Two familiar political players in Tacoma are vying to become the city’s next mayor.
City Councilmember John Hines is running against former Councilmember Anders Ibsen.
Hines and Ibsen have both represented District 1 on the Tacoma City Council, serving a northwestern section of the city. The pair actually faced off for the council seat in 2015. That time, Ibsen won.
A decade later, they’re competing against one another to help lead Tacoma.
Hines, 43, is an instructional specialist at Tacoma Public Schools. He joined the council in 2020 and is serving his second term. His campaign's priorities including economic development, downtown revitalization, and helping unhoused residents access treatment for substance use disorder.
Throughout the race, Hines has emphasized how his knowledge of city government will help him make progress on a number of issues.
“I’ve been there, I know where the bottlenecks are, I know where choke points are, and I think I can navigate it the best,” Hines said.
- Councilmember John Hines and former Councilmember Anders Ibsen have both represented District 1 on the Tacoma City Council. Now, voters will choose which one should be the city's next mayor.
- In Tacoma, the mayor is largely a ceremonial leader who represents the community on the city council. But the next mayor will take part in important decisions, such as choosing the new city manager.
Ibsen, 39, served two terms on the council, from 2012 to 2019. He is a managing broker at a local real estate firm. He said that as he’s gone door to door during this campaign, many people have told him they want to feel safer in Tacoma.
If elected, Ibsen said he plans to be a mayor who helps staff come up with creative solutions but doesn't micromanage.
“You’re like a chef,” he said. “When you’re the leader, it’s no longer just about advocating for policy or making sure things are included, but it’s more about making sure the right people are at the table and that they’re set up to succeed.”
According to his campaign website, Ibsen wants to improve how the city dispatches first responders to people experiencing mental health issues and streamline work with Pierce County and community partners to prevent gun violence.
Shared focus on housing
Housing continues to be a major issue in Tacoma.
Tacoma's Affordable Housing Action Strategy has a goal of building 6,000 affordable units by 2028. According to the city's comprehensive plan, to keep up with population growth it should increase its housing inventory by roughly 59,000 units by 2050. And it needs more construction to meet that goal: Between 2017 and 2023, only about 4,600 new housing units were built.
Making Tacoma more affordable is a key part of Ibsen's platform. Working in real estate, he said, he’s seen firsthand how hard it can be for people to buy a home. Ibsen said the city needs more starter homes, rather than multi-million dollar condos, and rentals that families can afford.
“The housing affordability problem begins and ends with supply,” he said.
Ibsen's ideas for addressing the housing shortage include dedicating unused municipal land to housing projects or refining local building codes to make construction easier.
Building more housing is also a priority for Hines. While serving on the council, he supported the Home in Tacoma initiative, which expanded local zoning codes to allow construction of more types of housing, such as backyard cottages and rowhouses.
Hines wants to speed up the permitting process for builders and see city staff work more collaboratively with developers, and believes more expensive housing is worth pursuing as well. He reasons that building higher-end properties will attract people who can afford them, which could in turn make it easier for those who need more affordable options to access them.
“We should let people self-select,” he said. “As we build more, if there is more expensive housing, then we’ll get people who move here that have the means to pay more money for rent. They will go to those places, and they will not put as much pressure on the other preexisting, more affordable housing in our community.”
The mayor's role
Unlike other major cities in Washington state, the mayor isn’t the most powerful position in Tacoma’s local government. An appointed city manager serves as the top executive, making the mayor more of a ceremonial leader who represents the entire city on the council.
However, the next mayor is expected to join the incoming council in making important decisions, such as choosing a new city manager.
Hines compared the position of mayor to the captain of a sports team: He will need to win support from a majority of the council to implement his plans.
“The mayor needs to build a coalition,” he said. “If you don’t have someone as the mayor who can do that, it’s a recipe for us just staying in the same place.”
Ibsen said that as mayor, he would focus on changing the culture of Tacoma’s city government into one "that's unafraid to take risks on your behalf and also unafraid to think big, because Tacoma can be a lot bigger than it is.”
One potential outcome of the mayoral election would see both candidates on the Tacoma City Council. If Ibsen is elected mayor, Hines will serve out the remainder of his term as District 1 councilmember. If Hines wins the mayor's race, however, his seat will be filled by a person appointed by the council to serve out the remainder of his term.
Along with the mayoral election, Tacoma voters will decide four other city council races this fall. Ballots were sent out on Oct. 17. The final day to turn them in at a drop box or have them post marked by mail is on Election Day, Nov. 4.
