City Hall Protest

Around 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning I was woken by the sound of chanting protestors gathering across the street from my apartment in front of the City of Tacoma Municipal Building. "Yes we cannabis!" was the rallying call of day (a not-so-subtle nod to President Obama's election slogan, if you're new to America). Many held signs with slogans like "Marijuana is safer than alcohol," "Pain or Pot?" or my personal favorite for its frank honesty, "Need my Weed."

As you'll recall, Tacoma has been dragging its feet making a determination about what to do with the medical marijuana dispensaries, and in ruling on civil suits filed by local cannabis dispensaries, as it waits for potential policy setting legislation from the Legislature in Olympia. Thursday, Tacoma City Hearing Examiner Rodney Kerslake granted a 60-day continuance on the appeals cases of dozens local medical marijuana dispensaries facing the possible revocation of their city business licenses.

If the Legislature fails to accomplish anything during this year's session, the problem will be right back where it started.  Tacoma has been banking on Olympia clarifying our state's well-meaning but poorly written medical marijuana law since at least last October, when all medical marijuana dispensaries in the city received cease and desist letters citing licensing violations, only to have the City Council issue a last-minute stay of execution under enormous pressure from dispensary proponents and medical marijuana patients.

County News

Last week Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy stripped County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam of his Internet posting privileges after he reportedly used his office's website to post multiple political messages during the recall campaign against him. One of the Washam posts in question was directed at our (we like to think) friends at The New Tribune, who've been reported heavily on Washam's alleged shenanigans and drama in office, naturally including the recall campaign. I'll wager my next semester's tuition they won't be endorsing him this fall. 

Health News
Tacoma-Pierce County Health is proposing a regulation that would ban the smoking of electronic cigarettes in public areas, the selling of e-cigarettes to youth under the age of 18, and prohibit the free or heavily discounted distribution of e-cigarettes. According to Tacoma-Pierce County Health's webpage, e-cigarettes are currently unregulated in the United States. "The FDA recently announced that it intends to regulate e-cigarettes as a tobacco product and not an approved cessation aid," says an announcement of the new proposition, which can be read in its entirety here. 

Event Announcements

In a recent Weekly Volcano feature I interviewed Tacoma City Councilmen David Boe and Ryan Mello about urban development on Pacific Avenue. If that peaked your interest and you'd like to be directly involved in some Tacoma urban planning be sure to swing by the City's Pacific Avenue Streetscape Open House, scheduled for May 9 from 4 - 6 p.m. at University of Washington Tacoma's William W. Phillip Hall.  Tacoma is looking to solicit public input on the Pacific Avenue streetscape project spanning from South 7th Street to South 17th Street. According to the City, the Pacific Avenue streetscape project  "will include a new streetscape design, intended to help attract new business to downtown Tacoma and incorporate innovative stormwater management practices."

If public input isn't your M.O., perhaps you'd rather check out the open house from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Pierce County Elections Center (2501 S. 35th St., Suite C). Staff will be on hand to explain how votes are counted and to answer questions about election trends and practices.

Activism and Sports

As the Oklahoma City Thunder advance through the NBA Playoffs a developing story in King County is the potential race between Bellevue and Seattle to see which city can approve plans for an NBA/NHL building the soonest. No plans for Tacoma to throw its hat into the ring, but we do have the sports-minded activism of Kris "Sonics Guy" Brannon to root for.

In March we reported that Brannon, a popular local comedian, had filed an initiative to change the state song from "Washington My Home" to the one time Seattle Supersonics theme song "Not in Our House," performed by Washington native Sir Mix-a-Lot. A central stipulation of Brannon's initiative is that if Seattle gets a new NBA franchise the state's song would change back to "Washington My Home."

On Thursday I ran into Brannon out collecting signatures for his initiative at the Downtown Farmer's Market. "Things are going good, man, I'm really optimistic," he told me as he juggled two clip boards and his trademark "Save Our Sonics" sign.

Odds are, if you venture out to a community event in the next month you'll find Brennan and his petition. I signed it, Matt Driscoll is going to sign it, and if you're down for your region, you should probably sign it too.