Police ombudsman

More than two years after former Mayor Dennis Hession announced support for a new job to oversee police actions, city leaders on Monday announced the top candidates to become Spokane’s first police ombudsman. They are: Tony Betz, a retired FBI official now serving as an instructor at Texas A&M University; Tim Burns, neighborhood preservation officer for the city of Visalia, Calif., and a retired police officer; and Greg Weber, a Spokane attorney and former deputy director of the Washington attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

Times are tough out there. One hundred and twenty-eight people applied to be Spokane’s first police ombudsman.

The city of Spokane has begun the search for a police ombudsman, a position that got strong public support after several recent controversies, including the 2006 death of mentally disabled janitor Otto Zehm in a confrontation with police. The job will pay $77,130 to $94,628 annually. The successful applicant will be appointed for a three-year term and can be reappointed to a second three-year term. The deadline to apply is Feb. 27.

Qualifications and job description for the position of police ombudsman being advertised by the city of Spokane.

Spokane Mayor Mary Verner and the Spokane Police Guild have reached a tentative agreement on a new ombudsman's office that would review citizen complaints but leave officer discipline to the police chief.

Spokane can't afford a full-time police ombudsman, says Mayor Mary Verner. Instead, Verner has proposed contracting for ombudsman services to keep costs lower.

In most elections, candidates for office in the city of Spokane face a basic question about police: Are there enough of them to do the job? Candidates might argue yes or no, but the debate centers mainly on the budget. This year, however, police and politics collide in a different way, as candidates are being forced to discuss how police are doing their job.