Spokane Mayor David Condon’s choice to investigate the handling of personnel matters at City Hall has been pushed aside because of growing concerns from city council members about the investigation’s independence.

They draw the curtains in a room of Spokane City Hall when the cameras roll. On Sept. 22, reporters were given eight minutes to rush to that room adjacent to the mayor’s office on the seventh floor, where the mayor’s lectern already was set up, and the three flags of country, state and city hung as backdrop for a hastily called news conference about the forced resignation of police Chief Frank Straub.

Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart said he is “severely disappointed” in Mayor David Condon for the handling of allegations of sexual harassment against former police Chief Frank Straub, saying he can’t trust Condon or members of his cabinet after being “lied to.” Stuckart is “working on a draft of a letter with a very long list of questions” for Condon, part of which questions the timing of a records release this week, even though those records show that Condon knew in April the police chief had been accused of harassment.

An investigation into an apparently illegal seizure of more than $13,000 cash from two suspected drug dealers by a Spokane police detective last year shows tension among police brass over a civil forfeiture unit created under former police Chief Frank Straub.

Ronald Reagan, a political hero of Spokane Mayor David Condon, famously asked voters in 1980, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The answer that year was a resounding no, and Reagan entered the White House on a white horse.

Two Spokane police officers – a long-serving captain and a long-serving lieutenant – took a stand last year for honesty and credibility in the department. Or maybe that should be “honesty” and “credibility.”