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January 4, 2011 · Halley Griffin · archive: txp/article

Tacoma City Council Meeting for January 4, 2011

CONSENT AGENDA

FIRST READING OF ORDINANCES
Ordinance No. 27964 amends Chapter 13.06 of the Municipal Code to reclassify the property located at 6036 and 6040 South Puget Sound Avenue from a “R-2SRD” Single-Family Dwelling Special Review District to a “C-2” General Community Commercial District, to continue to use a portion of the parking lot for South Tacoma Mazda.

PROCLAMATIONS, RECOGNITIONS, PRESENTATIONS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Mayor Marilyn Strickland presented an award from the Home Depot Foundation for their leadership on the Salishan redevelopment project.

PUBLIC COMMENT

  • One man spoke up in support of the resolution to move the monthly citizens’ forum from the first meeting of the month to the second.

  • Downtown Merchants Group President Whitney Rhodes commended the council for their resolution to support keeping the Washington State History Museum open.

  • Regular commenter Robert Hill recommended that the council offer a citizens’ forum at each meeting.

  • Tim Smith spoke in support of the nomination of Lauren Walker to the office of Deputy Mayor and the proposed move of the citizens’ forum. He said he believes comments should be allowed to last five minutes rather than three.

REGULAR AGENDA

APPOINTMENTS
Resolution No. 38169 passed unanimously and elects Council Member Lauren Walker to the office of Deputy Mayor for a one-year term through December 31, 2011.

RESOLUTIONS
Purchase Resolution No. 38170 awards contracts to:

  1. PCl Construction Services, Inc., on its bid of $46,870,000.00, plus a five percent contingency, for an cumulative total of $49,213,500.00, including sales tax, budgeted from the Streets Special Revenue Fund, for the rehabilitation of the Murray Morgan Bridge to allow legal load traffic to use the bridge – Specification No. PW10-0128F; and
  2. Anthony Construction Company, Inc., in the amount of $550,000.00, for an cumulative total of $4,393,561.78, including sales tax, budgeted from the Wastewater 2006 Bond Construction Fund, for additional project work at Tacoma’s Central Wastewater Treatment Plant- Specification No. PW09-0541 F.

Tom Rutherford of Public Works and Engineering explained the city’s decision not to use the lowest-cost bid for the Murray Morgan Bridge rehabilitation. He said the winning bid was more technically sound. The bridge will be locked into an upright position early next week and be closed to pedestrian access during the project.

Resolution No. 38171 passed unanimously and authorizes an increase to Amendment No. 14 of the agreement with Simon and Company, Inc., in the amount of $25,000, to correct an oversight for the years 2009 and 2010; and authorizing the execution of Amendment No. 15, in the amount of $151 ,950, budgeted from the General Fund, for legislative lobbying services for 2011 and 2012, for a cumulative total of $849,434.

This resolution essentially fixes a contract error to bring the contract into line with a resolution enacted by the council in 2009. The added cost reimburses expenses that were unable to be paid in 2009 and 2010 because of the contract error.

Resolution No. 38172 passed unanimously and authorizes the execution of a Restated Development Agreement, Condominium Declaration, and Unit 1 lease with Pacific Plaza Development, llC, for the finalization of real estate documents for the South Park Plaza Garage project.

Resolution No. 38173 passed unanimously expresses support to keep the Washington State History Museum open.

Councilmember Victoria Woodards said the museum is a key part of our downtown core, as well as employing citizens and offering a vast array of programming activities for Tacomans. She said Tacoma would lose a lot would the history museum close and “it’s times like these when we need to stand up and fight.”

Resolution No. 38174 amends Rule 9 of the Rules of Procedure of the Council of the City of Tacoma, changing Citizens’ Forum from the first meeting of the month to the second Tuesday of the month.

Councilmember Marty Campbell said this change will bring more consistency because so many citizens’ forums are bumped to the second Tuesday of the month anyway due to holiday weekends and other factors.

An amendment was proposed to expand comment time to five minutes per person, but was voted down. Strickland said she believes three minutes is adequate time to make a point, and pointed out that public comments may take up to five minutes.

This resolution will be sent over for second reading at next week’s meeting.

FIRST READING OF ORDINANCES
Ordinance No. 27965 amends Chapter 1.12 of the Municipal Code, relating to the Compensation Plan, to implement rates of pay and compensation for employees represented by the Tacoma Police Management Association, Local 26, I.U.P.A., retroactive to January 1, 2011.

CITIZENS’ FORUM

  • One man said he believes the council violated Washington State Code by using utility funds to build the Center for Urban Waters.

  • Robert Hill spoke about issues he sees with local voters’ pamphlets. He also supports ranked-choice voting in Tacoma elections.

  • One person spoke about the need for public shoreline access to all citizens. She said she believes the current planning department is working against shoreline access to Commencement Bay.

  • Two people spoke about issues with the Sperry Ocean Dock. One of them said he believes the city attorney was too “cozy” with the attorney for the dock. He asked the city manager and the mayor to call for the city attorney to remain neutral in this situation. Accountability at the Sperry Ocean Dock has been a recurring theme in city council comments this year since an incident in September when a mysterious black substance fell from the sky in the Stadium District.

  • One man suggested legalizing gambling card rooms in Tacoma again.

COMMENTS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS OF THE CITY COUNCIL

Walker made a motion to cancel council meetings on the following dates in 2011: March 15, May 31, July 5, September 6, December 20 and December 27.

Councilmember Spiro Manthou congratulated Strickland on her wedding last month.

Filed under: City-Council

2 comments

  • RR Anderson January 5, 2011

    the black slime raining down from the military transport ships is odious

  • RR Anderson January 5, 2011

    from my friend the JinxMedic:

    “Complete lack of state funding is why there have been no significant travelling exhibits at the musem, and this same lack of funding is why the museum itself is in disrepair- although it is a rather new building. Museums always take the cuts in this state, which is a major reason why I am no longer in that career field. No job security. (Or as my mentor in the field once said, “There’s no future in history”.)

    To get the dangling carrot of American Association of Museums (AAM) accreditation, most US public museums in the past twenty years have been forced to go to “storyline” type formats, less reliant on material culture (cool stuff), and more reliant on photos, maps, and recordings. If people wanted to see that, they can get it through books and the internet. Worse yet, AAM standards required that any exhibit having human remains (this means mummies, skeletons- you name it) be removed from display, and also pushed a politically correct theme- firearms collections (such as the WSHS had) were sold off, all loaned items were returned, natural history exhibits were removed, and anything else determined to be “culturally insensitive” (read “native american collections”) was eliminated.

    That left most museums with nothing interesting remaining. What AAM never understood, was that the things they deemed “insensitive” were the kinds of things that people went to museums to see. Not a collection of photos – you can get that more effectively in a history book. Not mannequins painted monochromatic colors- Nordstrom’s has that. Recordings of voices? Internet. Television. Movies.

    I predicted this course of events when the transition to an AAM storyline model by the WSHS was first discussed, and did my best to save as much material culture as I could to be incorporated in to the upcoming storyline. Of course, it was not enough – and so we are left with a general run-down sterility.”

    and….

    “The WSHS museum was far more interesting when it still had an amazingly eclectic collection of material culture. The current museum is better located and more effectively tells a storyline of state history, but we certainly do miss our old mummy, Ankh Unnofi…”

    and…

    “Support the museum as it stands now, and encourage private funding to secure interesting travelling exhibits, such as the Smithsonian’s “Magnificent Voyagers”, which was successfully run at WSHS’s old Stadium Way facility in 1987. Good travelling exhibits always attract visitors, but they can be expensive to host. The WSHM building on Pacific Avenue was specifically designed to host these types of exhibits, providing proper environmental control, overall improved facility security, and ease of access by the public.

    After we get a few “big ticket” travelling exhibits under our belt (think along the lines of “Tutenkhamen”), perhaps then we can discuss abandoning (or at least modifying) the “storyline model”, and go back to having interesting material culture on permanent display.

    This can be done by bringing out what remains in custodial storage on site (and at other state facilities), and once again utilizing the option of long-term loans. People are more likely to offer items on long-term or permanent loan than donation and remember that current AAM practice discourages loans when knowing that an outright donation may one day be sold off according to flucuations in what’s popular with current museum management models, donors are less likely to donate. Donors take the concept of “in perpetuity” seriously, imagine that.

    There is a place for a state history storyline, and it does belong at the WSHM. However, people want to see interesting things, which is lacking at the current facility. This can be done, in part, by bringing back long-term loans of material culture.

    And getting rid of the fence.”

    thanks to Marty for at least going on record against the business retarding anti-pedestrian WSHM fence