Anders Ibsen is marking one month on the job as Tacoma's new mayor.
Ibsen, who will turn 40 next month, is familiar with the inner workings of city hall — he served two terms on city council.
Last fall, he defeated current City Council member John Hines to become the city’s 40th mayor.
Ibsen, whose new office in City Hall is high above downtown Tacoma, said he's still settling in; he wants to add more local artwork to the walls and another flag to the array next to his desk.
“We have a Washington, Tacoma and American flag,” Ibsen said. “I'd love a flag of the Puyallup Nation too, just given the fact that, one, the Blair Waterway and the Puyallup River right out my window, and, two, just the crucial partnership that we're continuing to grow with our tribal friends”
As mayor, he can wield more power to advance the agenda he ran on: improving public safety, addressing homelessness and boosting economic opportunities.
“Honestly, that's one of the biggest themes that I had from my campaign and that I want to focus on and during my time serving the city, is just making Tacoma more of a regional leader,” Ibsen said.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Homelessness, downtown recovery and new hires
KNKX All Things Considered host Emil Moffatt: On homelessness, what do you think you might be able to do differently here in Tacoma that might net some results?
Tacoma Mayor Anders Ibsen: Well, part of it is, I'm glad you asked that. So Tacoma is playing a very prominent role in a regional conversation with the county and with our surrounding suburbs. It's a very new initiative, but I'm all in, as are my colleagues on the council. It's called Unified Regional Approach.
That means making sure we have a common data-sharing requirement so that we're not having duplication among service providers, but people are actually getting the help they need in real time. It means being attended to immediate needs. Like if there's a heat wave, for example, is there clear coordination on cooling centers? Making sure people get the help that they need, so that we're not clogging up our hospitals, so that we're not continuing to use our first responders as the primary health care provider, right?
And over the long term, how do we get not only more shelter, but a fairer, more sustainable dispersion of shelter throughout the county. How can we prevent people from losing their homes to begin with? How can we focus much greater on prevention?
Moffatt: There's an important hire coming up with the city manager's position. There was some criticism last year of the position having too much power and not being accountable to the electorate because it's a hired position, and they don't stand for election. What are some of the questions you're asking now, as this search process goes on, to make sure that it's a person whose vision aligns with that of the community and aligns with that of the folks who voted you into office?
Ibsen: Well, the buck stops with elected leadership, and mostly with me, right. The buck stops with the clarity of expectations that we have.
Moffatt: And I understand it is a national search. Do you prefer someone that is local, that has this deep, intrinsic knowledge of the city or the region, or perhaps someone from another part of the country that might have a fresh lens on things?
Ibsen: So there's something to be said for both for a good outsider perspective, to just not have preconceived notions, also someone with the institutional knowledge and the relationships to make tough decisions.
Moffatt: The recovery of downtown Tacoma coming out of the pandemic has been sluggish. What are some of the ideas to breathe some new life into downtown Tacoma? And what might that look like, as far as a mix of business and residential and retail?
Ibsen: So one is, as we talk about infrastructure, how do we make commitments to, you know, very long-term built environments that are more conducive to people actually engaging?
So just all the best practices — multimodal transportation, instead of just car-only infrastructure — so that you actually have a reason to get out and walk and engage. That's one.
Two is, as we're looking at where the market is right now, right, I mean, we've seen some commercial-to-residential conversion, for example. We've also seen some bills in Olympia, like activation of space that's now surface-level parking lot.
So how can we better utilize that and create more incentives that actually allow the market to do what it's doing?
And then three, are there other sectors that we can bring to life? So as we're going to get light rail, that's connecting more to the north, for example, are there opportunities to work with Sound Transit and others to create even more of a transit-oriented development type of environment and create more sectors and just feed the places that are already successful?
These are not going to be immediate things, but the more that we can create an environment and actually create systems that create the things we want, then we'll be on a better path.
Public safety, capacity and the federal immigration crackdown
For the second part of our conversation with Ibsen, we ask about public safety, Tacoma's new permanent police chief and city’s response to the federal immigration crackdown.
Moffatt: What are some of the steps that you think the city should take to improve safety and also the perception of safety?
Ibsen: Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up the word "perception," because that's something that's really integral. We can focus on quantitative, hard quantitative stuff, like having a 911 call answered 20 seconds faster, 30 seconds faster.
But it's two parts. One is just, there's no way around the fact that it's a capacity issue. If there are only so many officers, if we don't have a traffic division, functionally, if we don't have very many community liaison officers who can help day by day with your neighborhood issue instead of waiting for patrol, that's going to impact service levels, right? So just making sure that we're adequately resourcing — not even just the police department — fire, code enforcement, the whole nine.
On top of that, making sure we're actually doing what we're saying we're going to do. And that means we have a really robust, well thought out Community Safety Action Strategy, for example, that's looking at how are we going to deliver those hard targets, and how are we going to look at longer-term root causes of community building, making the city more livable.
Moffatt: Patti Jackson recently had the interim tag removed from her title, now the police chief here in Tacoma on a permanent basis. What were some of the things you've seen during her time as the interim chief here that led you to believe that she would be a good fit to lead a department which has gone through a lot of turmoil in the last five, six years.
Ibsen: Oh, the engagement, by far. That's the common thread. I mean, besides, obviously, her own competencies, her intimate knowledge about the jail system, and you know how that relates to local law enforcement, but, just the sincere and above all, the consistent engagement.
And that's everyone, from the rank-and-file officers, because we've had some morale issues, and, you know, we've had a lot of burnout because of staffing and all these very legitimate concerns. We've also had a lot of concern in the community in terms of, what kind of service are we getting, what kind of predictability are we going to have to feel safe? And also just the reckoning we've had as a nation over the years.
And just the sincere, just the earnest engagement of people with not the most happy history, and maybe some heightened skepticism of law enforcement, right? And I've seen her in those circles. I've seen her making very sincere attempts at engagement. And not just a checklist, not just a one and done, "Yeah, I did my 30 minutes with you, mission accomplished," but a sincere commitment.
Moffatt: Top of mind for many right now is the enhanced federal immigration enforcement. What are some of the things that your office, the City of Tacoma, can do to protect immigrants, people of color, and citizens who want to exercise their constitutional rights to protest, to observe.
Ibsen: Our law enforcement, our human services, our utilities. We do not collaborate with — we're not an immigration agency, right? So, unless there is a very lawful reason, like a fugitive criminal with an active warrant, for example, we are not going to do what some communities in other parts of the country are doing, because that's not good policing. That's not respectful of people's constitutional rights. That's not how you build community. It's the literal opposite.
On top of that, we're absolutely looking for as many different ways of continuing to protect people's rights as we can. So we already give funding, for example, to community organizations for things like phone calls for detainees, for legal assistance so that people can actually have their day in court, for example.
I mean, I've personally visited the facility down there. I spoke with green card holders who were arrested at their hearing, like people who are literally doing the things that they're told to do, and yet they still got picked up, right? So making sure that we're giving the assistance we can, and highlighting all the great work there.
And finally, making sure that we're looking at the big, systematic picture, which is actually looking at the belly of the beast, the actual federal system, and also state laws too. And so we're constantly working with our state and our federal partners to advocate for just laws. I myself, personally, members of the council, we've been in Olympia advocating for the myriad of bills that we're seeing right now to demand greater accountability of the federal government.
Moffatt: Mayor Ibsen thanks so much for your time. Thanks for doing this.
Ibsen: Thank you for yours.
