John Halliday, a speaker and artist, is giving talks about Native American resilience across Washington state. (Courtesy of John Halliday) Listen (Runtime 1:00) Read In the coming weeks, artist John […]Read More
Twenty-five years ago, the Olympic Pipeline ruptured in Bellingham, Washington, killing three people. In the aftermath, Washington state created its Citizens' Committee on Pipeline Safety, meant to advise on regulation to keep communities around pipelines safer.
The committee still functions today, but Amanda McKay, who serves on it, said that increased interest and Read More
After a week of administrative leave, Tacoma’s police chief is back on duty.
Tacoma City Manager Elizabeth Pauli placed Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore on leave last week. In a statement released on Wednesday, Pauli wrote that she conducted a fact-finding investigation into personal use of a city asset. The statement did not specific what the city asset, or costs Read More
The city of Tacoma is considering proposals to allow for more housing development, and different kinds of housing, in all residential areas. (Credit: Lauren Gallup / NWPB) Listen (Runtime 3:47) […]Read More
In season four, episode 19 of the sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” actor Bradley Whitford plays a city council member in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Whitford tells Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, “City council isn't about making everyone happy. In fact, every decision you make is going to make a lot of people very unhappy.”
Right now, the Tacoma City Read More
Tacoma For All and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367 announced plans to bring an initiative to Pierce and Thurston county voters next year. The groups are calling the initiative a workers’ bill of rights. Read More
John Mangan ran I-91, KVTI for nearly 30 years. (Credit: Kevin Mangan) Listen (Runtime 4:01) Read In the spring, the South Sound lost an airwaves icon. John Mangan ran the […]Read More
Four days a week, Kevin Ruby’s team is responding to calls and, often complaints, about people experiencing homelessness in Tacoma.
“We always are trying to put people in touch with resources,” Ruby said. “It's just the resources right now, this week, last week, this time of year in general, include a lot more often water, cooling shelters, transportation to cooling Read More
The Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium welcomed a new member into its marine family last month: a California sea lion pup.
Already, Pepper is a spicy and playful pup, said Jen DeGroot, curator of marine mammals and birds at the zoo. Read More
Listen (Runtime 1:13) Frank Lipera and his 87-year-old mother Anna Lipera, Anna King’s great-grandmother, fry clams Sicilian-style in a cast iron skillet at the family’s beach house near Gig Harbor, […]Read More
More than six months after the Pierce County AIDS Foundation (PCAF) closed, community members and service providers say there is still a void for people in the county seeking testing and care for HIV/AIDS.
“It's been going on six months now that the community doesn’t have these services available to them,” said Chace Hunter in April. Hunter is the executive director of Read More
East of Tacoma, across Highway 18, down a packed gravel road, and behind a locked metal gate, Tacoma Water churns over the Green River. This is the source for most of Tacoma’s drinking water. Read More
The tide of evictions many predicted, has come.
As the pandemic waned and rental assistance dollars from federal programs like the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act dried up, some feared there would be an increase of evictions. Read More
Since Tacoma voters approved a ballot initiative that introduces new regulations called the Landlord Fairness Code to the Tacoma Municipal Code, there’s been a lot of questions about the initiative.
The City of Tacoma has answered some about the process and what happens next. The Landlord Fairness Code was adopted into the Tacoma Municipal Code and is a city law as of Read More
The final release of election results for Pierce County showed a victory for those who have been pushing for a set of progressive tenant protections in Tacoma.
“We feel really proud of what we've achieved. It was a real David versus Goliath kind of fight,” said Ty Moore, campaign manager for Tacoma For All, the group behind the initiative.
Citizens’ Initiative Measure Read More
To unionize, Tacoma Art Museum Workers United [TAMWU] needed the majority of its 26 workers to vote yes. After two days of voting in an election overseen by the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission, the unanimous results came in Thursday evening — 26 in favor of unionizing. Read More
The substation impacted by today’s power outage in Pierce County. (Courtesy: Tacoma Power Staff) Read Thousands of homes and businesses in Pierce County went dark Wednesday morning when the power […]Read More
Since early Monday morning, hundreds of protestors have been blocking the three road entrances into the Port of Tacoma in an attempt to stop workers from loading a United States military supply vessel, the Cape Orlando, with weapons and military equipment. Read More
The City of Tacoma is facing a gap in funding, a gap equal to paying for 307 beds in emergency shelters set up across Tacoma.
Tacoma and other area municipalities have recently enacted restrictions or bans on homeless encampments. Read More
The City of Tacoma hearing examiner has upheld the city’s decision to issue a development permit for a mega-warehouse in South Tacoma.
The permit decision was appealed by Seattle nonprofit EarthJustice, on behalf of the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council and 350 Tacoma, which argued that the city and developer hadn’t adequately analyzed the environmental impacts of the Read More
Jacob Johns speaks at an event September 19, 2023 in Spokane, Washington after unveiling his “Free the Vote” mural. (Credit: Jeff Ferguson) Listen (Runtime :57) Read Jacob Johns is an […]Read More
With the impending closure of the WestRock Paper Mill in Tacoma, about 400 workers could be displaced.
“It's really significant,” said Chelsea Mason-Placek, who is the workforce development director for the Washington State Labor Council. “This is a much larger layoff than we typically see.”Read More
WestRock Paper Mill closing in Tacoma — job losses, utility impacts and the end of the Tacoma Aroma?
WestRock, a Georgia-based corrugated packaging company, announced that its paper mill on the Tacoma tideflats will close up shop at the end of September. The mill has been in operation for nearly 100 years, processing wood fibers into paper and emitting sulfurous scents infamous for contributing to the Tacoma Aroma. Read More
In South Tacoma, there is about 150 acres of land sitting vacant where dry grasses and trees cover an area that, in part, once served as a rail-yard for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Read More
The GEO Group, the operator of a private detention center in Tacoma, has filed a lawsuit against Washington opposing new legislation that would regulate private detention facilities in the state.
With the signing of House Bill 1470 into law in May, the Washington State Department of Health was given the authority to do unannounced inspections of private detention Read More
With just over two weeks left before the current United Parcel Service Teamsters contract expires, employees nationwide are preparing to go on strike. If they do, it would be the largest single-employer strike in United States history.
In the Port of Tacoma, over 1,000 UPS employees from three distribution centers could walk off the job Aug. 1st, according to Brett Read More
Just in time for the Fourth of July holiday, the west side of Washington is going to see some sunny, hot weather. The daytime highs of 80- and 90- plus degrees being predicted might still seem abnormal to those who call the Puget Sound basin home, but those temperatures are on trend with the hotter summers climatologists have been tracking.
Historically, Western Read More
The Tacoma Art Museum board of directors has indicated they will voluntarily recognize museum employees who have been organizing for the Tacoma Art Museum Workers United (TAMWU) union, through a privately arbitrated election.
TAMWU organizers said they don’t support the conditions of that recognition, though.Read More
This year’s funding for Tacoma Rescue Mission homeless shelters has decreased. That means next month, the mission will have to decrease the number of shelter spaces available.
As of June 23, the mission had 24 spaces available in their women’s shelter and 39 in their men’s shelter. But by July 1, those will go away, according to the mission. Read More
Sense of community. Belonging. Teamwork. Identity. These feelings can come from playing a team sport.
However, sports often are gendered spaces that follow traditional societal expectations. Then, there’s roller derby, which has a history of defying traditional female roles and giving a space for women to compete. One derby league, Dockyard Roller Derby in Tacoma, is Read More
With the deadline looming to secure enough signatures to get their initiative on the ballot, volunteers with Tacoma For All canvassed across Tacoma Friday.
Zev Cook, field manager for the campaign, led a group of eight volunteers in the late afternoon around a South Tacoma neighborhood. Read More
The Tacoma School District has the largest number of students experiencing homelessness in Washington. Month after month, more students and their families are counted as homeless in Tacoma, the third largest city in the state.
“We started the fall at 1,626, and as of the end of April, we're at 2,382,” said Taj Jensen, director of Title, Learning Assistance Programs Read More
Organizadores del grupo de defensa de los derechos de los inquilinos Tacoma Para Todos, y quienes los apoyan, se reunieron con pancartas y megáfonos hace unas semanas para mostrarse en favor de una iniciativa, conocida coloquialmente como una declaración de derechos de los inquilinos, que Tacoma Para Todos espera poner en la boleta electoral para los votantes este otoño.Read More
Organizers from the housing justice group Tacoma For All and their supporters gathered with signs and megaphones Thursday afternoon to show their support of the initiative, known colloquially as a tenant bill of rights, which Tacoma For All hopes to get on the ballot for voters this fall.
The rally took place before a meeting of the city’s Community Vitality and Safety Read More
A new documentary, Healing US, premieres in Tacoma at the Grand Cinema on May 19. The documentary tells the story of the national movement for Medicare for All, where folks are advocating for an universal healthcare system. One of the key players in that story is Laura Fielding, founder of the Red Berets for Medicare for All coalition in Tacoma. Read More
Two Tacoma groups have filed a joint-appeal against the city’s recent decision to issue a land-use permit for a highly controversial warehouse in South Tacoma.
The South Tacoma Neighborhood Council and 350 Tacoma, a grassroots environmental organization, filed the appeal on May 5. Earthjustice, a non-profit, environmental law organization, is representing the groups. Read More
The City of Tacoma approved land use permits to develop a warehouse in South Tacoma.
The decision came April 21 after over a year of feedback from residents and public agencies expressing environmental equity concerns over the development. Read More
Five years since it was first published, Maps, a collection of poems by Tacoma writer Christina Vega, is still relevant today as a response to social injustice, they said.
“I'm asking readers to return to the work,” Vega said. “Let's look at it again, these issues are still here.” Read More
April is National Poetry Month and today/Wednesday, the Washington State Arts Commission announced that Arianne True will serve as the state’s new poet laureate beginning in May. Lauren Gallup spoke with the Tacoma-based writer and educator.Read More
After 15 years, Claudia Cifuentes reunited with her children. She returned to the U-S from Guatemala through a family reunification process after being deported in 20-08 when her children were still underage. Read More
The Tacoma Art Museum Workers United committee is still in limbo after a special meeting March 31 with the museum’s board of trustees. The board did not announce a decision on whether to recognize the workers’ union. Read More
After months of rallying and demanding recognition for their union, the employees of the Tacoma Art Museum got some assurance that the museum’s Board of Trustees would discuss at the end of the month the most recent union proposal. Read More
While the West Coast is known for grunge and surf rock, Stephanie Clifford’s latest novel, a piece of historical fiction, reminds readers of the roots country music has here, especially Tacoma.
Tacoma, a burgeoning port city on Commencement Bay in the 1940s and 50s, plays a central role in The Farewell Tour. The book is an American West tale of coming home, with a few Read More
Two days before Camille Patha’s exhibit, "Passion Pleasure Power," opened at the Tacoma Art Museum, the artist walked around the gallery, a space filled with some of her new works from the past three years. Read More
Más de 100 personas participaron en una huelga de hambre la semana pasada en el Northwest ICE Processing Center o Centro de Procesamiento de ICE del Noroeste en Tacoma, conocido coloquialmente como Centro de Detención del Noroeste.Read More
Over 100 people participated in a hunger strike last week at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, known colloquially as the Northwest Detention Center.
The strike ended on Feb. 5 after four days according to detention abolitionist group La Resistencia. Read More
It was a clear day in Tacoma on January 17, 1993. Commencement Bay was crowded with boats. Families gathered on boat decks and across North Tacoma sidewalks to watch the demolition of what was once the tallest smokestack in the world, the ASARCO smokestack that loomed over Tacoma’s waterfront for nearly 100 years.
With the press of a button, a child, supervised by Read More
A new project to deepen the Blair Waterway at the Port of Tacoma will allow extra-large container ships to easily travel through the port.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which, in part, authorized the project to deepen Blair waterway in the Port of Tacoma. Read More
It’s been cold and wet the past few weeks in Tacoma. That’s had an impact on the residents of Tacoma’s new temporary tent-shelter mitigation site, Forging Paths, off of 35th and Pacific Avenue.
A resident at the site, who preferred to go by his first name Cash for privacy reasons, said one downside of living at the site has been a lack of preparation and foresight for Read More
The Tacoma Art Museum has announced the inaugural winner of a grant for Black artists. Darrell McKinney, a sculpture artist and designer based in Tacoma, whose foundation is in architecture and fine art in concrete, was awarded $15,000 to use at his discretion. Read More
