Spokane City Council hires lawyer to look into ombudsman law

The Spokane City Council isn’t giving up on stronger police oversight, at least not for two more weeks. The council voted 6-0 this week to delay action on the possible repeal of the city’s 2010 police ombudsman law. That move gives an outside attorney time to analyze an arbitrator’s July decision demanding that the city remove the ordinance, and weigh a possible appeal of that ruling. The law, which strengthened the city’s original ombudsman rules from 2008, gave Ombudsman Tim Burns the power to investigate accusations of police misconduct separately from the police department’s own reviews. Soon after the rules were approved, the Spokane Police Guild filed an unfair labor practice claim with the Public Employment Relations Commission because Burns’ authority was expanded without negotiating with the guild. The 2008 ordinance was negotiated with the union. The city agreed to allow the case to be decided by an arbitrator instead of by the commission. Given the arbitrator’s ruling against the city, some City Council members have questioned the decision to divert the case to an arbitrator. Assistant City Attorney Mike Piccolo said the city will hire labor attorney Rachelle Wills, of Littler Mendelson’s Seattle office. She will be hired under a small contract of less than $5,000 that doesn’t need City Council approval. She will have two weeks to finish her analysis, just in time for the city to file an appeal of the arbitrator’s ruling before the employment commission’s appeal deadline. Wills is the second outside attorney to defend the 2010 law. The city’s case at the commission and in front of the arbitrator was handled by Spokane attorney Keller Allen. Several who testified at Monday’s council hearing pushed the council to hold firm on the newer ordinance, in part as a negotiation strategy with the guild. Spokane resident Marianne Torres told the council that repealing the rules would be “act of profound civic irresponsibility not to mention a waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars and the last shreds of the community’s belief that their elected officials are working for the community’s best interest.” A repeal would mean that if Burns disagrees with a decision of the police department’s internal affairs division, he no longer will be able to conduct an independent investigation into the incident. Burns said in an interview Monday that the loss of that ability is “huge.” But he added that another part of the ordinance, which deals with making information publicly available, won’t be lost through repeal because of a recent state Supreme Court decision that said police internal affairs investigations are public documents. Until that ruling over the summer, the city only released internal reports into police wrongdoing if the department determined that an officer did something wrong. Burns said all internal affairs investigations will be placed on the ombudsman’s website – no matter the finding – since Burns was hired in 2009.