Time to get involved

Spokane’s field of prospective police chiefs has been narrowed from 43 to four. Now, finally, it’s the community’s turn to participate.

Concerned citizens should grasp the opportunity tightly in a community where secrecy and law enforcement are old friends.

Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession is to be commended for conducting a nationwide search for retired Chief Roger Bragdon’s replacement. As recent experience with chiefs Terry Mangan and Alan Chertok shows, outsiders can bring problems, too, but that just underscores the need for a methodical – and open – evaluation of the candidates. Filling the position from within the department – long the default approach in Spokane – forecloses the opportunity to give the department fresh perspectives and leadership unentangled by past relationships and willing to reevaluate policies.

Hession’s insistence on community involvement as a consideration in the hiring decision is laudable as well – although it remains to be seen if his definition of community involvement is as broad as it needs to be.

Because the screening process to date has been kept under wraps, the people of Spokane know who few of the 39 eliminated candidates are or why they were ruled out. That was a courtesy extended to the applicants at the expense of community information.

In the time that’s left, however, citizens have a series of opportunities to meet the remaining candidates in person:

“Monday, July 10, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Northeast Community Center, 4001 N. Cook;

“Tuesday, July 11, 6 to 8 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.;

“Wednesday, July 12, 1 to 3 p.m. at the Southside Senior Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave.

That’s not a lot of time to give the community a chance to question four candidates for a vitally important position and get meaningful answers in return. The city’s promise of community involvement as a Police Department priority will be tested by whether those sessions produce substantive information or superficial platitudes.

Equally important, citizens with strong ideas about the qualities and qualifications they want in a chief, need to express those preferences clearly to City Hall and back them up with reasons.

For a long time, the Spokane Police Department has been obsessively guarded about letting the public know what’s going on inside the organization. One recent example: The refusal to release a security tape that would answer lingering questions about the death in March of Otto Zehm after a scuffle with police officers. In an agency that has discretion to use deadly force, the highest standards are demanded. It’s essential that the public be able to trust the professionalism of its law enforcement officers, and such trust can be secured only through policies of openness and accountability.

Community involvement requires more than maintaining COPS shops.