If you are a vile Grinch (or perhaps Tim Eyman) then the Tacoma municipal budget may be giving you everything you want this Christmas, such as:

No more fire stations for Proctor and the Tide Flats. Don’t worry, everything there was either old or flammable anyway.

No more school resource officers. No problem – just hang a few “No bullying” signs.

No more fire boats. Heck, if the fire’s on the water then it’s not really a problem (let’s just overlook all the chemicals and HAZMAT at the port, though).

No more gang unit. Well, they’ll just have to behave …

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If Tacoma’s Interim City Manager Rey Arellano thinks his latest budget proposal is a joke, I have news for him. It ain’t funny.

With $23 million in expected cuts coming in 2012, potential job losses come as no surprise. The number of jobs–165 jobs according to the latest Trib report–does put a hefty human toll, especially given the nation’s unemployment woes.

But those figures blur when the two job classifications taking the majority of the cuts come into focus: Police officers and firefighters.

In all fairness I know people in both agencies, and will indirectly …

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By the end of 2008 most Americans recognized that our country was in real financial trouble. In the ensuing months we watched as the politics and corporate greed led to runaway unemployment, a huge bank bailout and a growing unrest culminating in the current Occupy Wall Street movement.

Meanwhile, back in Tacoma, we should all be pleased to hear that the implosion of our national and state economy over the last three years has yet to trickle down to the coffers of the City of Destiny.

As crazy and sarcastic as that sounds, that seems to represent the reality for …

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