Pierce County Council District 1 – Lorra Jackson

Municipal/Other Questionnaire

Candidate Information

  • Candidate Name: Lorra Jackson
  • Position Sought: Pierce County Council District 1 (Non-incumbent)
  • Home Legislative District: District 1
  • Democrat: Yes

Campaign Information

Part I – Candidate Background

1. Please briefly describe your qualifications, education, employment, community and civic activity, union affiliation, prior political activity, and other relevant experience.

I am a proactive visionary with a varied background (a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Masters in Fine art). I have extensive and diverse experience in the private sector, presently working in import-export logistics and compliance. I am a part of Indivisible Puyallup and 25th District Democrats.

2. What prompted you to run for this office? What are your campaign’s most important themes, issues, or priorities (three to five)?

I am seeking this office because I am to impact my community positively and look out for the interests of every resident. The important issues in my campaign will be addressing traffic congestion, providing more public spaces for a growing population, community activities to foster neighborhood relationships, and preservation of historic farmland.

3. What steps are you taking to run a successful campaign?

Enlisting volunteers, getting the word out through social media, upcoming signs & literature, and community events.

Part II – Local Issues

1. Would you support the establishment of a safe injection site in your district?

Yes

There was a quote from an article where a dad whose daughter recently passed from a drug overdose. “If you’re dead, you can’t receive treatment”. Safe injections sites have shown to save lives, reduce drug use in public space, and decline the dangerous habit of sharing needles. These sites would be an extension and enhancement of already successful needle exchange efforts. Successful safe injection sites require the support of the community and local law enforcement.

2. Would you support the administration and police force in your jurisdiction adopting a sanctuary policy, forbidding the sharing of local resources and labor with ICE?

Yes

Like anyone else, undocumented immigrants can be the victims of crime, even violent crime, or witnesses in a car hit by another car or truck running a red light. If undocumented immigrants fear to report the crimes and wrongs they suffer or observe, only wrong-doers benefit.

The safety of our residents is primary. People coming forward to report crimes are key to the helping our police force ensure that safety.

3. Do you support raising revenue at the city level to expand transit service?

Yes

Public transportation is an important service. This office is on the county level. However, on a county level new housing development should be planned so that it is coordinated with expansion of public transit. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in particular should be prioritized. Providing more support for employers to implement Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) plans will also help make peoples’ commutes more efficient.

4. Should transportation policy discourage the use of private automobiles and encourage the use of public-transit?

Yes

The process is not to discourage cars but to provide attractive, practical alternatives that help families save money on car payments, help local governments save money on road expansions, and limit the dead spaces of downtown parking lots.

Public transportation is key to reducing traffic of private automobiles. The first step to addressing the traffic problem is bringing into the Pierce Transit district urban areas such as Bonney Lake that are currently excluded. With so many residents of East Pierce County working in Seattle and East King County, we need to make transit a more convenient option so that more people will choose to use it. One way we can do this is by expanding the existing express bus service to the Puyallup and Sumner Sounder stations, allowing more people to take the train without driving into downtown Puyallup and Sumner. New express bus routes should be coordinated with the current community plan update in South Hill so that areas slated for increased residential development will have nearby bus stops.
The process is not to discourage cars but to provide attractive, practical alternatives that help families save money on car payments, help local governments save money on road expansions, and limit the dead spaces of downtown parking lots.

5. Do you support building a municipally owned and operated broadband system in your city or jurisdiction?

Yes

It is important to keep broadband system affordable and I would support all opportunities to do this. Also with the death of net neutrality, more than ever before, citizens need an internet access free of control by a handful of mega-distributors that seek control of content as well as transmission.

6. Do you support requiring police officers in your jurisdiction to wear body cameras?

Yes

Transparency builds trust between the police force and the communities they serve. Body cameras are a small step towards that and can be a valuable tool to access a situation. Current research shows that head-mounted cameras give a more accurate picture of what officers actually can see while vehicle mounted cameras can give a more complete view of what officers may not be able to see. Together they can protect the public and the police from mistaken claims.

7. Do you support repealing Tim Eyman’s I-747, which artificially limits property tax increases to 1% per year, regardless of population growth, inflation, and need?

Yes

Artificially limiting property tax increases regardless of population growth, inflation, or need is not a sound policy.

8. Should government assist individuals, and families who are without sufficient food, shelter, or basic necessities through no fault of their own?

Yes

The government should assist individuals & families who are without sufficient food, shelter, or basic necessities.

9. Should the wages paid to workers in Washington State be raised incrementally towards the goal of living wages?

Yes

Working a full-time job but not meeting the current amount needed for a home and food is incredibly unfair. Workers should be paid a living wage. Two full-time workers should earn enough for their own housing, food, and other necessities as well as enough to support at least one child.

10. Will you seek opportunities to mitigate the human activities that are contributing to disastrous climate change?

Yes

One action that I would push in the County Council is providing incentives for developers to implement green building techniques. We also need to hold businesses accountable for their emissions.

Part III – Free Response

1. Why are you requesting Democratic endorsement? What aspects of the Democratic platform most resonate with you?

I believe in the Democratic platform. The aspect that particularly resonates with me is the embracement of our differences (whether in religion, race, gender, orientation, etc) and knowing this is a strength that made our country great.

2. What important local issues have you worked on (or taken an interest in) that you feel aren’t getting enough attention from elected leaders and the media?

Traffic congestion and tenants rights.

3. Please list up to three specific, concrete actions you would support to ease the homelessness crisis.

Homelessness is not a crisis we can solve but we can look to work toward action to help ease it. One would be providing mental health services for those without shelter due to mental health issues. Another is keeping housing affordable.

4. What are the barriers to economic prosperity faced by residents in your jurisdiction, and how do you plan to address them?

Affordable housing is a barrier to economic prosperity increasing faced by our residents. Our current policy options have failed to keep housing affordable in Pierce County, so we need to explore other alternatives. One possibility is tiered leasing, which allows tenants to sign leases longer than one year where the annual rent increase is known in advance and is lower than would otherwise be the case. We can also look at various forms of rent control, although implementing any of these would require action by the State Legislature to amend the law that preempts all forms of rent control.

5. What are the transportation/transit challenges which face this jurisdiction and how would you address them? What role does rail play in your proposed solutions?

Currently our district is underserved by public transit opportunities.

Puyallup and Sumner have downtown to downtown Sounder Service but cannot cope with the demand for parking. Both cities would benefit from dedicated bus service that guaranteed connections with the trains. Ideally the bus service would serve planned residential communities and other population clusters to avoid the need from more dead-space park and ride lots. If commuters could walk to a convenient bus stop and transfer to a train, they might save the cost and congestion commuter-cars impose on themselves and the community. Pierce Transit’s 497 between Lakeland Hills and Auburn is a good prototype for this needed service.

6. What are your jurisdiction’s environmental issues, which ones are urgent and what will you do to address them?

I will push to take the increase in extreme weather events into account in updates of Emergency Management Plans to protect our local wildlife and the lives and assets of the people of Pierce County. Also I will look to providing incentives for developers to implement green building techniques.

7. Does your district have a taxing authority or propose levies and what changes, if any, would you seek?

Mental health services need to be supported and encouraged by the legislature for urban counties, and which every other urban county in the state has implemented.


By typing my name below, I declare under penalty of perjury the foregoing is true and correct.

Printed Name: Lorra Jackson

Date: 06/26/2018

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