Seattle Public Safety Committee Meeting Tomorrow

I just became aware of this a short while ago, so please pardon the short notice. The Seattle City Council's Public Safety, Human Services, and Education Committee is set to discuss some police accountability changes tomorrow (Tuesday, 07/15/08) during their meeting at 2:00pm on the 2nd floor of City Hall in downtown Seattle. Most notable of these proposed legislative items is CB116126 that would allow the public to participate in the negotiation process between the city of Seattle and the various police unions by allowing for public commentary and input 90 days prior to the commencement of negotiations between the city and the police guilds.

The ACLU of Washington State has already weighed in on this proposed bit of legislation by asking the council members to support the passage of this proposed legislation, saying that since the guild asks its members for input on what they want to get out of contract negotiations that it is only fair to allow the city's stakeholders (i.e. the taxpayers, voters, general public) to give the city some input on what they want to see come out of contract negotiations as well.

This change would hopefully go a long way towards trying to convince the city that it's important to include transparency measures in the police oversight process and fix the loopholes that were left during the latest highly secretive contract negotiations between the guild and the city. At the very least it would be a chance for those who have gone through the OPA process to tell the city what worked and what didn't work.

The Public Safety Committee agenda for tomorrow's meeting allows for public commentary for the first 20 minutes of their 2:00 session, but because of the late notice we are at least encouraging readers to send letters of support for measure CB116126 to members of that committee in advance of tomorrow's session.

To contact members of the committee who will take part in this session please send emails to:

Tim.Burgess@seattle.gov
Nick.Licata@seattle.gov
Bruce.Harrell@seattle.gov
Tom.Rasmussen@seattle.gov