Patrol Chief Criticized For Management State Troopers Meet To Discus No-Confidence Vote For Sandberg

Union leaders who once hailed Washington State Patrol Chief Annette Sandberg as one of their own now contend rank-and-file troopers are widely dissatisfied with her management.

The executive board of the Washington State Patrol Troopers Association - which represents all of the state’s nearly 1,000 troopers and sergeants - met last week to consider a vote of no-confidence in Sandberg.

Leaders decided instead to postpone such a decision, but maintained there’s a growing sense that Sandberg is not enough of an advocate for patrol officers on the front lines.

“The biggest problem is it just doesn’t appear that she cares that much about people in the field,” said union President Bill Hanson.

Sandberg was out of town this week, but Capt. Eric Robertson, her chief spokesman, largely dismissed union complaints as unfounded, misunderstandings or part of the typical controversy that comes with running an agency.

“Sometimes tough management decisions are unpopular,” Robertson said.

Either way, the flap is something of an odd twist for Sandberg, 37, who was serving as attorney for the troopers union when Gov. Mike Lowry appointed her chief in 1995. At the time, she said her first priority was to boost morale among troopers.

Four years later, “we think morale is pretty much at an all-time low,” Hanson said.

Hanson was reluctant to cite specific concerns about Sandberg’s management, but complained that she had poor communication skills, tended to micromanage, and maintained a sometimes-rocky relationship with legislators that hurt the department.

Rep. Karen Schmidt, R-Bainbridge Island, who chairs a committee that oversees WSP, agreed lawmakers have had several run-ins with Sandberg over the years, but mostly in the past.

“We had a period of time where it seemed like every month there was some kind of blow-up,” Schmidt said, recalling a time when Sandberg gave her executive staff raises against the Legislature’s wishes.

“We’ve had a lot of controversy with her in the past, but it doesn’t seem as acute right now,” Schmidt said. She attributed some of the improvement to Sandberg’s hiring of Robertson, himself an ex-legislator.

Privately, some field officers - who feared retribution for any public criticism - complained that Sandberg didn’t back them enough on budgetary issues and was too quick to start internal investigations only to let them drag on too long.

Robertson said internal investigations are only as long as it takes to get answers and contends agency leaders have met with union officials to change the way some are performed.

He also acknowledged that the chief has a strong personality - “she’s very passionate” - and pointed out Sandberg deals with 15 smaller unions representing the remainder of the agency’s 2,200 employees, plus the governor, the Legislature and the public.

“There’s always concern” when complaints arise, Robertson said. “But we have to answer to more masters than just the troopers. For them to expect the teeter-totter is always going to swing their way is unreasonable.”

When pressed, Robertson even said at least one member of the union’s executive board had publicly expressed an interest in Sandberg’s job.

For his part, Hanson said he planned to travel the state, visiting with officers to get a better feel for the depth of the concern about Sandberg.

Robertson, meanwhile, said issues between the union and the department’s executive staff will work itself out through normal negotiating and arbitration.

But he insisted “not one of these issues affects the service the public is going to see.”