Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson has unleashed his latest bold initiative. This time it’s about crime. More specifically, it’s about cutting crime in half by the summer of 2009. The plan was created from feedback given by more than 200 city employees who helped build the skeleton of Anderson’s plan during two days of collective deliberation at the Greater Tacoma Trade and Convention Center. The plan also would substantially eliminate ickiness — or what city officials call “blight.”



We just had one question for Anderson: Are you crazy?



“I don’t think any of us are crazy,” says Anderson. “I think we can do it.”



“The idea is that if you create an ambitious goal, people start to think differently,” adds city spokesman Rob McNair-Huff.



Sleight-of-mind politics we like. Anderson has built a reputation as an ambitious thinker, planner and policymaker. He also tends to do what he says he’s going to do. Since taking his place at the helm, Anderson has made a number of bold budget cuts, eliminated staff and cut fat with such fervor that some people have actually begun to take him seriously. He may not always be nice, but Anderson definitely knows how to git ‘er done.



The crime-and-blight elimination program will use means that are almost as unorthodox as the intended ends. For starters, Anderson asked 200 people from various city departments to help him craft the plan of action. Next, Anderson called on each of the city departments to participate and work together to reach the mad goal. City employees came up with 28 objectives that they hope will collectively slash crime rates. Each of the objectives is characterized as reinforcing the others, and teams of officials from each department will work in what city officials have dubbed cross-functional teams to achieve the objectives. Anderson has gone so far as to re-rig his department to allow his team of little city managers to lead the various teams. City officials are hoping that by providing some sense of ownership team members will be motivated to do more than the bare minimum. They might even do what some have   called impossible.



“This is an aggressive crime initiative that is based on co-production,” says Anderson. “It’s not just the police department. It’s everybody. We have to work with the community on this. We can’t do it alone.”



A great deal of this reallocation of people-power, clever planning and calls to the community to help comes down to one thing — the city can’t afford to do this by conventional means, i.e. by adding police and enforcement staff, passing laws and terrorizing people. All of these bold plans would be attacked without spending an extra dime of the city’s money. That’s right — same budget, half the crime and ickiness.  This will require all sorts of strategy and efforts to increase efficiency of city departments — a departure from standard methods used in other cities, which usually just pass laws, spend more money, and hope for the best.



“This is all part of efforts to take a new direction,” says McNair-Huff.



Anderson assures the public that the aggressive plan will not be a shotgun venture, with city officials emphasizing a humane approach to cutting crime. All of the approaches will involve multiple city departments working together to make change. Ideas for humane approaches to crime include providing people being released from jail downtown with a ticket home. That’s the sort of approach that Anderson hopes will balance the aggressive goals of city officials with the responsibilities to their fellow humans.



“You can attack crime in a humane way,” says Anderson. “It doesn’t have to be severe.”