Tacoma City Council Meeting - Oct. 13th, 2009
This evening’s Tacoma City Council meeting is now done. What happened? The hotels are imposing a new levy on themselves. The Council had their first opportunity to look at the city-wide smoking ban in parks. We expected a bit more vocal opposition to this one. Maybe next week … Here are our notes:
CONSENT AGENDA
RESOLUTIONS
Resolution No. 37883 sets Tuesday, October 27, 2009, at approximately 5:30 p.m., as the date for a public hearing by the City Council on the proposed ten-year franchise with Comcast of Tacoma, Inc., and Comcast of Puget Sound, Inc., to provide cable services in the City of Tacoma.
Resolution No. 37884 sets Tuesday, October 27, 2009, at approximately 5:30 p.m., as the date for a public hearing by the City Council on the proposed ten-year agreement with the Department of Public Utilities, Light Division, d.b.a. Click! Network, to provide cable services in the City of Tacoma.
Resolution No. 37885 approves the final plat of “Junett Street Townhomes,” a 15-lot subdivision located at 4504 South Junett Street and 3002 and 3008 South 45th Street.
REGULAR AGENDA
APPOINTMENTS
Resolution No. 37887 appoints and reappoints individuals to the Tacoma Arts Commission.
- Reappointing Donald Lacky for a term to expire December 31,2012.
- Reappointing Sarah Idstrom for a term to expire December 31,2012.
- Appointing Antonio Edwards Jr. for a term to expire December 31,2012.
- Appointing Jana Wennstrom for a term to expire February 9, 2011.
- Appointing Dane Meyer for a term to expire March 5, 2011.
RESOLUTIONS
Purchase Resolution No. 37888 awards a contract to Northrop Grumman Information Technology, Inc., in the amount of $332,241, plus sales tax, budgeted from the Fire Special Revenue Fund and the EMS Special Revenue Fund, for expert professional computer services to migrate and upgrade the Fire Department’s Computer Aided Dispatch System (CADS) to two new Hewlett Packard Integrity Series Application Servers.
Resolution No. 37886 was moved from this evening’s consent agenda. It authorizes the execution of an interlocal agreement with Pierce County and the Cities of DuPont, Fife, Gig Harbor, Lakewood, Puyallup, and Sumner for the establishment of the Pierce County Tourism Promotion Area. Tourism Promotion Areas are new tools passed by the State Legislator in 2003. It permits hoteliers in an established area to self-impose a levy. The levy is then used to pay for promotion of tourism in the established area. This would hopefully give our region the ability to be more competitive when trying to attract special events. The fee in Tacoma would be $1.50 per room.
FINAL READING OF ORDINANCES
Ordinance No. 27830 vacates the south 12 feet of North 18th Street west of Orchard Street, for general use and to increase the yard area for the property located at 5102 North 18th Street.
Ordinance No. 27837 provides for the sale and issuance of water system revenue bonds in the aggregate principal amount not to exceed $82,000,000, to provide funds to finance or refinance costs of capital improvements to the water system, and specifying the terms and covenants of the bonds.
Ordinance No. 27838 amends Chapter 1.12 of the Municipal Code, relating to the Compensation Plan, to implement rates of pay and compensation for employees represented by District Lodge 160, on behalf of Local Lodge 282 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Wastewater Treatment Plant Maintenance Supervisors Unit, which consists of three budgeted full-time positions, effective January 5, 2009 through December 31, 2010.
Ordinance No. 27839 and Ordinance No. 27840 were both related to parking pay stations in downtown Tacoma. The ordinances will be reconsidered during the October 20th City Council meeting. City Manager Eric Anderson explained during today’s Study Session that the citizens’ committee had not had an opportunity to see the ordinances prior to Council’s consideration. They will be taking a look, providing feedback, and it will be back next week.
FIRST READING OF ORDINANCES
Ordinance No. 27841 amending Chapter 8.27 of the Municipal Code, relating to the Park Code, by prohibiting smoking in all city parks. Most of the questions came from Councilmember Lonergan. He stated that he’s really concerned that rate paying taxpayers won’t be allowed to do a perfectly legal thing in a public place. We expected more public comment against the ordinance. But feedback this evening was overwhelming in support. Maybe we’ll hear more during the final reading next week.
Ordinance No. 27842 amending various chapters of Title 8 of the Municipal Code, relating to public safety and morals, by updating and prescribing penalties, and updating and reorganizing theft and theft-related offenses, and offenses against property, to be consistent with state law.
Done. Who wants to talk about water system revenue bonds? Anyone?
Filed under: City-Council, City-Council
11 comments
M Mofo from the Hood October 14, 2009
“Ordinance No. 27841 amending Chapter 8.27 of the Municipal Code, relating to the Park Code, by prohibiting smoking in all city parks.”
Can somebody explain in simple language why smoking is an issue?
Did this intolerance start because someone somewhere felt personally offended?
In the last five decades there has been a cultural shift toward increasing intolerance of personal liberty.
The trick nowadays is to first get through nine months in the womb and get born to experience this weird new world of intolerance.
J Justin Camarata October 14, 2009
How in the world would this ordinance be enforced? Is this really the best use of our police?
M Mofo from the Hood October 14, 2009
There’s a lot of social trends that a councilman has got to think about these days.
And there’s a whole lot of behaviors that we should shield our children’s eyes from.
Let’s be mindful of our personal responsibilities. Basic education with regards to the hazards of smoking and other unhealthy behaviors should be taught by parents in the home.
Government has been gaining a monopoly on the educational system for decades. Government mandated programs in public schools have promoted a major cultural shift towards a pragmatic social morality if not a moral revolution.
It’s an incremental process that has steadily undermined the legitimacy of parental authority and it’s a process that has sought to indoctrinate the public that government knows best.
The issue of smoking is representative of how an incremental process of governmental regulation can take away personal liberties; and the general public is hardly aware. First smoker’s were banned from indoor spaces. Then they were banned from smoking outside within 25 feet of an entrance to indoor spaces. Now government councils are deciding whether and how to ban smoker’s from outside public spaces?
Is the general public authorizing the government to punish smoker’s through fines and incarceration? I’m starting to get concerned that eventually a heavily indoctrinated public will turn in their family members to the authorities for first smoking; then what next? Talking about the Bible?
W Wade Stewart October 14, 2009
$$$ for enforcement is a problem. I don’t like the smoking at all, but laws that are enforced inequitably (fining the youth or homeless but letting others walk) I really hate. Speaking of enforcing smoking bans, it sure would be nice if the cops around the transit center would enforce it a little more so I don’t have to walk through the clouds at lunch.
R RR Anderson October 14, 2009
I would like to make a citizens arrest or report Mofo from the Hood for thought crimes against humanity. I believe I have evidence that shows he has been smoking the bible.
T Tacoma (A)roma October 15, 2009
I would gladly trade wi-fi access in Wright Park for the ability to smoke a cigarette.
T Thomas Laprade October 15, 2009
Government power real health hazard
The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of “second-hand” smoke.
Indeed, the bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat, a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved – the cancer of unlimited government power.
The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or is in fact just a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: If it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the “right” decision?
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than trying to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the bans are the unwanted intrusion.
Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops and offices – places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is negligible, such as outdoor public parks.
The decision to smoke, or to avoid “second-hand” smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on.
All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only his own judgment can guide him through it.
Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Smokers are a numerical minority, practising a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.
That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the unlimited intrusion of government into our lives. We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.
A Altered Chords October 15, 2009
I hate cigarette smoke. I gag when I’m near it. I’m going to start suing people who smoke.
As we move closer to national health care, remember, it is YOU who will be paying for the lung cancer treatment of the chronic smoker.
Ban it. I don’t want to pay for someone else’s poor decision.
J Jesse October 15, 2009
You have to be a total moron to smoke. Smokers are nothing more than drug addicts. Do you want a drug addict doing his/her drugs right out in the middle of a park? Ban it.
Smoking literally killed my dad last Thanksgiving. It is one of the worst things man has ever done to another man in the name of profit. Ban it. Make smokes $1000 a pack. Words cannot encapsulate my detest for smoking.
A Andrew Bacon October 15, 2009
@mofo’s first comment – I find involuntary cancer offensive, yes.
M Mofo from the Hood October 15, 2009
Mr. Laprade @10, that certainly was an enthusiastic and I’m sure a well-intentioned commentary.
If I were to reproduce it, I would include photos of Muppets to attract a crowd.