Police improving under Straub

The Aug. 22 headline “Police chief touts changes” comes as welcome news to a community that has endured far too many years of tension between the Spokane Police Department and the citizens they are hired to serve. Hopefully, Chief Frank Straub and his leadership team, together with elected city officials, will continue moving in a direction that enhances public confidence in the department while recruiting and maintaining a force that more closely resembles the community it is sworn to protect. That would include more officers who are women and members of Spokane’s diverse minority communities.

Much of the good that has been accomplished over the past year at the Spokane Police Department is a result of the leadership and vision of Mayor David Condon, who made and kept a campaign promise to improve a troubling situation that came to a head in the Otto Zehm tragedy and its aftermath. Politicians are always easy to criticize when they fail to keep their word, so it is refreshing to have a mayor who kept his.

Spokane is a better city today than it was before Condon was elected our mayor.

Tom Keefe

Spokane