridors over the last 30 years, while also recovering several endangered species that include alligators, manatees, and Florida panthers.
If this is possible in Florida, perhaps we can learn from it as we determine how to share the roads, jobs and parks in Pierce County with 100,000 new incoming residents.
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