Editorials and other Opinion content offer perspectives on issues important to our community and are independent from the work of our newsroom reporters. In the late day sun Thursday, at a corner once known for abandoned gas stations and the toxic remnants they left behind, a young girl in gold boots sat knees-first in a bed of fresh beauty bark, tracing make-believe rivers and streams into the soil. Somewhere, you got the sense, Catherine Ushka was smiling.
Two miles away at the Eastside Community Center , at the very same moment, a standing-room-only crowd of elected officials and prominent local dignitaries paid tribute to the late Tacoma City Council member , who died May 15 after a long, brutal fight with cancer. Somehow, you got the sense, Ushka wouldn’t have wanted any part of it. For a no-nonsense advocate for the Eastside who took pride in rolling up her sleeves and saying what needed to be said — even when it was politically fraught — it was never about the accolades, prestige or the tributes waiting at the end.
It was about the work — and the people of District 4. It was about the girl in gold boots. Like so many recent improvements and investments in the area, the park along South 48th where the girl played Thursday afternoon — which now bears Ushka’s name — probably wouldn’t have happened without her.
As Tacoma mourns Ushka’s passing, her life offers a lesson: Our divided politics — and our frayed communities — could use a lot more of the pa.
