Editor’s note: The following interview was recorded on July 15, 2025. It has been edited for length and clarity. We want to thank Mattice Hoyt for setting up all these interviews and the candidates for taking the time to answer all her questions. This was the first time we really jumped into local elections in a big way and it ended up being more of a project than we had anticipated. Apologies for sharing these so late in the game. Click here to read the other interviews in this series.
Mattice Hoyt
So, I always like to break the ice at first. I’m a little bit chaotic. I think it’s funny. Do you think that John Hines could take any of the other people that he’s running against in a physical fight?
Joe Bushnell
Uh, he’s pretty buff. I think so.
Mattice
Okay!
Joe
Well, maybe not Carlos, because he was a Ranger or something like that?
Mattice
Ah, okay.
Joe
But I’ve never seen him in person so I couldn’t say. I would say that those two in a head to head would be interesting to see it.
Mattice
(laughing) That would actually be a good matchup! All right. So, thank you for doing this for me!
Joe
Yeah, absolutely?
Mattice
With Grit City, they were just like, geez, you’re kind of all over the place, you’d probably be fun as an interview person. I was like, we’ll see! I feel like I know all the council members. I see you guys every week. So, what are five words you would use to describe District Five?
Joe
Five words to describe District Five? I would say. Diverse, resilient, hard-working, beautiful, grit.
Mattice
Okay, the grit of Tacoma.
Joe
Yeah, the grit of the city.
Mattice
What do you wish folks knew about your District?
Joe
I wish folks knew that there are actually a lot of great things going on in the district. We have beautiful business districts and a lot of fantastic restaurants, and a lot of really fantastic parks that I think get overlooked. Fun activities happen at the different libraries and stuff too.
Mattice
How many business districts do you guys have?
Joe
So we have three. Well, kind of. I’ve been messing around with the definition, so it’s a little more complicated than that. So the official ones are lower pacific avenue, then we have fern hill business district, and maybe a smidge of South Tacoma Way. Sometimes the boundaries of the district are a bit blurred. If a business there has an issue, they come to the District Five council member.
Mattice
I actually didn’t know that South Tacoma Way was District Five until the owner of Howdy Bagel told me.
Joe
Yeah.
Mattice
For some reason I thought that Cedar was where District Three stopped.
Joe
I just think that the people that live and work out here, they tend to be more, culturally, more of a District Five area.
Mattice
I think that it feels a little bit gentrification-y right now (laughs).
Joe
Well there are a lot of long term business owners that live here. There hasn’t been a super slam of displacement happening like we have seen in some other places.
Mattice
Ah, okay.
Joe
I feel we have shown a good balance of bringing in new businesses, but we still have a lot of barbershops and old businesses here. It’s a good mix.
Mattice
What are the core values that will guide your decision making if elected again?
Joe
It’ll be the core values that I continue to hold. You know, honesty, integrity, leading with my heart. I was born and raised in the city of Tacoma, and I would live and die here. Every decision that I make is centered around the people here, there’s no special interest. There is no one group that I’m beholden to you, so to speak. I am very much of Tacoma. Born and raised here. When I make a decision I think about what has got us up to this point historically and how can I best address the situation further.
Mattice
So you were here and then joined the military right?
Joe
Yeah
Mattice
Then you came back right?
Joe
Yeah, you know, right after high school, I graduated from Stadium 2008 and I left for boot camp. I graduated in June and left in July. I couldn’t wait to get out of here (laughing). And you know, I still loved Tacoma, but I needed to leave.
Mattice
You needed to leave and spread your wings. You saw what was out there and thought, ehh I think I’ll go back home.
Joe
Exactly. Everywhere I would go I would actually rave about Tacoma. I was like the Tacoma guy. I’m not from Seattle. I’m from Tacoma. I was very specific.
Mattice
What is your vision for the future of our city and your district?
Joe
I have planted a lot of seeds in my first four years. Especially for future planning and opportunity in District Five. You know, District Five also incorporates Hosmer Street.
Mattice
Yeah, I thought that was actually a business district.
Joe,
Well, it’s an unofficial business district. Like I said, I’m trying to mess around with the definition of business district so I can get these areas the resources they need. Part of the reason I feel Hosmer ended up this way is that it lacked support from the city, but it also lacked support from the neighborhoods around it. People thought it wasn’t an official business district, so why would we go out to this area. So I helped them form their own business association, which took years.
Mattice
I’ve actually seen this on Instagram. I think maybe it was last year, or maybe the year before, but they did like a walk through. Even just seeing that one thing, I thought, oh they’re a business district.
Joe,
Absolutely. And that changes the mindset of the people that are working there, the people that are living there, and then what people expect when they’re around that area, right?
Mattice
Yeah, yeah.
Joe
And so we’ve had a lot of really negative activities occurring along that street. We’ve had domestic violence, assaults, homicides, drug dealing, like, yeah, the whole nine yards. To really address those things, you can obviously respond to them with the police, but there is a reason it all ended up like that in the first place, and that is because a lot of needs are not being met.
Mattice
Exactly
Joe
So, whenever I look at public safety, I have to look at the whole circle or the whole pie.
Mattice
What do you believe are the biggest challenges facing our community, and how do you propose that we address them?
Joe
I think public safety continues to be one of the biggest challenges we face as a community, and again, like I said before, it isn’t just officers. It’s the spectrum of things. Within that spectrum is making sure people have opportunities to support themselves economically, because that I think is one of the largest contributing factors to going into some sort of negative space. Usually that involves trying to find ways to support yourself or your family right? There are right ways to do that and wrong ways to do that.
Mattice
And when you are desperate, right?
Joe
Exactly.
Mattice
When you are desperate to survive, whether something is good or bad goes out the window.
Joe
Exactly. So I just want to make sure we are making the conditions as nice as possible, so that people have access to the opportunities they need. Finding ways to make sure basic needs are met and opportunities are presented will really help with public safety. But at the same time, crime is not victimless. So people should expect justice for whatever transpired against them. To have something stolen from you, like a vehicle, could be detrimental. Small businesses having their windows broken? That is actually extremely expensive for them. Some people say, “oh, just let insurance take care of it.” The reality is, insurance will drop you!
Mattice
Yes. I think I did like a whole thing on Instagram about this. Someone stole three hundred dollars worth of stuff from me. Well, my deductible is five hundred dollars, and I explained it like car insurance. If you’re getting an accident every week, what are they gonna do?
Joe
They’re gonna drop you.
Mattice
Can you elaborate on your stance on houselessness?
Joe
Yeah. So, this is a very tough and complicated issue, you know, for a variety of reasons.
Mattice
Why I’m asking you is, Hosmer. That area specifically has gotten a reputation. People think, oh, all the homeless people are over there, even though that’s not true. If people have their eyes open, every district has their areas. But for some reason, District Five gets saddled with it.
Joe
I always come back to basic needs being met right? There’s a lot of reasons why someone ends up homeless. And there’s actually a lot of folks that are homeless that we don’t see. Whether they are in their vehicles or at a friend’s house. But I am a big supporter of tiny home villages, because unless you have a good place to sleep at night, nothing else really matters. I mean think about it. You don’t have a place to safely store your things, you don’t have a place to safely lay your head, you don’t have a place to have a meal. Public safety means our houseless community being able to have a place to safely live their lives. Unless you can address that at the root level, you won’t be able to address any of the other problems they may be facing.
Mattice
Yeah, yeah. How will you work with people who have different viewpoints than you?
Joe
I believe in extreme collaboration.
Mattice
Okay, what does that mean?
Joe
What that means is making sure everybody is at the table. I will tell you, sometimes it slows the process down because you’re trying to reach out to all the different groups and make sure everyone’s heard. I try to incorporate other ideas and issues and concerns as much as possible, and actually, in good faith, try to rectify and deal with them, right? I want to walk a mile in their shoes and see how I can incorporate their ideas in a way that is cohesive and makes sense to really get at the goals that we’re trying to get at. If we’re going to address policies on any one group or any sector, we should have people that are going to be impacted by it at the table. I know it’s shocking to hear that, but there are people that seem to speak on behalf of the community, but they exclude large swaths of the community from whatever they’re working on.
Mattice
Yeah, that’s wrong
Joe
And it’s my job as a council member to hear people out and try to make the best decision on behalf of the people.
Mattice
I had a question about job creation and economic growth, but I think that you’ve spoken quite a bit about that. And not even just for the city, but especially in District Five. Like, what you’re doing on Hosmer; making it safer, more walkable, etc. That will help economically because businesses will want to open there.
Joe
Exactly.
Mattice
I don’t feel the need to ask you that question.
Joe
Well, I could expand it on a little bit more if you’d like.
Mattice
Oh! Okay go ahead.
Joe
We have some great opportunity for synergy between, like, the Port of Tacoma, our educational institutions like UWT, TCC, Clover Park, PLU, UPS, uh, we have JBLM, which is a really huge military exploration. There is a large opportunity for synergy amongst those institutions to really support job growth and creation. This can move us into the next generation of our economy.
Mattice
Oh for sure.
Joe
I’d like to continue to help develop entrepreneurship, and build local companies. But also looking, beyond that, I want to bring those experts into our community to help bring more family wage jobs and make sure that everyone has access to those jobs.
Mattice
I always thought this was a weird question, but everybody at Grit City Magazine always likes to hear about it. How will you address climate change and protect our natural resources?
Joe
Yeah, well, climate change is a real thing. I know there are some people that disagree with that.
Mattice
Yes. (laughing)
Joe
That’s part of why I asked to be on the Puget Sound Clear Air Agency Board. They are at the forefront of regulating emissions in our area, as well as holding polluters accountable if they do not follow the regulations, right?
Mattice
Yeah.
Joe
So, South Tacoma has acute environmental concerns and problems in this area. It is really important for me to be in those rooms for my constituents. The agency has done a really good job leading, not only locally but nationwide, on how to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. So being a part of developing strategic plans for that, and setting the policy, helping the executive director do their best job for themselves and for the organization. I’m thankful to my peers on the board for bringing me in as chair, because it’s so important for my community to be part of these conversations.
Mattice
I always say that environmental justice is social justice. Especially since one of the words you used to describe District Five was diversity. Usually neighborhoods of color or lower socioeconomic backgrounds have the environmental issues.
Joe
That’s where the self-advocacy comes in. You have to build up the community to know that they can self-advocate right, that their voices will be heard.
Mattice
Well, Joe, that was my last question. Thank you so much!
Joe
I really appreciate it.
Mattice
I’m not that scary right?
Joe
(Laughing) You’re a great interviewer.
Mattice
Oh, thank you.
