Northwest now is supported in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Contrary to popular belief, Donald Trump did slightly better in Washington in 2024 than he did in previous cycles.

While Trump outperformed in places like Pierce County that did not prevent Democrat Ryan Melo from landing the executive's job by a little less than 3%.

Tonight we've got the new Pierce County executive talking about the possible loss of federal dollars, homelessness and the county's new comprehensive plan.

Pierce County Executive Ryan Mellow tonight on northwest now.

Music.

Ryan Mellow was born in Hawaii and moved to Tacoma in 1997 to attend U.P.S..

He put his degree in government to work soon after graduation, deciding to live and work in Tacoma.

Mellow worked for nine years as the executive director of the Pierce Conservation District.

With more service on the Metro Parks Board, the Tacoma City Council, before being elected to the county council, eventually serving as its chair.

Melo is the first Democrat to hold the executive's office since 2016.

One of the most intransigent problems he'll face is homelessness.

As recently laid out in a nicely detailed article by the News Tribune's Cameron Shepherd, from 2015 to 2023, the county spent $172 million responding to the homeless crisis, with the budget leaping from about $22 million a year to $76 million for 2024.

Despite that, there are three times the homeless than there was three years ago, with the current point in time counting sitting at about 2700 and the guest from the county's former human services director, that the actual annual investment needs to be something around $157 million, which works out to about 70% of what Pierce County spends on the sheriff's department into this situation, compounded by a possible loss of federal funds.

What's new?

Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello.

Ryan, thanks so much for coming to northwest now.

Great to have a discussion with the new Pierce County Executive.

Congratulations on that, by the way.

Thank you Tom.

I know one of the big things you've talked about for years and, at the top of your list and top of mind for a lot of folks here in Pierce County, is the homelessness situation.

You know, massive problem.

I know we're not going to solve it in the next 23 minutes.

But with that said, talk a little bit about, you know, this unified regional approach that you've talked about.

We saw what happened up at the King County Regional Authority hasn't worked out so well.

How is the regional approach, do you think kind of help us?

And what are those parts look like?

Yeah.

You know, what's going to be different here is we're bringing all of our cities and towns and other key partners together to make up the plan together about how we move forward together on homelessness.

This is not a top down, new government authority.

This is about us figuring out how we work together with existing resources, how we pull our align our policies and programs and, deliver more opportunities for more people in this space.

So we really do know that we need to provide more sheltering options throughout the community.

People become homeless from every single zip code.

And we can get smarter by working together.

So this that's what this is about?

I think I think not not trying to stand up a new agency.

I think it's an important distinction there.

I'm glad you made that.

With that said, you know, you've heard the criticism of the homeless industrial complex and trying to track these dollars.

I think wanting the best bang for the buck is a legitimate critique.

I think the taxpayer has a legitimate desire to see that we're getting something for that.

How do you how do you approach that as the Pierce County Executive?

Because the system seems so opaque.

It it does.

And so performance management is really important.

We need to be really transparent about how we're spending public dollars.

We also need to do a better job of telling the story about the successes we are having.

When people like you and I see, individuals experiencing homelessness on especially very obviously on our streets when it's so ubiquitous.

You know what we don't do a good job of is talking about the successes that we've had, and we've had a lot of successes.

We've actually helped move thousands of people out of homelessness into stability, and we don't tell that story.

So what is working?

We need to do more of what's working.

We have a lot of strategies that we need to continue to deploy to keep people from falling into homelessness.

To begin with, that's the best dollar spent is keeping folks from falling into homelessness, which is a great transition into the, Maureen Howard, sales tax.

You were a proponent of that.

It ended up happening.

And now some of the revenues are starting to come in from that.

I think 17 million is kind of the first flight going to build.

I think the estimate somewhere around 300, 350 affordable units.

How does that roll out?

Are you encouraged by that?

And is that the is that how the program goes here forward, or does it need more funding?

What are your thoughts on that?

I'm really encouraged by this program.

In the last two weeks, I got to go to two different groundbreaking with Maureen Howard Affordable Housing Act dollars.

Last week, 129 apartment homes, many of them large enough for families right across the street from Tacoma Community College.

So.

Right.

Future college students are going to have an affordable place to live.

So that's really exciting.

Just yesterday.

We were able to get to Viridian Grove.

Another project.

That's Maureen Howard, affordable Housing Act funded.

This is, about 96 apartment homes in South Tacoma, just south of Cheney Stadium.

And at the very beginning of the year, one of the first things I got to do as the county executive was open, the, the copper way.

Development in, in Spanaway.

That's 253 apartment homes.

So we are in this very early time.

We're just about a year into the marine.

Howard.

Affordable Housing Act, and we already have close to 400 affordable housing units, open or in active construction.

That's great progress for for this early phase of this work.

The design is that it's going to leverage state and federal dollars.

Or is it or that.

So federal dollars certainly has a big concern.

But that is the that is the design.

If that doesn't play out, then we have to go back to the drawing board.

In in of it, in and of itself, it is not enough money for the scale of the amount of permanently affordable housing we need to build.

But it's meant to be the catalyst, to leverage dollars.

So leverage private equity, state dollars, federal investment.

And it seems to be a model that has the potential to to work and just to refresh people.

So was it one tenth of 1%?

What is a penny on a $10 purchase?

Yeah, ten, percent to to have to have a subsidy there because the private market, and I and I would say through no fault of the private market, when you look at the regulatory burden, sorry, that's something you can work on.

But there's the cost of land, the price to build.

Some of the regulations, when it comes to land, the landlord tenant relationship, man.

I mean, if you if you really, you know, said Ryan.

Hey, I want you to invest.

I think even you'd be like, not so sure, but this model where there's a dedicated fund to helping build that housing stock.

It seems like it's a point of optimism.

It's a real point of optimism.

It's the only way to do it at scale.

And, and, you know, we serving folks who are waking up every day going to work, these are hardworking folks who go to work every day, work a full day, but come back home and simply don't have enough money to pay rent or mortgage.

And so, you know, we're serving these folks, who really just need a stable place to live.

And can continue to thrive.

And with their housing issue solved, they can do things like think outside the box a little bit and improve their education or improve their skills.

Come to base technical college, go to TCC, whatever it may be.

Now all of a sudden you do have a little margin every month.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

Talk a little bit about the comprehensive plan.

Every county, you know, you've got to have one.

It's a it is comprehensive.

It really is.

That's the name.

So there's a lot of moving parts.

And it was just approved here in Pierce County.

Talk a little bit.

Let's go through some of the elements of that.

The first one that leaps out because again, I know you've spent a lot of time on these issues.

Transit, ADUs and open space.

So if you want to maybe hit those, your big three if you would go ahead.

Yeah.

So we, picked a the comprehensive plan is our growth plan for the future, our housing and job growth plan for the future.

So, how do we grow, while protecting this, quality of life, this really special place that we live in.

So it paves the way for about 55,000 more housing units.

So we really, open up a lot more areas for housing, and it's really transit focused, as you note.

So, we picked the transit focused alternative so that more people can be closer to high capacity transit is so many people, actually don't drive in our community.

About a fourth of folks don't drive there either too young, or they don't drive anymore because, they're older, or they can't afford it or they're cost restricted.

Owning a car is very expensive.

So about a quarter of the folks in our community don't don't drive.

And they need to be close to opportunity.

They shouldn't be relegated far away from jobs and, education and other opportunities.

So, our growth plan really centers around transit corridors, and we have a broad goal of conserving, up to 100,000 acres of, some of the most cherished lands in this, in this county.

It farms, forests, habitat, lands important for salmon recovery and and recreation.

So, this is our plan for the future, and, we're we're really proud of it.

Open space and set asides are great.

Transit oriented development is great, but I hear those two things competing for each other to make high prices.

If you're taking land off the table and you want to center around transit, those values start going through the roof as you well now, how do you deal with things like gentrification and turning into Seattle, Bellevue Light, where, you know, you can't live, around a transit center because you're not making a million bucks a year?

Yeah, we're taking displacement really seriously.

All of our planning takes into account displacement.

So, working on strategies to invite folks back into the community, preserving units for for folks who were, maybe moved out because of the new investment that's come in.

So displacement strategies are really top of mind for us.

And, and when we make sure that the units that are being built in these, transit centers are affordable, really, when we get at affordability and preserve affordability, is is the best displacement strategy that we can have.

Talk a little bit about forward together.

That's an element of the comprehensive plan.

Talk a little bit about what that is and what it achieves.

So forward together is the mission of our administration as our time as the county executive.

And so our mission statement is forward together, building communities that are safe, welcoming and connected.

And so we we think all the time about, both those words together and separately.

So moving forward, making progress and doing it together, knowing that government can't do it alone, that we need to invite the Faith-Based community, our business community, our nonprofit partners, other cities and towns to help Pierce County really move forward together, make progress on the most pressing issues in our community.

Want to break out the transit piece a little bit?

Once again, and in the interest of transparency, we're taping this program prior to the vote on Dow Constantine to be to to run, Sound Transit.

So we don't know how that vote's going to turn out.

You've supported Dow in that role.

You know, we we conversed a little bit prior to the taping of this program.

I think two things can be true at the same time.

He can be the guy who knows a lot about the system, has been intimately involved with it, knows the region, knows the area, and also the art of optics of it are horrible.

He sat on the board and appointed a lot of the people that are are voting for him that, you know, the Twitterverse wants to call it corruption.

I think that's a bridge too far.

It doesn't look good.

What are your thoughts on that?

The we did a really robust search.

Over 60 folks from around the world wanted this job.

The board took this really, really seriously.

At the end of the day, for this moment in time, in sound transit history, we need someone with the political acumen and familiarity with the really complex nature of this region.

Sound transit goes through about 60 different cities and towns.

It's a dogfight.

Yeah, it's it's a really complicated place.

And, you know, we've had some outsiders, as CEOs over the past couple of years didn't go so well.

We need someone who understands this place, this culture, the complexities of the of the funding agreements.

And, be able to navigate, this really complicated place there.

There's lots of really smart people at Sound Transit.

And, you know, at the end of the day, as, the Pierce County Executive, I'm going to be fighting like heck that we keep the promise to voters to deliver, light rail to the South sound.

I was going to say that's my next question.

Is we all.

You know, I, I can't speak for viewers, but I'm pretty confident that we're all very excited about the Tacoma Dome extension and getting that done.

Is that got to happen?

And, I guess I'll just leave it at.

Is that going to happen?

It's I have lots of confidence it's going to happen.

We're working really hard on it.

There's, we're moving into the next major milestone folks will see in May of this year, we will take a next major milestone in the in the development of the planning of the project.

And, and this time next year, finish up the planning and have the station locations identified, the routes identified and move into full blown engineering of the project.

You've talked before that you have this urbanist vision of, of Pierce County in this area, you know, apart from the set asides in the rural areas, but in terms of where people live and how transit works, talk a little bit about how that, you don't see us improving highways and byways, but maybe using them as a feeder system with, express busses and those kinds of things to feed a more robust light rail system.

Talk about your vision for that and how that plugs into the comprehensive plan.

If we have work to do to improve, you know, we need all of these different modes, right?

We we're going to finish highway 167 finally over the next couple of years, we we we need that.

We have improvements we need to make to existing highways like highway 512 serving the central part of our county, make it more freight friendly, make it more commuter friendly and safer.

You know, I, I have a vision of making all of our transportation system much safer if I have to make a choice between throughput and moving everybody through as quickly as possible, or making sure nobody gets home at night safely, and safety is a priority.

I mean, it's your safety every day that every day of the week.

So sometimes you can't do both of those things.

You can't move people really, really fast and keep it safe.

Sometimes you can't make that promise.

I'm going to on the sense of safety, and I'm going to on the sense of helping more people get around this growing region.

And so that does mean investing in transit.

It means slowing down our roadways, making sure more people are safe, more people can get to where they need to go, and more people can get home at night safely.

We talked about, the the Tacoma Dome extension and 509 is what you referred to there in terms of freight mobility.

167 I think all those will will play a major role in the quality of life, in Pierce County.

Anything else there on your list?

The, you know, things that I'm not thinking about or that that you've identified.

And a lot of times, really with your work in the conservation district, being in some of the outlying areas where sprawl is starting to come, are there any areas body like, for instance, or places where you've said, listen this, there's some stuff out here we got to fix too.

Anything like that?

Yeah, absolutely.

In the east part of our county, we have 128th, which is a major arterial that goes east west, connecting the Bonny Lake Plateau and the valley.

So 1/28 is a major arterial priority for us to build roads.

Lake road is a major, new roadway that is, going in to serve to haul a new major housing development up on the hill, so that we can finally have two ways in and out at to Hollywood.

Right now, there's only one way in and out of to hall.

So these are major projects.

You know, we also have other, significant projects in Pierce County that often go unnoticed.

Things like the Fox Island Bridge, obviously serving Fox Island.

It is ending its useful life.

Rickety.

Yeah.

Very expensive.

It's very expensive.

It's upwards of $350 million to replace.

Yeah, that's a lot of cash for local government.

The Milroy Bridge, connecting Fife and River road, Puyallup.

It's, And it's useful life, was not built for these modern times.

It was built in the 1920s for a very different time.

That's a county facility that needs to be replaced.

We have so many transportation needs.

You know, the list goes on and on.

Chambers Bay, dam, the and the chambers Bay bridge that connects.

It's still a common university place in Lakewood that's ending its useful life and is a fish, a major fish, and that's a habitat recovery project on top of it, right?

Yeah.

So we have a lot we have a lot of needs.

We have a lot of existing facilities that we need to invest in, and use our, our dollars wisely for the existing facilities that have ended its useful life.

Well, while we replace them and make them more multimodal, make them safer and make them work for this community.

So you and I just sitting here talking things over have spent probably, I don't know, $1,020 billion on housing, in transit and everything else we can think of.

Man, though, when I look at the trends, when I look at the trends of local governments budgets, with property taxes and, and, and sales taxes, when I look at state government revenues at this point, there may be a move to increase revenues, federal government share of and distributing federal dollars.

None of the none of the arrows are going the right way.

Ryan.

So what now?

Right.

And including in local government, as you know, we have a structural budget deficit.

Pierce County alone has a structural budget deficit of about $20 million.

Our revenues are not keeping up with our expenses.

And so, you know, go figure.

Our sheriff's deputies don't work for free.

Right.

And, and it's a very competitive marketplace that we're competing for labor, in all kinds of disciplines.

Lawyers, cops, all the things, you know, luckily, for the state, so far as we analyze the state budget so far, our early, reading of the state budget that was just released a day ago.

So we are still combing through it.

But right now, the state has been good to local government in terms of not taking away any of the critical revenue shares that we have to pay for core services, mostly in the space of criminal justice and public safety, also housing and homelessness.

We really rely on the state as a funding partner.

So, they appear to be intact.

They have the revenue share that we depend on appears to be intact.

We're still analyzing, right, as we tape this show, photo government, lot more dark clouds.

Yeah.

We have about $200 million of our budget in county government that we rely on federal funds.

These are things like aging and disability resources.

Our staff federally funded, program that Pierce County staffers support.

Close to 7000 seniors in our community, help them stay in their home.

Yeah.

That's a really critical service.

That's transportation funded.

Transportation is largely federally funded.

Both are roadways, bridge repairs, bridge replacements, transit service and emergency management is also largely federally funded in this county.

So about $200 million worth of services that if that were to be majorly curtailed or taken away, I don't have the revenue stream to replace.

And I'll speak for the taxpayers here in Pierce County.

I was one for a long darn time.

Who will tell you this sounds great.

Don't got it.

Don't have any anymore.

Ryan.

Are you.

What do you hear?

What do you hear from taxpayers?

And are you sensitive to that?

I hear that folks want a more, progressive tax structure that folks who are, at the lower end of the, tax scale cannot come up with with more, and that we need to be more forward thinking about how we go about generating revenue when it comes to ideas about distributing the tax burden up the income stream.

You worry at all about economic development in Pierce County.

There's a fine line between, taxing the rich and killing investment.

How do you get that?

Right?

We have to.

We have to make a balance.

Right?

I, I believe that our role in local government to support, job creators, folks who are building new wealth here and creating more job opportunities here.

It's about creating the conditions for them to succeed.

So they want a safe place for their employees, a safe place if they're going to move their family.

Here is the leader of this new business, right.

All of those intrinsic things that we know.

Do you want to move here?

Do you want to live here?

Really dictates whether or not someone wants to open a business here.

So, you know, we got to get permitting, right?

And all those things, you know, take away more headaches, make this a, a relatively easy place to do business.

And and set the conditions, set the table for this to be a great place to live.

So folks want to move their families here.

Our last three minutes here to talk about public safety.

I crime, crime, I believe, is actually starting to roll over a little bit heading heading back down after the surge we saw in the pandemic.

Great news.

It's all good.

I would all suspect, though, that if we went down to commercial Tacoma mall and did mall intercepts with people, what are you worried about?

What are you concerned about?

What do you need out of local government?

I have a feeling public safety and law enforcement would be right up at the top of that.

Do you agree with that?

First of all, and what needs to be done when it comes to law enforcement, based on this perception that things have become less safe over time in Pierce County, the things I hear all the time from folks I talked to on the street, and I've knocked on a lot of doors, in my time.

And recently I hear about housing affordability.

And I do hear about crime.

Yeah, especially quality of life crimes.

Luckily, as as you noted, violent crime is, definitely headed in the right direction.

We're never going to be satisfied if we have one violent crime.

We're never going to be satisfied in this community.

But.

But it is definitely headed in the right direction on violent crime.

It's still a serious problem, and we have work to do.

But property crime is rising.

We also have a lot of, young people, juveniles who are getting into more criminal activity and more serious criminal activity, which really has me concerned.

So we have work to do to help support young people, to have safe things to do after school, productive things to do with their hands and minds out of school time, summer, winter break after school.

I, I don't think we've kept up in this growing community, especially outside of Tacoma, to provide enough opportunity for young people to keep their hands in their minds, busy, have caring adults around young people.

So if anything keeps me up at night in the crime space, it's the trend I'm seeing about young people and that that tells me that we have work to do to get upstream to care for these young people so they don't get into a pattern of criminal activity.

Last question for you in our last 90s here, and this is a little, a little abstract, but I always try to ask this of, of government leaders, when I have them here on Northwest.

Now, what can people do for you?

What do you want to hear from folks?

How how can they should they write you email?

You say, I can't do this or I don't want that.

What's helpful?

If somebody wants to get in behind the Melo administration and help Pierce County move forward, I really appreciate that.

You know, I read my own email.

So love folks writing in.

Tell me what's on their mind.

We have about 45, volunteer board and commissions that, we ask we invite people in to participate in helping us co governance, making really important recommendations to us, on policy and program and funding decisions.

So join one of these 45 boards and commissions.

Really there's something for everybody here.

Every subject matter under the sun, everything from helping to govern our airports to how we support young people with, youth violence prevention.

It's how you got started.

It is.

Yeah.

So a lot of different, ways to get involved, you know, follow us on social media.

We we are we are doing a lot out in the community and telling the story of what we're spending our time on, mostly on social media.

So follow us there.

And but, you know, most importantly, tell us what's on your mind.

Yeah.

Right now, thanks so much for coming to northwest now.

Great conversation.

Thank you so much for having me.

No matter the jurisdiction, inflation and the constant threat of having federal funding disappear due to the nation's insolvency, that doesn't bode well for a vision of government that is constantly growing and providing new services that create an ever expanding intersection with the average person's life.

The bottom line the math is going to require a major rethinking of just what government can do, and it's going to be hard to balance a big vision against limited resources.

We wish Executive Melo the best of luck and thank him for his time here on northwest now.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web at KTC dawg.

Stream it through the PBS app or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest.

Now until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

Music