In a little less than 20 minutes, Mayor Marilyn Strickland is expected to deliver her second “State of the City” address during the Tacoma Shift Happens event at the convention center.

Here’s a sneak peek at the mayor’s speech:

2012 State of the City Address

INTRO

(7 minutes followed by 3 minute video from Convention and Visitors Bureau)

On behalf of the City of Tacoma and the Tacoma City Council, I am thrilled to be here tonight at the second annual Shift Happens event to give my second State of the City address. Once again, I want to thank the organizers, volunteers, merchants and attendees who have participated in today’s event.

RECAP of LAST YEAR

Last year, our theme for the State of the City address was “finishing what we started.”  And we did!  From family recreation to commerce and transportation, we saw the completion of many great projects:

- Cheney Stadium, home of the Tacoma Rainiers, re-opened on time and on budget to great reviews from many fans.

- After years of trying to attract a grocery store to downtown Tacoma, the new IGA’s City Grocer opened its doors on 13th and Pacific Avenue at Pacific Plaza – adding a new downtown shopping option for workers, visitors and residents. Read more »

Washington Republican Party Chairman Kirby Wilbur said today Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland should apologize for her recent remarks to a group of Pacific Lutheran University college students in which she called the GOP “racist.”

“I think the appropriate thing for her to do would be to issue a statement saying, `I really didn’t mean to say all Republicans are racist and I’m sorry,’” Wilbur said.

“But that would be asking a lot from her, and I wouldn’t expect it,” Wilbur added. “I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for an apology.”

Strickland’s recent talk to PLU students during an on-campus event organized by the Pierce County Young Democrats on Nov. 17 spawned collegiate photojournalist Kevin Knodell‘s column in The Mooring Mast Thursday and online today.  It broke the news about the mayor’s inflammatory comments (This link may not be working because the PLU administration has taken down the site for reasons unrelated to the Strickland story).  The TNT’s Nose column also picked up on the matter today. Read more »

As state leaders gear up to devise a new funding strategy for transportation, the group Transportation For Washington is pushing to make sure that recipe includes money for mass transit and growth management.

The coalition, spearheaded by Transportation Choices and Futurewise, has been rolling out lists of supporters, and today announced Pierce County elected officials who back its cause.

Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, state Rep. Laurie Jinkins, Tacoma City Council members Ryan Mello,  Jake Fey and David Boe, Gig Harbor City Councilman Derek Young, Lakewood City Councilwoman Claudia Thomas join a list of officials elsewhere that includes …

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Tacoma’s City Council called today for quick removal of at least 190 billboards, and possibly dozens more, reigniting a legal fight with sign owner Clear Channel Outdoor.

The council voted 7-1, with Joe Lonergan opposed and Spiro Manthou absent, to tighten zoning restrictions for billboards, set a new deadline for removal of those that don’t comply, and ban the modern versions that switch messages electronically.

By keeping digital billboards out of Tacoma, the council backs out of a legal settlement with Clear Channel that it had approved unanimously last year.

The agreement called for allowing Clear Channel to put up digital boards in exchange for tearing down traditional signs that don’t conform to the law. Though that part of the deal will now be defunct, the agreement also calls on the city to pay Clear Channel the market value of billboards the company is forced to remove outside the agreement. That could be ammunition for a court challenge.

“This has the potential to cost the taxpayers millions of dollars,” Michael Mayes, Clear Channel Outdoor’s Seattle real estate director, told the council tonight. “It opens the city up to additional legal exposure and significant financial risk.”

Councilmen David Boe and Marty Campbell proposed the law, which doubles the required space between billboards and places like residential districts, parks, churches, schools and historic districts.

City planners say they haven’t determined how many more signs will become “nonconforming” under the proposed rules. Staff had determined roughly 193 of the city’s 253 billboard faces didn’t conform to the old rules.

All nonconforming signs would have to be removed within six months. Permits that allow companies to replace a demolished billboard in a new spot would expire after a year. Clear Channel holds 169 of those relocation permits. Read more »

Sellers of medical marijuana aren’t legal in Tacoma, city lawyers contend.

Today the City Council temporarily banned them anyway.

Mayor Marilyn Strickland said the six-month moratorium she proposed and the council unanimously approved is merely a prelude to future regulation that she hopes will license legitimate sellers and allow them to operate.

The moratorium bans dispensaries as well as the so-called collective gardens that were legalized by the Legislature this year. The gardens are forbidden whether or not they are connected to a business.

The ban probably won’t have much effect on the dozens of existing storefront medical-marijuana providers in Tacoma. That’s because the city is already going through the legal process of trying to shut them down — while allowing them to remain open as their appeals proceed and the council thinks about how to regulate them.

Those that might have to worry are new operations that are not already embroiled in legal appeals with the city, or people who are thinking about opening such a business.

“If you do, we’re going to shut you down,” Strickland said.

But while a shutdown might start with sending a letter, it’s not clear what happens after that. Would police raid the place? City Manager Rey Arellano said he and his staff hasn’t yet decided on an enforcement strategy.

The moratorium leaves it to Arellano to enforce the law — “in a manner that will continue to preserve legal access to medical cannabis for qualifying patients.”

That means in effect that the city won’t take any new enforcement action against existing businesses, city staff and council members said. Read more »

Tacoma is about to start its search for a new city manager.

Staff in the city personnel office are finishing up a request for bids from search firms that could go out today.

The search is expected to start in August and cost as much as $50,000, Human Resources Director Joy St. Germain told the council, which hopes to wrap it up by the end of the year.

To find managers in the past, Tacoma has turned to such national headhunters as Arcus Public and Waters-Oldani Executive Recruitment Group.

The city could have chosen to do the search for Eric Anderson’s replacement in-house, but council members and St. Germain said a national firm would do a better job.

“These firms specialize in hiring people, and they know who’s out there, and they know who will be a good fit for the city,” Mayor Marilyn Strickland said, “and so I think it’s important for us to make sure that we  cast a wide net and have an opportunity to get the best person here.” Read more »

Tacoma’s citizen Board of Ethics issued findings today that Mayor Marilyn Strickland violated the city’s ethics code by accepting a “prohibited gift” when she used a Lakewood businessman’s frequent flier miles to pay for a recent business trip to Asia.

“Mayor Marilyn Strickland’s receipt of the frequent flyer miles constitutes receipt of a prohibited gift … and is a violation of the city’s Code of Ethics,” the board found in an 11-page report released today.

As punishment, the board recommended that by majority vote, the city council request the deputy mayor admonish Strickland for accepting a banned gift, and that all such travel-related gift offers meant to offset city costs be first brought before the council in the future.

In a brief telephone call Thursday, Strickland said she accepts the board’s findings and didn’t plan to appeal.

“I’m OK with it,” she said. “We’ve spent enough time on this already, I think.”

In its report, the board noted that Strickland could have avoided the code violation under a state law that allows municipal authorities to accept donations.

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Mayor Marilyn Strickland plans to offer details this afternoon for an outside investigation of the Tacoma Police Department’s handling of the Zina Linnik case.

“I’ll have a recommendation of a very strong candidate that has the ability to be fair and unbiased in this investigation,” Strickland told me after the council’s noon study session today.

The details will come at the council’s 3 p.m. Committee of the Whole, the mayor said.

For the past few weeks, Strickland has been working with the City Attorney’s office in trying to find candidates to lead a third-party probe of the city’s investigation of …

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