Please contact Kathi to volunteer 

--Leading the National Anthem & Four Way Test
--Giving the Moment of Reflection
--Assisting with Audio/Visual
--Greeter and Roving Mic
--Sponsoring a meeting

--Check in Assistant

 

President Kathryn introduced President Elect Kim Bedier, who in turn introduced our speaker, Mayor Victoria Woodards. Kim mentioned that Mayor Woodards’ destiny is to lead the City of Destiny during one of its hardest times. Mayor Woodards started off with noting that there are two current pandemics – COVID being one and systemic racism in our country being a second.

There is a severe uptick of cases in Tacoma and Pierce County, especially since Phase 2 began in June. The average 14 day case rate prior to Phase 2 was only 12, and now is 139. While we are increasing, what can we do? Our city is past the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order, and Mayor Woodards asked what we can do now so we don’t need to go back to staying home. The answer is simple – wear your masks and stay 6 feet apart! By living out these mandates we can make a difference. She invited us to all continue to take part in these rules and to physically distance.

How is Tacoma responding? Starting with business, the City has invested $1 million into small businesses for stabilization who were able to receive up to $15,000 in aid. There were 69 applications for this. Loan payments will be deferred for 12 months. Another $1 million has been received from the US Economic Development Administration for small business financing that will be put in the City’s revolving loan fund. Set aside $645,000 in CDBG funding to use for small business assistance. Last week, $518,000 in new CARES funding for Tacoma Minority Business Development Agency. There has also been focus on families – there has been a rental assistance program set up ($1.2 million) in partnership with LASA and are working on a way to provide mortgage assistance. 179 payments totaling $160,000 was done in the first round, and they just went into application phase 2 and they received 146 unduplicated applications and hope to have funding out in the next couple of weeks. Applicants get a one-time payment of up to $1000. A Rental Assistance Fund has been set up in partnership with GTCF at the request of the community, and to date there have been 12 gifts totaling $2800, and she invited us to donate to this fund (www.cityoftacoma.org/compassionate). $2.4 million through TPU has been aside to help with utility bills. So far 10,081 families have been helped with their utilities totaling $1.8 million.

“Uplift Tacoma” has been put together to help community members utilize their creativity and participate in cultural activities. Organizations that provide an arts community and support for the arts were shared, and it’s a great way to lift our spirits.

She presented the citywide budget of $3.5 billion, and the general fund is where the bulk of the budget is spent ($514.6 million, 15% of total budget), which provides everything from street repairs, utilities, funding for public services, etc. Because of COVID, Tacoma is facing a $64.3 million deficit. Our city has not been able to realize any CARES funding as they focus on communities with over 500,000 citizens. Sales and business tax make up 44% of the general fund budget which is what is bringing the hardest hit with loss of consumer spending and closure of stores.

How much money do we spend on public safety? Police and fire services represent 65% of overall budget. There will be some difficult decisions that need to be made, not only for this budget, but in planning the next biennium budget. There have been staff furloughs, halting of projects that hadn’t been started before COVID, stopped moving forward with programs that weren’t started, as well as capital projects. Early retirement incentives have been offered to seek to close the gap.

We can all be engaged by giving input of how we as Tacoma citizens would like to see the money be used in the 2021-2022 biennium budget by using “Balancing Act” at www.cityoftacoma.org/budgetdevelopment.

Mayor Woodards and the City Council have committed themselves to transform the system in Tacoma, but in the midst of that they will do reforms along the way, including deaths in custody. The Manny Ellis case has been eye opening in our community, and his death wasn’t made aware until almost 3 months after the occurrence. In June, when we first took a look at which “8 Can’t Wait” steps of reform, the police force realized that they do all of them (Ban chokeholds and strangleholds, require de-escalation, duty to intervene, ban shooting at moving vehicles, require warning before shooting, require exhausting all alternatives before shooting, require use of force continuum, and require comprehensive reporting).

Body cams will be another interim reform, and the City is trying to work with the state and police will be outfitted with them by January and trained by March. It’s not as easy as purchasing cameras and having them deploy the next day.

Resolution 40622 will guide the work we do around transformation in our community. The words are good, but what will be accomplished? Guiding principles and a work plan of transformation with dates and timelines of what will be done and when they will be done. All information can be found on the website. Full transportation will take time, it will not be easy, but we are in real unprecedented times and we have the opportunity to make real changes like the ones that should have happened during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's.

Mayor Woodards invited us to take out our phones and text “I’m all in” to 253-650-0588. Rotary is built on compassion, and we are compassionate, but to get through these pandemics, it’s going to take our compassion to understand and not just tolerate our neighbors. We can practice what the program “Compassionate Tacoma” preaches by caring about others.

Cindy Niemi shared of her excursion she went on with her husband – 130 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail beginning at the Gorge at Cascade Locks and went all the way to Old Snowy Mountain. Invited us all to follow their trip on Facebook or Instagram, and to get out and enjoy nature.

President Kathryn thanked everybody involved with today’s meeting and dismissed the club.