In a big policy shift, the Tacoma, WA City Council questioned subsidies for a Hollander-Marriott luxury project that may not benefit the community, bucking developer lobbyists and the City Manager.  For weeks, City Council-members led by Connie Ladenburg held off indemnifying Hollander and sticking taxpayers with toxic liability at the privately owned site.  The hotel is sited for the Thea Foss Waterway next to the bankrupted and nearly empty luxury Esplanade condos, also government subsidized and built on the backs of low-wage workers.

The shift occurred while Urban Grace Church organized for a recent candidate forum on Responsible Development and amidst a now three-year JwJ free speech campaign to press the City Council to embrace justice values linked to the City’s luxury subsidy policy.  Now six candidates are referring to “sustainable development” in two Tacoma Weekly articles although not all seemed to include economic justice in the term.  Some candidates prefer Bush trickle-down welfare that doesn’t address poverty-wage jobs, a root cause of environmental unsustainability.  In their minds, low-wage downtown hotel workers should just commute to homes in affordable places like Sumner.

By taking time to publicly evaluate the Hollander-Marriott project, Council-members catapulted the

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