There Can Only Be One: Tacoma for All Update

On Wednesday August 30, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Timothy Ashcraft ruled that “Measure Two,” the city of Tacoma’s tenant protection measure competing against “Measure 1 (Tacoma Initiative 2023-1),” be removed from the November ballot.

With this legal question settled, stakeholders opposed to Measure 1 have restarted their campaign to defeat the initiative at the November polls. The group is comprised of WMFHA, Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Tacoma-Pierce County Association of REALTORS®, Dobler Management Company Inc., Strategies 360, and Goodman Real Estate. Formed in late July, the group had had planned to start their polling and campaign efforts in late August, but the effort was paused while waiting for the outcome of the court case.

Following the ruling, the group has completed their polling and is finalizing their strategy moving forward. Tacoma for All and the supporters of Tacoma Initiative 2023-1 have already started their grassroots campaign through door knocking and educational efforts.

Our group, opposing the initiative, has committed significant financial resources to defeat the ballot initiative, but initial polling has likely voters split on the issue. With only 4 weeks until ballots are sent to Tacoma voters, it imperative that we execute a robust and well-funded campaign to defeat this measure on November 7. The group has contracted with American Strategies for the polling work and Real Strategies for the campaign itself.

Why should you care? If passed, the initiative will cause irreparable harm to the industry, not only making it hard, if not impossible, to continue to provide quality multi-family housing in Tacoma, it will also negatively affect the current housing stock and have a chilling effect on the production of new housing in Tacoma .  Need more information? You can review a full overview of the initiative here.

Want to participate in the campaign to stop this bad idea? Worried about your assets in Tacoma and want to support the effort through a financial contribution, contact Ryan Makinster, Director of Government Affairs, ryan@wmfha.org, ASAP!