Ombudsfix

Citizen Coalition seeks resolution directing Mayor to bargain for investigative authority for police ombudsman.

In a letter sent today to members of the Spokane City Council, a coalition of eight Spokane citizen groups, including the Center for Justice, asks council members to take the next step to ensure that the city’s new police ombudsman acquires independent investigative authority. Specifically, the letter attaches a proposed resolution that would essentially require the Mayor to bargain with police unions for a new contract that would include the unions accepting that the city’s new Office of Police Ombudsman would have the power to conduct independent investigations of complaints about police misconduct.

The letter comes a year after the council struggled through a contentious series of council meetings to adopt an ordinance that created the ombudsman office. The terms of the ordinance had been negotiated, in advance, with the Spokane Police Guild and, among other things, the ordinance reflected the prior agreement with the  guild to not give the new office the authority to conduct investigations of police misconduct independent of the police department’s internal affairs office.

In response to public criticism, council members and other city officials explained they were limited in what they could ask for in negotiating with the police unions because, at the time,  contract negotiations were well under way and the unions’ permission was needed even to consider a watered down version of the ombudsman office. Most defended their votes on the ordinance by saying it was “a good start” that could be strengthened in future negotiations with the police guild.

Since that time, the city has hired a former California police officer, Tim Burns, to fill the post.

“The citizens of Spokane were promised independent investigatory authority in the new contract,” the new letter reads, “and with negotiations approaching, it is time to keep that promise.”

In addition to the Center, other signatories to the letter are:

The Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane (PJALS)
Shawl Society
NAACP of Spokane
Voices for Opportunity, Income, Childcare, Education, and Support (VOICES)
Progressive Democrats of America, Spokane chapter
Eastern Washington Voters
Coalition of Responsible Disabled (CORD)

“Especially in light of what’s happening in the Otto Zehm case,” said Liz Moore, the PJALS director, “Spokane city leaders need to act now to restore the community’s trust in them and in our police department. Councilmembers Rush, Apple, McLaughlin, Corker, and Allen and Council President Shogan have all said they support full investigatory authority. Now’s the time to include the issue in the Police Guild contract negotiations–otherwise we may have to wait years to make that authority reality.”

The proposed resolution would direct the Mayor and her staff “to bargain with the City of Spokane Police Guild to grant explicit independent investigatory authority to the Office of Police Ombudsman prior go agreeing to a new labor contract with the Guild.”

–CFJ