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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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A dozen people spoke their minds at a Tacoma City Council public hearing Tuesday night. The subject: whether the council should facilitate a $3.5 million loan from federal Housing and Urban Development funds that would benefit the LeMay Automobile Museum.
Of the 12 speakers, only one spoke against the measure – and he supported the museum itself, but not its proposed location.
Among the comments:
• A representative form Associated General Contractors of Washington said, “We’re in support of the LeMay Museum and the HUD loan.” His reasoning: Construction will create private sector jobs.
• Likewise, a representative from the county Building & Construction Trades Council said “This is a signature project. We urge you vociferously – and that’s from a roofer.”
• LeMay board member Carl Anderson said the museum will be “the best thing that has happened to Tacoma in 100 years.”
• The lone if moderate dissent came from a man who asked where visitors to the Tacoma Dome, located near the proposed museum, would be able to park during events. He asked how much the project would cost, and noted that the museum would be trapped between a freeway, railroad tracks and the Dome. He suggested that the facility be relocated at the site of the former railroad shops, a few blocks away.
• LeMay CEO David Madeira said that with the HUD loan, and additional funding from a federal tax-credit program, the museum board might, at its May 8 meeting, name Sept. 11 as the groundbreaking day. “That’s our goal,” he said. He thanked the council for its support over the last several years, and said he expects to repay the HUD loan within three or four years of a seven-year deadline. One the museum is built, he said, the job of fundraising from supporters would become easier. “The secret of our success will be if people believe that we’re real.”
• Keith Stone, long a resident and business owner in the Dome District, said the museum would be as much a benefit to the city as is the presence of Russell Investments – and perhaps even more, as Russell employees are not known to shop downtown. “This will bring a lot of people into our city who will spend money.”
• City Councilmember Mike Lonergan, the only member to question LeMay officials at the hearing, asked about repayment of the loan. Following an explanation of expectations by Madeira, Lonergan said, “That’s what I was hoping to hear.”
