Ombudsmuddle

Council hearing on police oversight is continued for a week amid confusion about what an ombudsman would do, and not do.

It took nearly a year and a half for Spokane citizens to get their chance to speak out about the City’s new proposed police oversight plan and, all in all, it wasn’t very pretty.

In a hearing repeatedly interrupted by appeals to City Attorney Howard Delaney from the council dais to give his interpretation of key passages and definitions, the Spokane City Council took nearly an hour and a half to hear from just seven citizens. Delaney was called upon so frequently during the hearing that it became the cause of a running joke between he and Council President Joe Shogan. Delaney played along in good humor, once joking that a citizen testifier had taken his spot in front of a microphone, and once turning and giving a waving arm salute to the City Cable 5 technicians who were televising the hearing.

Problems and confusion were evident right from the start. Despite months of lead time, a new revision of the ordinance was handed out after the hearing was underway. According to Delaney, the new version contained changes that the police guild deemed necessary in order to give its blessing to the new proposed plan. Unfortunately, no one from the guild was present at the meeting, though Shogan announced that a guild representative would have to be heard from before testimony on the plan is wrapped, presumably a week from now on September 29th.

As Shogan presided over the rambling hearing, he at least made clear his strong intention not to vary significantly, if at all, from language worked out in private negotiations between city administrators and the police guild.

“First of all and just real quick,” he said, “the desire is to get a working ombudsman in place. Because that is done, it doesn’t mean that everything in here is going to be set in concrete forever. Once we get operating and there’s input and review, certain issues that come up, even if they require collective bargaining, can go to that process. The guild’s contract comes up for renewal next year. That would be a perfect time to address issues that come up during the year once we’re in operation, that would require negotiating. The danger is if we try to get too perfect an ordinance right now, we won’t have anything. And to kick this now, really, quite frankly, back to the guild for renegotiating, we won’t have it.”

Shogan reiterated this position in response to public criticism of the proposed ordinance, some of which was sharp, and much of which was in opposition to the power wielded by the guild in trying to exert control over the selection process and in trying to restrict the reach of the Office of Police Ombudsman itself.

“As I’ve watched this process go on for the last year and a half or two years,” said John Olsen, a chef at Shalom Ministries, “it seems to me that the people who are being overseen are the ones deciding how they’ll be overseen.”

Another citizen testifier, Larry Priano, criticized the proposed ordinance for creating a “highly paid eunuch.”

Other questions and issues aired Monday night about the proposed ordinance concerned the proposed office’s access to documents during investigations, whether it should be allowed to investigate prior to recommending cases for mediation, and whether the office would have jurisdiction over city code enforcement officials and others who exercised limited police powers but were not members of the department.

Among the issues that were not clarified was the rather simple question of whether the OPO would be able to field a simple complaint by a citizen and initiate an investigation without the permission of the police department.