...To Protect Our Quality of Life – Prosperity and Jobs
Pierce County is preparing for an exciting future. The next County Executive will determine how Pierce County will look and function for the rest of our lives. I have the vision, experience and leadership to move us towards prosperity and healthier lives – with a County government whose decisions make better sense to the people we serve.
Quality of life starts with good paying jobs close to home and our community. This is a life where the bills get paid and there’s time for the family to go to ball games, school plays and concerts. . .to volunteer to help others. . .and to spend time building the neighborhoods we want to live in.
Jobs close to home provide individual prosperity and help our communities prosper. New jobs and revenue from economic growth will be enough to pay for amenities such as parks, roads and law enforcement – without raising taxes.
Our County will experience serious challenges related to growth in the next 20 years. This means that the increased population will have to live in an already-congested region if we don’t do something to fix it today. Projecting this growth onto existing roads and into our real estate market -- while providing more public safety (sheriffs, courts and jails) and responsive but efficient social services – will challenge our ability to live the kind of life we hope for here in Pierce County. So much of our future depends on the decisions we make as a community today.
Prosperity depends on adequate transportation. Imagine almost a third of an expanded Pierce County work force commuting daily, as it does today, to King County for jobs. This means we will have to leave home earlier, spend more time away from our families and clog up and wear out our roads, while we pollute the air at the same time. That’s not the quality of life we deserve, and it’s not what our children expect to inherit from us either.
I’m building support to fund the extension of State Route 167 to the Port of Tacoma. This project will create up to 80,000 new, trade-related jobs. I am also working to create access from the south Pierce County industrial areas to Interstate 5 to move products and people more quickly. We absolutely must build these jobs corridors. I will never stop fighting to get our essential highways funded and built.
We need to invest in our future – roads, parks, facilities and people. We need a County government that attracts more private investment. We will need to stretch our dollars further. We need to foster a genuine sense of safety in our neighborhoods. We need to connect law enforcement with our communities, and have a court system that is more productive and efficient. We need to work with the military and veteran leaders to insure that their growth and success is integrated with the success of the surrounding communities. We have lots of challenges, but they are good challenges. I look forward to providing the leadership to craft solutions to the challenges we face.
Elect Shawn Bunney. I have the experience and the working relationships to convert these challenges into successful opportunities that will improve the quality of life for all of us in Pierce County.
...To Make Sense of County Government
Too often I hear that the left hand of County government doesn’t know what its right hand is doing. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
As a County Councilmember, I have seen too many 500-plus page documents sent to a Council that sometimes lacks the time and opportunity to understand all the practical implications of the regulations or decisions we have to make.
Recently, we watched with dismay the tragic case of animal abuse that was compounded by the County’s inability to give itself the permits it needed to sell these animals to new owners. This is an example of what must change. I intend to retool our County’s regulatory environment so that it makes sense for our communities and for the people who seek help at our front desk.
Every regulation in Pierce County needs to be reviewed to determine if it is predictable, effective, efficient and practical. To the degree that a regulation does not meet these criteria, we should get rid of it. We should focus on outcomes and not let our citizens get lost in the bureaucracy or experience unnecessary and expensive runarounds. We should focus on how the consequences of our legislation might do more harm than good to the average Pierce County resident.
Since my first day on the job as a Councilmember, I have pushed the use of performance audits to make sure our citizens are getting their money’s worth. It’s an approach that has worked, and I believe taxpayers have a right to expect this from their County government.
But I intend to do more.
Performance measures are but one tool for holding our systems and individuals accountable at every level. We must improve performance expectations for every employee who takes home a County paycheck.
We should not just create jobs on the backs of taxpayers, but invest in public servants who will be committed to an ethic of service to our citizens. Organizations will reflect the values of who is in charge at the top. This is why the value-set I will bring to the Executive’s office will guide the quality and output of our departments and employees throughout Pierce County government.
...For Healthy Communities and Families
I am committed to setting Pierce County on a course to become a national leader in community and family health and fitness.
Ground-zero for fitness is educating and helping our children choose the right path to good health. Sedentary games and inadequate nutrition are key factors that drive our kids towards diabetes, heart disease and expensive health care. Our sedentary lifestyle has been brought about, in part, by too few playfields, unhealthy lifestyles and poor diets. We can provide a better path for our children if we make the right choices, give them healthy opportunities and model the right behavior.
As County Executive I will commit to making us a national leader in fitness and health. I intend to help create a program in every middle school in Pierce County to provide additional equipment, nutritional education and access to good fitness programming. This is my promise to you.
I’ve also found a lot of seniors interested in getting healthy again. That’s why I initiated programs that now provide fresh produce from local farms at no charge to seniors. I’m proud to say these programs have been so successful they’ve been expanded countywide, supplying fresh fruit and vegetables to thousands of senior citizens.
Healthy families also means being safer in the community. We must protect families and children from the unlawful and predatory behavior of a very small minority. That’s why I support strong law enforcement. We must advocate for victims and provide safe harbors and activities for our kids. I served as the founding chairman of the Crystal Judson Family Justice Center and I’ve funded dozens of programs to provide supervised activities, with adult leadership, for young people.
Like many of us, I also want more parks and trails in Pierce County. I’ve hiked and biked most of them during my challenge to lose almost a hundred pounds in the past year. As the years go on, I hope to see more of you enjoying these wonderful resources.
Achieving these goals will take work and ingenuity. We can’t simply ask for more taxes. We have to be smarter and more efficient with the revenue we have. As we continue to work with new coalitions and the private sector to find solutions, my priorities as Executive will always be focused on building better, healthier communities for the people of Pierce County.
