Good Trouble Lives On – Puyallup City Council - COMP Plan Stop them from erasing History.

Hey there folks. Some information for Tuesday Night. City Hall 333 Meridian. We are showing up regarding the Council's COMP plan. Here is the information in great detail. Heather Schiller is a great resource regarding what is happening as well. Also the News Tribune just did an article regarding what is happening.Links to proposed Comp Plan Amendments can be found at bottom of this email or directly via https://compplan-puyallup.hub.arcgis.com/pages/draft-comp-plan Dear Friends and Neighbors. Please copy and paste this email, or change it your own words, then share with friends and allies throughout the city of Puyallup.This Tuesday at 6:30 PM, the Puyallup City Council will consider a set of amendments to the city’s Comprehensive Plan that would dramatically weaken our city’s commitment to equity, housing justice, and historical truth.These proposals—led by Mayor Jim Kastama, Deputy Mayor Dennis King, and Councilmembers Dean Johnson and Renee Gillium—direct staff to rewrite core values of the plan. If adopted, these amendments will erase meaningful equity language, whitewash tribal history, and insert partisan overreach into a document meant to guide Puyallup’s growth through 2044.What’s at StakeHere are just a few of the specific and deeply troubling changes being proposed:Replace the word “equity” throughout the plan with "equality" or other more diluted terms—ignoring the difference between treating everyone the same and addressing systemic disparities.Insert a new disclaimer at the start of the plan that reads: “All actions under this Plan are intended to be race-neutral and will not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or any other protected status. Where analysis of historical patterns is required under state law, such analysis is for informational and policy guidance purposes only and does not confer preferential treatment based on race or ethnicity.” This statement renders any meaningful racial equity work toothless and suggests that naming past harm is somehow preferential treatment.Remove historically accurate language about the Puyallup Tribe and the Medicine Creek Treaty. For example, they want to delete the section that states: “The Medicine Creek Treaty forced the Puyallup Tribe onto lands away from the Puyallup River... Tensions and conflicts resulted in the Puget Sound War... [which] added lands now included in the City of Puyallup and its Urban Growth Area (UGA).” Erasing this narrative is not just disrespectful—it is historical revisionism.In the Housing section, replace this call to action: “Provisions to begin rectifying past and current disparate impacts to communities of color and other marginalized populations...” with the weaker: “Provisions to identify and address displacement risks and disproportionate impacts to vulnerable populations...” This subtle shift eliminates accountability and avoids naming race—when racial disparities in housing access are well-documented and ongoing.Add language stating that city programs must align with federal executive orders. This vague and unnecessary clause opens local policy to partisan influence and instability, depending on who is in the White House.Why Your Voice MattersThese changes go far beyond semantics—they undermine the inclusive future that our community has been working toward. They also contradict state law, including RCW 36.70A.070(9), which requires cities to include equity in their comprehensive plans.Councilmembers made public commitments during Black History Month to stand for racial justice. Now, one week before Juneteenth, they are poised to strip those values from our long-term planning document.What You Can DoShow up and speak out at the Puyallup City Council meeting: Tuesday | 6:30 PM Citizen Comments happen near the start of the meeting. Even a one-minute statement can make a powerful impact.Use your voice to demand a future that includes everyone—where history is told truthfully, and equity is not just a buzzword, but a guiding principle. Let’s stand up for truth, inclusion, and legal compliance. The future of our city depends on it.Proposals officially from Mayor Kastama and apparently supported by Deputy Mayor King, as well as council members Dean Johnson and Renee Gilliam:Amendments are provided in track changes within the Element documents below, as well as two proposed map amendments included via a separate link. Foundations Natural Environment Land Use Proposed Future Land Use Map Amendments Housing Community Character Transportation Utilities Capital Facilities Downtown Neighborhood Plan South Hill Neighborhood Plan At the very beginning of the document they want to add the statement "All actions under this Plan are intended to be race-neutral and will not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or any other protected status. Where analysis of historical patterns is required under state law, such analysis is for informational and policy guidance purposes only and does not confer preferential treatment based on race or ethnicity.” Apparently they don’t see color. One particularly badly written amendment following the “Puyallup 2044 Vision: A Welcoming Place” section suggests on page 1-16 that “Puyallup is a vibrant and inclusive community that values diversity, equity equality, and opportunity, and supports the cultures and traditions of all community members” and adds "and opportunities in a nondiscriminatory manner.” to make it even more run-on and redundant.THEY WANT TO WHITEWASH TRIBAL HISTORY - Also at the beginning of the Comp Plan, they are proposing on pages 1-4 and 1-5 to insert a whitewashed version of Puyallup Tribal history and eliminate the following statement: "In 1854, the Tribe was pressured into signing the Treaty of Medicine Creek, where the Tribe ceded all of its traditional territory, except for a portion of land known today as the Puyallup Reservation (Map 3-1). The Medicine Creek Treaty promised the tribes compensation for their territory but resulted instead in the forfeiture of prime farmland and the relocation of the tribes onto reservations. The Medicine Creek Treaty forced the Puyallup Tribe onto lands away from the Puyallup River and its tributaries. Tensions and conflicts resulted in the Puget Sound War (1855-1856) and a renegotiation in 1856 of dedicated treaty lands. This added lands on both sides of the Puyallup River, extending from the mouth upstream about seven miles, which now includes the City of Puyallup and its Urban Growth Area (UGA). This was memorialized in an Executive Orders in 1857 and 1873, which is are now reflected in what is known as the ‘1873 Survey Area’ in the Puyallup Tribe’s Comprehensive Plan….” as well as other similar egregious changes on page 1-7.THEY WANT TO DENY HISTORICAL & CURRENT RACISM - Here’s another example in the Housing section of the Comp Plan were on page 4-2 to 4-3 they propose replacing “Provisions to begin rectifying past and current disparate impacts to communities of color and other marginalized populations, including but not limited to, anti-displacement strategies and protections” with “Provisions to identify and address displacement risks and disproportionate impacts to vulnerable populations, through strategies such as anti-displacement measures and housing stability protections." All this after all those council members assured us during their February Black History Month Proclamation that their words would not be empty, and that they would walk their talk. This direction to eliminate equity from the Comprehensive Plan is in direct contradiction to their February promises, and comes a week before Juneteenth. State law directs cities to consider equity in their comprehensive plan, and removing equity will roll Puyallup back into the days when accommodations for the disabled, seniors, people of color, and other historically marginalized members of the community were sidelined at every turn.THEY WANT TO FOLLOW A DICTATORIAL PRESIDENT - Another amendment these 4 council members directed staff to include at the very beginning of the Comp Plan is to implement "policies, programs, and initiatives, is designed and implemented in compliance with ... federal Executive Orders” which a) in normal times, goes without saying that the city has to follow federal and state laws that effect us; and b) in these times, is a blatant partisan position that opens Puyallup up to the orders of a dictator-like president, in a proposal made by a council member (Johnson) whose most recent campaign promise, still on his website, proclaims “people first, party second” - and finally c) the council under Kastama and King are contradicting themselves when they suggest the Comp Plan include following federal executive orders as well as state law, when many of their housing and other amendments contractive state law.Proposals by Mayor Kastama & Councilmember Witting denying Climate Change Impacts & More:The document below includes a list of proposed amendments that are being presented jointly by the two councilmembers. If approved, the amendments will be incorporated into the final draft Comp Plan. Joint Proposed AmendmentsIn these amendments, there's even a proposal to "Remove Policy NE – 11.6: Include analysis of climate change impacts when conducting environmental review under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA)” which is completely unnecessary to remove. Talk about returning Puyallup to the past and sticking our heads in the sand about the current climate crisis! Please come out - if you can make public comments (if you are a resident of the city) please do so. If not that is ok...let's show up in a big way. The time is now.