Sit-down with new Tacoma Mayor Anders Ibsen

Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.

Mayor Anders Ibsen lays out his vision for Tacoma 

Like many Washington cities, there’s a duality in local government in Tacoma: opportunities, but also major fiscal challenges: with a new mayor leading the way. Paris Jackson sat down with Mayor Anders Ibsen, now six months in office, to learn how his administration plans to navigate moving the city forward. 

Paris Jackson, Cascade PBS: “Mayor Ibsen, you’ve been in this position now six months. And you’re not new to City Hall, though. You’re a former council member. In what tangible ways are you working to make your vision for the city a reality for residents? 

Ibsen: “My biggest priorities as your mayor are to make the city more inclusive, more innovative and more efficient in service towards not just the city’s goals, but honestly, just based on how you feel about your city. As a Tacoma lifer myself, and as I’m sure as a former Tacoman yourself, you recognize we have so much going on that we love and enjoy about our city, and we have a lot of the same pain points that many other communities have. But ultimately, it’s about utilizing that, that talent that we have, that grit, dare I say. And my goal, besides all the policy stuff that we’ll talk about, is fundamentally just allowing you to feel prouder about the place that you call home. And I think we definitely have it in us. 

In terms of some of the biggest challenges so far that your administration has faced, what are some of those?” 

 “If you just ask the average Tacoman at the door, which I did very robustly last year, is how you feel safe in your neighborhoods. It’s about progress with economic development and not just any old job, but living wage jobs and real opportunities for our youth. Homelessness. Seeing visible, tangible progress not just as a city, but regionally, as the region’s leader. And ultimately just making sure that people can see clear, visible improvements in their neighborhoods with public safety, with homelessness, like we mentioned, code enforcement and making sure that there’s accountability for how we dictate what success looks like so that we can actually show that we’re doing our homework. And we’re delivering for you.”