More on Seattle's Police Accountability Efforts

The Stranger's SLOG is gloating about how it predicted the eventual outcome of Mayor Greg Nickels' OPARP review recommendations, in that they wouldn't be able to be implemented because of the police guild.

But, what might be more interesting than the article itself is some of the comments, especially this one by LH:

"The Seattle Times reported that "Nickels said 15 recommendations would be implemented immediately by the city, including proposals for the OPA office to have its own budget, for the two oversight agencies to work more closely together and providing more training to staff who conduct internal investigations."

FYI - These are the two actions already taken by the City Council during budget in November 2007. Councilmembers announced early in the budget process their support for one of these objectives. See here:

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/news/detail.asp?ID=7704&Dept=28

The budget proposal to fund more training for OPA sergeants is not named in this release, but it was proposed by Councilmember Licata and co-sponsored by CMs Clark and Conlin.

The upshot here being that these two items that the Times says will be implemented immediately and require no bargaining should have been implemented on 1/1/08, at the beginning of a new budget year, per the passage of the 2008 budget.

Also, one of the recommendations the Mayor says must be negotiated is a law already passed by the Council last fall(differing decisions of OPA and Chief documented and reported upon after cases are closed). There are differing opinions about whether it must be negotiated."

Of course, speaking of, we are still waiting for the city council's panel (the SCCPAP) to give a final report on its police oversight recommendations as well.