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Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Tacoma sees surge in killings among kids. Have teens hit a ‘breaking point'?
A spike in Tacoma homicides, particularly among young people, has residents and city leaders concerned. Youth violence rates have fluctuated in recent years, but one Tacoman who works with young people says kids have reached a breaking point. The city has recorded four homicides among people 18 and under since the start of the year, double the number that occurred by this time last year. Violence has been particularly bad in the Eastside neighborhood of Salishan, where three shootings have been reported since April 20 when Mount Tahoma High School junior Veron Lockett was shot and killed. Overall, the homicide rate in Tacoma is slightly up. There have been 10 homicides in the city as of April 30, two more than this time last year. Janette Simon, general manager of the Salishan Association told The News Tribune that the neighborhood group is 'deeply saddened' by the tragic events. Simon said the association is working closely with the Tacoma Police Department to schedule a town hall meeting to support neighbors and hear their concerns. 'The Salishan Association stands with the community during this difficult time and acknowledges the fear and grief that these incidents have caused,' Simon said. 'We would like to emphasize the importance of community dialogue and support to address these issues and promote safety.' Officer Shelbie Boyd, a spokesperson for the Police Department, said police so far don't have any information indicating that the three shootings in the Salishan neighborhood are connected. Asked about the increase in youth homicides compared to last year, Boyd said any homicide is concerning. She said police have been dealing with surges in youth-related violence for the past couple years. Boyd noted that young people aren't only becoming victims of violence, in some cases police are identifying youth as suspects. Two 16-year-old boys and two 15-year-old boys have been arrested and charged with murder in the Feb. 22 fatal shooting of 18-year-old Messiah Washington. And a 15-year-old has been arrested and charged with murder in connection to the Feb. 14 homicide of 18-year-old Kadony Robbins. 'It's a complex issue, right? So we're committed to addressing it with every tool available,' Boyd said. 'A part of that is enforcement, it's the intervention and then the prevention of it. I know that we've reached out to schools, and we've reached out to the community, and there's some meetings taking place.' Antonio McLemore is the supervisor of the Eastside Community Center, one of 12 locations the City of Tacoma used last year for its Summer Teen Late Nights program, which provided supervised spaces for young people to spend time with other kids. He's also done mentorship work with young men through the Tacoma Urban League. 'Our youth have been hurting for a while,' McLemore said. 'I think the pain that our young people have been experiencing for a long time, I think it's just reached, obviously, its breaking point.' McLemore described how problems like youth access to guns and conflicts between kids are nothing new, but other issues like the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media, struggling parents and a breakdown in community involvement are leading to more violent outcomes. 'The breakdown of our community, the breakdown of our families, the breakdown of churches, all these things are a part of disconnecting young people from the caring adults that were critical from dismantling the youth violence that we see in our schools today,' McLemore said. In a public Facebook post last week, Tacoma School Board President Korey Strozier asked parents, guardians and caregivers to be nosy and ask hard questions of their children. 'Check the backpacks, the group chats, the late-night plans,' Strozier wrote. 'Even when they push you away — push in closer.' Strozier said two students in Tacoma Public Schools had been lost to gun violence in one week. He said he was hurting just as others were, but he also wanted to make a call to families, city leaders, organizations, neighbors and mentors to 'dig in' and make a coordinated effort to build a safety net around young people. Tacoma City Council member Sandesh Sadalge represents District 4, which covers the Eastside and Salishan area. He told The News Tribune on Monday that he was 'devastated' to hear about the deaths and shootings. 'Even one victim of violence is too much,' he said. Sadalge said he wants to concentrate, policy-wise, on long-term preventative solutions. 'I'm really proud that despite our budget shortfall last year, we prioritize and continue to fund crime prevention in a myriad of programs,' he said. About $444 million of Tacoma's budget has been invested into community safety, which makes up 64 percent of the city's General Fund expenses, according to the current biennial budget. Community safety prioritizes providing essential emergency services, court services, safe infrastructure and increases 'positive perception of safety and overall quality of life,' according to the budget. In recent years, the city has directed millions of dollars into contracts with service providers who provide programming to combat youth violence and increase opportunities for young people to thrive. 'It's an absolute problem when even elementary school kids understand how important and how big an issue this is in my area,' Saldage said. McLemore doesn't believe this latest surge in violence is over. Police haven't announced any arrests in Lockett's death or the April 12 homicide of 16-year-old Marco Teran, who was shot in the 4200 block of Portland Avenue East. McLemore said he's heard that retaliations are happening. 'Violence begets violence. It's a vicious cycle,' McLeMore said. McLemore said he typically gets calls from people when gatherings are happening in response to spikes in violence. He hasn't been getting those same calls in recent days, something he attributed to people being in 'survival mode.' Last week, Tacoma resident DeQuin Evans channeled some of his feelings about the shootings into words of wisdom for the young people he coaches through Gridiron Sports + Performance, where he mentors young people through sports. Evans said many of the young people he works with come from broken homes, and they have friends who have been killed in recent shootings. Over the weekend, he said, he was getting text messages from kids who weren't sure if they wanted to play football anymore because of the trauma they were dealing with. A video of Evans' speech to his players at a recent practice was posted to Instagram. In it, he said he's tired of seeing young people like him and his players die prematurely, and he encouraged them to pursue their careers to make their families proud. Evans is Black and Samoan, and he said most of the kids he works with come from similar backgrounds. Asked what drove him to do the video, Evans became emotional. 'Because I don't want to lose none of them,' Evans said. 'These are like my kids' big brothers.' 'You find whatever vehicle you have, it doesn't have to be sports, it could be pursuing your education, whatever you have a desire to do,' Evans added. 'Even if you have to work a nine to five, find a way to give back to a younger version of yourself so you can add value to his life.'
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tacoma voters to weigh permanent tax hikes for street improvements. What to know
Tacoma voters will decide on April 22 whether to embrace increased taxes expected to raise millions of dollars annually for the second iteration of a sweeping city streets improvement plan. The city's Streets Initiative II, which will be on the ballot in the upcoming special election, would succeed Tacoma's major 10-year effort to upgrade streets that voters approved in 2015. That tax package, referred to as the Streets Initiative, is set to soon expire. Streets Initiative II, or Proposition 1 as it's named on the ballot, would increase utility tax on natural gas, electric and phone utilities by 2% and bump the regular property tax levy by 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value beginning next year, according to the city. The tax hikes would replace rate increases imposed by the first streets initiative, which had raised the same taxes by 1.5% and 20 cents, respectively. The current utility tax rate expires next February while the existing property tax rate ends in December, the city said. To put it into perspective, the proposed new utility and property taxes combined are expected to cost the average Tacoman homeowner roughly $98 per year — or about $8 per month — more than they have been paying under the expiring tax rates, according to the city's explanatory statement of Prop. 1 on the voters' pamphlet. Qualifying seniors and certain others would be exempt from the rate increases, the city said. While the 2015 streets initiative had a decade-long shelf life, Streets Initiative II is a permanent levy, city spokesperson Maria Lee told The News Tribune in December after the City Council unanimously approved sending the measure to the special election. The first tax package represented a nearly $400 million investment in improving city infrastructure over the past decade, accounting for grant-matched funds and other dollars, according to the city. Streets Initiative II is projected to raise $37 million each year for a bevy of road-related upgrades in Tacoma, including street repairs and maintenance, safety improvements on high-risk corridors and a betterment of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, the city said in its ballot measure explanation. A News Tribune analysis in September showed how the city's first streets initiative largely accomplished what Tacoma officials intended it to do by vastly improving the condition of residential streets, which make up 61% of the city's entire street network. The initiative, by design, also paid much less attention to arterial roads — the more heavily trafficked, commercial pathways in the city such as Portland and 6th avenues — that ultimately declined in condition as a result. City officials previously noted that street quality wasn't the lone benchmark for progress, underscoring street safety as a key objective. They cited the city's Vision Zero initiative, which aims to end traffic deaths and severe injuries by 2035. Vision Zero embraces a complete-street philosophy that incorporates sidewalks, crosswalks, flashing beacons, bike lanes and other accompaniments. Still, the differing trajectories of residential and arterial road condition under the first streets initiative raised the question of how Tacoma plans to avoid a seesaw effect in the next iteration, particularly since city officials have said Streets Initiative II would heavily focus on arterial roads and multi-modal transportation. In an interview in September, Public Works director Ramiro Chavez said that the city hadn't ignored arterial work during the first streets initiative, despite a dramatic reduction in maintenance for arterial roads and much more of the initiative's dollars being set aside for residential streets. If voters approve Streets Initiative II, Chavez said, the city planned to continue to invest in and manage residential streets, too. The city performed work on more than 4,000 residential blocks over the past 10 years — a number which Chavez previously said was anticipated to increase by the end of this year to surpass the city's 5,600-block goal. In a presentation in December, Chavez told the City Council that Streets Initiative II also would prioritize projects in under-served neighborhoods, which encompassed 64% of Tacoma's highest-risk streets. 'While the 2015 initiative delivered measurable benefits, challenges remain,' Chavez said. In a joint op-ed in The News Tribune last month, City Council members Kristina Walker and John Hines cast Streets Initiative II as a 'generational investment' and highlighted the first street initiative's positive returns. The city improved nearly 70% of the city's residential streets, secured $2.25 for every $1 of initiative funds and consistently had a clean audit, they said. Streets Initiative II has been endorsed by the entire City Council, Tacoma Firefighters Union Local 31, local transportation-advocacy group Downtown On the Go, the Pierce County Central Labor Council, Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello and others. In a voters' pamphlet filed with the Pierce County Elections Office, the proponent committee, Yes to Safer Streets, wrote that Prop. 1's focus on fixing major roads would result in millions of dollars in workforce development, reduce traffic deaths and avoid lengthier and costlier repairs in the future. 'The cost of poor infrastructure — traffic delays, accidents, and vehicle wear — also impacts businesses and residents,' the committee wrote. 'Deferred road maintenance leads to higher long-term costs, as roads deteriorate faster without timely repairs. Prop 1 will grow our economy, reduce traffic fatalities and, in the long run, save Tacomans money.' The opponent committee urged voters to reject increasing taxes and suggested that the city had failed to act and now sought to pass off a burden onto taxpayers, which would hit people with limited incomes particularly hard. 'Why haven't they used the funds they already had to begin this work years earlier? How many lives were lost due to their inaction?' the committee wrote. 'Why didn't they just resubmit the same tax rates as last time? After all, assessed values have gone up 153% since (the) first 'Roads Proposition' passed. Where are the taxpayers in support? All endorsers have vested interest in passage.' The city said it's hosting information sessions at two libraries on Saturday to discuss Prop. 1. One session is scheduled at the South Tacoma Library Branch, 3411 S. 56th St., from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m. The other is planned at the Swasey Library Branch, 7001 6th Ave., from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Tacoma also has a dedicated webpage on Prop. 1: See the voters' pamphlet here: Visit for information about voting.
