Comments on No Shit Sherlock

So when are we getting that citizens initiative to legislate police accountability above and beyond the scope of the police union?

@1 -- A citizens' initiative will be just as useless as a Blue Ribbon Panel. Or are you only interested in quieting another shitstorm?

No, a citizen's initiative is incredibly effective.

The powers that be are scared of that stuff - it threatens their power base.

Nickels is not "at the mercy" of the guild. That's not how collective bargaining works. There would be no serious popular backlash if the city took a hard line for police accountability during collective bargaining with SPOG. We could end up with a arbitration process that is biased toward the guild. But we'd have to see some real leadership on this issue to even get to mediation. Blaming SPOG for holding everything up lets our politicians off the hook and grossly exaggerates the union's power. It's a myth city leaders and police officers have been equally invested in. I hope the Mayor's panel can erode that a little.

The Seattle Times reported that "Nickels said 15 recommendations would be implemented immediately by the city, including proposals for the OPA office to have its own budget, for the two oversight agencies to work more closely together and providing more training to staff who conduct internal investigations."

FYI - These are the two actions already taken by the City Council during budget in November 2007. Councilmembers announced early in the budget process their support for one of these objectives. See here:

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/news/detail.asp?ID=7704&Dept=28

The budget proposal to fund more training for OPA sergeants is not named in this release, but it was proposed by Councilmember Licata and co-sponsored by CMs Clark and Conlin.

The upshot here being that these two items that the Times says will be implemented immediately and require no bargaining should have been implemented on 1/1/08, at the beginning of a new budget year, per the passage of the 2008 budget.

Also, one of the recommendations the Mayor says must be negotiated is a law already passed by the Council last fall(differing decisions of OPA and Chief documented and reported upon after cases are closed). There are differing opinions about whether it must be negotiated.