Beckie’s Priorities
Beckie Summers Kirby – Candidate for Tacoma City Council District 5
Changing Tacoma means changing priorities 
The city council’s priorities need to include more basic neighborhood services. Our streets are falling apart, prostitution and gang activity are on the rise in the Southend, and we need to direct more of our resources into making our neighborhoods safe and livable.
Beckie’s background and experience will allow her to begin changing the city’s priorities right away. There’s no time for on-the-job-training when it comes to getting the city on the right track. Beckie knows all the players without a program, but she’s not invested in the policies of the recent past that haven’t worked out.
Unsafe neighborhoods are a crime
Public safety is Beckie’s number one priority. She wants every child in Tacoma to have the opportunity to live in a safe neighborhood, attend a safe school and live in a community that nurtures and cares about their future.
It doesn’t matter what neighborhood she’s working in, or which organization she’s working with, the concern everyone shares is the need to keep their neighborhood safe.
Beckie believes the city council has lost its focus and let this issue get away from them just like they did in the early nineties. Violent crime is still rampant – no matter how they try to disguise it – and a great number of property crimes go unreported because people have just given up on the city’s ability to respond. Beckie knows we can do more if we are willing to get our priorities straight.
We need enough police on the street to answer every legitimate call for service in a reasonable time, enough detectives to follow up on crimes that actually get reported, and a place to hold the bad guys if they get caught.
Nothing says “Misplaced Priorities” like a pothole in the street
Our streets have been literally crumbling before our eyes for several years. City officials blame the weather, but Beckie believes the real cause for the deterioration of Tacoma’s infrastructure is misplaced priorities. We’ve had bad weather in the northwest since the beginning of time, but our streets have never been so bad.
Other communities are in far better condition because they’ve made street maintenance a higher priority than Tacoma. They know you can’t do street maintenance “on the cheap.” Beckie wants to fix our dilapidated streets – and fix them right – so that we won’t have to redo them anytime soon. She’ll work to make street maintenance a priority all the time – not just in election year.
Strong neighborhoods are good for the economy
Beckie believes economic opportunity grows in a climate that’s friendly to both business and neighborhoods. We don’t have to choose between economic development activities and basic neighborhood services as the city council has in the past. We should begin focusing more of our economic development efforts on our mixed use areas and neighborhood business districts, because the economic engine of Tacoma has more moving parts than just downtown Tacoma.
Balancing all of these interests can be tricky business and it takes someone with the right skill-set and experience to get the job done. It takes someone with enough experience and self-confidence to not be intimidated by the City Manager and the power of his bureaucracy.
Beckie is not afraid to lead, or to provide political cover for other council members who find strength in her support for their ideas and leadership as well. That’s what she’s known for….because that’s what she does. Ask anyone who knows her.
