Tacoma City Council
Study Session
Noon, Tuesday, January 29, 2002
Tacoma Municipal Building North
Room 16
728 St. Helens Ave.
Police audit update, tourism
The City Council will review the Police Audit final report and Tacoma’s plans for marketing itself as a tourist destination. Tacoma Police Chief David Brame and Performance and Quality Manager Barbara Young will present the final report of the police department’s audit assessment team. The presentation will include Brame’s implementation plan, including regular progress reports to the council and community. The study session report to the council completes the requirement the council set last year to receive a final team report and recommendations by February 2002.
The council will also hear the details of the newly drafted marketing blueprint aimed at bringing convention goers and tourists – and their money – to Tacoma. Over the next several years, Tacoma will see the opening of several tourism-related facilities. The city’s Economic Development and Public Facilities departments and the Tacoma-Pierce County Convention and Visitor Bureau (CVB) hired Development Counsellors International (DCI) to develop a plan to aggressively market Tacoma and Pierce County to conventioneers and tourists. The firm, which helped Tacoma garner international press with its “America’s #1 Wired City” campaign, has spent the past five months interviewing more than 60 people involved in Tacoma and Pierce County tourism efforts, including CVB board members, council members, tourism professionals and representatives of art organizations and hospitality and business communities. Based upon that feedback, the blueprint offers recommendations for branding elements, marketing materials and suggestions for how to implement each part of the program. The city and the CVB expect to implement the plan over several years, depending upon available funding and other resources.
Tacoma City Council
Regular Meeting
Tacoma Municipal Building
747 Market St.
School district ballot item
The council will take public testimony and vote on a proposed resolution to express support for Tacoma School District Proposition No. 1, the proposed education and operations and maintenance levy that will appear on the Feb. 5 special election ballot. If approved, the school district would levy excess taxes upon all taxable property within the district from 2003 to 2006. The levy would assess $4.80 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2003, and would increase incrementally over the three-year period to a maximum of $5.08 per $1,000 in its final year. In the first year, the levy would raise $60.5 million up to nearly $70 million in its final year. At the Jan. 22 meeting, the council passed separate resolutions in support of the city’s ballot measure to build a new police headquarters and four neighborhood substations and Pierce Transit’s proposed .3 percent sales and use tax.
Property tax exemption
The council will take public testimony and vote on granting a market-rate housing exemption to Yakima Vista, LLC. If approved, the resolution would give a 10-year property tax break to the property owner who plans to build up to 177 new housing units between 23rd and 25th streets between Yakima Avenue and I Street. The tax incentive program is for developers of four or more units in any of Tacoma’s 14 mixed-use centers.