Spokane Valley City Council weighs citizen oversight system for law enforcement

Spokane Valley is the latest local government considering a new citizen oversight system of its police force.

At a council meeting last month, Councilman Ed Pace suggested the creation of a law enforcement oversight board similar to the planning commission, consisting of “basic citizens” with no ax to grind and no connection to law enforcement.

On Tuesday, council members discussed how to structure an oversight board.

Both the city of Spokane and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office are currently considering updating their citizen law enforcement oversight systems.

Although the Spokane Valley Police Department is a division of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, the proposed board in Spokane Valley would be independent of the county’s police oversight board – the Spokane County Citizen Advisory Board – and only cover Spokane Valley.

Spokane Valley City Attorney Cary Driskell sought input from Rick Eichstaedt, executive director of the Center for Justice, and the two presented information to the council Tuesday.

Driskell urged the council to identify carefully what the board’s mission would be and cautioned that there are limits to how a city-organized oversight board may interact with a contractor – in this case the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

“We don’t control the manner, method and means in which he does the service – we pay for the end result,” Driskell said.

Driskell’s other concern was how board decisions could open the city to lawsuits, a point which Eichstaedt agreed on.

“You are creating a body that points out potential wrongs,” Eichstaedt said, “those findings could be used as fodder for a lawsuit.”

The county advisory board has access to police reports and witnesses during investigations. An independent Spokane Valley law enforcement oversight board would only have access to what’s released by the Sheriff’s Office according to the public records act. That would exclude coroner’s reports and complete police reports.

However, Eichstaedt reminded the council that there’s a lot of concern in the community about how the investigatory process is working.

He acknowledged the oversight and investigative powers vested in the county oversight board, the State Patrol and the Department of Justice, but said more redundancy may not be a bad thing.

Eichstaedt added that it’s important to find a meaningful function for the board.

“We don’t want to waste the time of the five or six people sitting on the committee,” Eichstaedt said.

At one point, Driskell said it may be impossible to provide the kind of detailed oversight the council may desire within the current contract with the Sheriff’s Office. If that’s the case, then the city would have to create its own police department.

That caused Pace to clarify that it was not his intent to talk about terminating the contract or to tell law enforcement personnel how to do its job.

“This is about being able to give feedback and advice,” Pace said.

Deputy Mayor Arne Woodard said staff should look into whether the city could hire an independent contractor to examine complaints filed against police, instead of creating a citizen board.

“We should keep our options open,” Woodard said. “I’m not sure where I stand on all this.”