We recently learned that we lost a couple of Tacomans who contributed a lot to our city. Ernest Jasmin, former music journalist, and Catherine Ushka, from the Tacoma City Council, recently passed away. While we can’t replace what we lost, we can honor what they stood for. EJ believed in supporting local music, and he did that by consistently showing up and giving local bands coverage alongside the national acts he covered as well. Catherine was also known to show up for us. She showed up for our underserved neighborhoods, she showed up to address environmental concerns, housing needs, our children’s education and many other issues in her role as City Councilmember and Deputy Mayor. While I am not qualified to eulogize, I encourage you to seek out more information about these inspirational people. We can’t replace them, but we can inspire more people to be like them.

We can replace the 65 windows of micro-businesses in downtown Tacoma that were smashed recently, and it will cost a lot, but the woman who reportedly smashed them was failed by us, and that is also a sad story. We have to do more for our collective mental health. We have to provide affordable resources both for the lost and forgotten people and for the micro-businesses who are constantly facing incredibly unfair challenges too.

No one can fill the shoes of those we lost, but we can honor their memory and spend a little more time and money on our community. Whether that means attending local music shows and telling your friends about the talent you discovered, volunteering for a great local non-profit, buying/displaying local art, donating money to good causes, paying attention to local issues and weighing in, using the public comment time that is offered every Tuesday evening at the Tacoma City Council meeting to remind our public servants of what we need, or just switching to a local provider of something you use on a regular basis.

We vote with our votes, but we also vote with our dollars. Remember who you are giving money to every time you buy something. Use YouTube to learn about the ethics of the brands you support. You may be shocked to find out how your money is being used. You are in control of this, though.

If you can’t buy something you need locally, maybe you can start a local business to provide it. Or maybe you can invest in local startups so that we can become less dependent on corporations and, by doing so, send a lot more of our local money to resources for our most vulnerable, to projects that will make our local economy stronger, and to allow our local businesses to grow, hire more people, and contribute more to our tax revenues that pay for city services we can’t always count on the Federal Government to provide.

We need to tune in to local issues, not tune out. The coming election cycle is going to be rough, but don’t let that stop you from opting in for local information. The people we elected here are not billionaires; they are people like us who love our community, and they need your guidance to make the best decisions. They are very approachable. You can also find your neighborhood council and be a part of the solution. They meet once a month at a place near you.

I hope you are already subscribed to our weekly email newsletter. Over 1,000 locals already are. Let’s double that number. Tell your friends. Life may not always be a picnic, but you decide what is being served.