Because I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mouth shut!

 

First and Foremost, I would like to thank Ron Wright taking video of the Public Safety Committee Meeting and providing a link for all of us to watch the SHOW, and I do mean SHOW!

 

https://youtu.be/5-Q_3wHjDX4

 

If you watch the video you will see that Interim Chief Dobrow several times gives the “Intelligent Policing” answer on how SPD allocates resources, based on CompStat Data. In other words, they supposedly move manpower into high crime areas based on crime data. It would have been after his second reiteration of the SPD Strategy that I would have nicely but loudly raised this question.

 

“If that is the case Chief why do we need precincts in the first place when manpower can be sent to a specific high crime area, during high crime timeframes from anywhere in the City?”

 

According to Dobrow’s presentation the Intermodal Precinct will only be open from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM.

 

“Hey Chief is 8:30 AM to 5:00PM a Downtown high crime timeframe?” “Hey Chief are you going to have day time and night time walking beats downtown, if so who watches the store when all the cops leave at five?”

 

You knew it was coming again, just a matter of when. Dobrow opines about a lack of manpower to properly staff the precinct.

“Hey Chief, we gave you over 300 cops, more than this City has ever had…what in the hell are they all doing?”

Notice Dobrow says they are working with COPS to see if sharing their facilities might be an option.

 

“No Sh&t Sherlock, was the successful program from years past which incorporated Neighborhood Resources Officers, and Neighborhood Investigative Resource Officers working out of Cop Shops to solve neighborhood crime problems even considered before you spent all this money?”

 

“Hey Chief, what the hell ever happened to this program which is just a copy of what we used to do with new names?”

 

http://www.inlander.com/Bloglander/archives/2013/10/22/spd-chief-announces-new-neighborhood-policing-plans

 

See it would have been an early out for me!

 

The City Council members did ask some questions, but as usual because they have no understanding of Community Oriented Policing or how a Police Department should be run, they got totally sidetracked on the STA contract instead of asking the pointed questions that SHOULD have been asked in public so the public could see the answers and the obfuscation. The Council members who are on the STA Board did however know enough about the STA contract to make Dobrow look even more foolish.

 

 

The City Council came up with seven of their own questions they want SPD to answer by January 26^th, apparently they didn’t read my email or my Blog so they could have added legit questions that need to be answered.

 

 

Hell all the PSC had to do was give me a call or an email and I could have answered their questions for them. It would have been better to ask before they approved all the expenditures though.  🙂 🙂

 

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/6cca62f7-031e-49bd-baa1-282fb4d67548

 

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/a1ee4e10-8f35-40d0-98df-9a5c3370f87b

 

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/23a9ee07-60c1-4bfc-acf2-4e9c4fff1ca6

 

 

One positive note on the PSC Meeting is that Tim Schwering kept his mouth shut the entire time…I suspect he knows what is on the horizon.

 

 

I REPORT YOU DECIDE!

Big meeting of the Public Safety Committee today regarding the Intermodal Precinct move and the Arleth Furniture Fiasco. Hell, as a citizen you can’t talk or ask any questions at those meetings, as a matter of fact the last time someone tried it was Tim Connor regarding his complaint about Frank Straub and the way it was handled by Teresa Sanders. Jon Snyder nastily shut him down, so I decided not to go to the meeting because I’m not as nice of a guy as Tim Connor is, and would likely be asked to leave if not outright arrested. 🙂

 

Instead I sent an email to Council President Stuckart suggesting some pointed questions that need to be ask. Here is what I sent.

___________________________________

 

Council President Stuckart,

As citizens are not allowed to participate by asking questions or speak during PSC Meetings I as a citizen will have to rely on members of the PSC to ask pointed questions and demand answers. I would like to offer some information that might help that process along.   I feel each member of the PSC should review this document I obtained via PRR which documents SOME of the plans for staffing “SPD Precincts”. IMO the questions become obvious once the document is reviewed.

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/9627cbf2-458a-4662-bed8-ef1b200284d1

As I have expressed before the “Precinct Model” which Frank Straub and Mayor Condon have tried to sell the citizens and the Council is extremely flawed, not cost effective, and does nothing to actually bring the crime rate down. The model SPD is trying to sell is a nonsensical take off on a successful model utilized by SPD in the past and was widely studied by other law enforcement agencies.   Here are some of the things that should be a big concern to the PSC and need to be addressed.   1. Is decentralization of the SPD one of the causes for all of the issues involving SPD Officers since 2012?        SPD now has officers assigned all over the City of Spokane in various locations and buildings, The PSB, City Hall, The Detectives Building on Gardner, The Monroe Court Building, The YWCA, The Hillyard Precinct, The South Precinct, The Federal Bldg., and who knows where else. I don’t know what answer you would get to question #1 from the presenters., but the truth is and is well documented that decentralization causes extreme supervision difficulties, there is NO disputing that.   2. Why is SPD in the process of spending a considerable amount of time and money on decentralization when there has NOT been a staffing and efficiency analysis done as the COPS/DOJ Report Recommended.

______________________________

Recommendation 10.5

SPD should conduct a staffing analysis to determine if the department is meeting its operational needs and has an adequate amount of staff to ensure its continued mission, objectives, and community policing principles.

 

SPD should conduct a staffing analysis. This analysis should follow the workload-based model. This model will allow SPD to examine the “levels of demand for police services and matches that demand with the supply for police resources:’143 In addition to examining calls for service received, this model also examines other “operational demands facing the department” 144 (e.g., police activities league [PAL], community meet­ings, training) and makes staffing determinations based on these findings.

________________________________

 

3. According to the Briefing Paper you received from SPD the number of officers assigned Downtown will be “Nine officers”, who are they what is their rank, shift, and actual job assignment, are supervisors included in the nine?

“The number of officers assigned to the downtown will not change. Nine officers continue to be assigned downtown.”

 

Please Review this from the link I provided above.

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________

OFFSITE DETECTIVE UNITS

PRECINCT DETECTIVES

North Precinct

3102 E. Diamond

ASSIGNMENT NAME IDA PRSNL # PHONE CELL

Capt. Meidl L107 388 625-4518 994-3940

Day Patrol Lt. Olson L164 1096 835-4523 994-7319

Swing/Power Shift Lt. Walker L166 216 835-4529 385-3627

M 7/5 (Front Desk) Ofc. McIntyre, Sandy 363-8281

8’s 7/5 Det. Oliver, Janice I440 530 625-4052 209-0249

F 7/5 Det. Jolley, Crystal I456 270 625-4228 990-4336

M 7/5 Det. Madsen, Tim I409 366 625-4216 994-1958

Downtown Precinct

721 W. Riverside

Capt. Arleth L104 310 625-4111 220-5448

Lt. Stevens L167 627 622-5828 435-6072

Lt. Anderson (JD) L126 326 635-4047 385-3628

Sgt. Reese L207 1012 835-4533 370-9110

F 7/5 Det. Reisenauer, Julie I414 162 835-4571 995-2139

South Precinct

2116 E. 1st

F 7/5 Capt. Richards L106 119 625-4060 220-5374

M 7/5 Lt. McCabe L169 210 625-4176_________________ ___ _ 994-0986

F 7/5 Det. Mosman, Bob I407 534 625-4249 850-6260

M 7/5 (12/10 F) Det. Snider, Ty I417 356 Contact via e-mail 385-1283

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Keep in mind that the above primarily represents Detective and Brass assignment and not necessarily patrol officer assignments, so it is necessary to determine exactly the caseloads are for each Detective assigned to the Precincts. In the case of the Downtown Precinct what is Detective Reisenauer’s caseload and what type of cases does she work.

 

 

4. What is the “Span of Control” for the Downtown and other Precincts, and is it consistent with national standards?

 

 

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1022

 

As I have expressed earlier, I have serious questions regarding “Span of Control” and “Chain of Command” at SPD which in my view were exacerbated with the move on the Administrations part to divide SPD into Divisions in order to hire exempt employees, a move which was orchestrated by Mayor Condon and Frank Straub which has been a complete failure by anyone standards.

 

5. Exactly what is SPD’s plan? It has changed so often since 2012 it is impossible to actually tell.

http://www.spokanejournal.com/local-news/spd-looks-at-moving-to-precinct-model/

The flawed concept became apparent to this Citizen when I began to read articles like the one above.

6. Where did the money come from to remodel and furnish the intermodal Center, was some of it from the Forfeiture and Contributions Fund which has been used in the past?

 

http://www.spokanejournal.com/local-news/spd-looks-at-moving-to-precinct-model/

As you can see from the link above furnishings for the North Precinct were paid for from the Forfeiture and Contributions Fund, so it would be nice to know if the same is true for the Intermodal furniture.

 

These are just a few of the questions I would like the PSC to get to the bottom of.

Respectfully,

Brian R. Breen

______________________________

I REPORT YOU DECIDE!

 

 

Time for an update. The games continue but now we have Pat Dalton from the City Attorney’s Office involved, apparently in an effort to discourage me.

So here is the Status.

 

On December 19^th, 2015 I requested Ms. Pfister supply me with the affidavits I am entitled to under the Washington State Supreme Court Case Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3. Ms Pfister and I had been going round and round about the text messages and her responsibility to provide them. I did of course wait until the proper time to drop the Nissen bomb.

On January 6^th, 2015 because I had not heard back from Ms. Pfister I requested an update on my affidavits. Not surprisingly the same day I received a response from Pat Dalton of City Legal (see below).

 

 

BACKGROUND

 

Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3

CONCLUSION

We affirm the Court of Appeals in part. Records that an agency employee prepares, owns, uses, or retains on a private cell phone within the scope of employment can be “public records” of the agency under RCW 42.56.010(3).Nissen’s complaint thus sufficiently alleges that at least some of the text messages at issue may be public records subject to disclosure. Because it is impossible at this stage to determine if any messages are in fact public records, on remand the parties are directed as follows. Lindquist must obtain a transcript of the content of all the text messages at issue, review them, and produce to the County any that are public records consistent with our opinion. The County must then review those messages just as it would any other public record-and apply any applicable exemptions, redact information if necessary, and produce the records and any exemption log to Nissen. As to text messages that Lindquist in good faith determines are not public records, he must submit an affidavit to the County attesting to the personal character of those messages. The County must also produce that affidavit to Nissen. We note that the County responded to Nissen’s records requests and produced records in a timely manner based on what we presume was its good-faith interpretation of the PRA. Though we now hold that interpretation is incorrect, penalties are not warranted at this early stage before the County has had the opportunity to comply with our opinion and supplement its response to Nissen’s requests accordingly. We reserve for the trial court the issue of penalties going forward.

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/bdd9f549-fdbd-486e-bd1f-328d1a5b7786

This is the response I received from Pat Dalton. When you read it if it sounds like something a lawyer would write…I would say that is right on!

 

 

Here is my response to Pat Dalton and quite frankly it is getting somewhat boring have to list the very same names over and over again.

 

 

You might be asking yourself why it is important to me to obtain the affidavits I’m entitled to. The answer is simple. The Condon Administration knows the answer, and they know where I’m going in that regard.

So to answer the question…If the “Independent Investigation” into the Cotton/Straub and PRR issue is done properly because the Investigator has the authority to subpoena phone records, and take testimony under oath it will be interesting to see how the affidavits I receive, that is IF I ever receive them, compare with sworn statements, and records obtained during the course of the “Independent Investigation” …it is as simple as that.

I REPORT YOU DECIDE!!

 

 

 

For a politician the simple answer is KEEP lying, KEEP covering up, and by all means when someone gets in your way come up with a plan to make them look bad.

 

It would appear Mayor Condon still hasn’t learned how to stay out of trouble, most recently with the placing of Captain Brad Arleth on paid administrative leave over issues with the very flawed precinct model Frank Straub sold to him and the City Council. Condon feels that as long as he never admits that the hiring of Frank Straub was a big mistake, that the SPD under Straub got worse instead of better, that the costly programs Straub started do nothing to suppress crime and only waste money, and that continuing down that path will take five years for SPD to recover from, we the Citizens are stuck unless the City Council steps in and begins doing their due diligence.

 

LET’S START HERE!

 

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/0707f100-2cb1-4489-ac04-e6046919f7c5

 

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/c77724d7-184e-4fb3-bce6-2cc0b30b7b10

 

Well it wasn’t just Straub’s behavior that brought about “inefficient resource allocation”, “duplication of efforts”, “wasted time”, “unnecessary overtime”, and “general frustration”, it was the flawed structure pushed by Condon and Straub dividing the department into Divisions in order to hire cronies, the feel-good do-nothing programs staffed by cops that should be on the street, a philosophy of targeting cases for asset seizure instead fighting crime…and on and on. It isn’t often you see Senior Staff in a police department call the Chief of Police a liar, when you see it happen you know there are big problems, and as a Mayor you have two choices. Either find out exactly what the lies were and get the truth out, or find some people pliable enough to carry on the false narrative and get rid of those in the way.

As I see it, based upon going through the experience of the vacuum created when a Chief of Police goes as well as darn good sources, this is the way things are going at SPD.

There are now THREE factions at SPD. The FIRST faction is the one the Mayor has now put in place who are pliable and will continue the charade. The SECOND faction is made up of cops who know the Department is a mess and don’t want to continue the charade. The THIRD faction, and always the largest, is made up of cops sitting back and waiting to see who ends up on top.

 

I don’t care what anyone’s political ideology is, if you can’t see the big problems you are blind, and the buck stops at the top.

 

Where does the IA case against Arleth stand in all this mess…you decide…but I would wait until all of the facts are public, including who made the complaint and why. The placing of Arleth on paid leave reminds me a lot of the Scott Stephens case, a case where if you actually took the time to read the file you likely would have come to the same conclusion I did which was quite simply a matter of eliminating the competition.

 

Think about this quote from the SR Story regarding Arleth, which was the only quote that really had any meaning…at least to me… and only from a comedic standpoint.

 

“Ed Lukas, the city’s asset management director, said the police department would not pay rent at the new space, but would eventually be asked to pay a share of monthly maintenance and utilities expenses. He said the claim that the precinct move is cost-saving is based on calculations about likely reductions in crime and reduced time for police to respond to the area surrounding the intermodal center, not just on direct costs like rent and maintenance.”

 

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/jan/05/city-leaders-mum-on-suspension-of-downtown-police-/

 

So when I read these I want to find someone to explain to me why we bought a parking lot, old railroad station, and passenger platform…was it for a Police Precinct?

 

http://www.spokanejournal.com/local-news/spd-looks-at-moving-to-precinct-model/

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/feb/18/police-plan-for-second-downtown-spokane-precinct/

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/oct/20/spokane-police-department-moves-away-from-precinct/