VIA EMAIL
August 7, 2019
Ronald L. Davis
Charles H. Ramsey
Darrel W. Stephens
Sean M. Smoot
21CP Solutions, LLC
332 South Michigan Avenue
Suite 1032 – T615
Chicago, IL 60604-4434
Re: Comments Relating to Proposed Methodology
Dear 21CP Solutions Consultant Team:
On behalf of the Community Police Commission (CPC), we respectfully submit the attached comments to the
July 29th draft methodology. We understand the methodology will be proposed, with modifications based on
feedback you are receiving, to the Federal Court as part of the City’s submittal responding to Judge Robart’s
May 21 order (Dkt. 562).
We appreciate the participation of the 21CP Solutions consultants in the past two full CPC meetings, the ability
for the CPC to participate in the work group session organized by your office, and the opportunity for us to
review the draft methodology. Although this is our first review of the draft, based on our understanding of the
direction that was being considered, CPC participants and others previously expressed the view that the
proposed approach would not be responsive to the Court’s order and would divert efforts and resources away
from what the City should focus on: addressing the weaknesses now embedded in the City’s police disciplinary
system due to contract terms negotiated by the City with the police unions, and rectifying the City’s failure to
fully implement many promised reforms.
It is our sincere hope that the dialogue among all participants will continue and that—no matter what occurs
going forward—it is ensured that members of Seattle’s diverse communities most impacted by policing are
represented at the table. The CPC remains committed to investing in building lasting partnerships with not
only these communities but with City leadership and our accountability partners, including the Seattle Police
Department (SPD). We ask that the City, the Department of Justice, the Seattle Police Monitor, and the CPC
come together to collaborate as envisoned by the Court’s order.

Page 1 of 2

 Finally, the ongoing work relating to accountability systems, while important, should not overshadow
important work that remains to be done, such as working together to address police officer wellness—which is
being undertaken in partnership among Seattle Police Department, the Office of Police Accountability, the
Office of the Inspector General, and the CPC.
Sincerely,

Rev. Harriett Walden, Co-Chair
Community Police Commission

Isaac Ruiz, Co-Chair
Community Police Commission

Emma Catague, Co-Chair
Community Police Commission

cc: Jenny Durkan, Mayor
Pete Holmes, City Attorney
Merrick Bobb, Seattle Police Monitor
Seattle City Councilmembers
Lisa Judge, Inspector General, Office of the Inspector General
Andrew Myerberg, Director, Office of Police Accountability
Enclosure

Page 2 of 2

 ANALYSIS OF PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
In its May 21st order, the Court found that the City and SPD had “fallen out of full and effective compliance
with the Consent Decree concerning SPD discipline and accountability.” The Court also stated that it “…is
particularly concerned about provisions related to officer discipline and accompanying appeals that are found
in the original Accountability Ordinance that SPOG’s CBA altered.”
From the Bench and in its order, the Court made clear, as it has previously, that City follow-through on the
legal mandates in the 2017 accountability law is critically important. This accountability law was built on a
comprehensive assessment of Seattle’s accountability system, its known weaknesses and vulnerabilities,
experienced through past cases, 1 and a review of structural models and best practices elsewhere. The law was
specifically intended to strengthen the disciplinary system so that it:
•
•
•

•

Is effective, impartial, transparent, and procedurally just;
Better engenders public trust;
Consistently produces fair results that can give the Court comfort that violations of law and policy
central to the purpose of the Consent Decree, such as preventing and responding to instances of
excessive force, will be addressed in a way that solidifies other reforms achieved over the last seven
years, rather than making those reforms more tenuous; and
Is a system where an officer who punches a handcuffed woman in the back of a patrol car and breaks
her orbital socket will not be given a few days off without pay and then go right back to working as a
patrol officer.

As the CPC’s expert, Judge Anne Levinson (ret.), the former independent OPA Auditor, explained in a
declaration that accompanied the CPC’s previous filing, the reason for the concern is not just that the
accountability provisions of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) and the Seattle Police Management
Association (SPMA) contracts differ in many ways from the accountability law that was passed unanimously
and hailed by elected leaders as a landmark achievement in accountability reform—though that failure to keep
faith with community expectations is a serious concern; but also because the many changes agreed to by the

1

See e.g. Councilmember Nick Licata, Issue #348, April 16, 2014, “Public Hearing on Seattle’s Police Accountability System”
at
https://council.seattle.gov/2014/04/16/urban-politics-348-public-hearing-on-seattles-police-accountability-system/;
Joel Connelly, Seattle PI, April 4, 2014, “Get Seattle Police Discipline into the Open: The Levinson Report” at
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/04/04/get-seattle-police-discipline-into-the-open-the-levinson-report/;
The Seattle Times Editorial Board, April 13, 2014, “Make Seattle Police Discipline Procedures Timely, Public” at
http://old.seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2023357658_spddisciplineedit14xml.html?syndication=rss; Steve Miletich,
The Seattle Times, April 5, 2014, “Big Changes Urged in SPD Discipline Cases” at https://www.seattletimes.com/seattlenews/big-changes-urged-in-spd-discipline-cases/; and Bill Lucia, Crosscut, April 5, 2014, “SPD Watchdog Faults Misconduct
Appeals System” at https://crosscut.com/2014/04/misconduct-appeals-seattle-police-levinson-opa.

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
City during bargaining represent a return to the status quo (and in some respects worse than status quo), and
thus will not increase the likelihood of appropriate accountability when seriousness misconduct does occur.
We are concerned that, after more than five years of discussions, public hearings, and court filings, there is still
not unequivocal committment to fully embracing promised accountability reforms. In response to the Court’s
finding that the City is partially out of compliance with the Consent Decree, it has been suggested that the
Court did not find the City out of compliance:“The City remains in full and effective compliance in every one
of the areas required by the Consent Decree and set forth by the sustainment order. We agree with the Court
that we remain on track to meet all aspects of this order by January 2020…” 2 This is despite the Court’s
indication that the Consent Decree case will certainly not be completed until, at the earliest, summer 2021,
and not then if agreement on needed accountability changes is further delayed.
It has also been suggested that the fact that “other City employees have arbitration” serves as a justification
not to have addressed arbitration in bargaining. This rationale was also proffered by a previous mayoral
administration in discussions as the 2017 accountability law was being considered. As the CPC pointed out at
that time, other City employees cannot take life and liberty. There is a reason police have a Consent Decree,
have a separate accountability system, have the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) and the Office of
Inspector General (OIG) to ensure that their actions are Constitutional and are consistent with law and policy.
As stated in the expert declaration we filed with the Court, what constitutes a fair and effective police
arbitration system must be measured differently than arbitration used in other public or private disciplines.
We have also been told that the Court and community should have understood that SPOG and SPMA would
never give up arbitration. This, too, suggests that there never was a commitment to bargain so as to fully
realize the reforms mandated by the accountability law, and that there remains little inclination to remedy the
system even now. Even if one were to be resigned to an arbitration scheme, it seems there was no effort made
within the framework of arbitration to at least remedy the myriad barriers to fairness, objectivity, expertise,
standard of review, timeliness, and transparency in Seattle’s police arbitration system. Multiple City leaders
after the disciplinary reversals scandal of early 2014 declared that reform in this area was essential.
With regard to the “background section” of the consultant team’s draft methodology, while it is true a joint
meeting was held after the original July 15th deadline in response to the Court’s May 17th order that the City
work in a collaborative and consultative way with the Monitor and the CPC on its submittal, we believe it is not
proper to suggest that the final proposed methodology reflects a consensus or that the CPC was involved in
the decision to choose the path of retaining or selecting consultants. To our knowledge, everyone who had a
discussion in person or by phone with the Office of the Mayor was told the approach would be to use new
consultants to do another system assessment and a multi-city comparison. This was the case with the CPC,
whose co-chairs were first informed of the intention to proceed with this plan during a meeting scheduled for
another purpose.
With regard to the proposed multi-jurisdictional survey, comparing Seattle’s disciplinary and appeals system to
those of other cities—while an interesting exercise—is not particularly helpful or on-point right now. Through
a years-long process, Seattle stakeholders identified, advocated for, and then secured in the accountability law
many essential elements to a fair and legitimate system. Other cities may have some or none of those essential
2

Q13 Fox, “Dozens of Community Organizations Pressuring City on Police Accountability Measures,” June 21, 2019 at
https://q13fox.com/2019/06/21/dozens-of-community-organizations-pressuring-city-on-police-accountabilitymeasures/.

Page 2 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
elements, but equivalency to other cities is not the metric to which the Court or community aspire. Indeed,
one of the observations which drove the CPC’s recommendations on accountability reform in 2014 was that no
jurisdiction nationally had arrived at a set of best practices that deliver public legitimacy and satisfaction on
accountability. Seattle needed to do better. If the measure of whether reforms should be adopted is whether
other cities use those approaches, Consent Decree reforms would have been few and far between. When
Seattle’s Use of Force policy was adopted, for example, to our knowledge, no other city required de-escalation
as part of their internal policy on use of force. As well, other cities are not similarly situated (they are not
under a Consent Decree, and may have numerous other differences that require a nuanced understanding to
compare outcomes).
With regard to the methodology’s proposed system assessment, as you have heard from many during your
visits to Seattle, the law passed in 2017 was the result of years of recommendations from independent
oversight officials, the community, and policymakers. To date—more than two years after its passage—it has
still not been codified. The public, complainants, OPA, SPD, and others cannot rely on it because it never
became fully effective due to contract terms later agreed to by the City. We are puzzled by the current
direction to you that the way to respond to the Court’s order is to conduct yet another assessment of the
entire accountability system and structure that will not even be at baseline until the significant contractual
impediments are remedied.
Finally, we believe it is incumbent upon the City and consultant team to disclose to the Court and the public
that, rather than moving forward swiftly on remedies, this approach will mean months of additional delay. If
the City takes no steps to cure the issues during that time, it could well be another full year before the City and
unions return to the bargaining table to begin bargaining to correct current deficiencies (keep in mind the City
and SPOG took four years to complete bargaining last time, with SPOG voting down the initially proposed
contract). This means the system that the Court has determined to be out of compliance with the Consent
Decree will continue to operate for at least several more years.
In our view, submittal of the following information would be responsive to the Court’s findings and order:
1. Provide the Court information responsive to its previous orders so that the Court can assess whether the
City’s proposed remedies are sufficient to cure the problems.
a. The City in earlier filings provided a list to the Court of the accountability law provisions that the
City intended to collectively bargain, as well as a list of provisions the City stated would not require
collective bargaining and would be implemented. But the ratified contracts show that the City
understated the number of affected provisions and the breadth of the resulting impacts.
Numerous provisions, and other policies and practices not on the City’s list submitted to the Court
of items to be bargained, have now been affected by the contracts. Thus, the City should provide
the Court an accurate and complete list of all accountability law provisions, SPD policies and
practices, and other City laws or accountability system practices compromised by or in conflict
with the contracts.
b. The City still needs to provide the Court an accurate and complete list of all disciplinary decisions
made during the term of the Consent Decree, including what the misconduct was, what the
discipline imposed by the Chief was, whether the discipline was appealed, what the basis of the
challenge was, whether the Chief’s decision was upheld, and if not, why not, what the final result
Page 3 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
was, and how long it took from the time of the incident for the final result to be determined and
the discipline imposed.
c. The City still needs to provide the Court the terms of ongoing separate agreements that are
referenced in the contracts as still in effect. The content of those separate agreements may affect
the terms of the contracts and also impact the accountability law.
2. Confirm for the Court that the City understands what needs to be fixed in the police contracts and why.
The City should make explicit to the Court the specific areas in the contracts that it will address in order to
be responsive to the Court’s concerns. In our view, the City should confirm that it will address, at
minimum, the following areas that were identified when the proposed contracts were being
recommended to the Council for adoption in 2018:
a. Requiring that whenever any language in the SPOG contract is inconsistent with any City law, the
contract language must prevail.
This provision has the effect of making the “rules of the road” unknowable, and leaves open the
possibility of challenges to virtually any discipline. No one knows the extent to which the
accountability law is in effect, or has been superseded by the SPOG contract, because of this
provision. This would not be such a problem had the City not agreed in myriad provisions to
contract language that is now inconsistent with City law. If the contract were clear and
unambiguous, there would be fewer opportunities to use seemingly minor contractual provisions
to challenge and overturn disciplinary decisions. This is particularly problematic given a long
history of collateral damage when disciplinary decisions made by a Chief are overturned based on
an arbitrator’s interpretations of contractual terms. Such successful challenges have repercussions
for community trust that last for decades, particularly when the underlying misconduct was
excessive force, bias, or criminal acts.
b. Disciplinary appeals process reforms that were rolled-back or weakened in numerous ways, that
were intended to make the system fair, timely, transparent, effective, and uniform (and new
weaknesses agreed to in negotiations.) For example:
•

Allowing multiple avenues for officers to appeal;

•

Not having a standard of review that requires the disciplinary decision be upheld unless the
decision-maker specifically finds that the disciplinary decision was not in good faith for cause,
and not requiring that they may reverse or modify the discipline only to the minimum extent
necessary to achieve this standard;

•

Creating a new undefined, higher standard of review for sustaining discipline on appeal so that
the standard would no longer be a preponderance, but instead an “elevated standard of
review,” which is undefined in the contract, for any misconduct that results in termination that
is “stigmatizing” to the officer, making accountability for all serious misconduct more difficult;

•

Not having a standard of review that gives deference to the factual findings of the hearing
officer;
Page 4 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
•

Not amending the ordinance governing the Public Safety Civil Service Commission (PSCSC) so
that no member is a peer, a subordinate, or a supervisor of the officer appealing discipline, but
instead all members will be neutral third-parties with subject matter expertise;

•

Using national arbitration rules in contravention of what the accountability law or other
contractual terms require;

•

Not requiring all disciplinary hearings to be open to the public, media, and complainants as are
court hearings and PSCSC hearings;

•

Using arbitrators who both the City and union must agree on, instead of using a professional,
neutral hearing officer on contract to decide appeals who does not have to be agreed to by the
parties for each appeal;

•

Not requiring the hearing officer to have relevant subject matter expertise in police discipline;

•

Not having strict timelines for each step in the disciplinary appeal process so that appeals do
not drag on for months or years; and

•

Allowing grievance procedures to result in the alteration of discipline imposed by the Chief.

c. Limiting civilian oversight of criminal misconduct.
A long-identified weakness in Seattle’s police accountability system is that for cases that are often
the most serious—when a crime may have been committed—OPA was prohibited from doing
anything other than taking the complaint and then referring it to SPD for criminal investigation,
without the ability to coordinate and collaborate on who would do the criminal investigation,
without the ability to work with the prosecutor and the criminal investigator on how the possible
criminal violations and the administrative ones might rely on similar or different evidence, whether
the investigations should run concurrently and the investigators should interview some witnesses
together, etc. The accountability law allowed this coordination, to make sure both investigations
would be thorough and timely. The law states: “OPA’s jurisdiction shall include all types of possible
misconduct. In complaints alleging criminal misconduct, OPA shall have the responsibility to
coordinate investigations with criminal investigators external to OPA and prosecutors on a caseby-case basis to ensure that the most effective, thorough, and rigorous criminal and administrative
investigations are conducted.”
d. Completely foreclosing the imposition of any discipline for serious misconduct involving
1) excessive force, 2) dishonesty, or 3) misconduct concealed by others (peer, subordinate,
supervisor, family member) through continued use of a statute of limitations. Under the
contractual terms the City agreed to, if the misconduct does not come to light within four years, no
discipline can be imposed, regardless of the seriousness of the misconduct. This significantly
impacts accountability for serious misconduct, and does not take into account the many reasons
why individuals may be reluctant to come forward to file a complaint.
e. Continuing to limit OPA and OIG subpoena power.
Page 5 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
The SPOG contract provides only for limited OPA and OIG subpoena power, prohibiting issuance of
subpoenas to SPOG members, their family members, or for “personal records.” If “personal
records” is interpreted to include bank records, medical records, and the like, this exclusion covers
a significant amount of potentially important information. The contract also states that “…the City
[will] further [review] questions concerning the authority and potential need for OPA and the OIG
to issue such subpoenas” prior to possibly re-opening the contract to bargain OPA and OIG
subpoena power. The City has not exercised this right to re-open and address the limitation.
f.

Continuing issues with the 180-day deadline for investigation (if the 180-day timeline is exceeded,
discipline is foreclosed).
One example in the SPOG contract is that the 180-day clock continues to run even when the OPA
administrative investigation is placed on hold due to a related criminal investigation (unless the
case is being reviewed by a prosecutor). If the criminal investigation takes months, that does not
leave OPA much time to do its administrative investigation. Under the accountability law, the 180day clock was to be paused while the criminal investigation is ongoing. This was to better ensure
sufficient time for both investigations to be done thoroughly. Cases involving possible criminal
misconduct are often the most serious, so cutting short OPA’s investigative time does not serve
the public well since OPA may have insufficient time to investigate, whether or not charges are
ever filed, in some of the most serious cases of potential misconduct. A similar problem is that the
contract allows for the timeline to be paused when the criminal misconduct occurred in another
jurisdiction, which places less priority on criminal misconduct that occurs in Seattle.

g. Continuing to require proof of intentionality for sustaining misconduct for dishonesty and limiting
the requirement for honesty to OPA investigations.
Both contracts continue to say officers must provide complete and honest information only when
they answer questions in administrative investigations. This contradicts SPD policy with which all
employees must comply—that officers are always required to be truthful and provide complete
information, whether in reports, in testimony, when making a stop, etc. This provision has wide
implications given the tens of thousands of people detained and arrested with supporting police
reports each year. As well, under the contracts, the dishonesty provisions are written in a way that
suggest proof of intentionality is required (an admission by the officer that they intended to be
dishonest), a standard virtually impossible to meet.
h. Eliminating the requirement that SPD establish a civilian office to manage secondary employment
(off-duty work) of employees, providing appropriate oversight as well as independence from those
who benefit from receiving off-duty work assignments.
SPD was to move forward by the beginning of 2018 with new secondary employment management
and policies. The existing system has suffered for years from real and perceived conflicts of
interest, has internal problems among employees competing for business, is technologically out of
date, and lacks appropriate supervisory review and management. Among many reforms, SPD was
to create an internal civilian-led and civilian-staffed office to handle assignments for off-duty work;
eliminate the practice of having the work managed outside SPD (often by current employees
acting through their private businesses created for this purpose or through contracts between the
Page 6 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
employee and a private business); make clear that all Department policies still apply when
employees perform secondary employment work; and establish clear and unambiguous policies,
rules, and procedures consistent with strong ethics and a sound organizational culture.
i.

Eliminating the requirement that the officer or SPOG must fully disclose any relevant information
of which they are aware during the OPA investigation, so that if they don’t, they can’t raise it later
at the discipline Due Process Hearing or on appeal.
This reform was intended to make sure OPA can conduct as thorough an investigation as possible,
without information being withheld by the officer or union and then later raised at the hearing,
grievance, or appeal as an argument that the Chief did not have “just cause” for her decision.

j.

Continuing to limit the Chief’s authority so that an officer cannot be suspended longer than 30
days pending investigation unless they’ve been charged with a felony or gross misdemeanor, and
then only if that gross misdemeanor involved moral turpitude or a sex or bias crime, or if the
allegation could lead to termination if proven true.
The accountability law gave the Chief authority to do this if the Chief finds it necessary for the
officer’s or public’s safety, or for the security or confidentiality of law enforcement information.
Given the length of time prior to the filing of charges, this contractual limitation could result in the
return of an officer to active duty who is later charged with a serious crime, which damages public
trust, especially in highly visible cases.

k. Continuing the practice of retaining OPA files based on the outcome of an investigation. If an
investigation finding is “sustained,” the record will be kept in accordance with the accountability
law. But, if the finding is “not sustained,” it will only be kept for three years.
The accountability law prohibited destruction of personnel and OPA records by requiring retention
of all personnel and OPA files for as long as an officer is still employed with the City, plus six years
or as long as an action related to that employee is ongoing. The contracts also remove the specific
requirements for what must be retained and the prohibition on negotiating the later removal of
records of sustained findings and discipline, which can impede SPD’s ability to prove appropriate
progressive discipline and fair/uniform application, as well as frustrate public disclosure
obligations. The law also clearly defined the personnel records, and—for the sake of transparency,
proving progressive discipline, and public records obligations—ensured the parties couldn’t
negotiate later removal of records of discipline imposed.
l.

Continuing to allow officers to use vacation time or any other accrued time balance to get paid
during an unpaid suspension, as long as the suspension is less than eight days (which suspensions
frequently are). During development of CPC’s recommendations in 2014, members of the public
expressed their view as to the lack of procedural justice with this approach, since the discipline of
“unpaid days” becomes relatively meaningless.

m. Limiting the number of civilian investigators in OPA to two and limiting their role in cases involving
use of force or cases involving higher ranks, rather than leaving the number of civilian investigators
to the discretion of the civilian OPA Director as set forth in the accountability law and not limiting
their scope or authority to act as investigators.
Page 7 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
n. Continuing to have employees of different ranks treated differently in the accountability system.
The accountability law mandated that the same accountability processes apply to all ranks. This
was to ensure that the public and employees that higher ranking personnel were not treated
differently than officers and sergeants. (Which is why we recommended to the City that both
SPMA and SPOG contract accountability provisions be bargained at the same time, either at the
same table or in parallel, not sequentially.)
o. Still allowing SPMA members to submit written responses rather than requiring they be
interviewed in-person for misconduct investigations and still prohibiting investigators of lower
ranks from handling those investigations.
p. Still not authorizing full reform of mediation and full implementation of rapid adjudication as has
been recommended for several years and as set forth in the accountability law.
3. Describe how the City intends to cure the identified problems (listed in 1 & 2 above).
a. For those elements of the accountability law where bargaining was not required (the City had legal
authority to immediately implement), the City should affirm for the Court that each has been fully
implemented. If any parts of the law relevant to the Consent Decree have not yet been fully
implemented, the City should also identify those for the Court, and include a plan and schedule for
implementation.
b. In its December 2018 Court filing, the City wrote of a plan to ask the City Council to amend the
accountability law in order to make it consistent with the terms the City later agreed to in the
contracts. The City should confirm to the Court (and the public) that it erred in that proposed approach
and that an amendment will not be proposed to incorporate contractual terms that weaken or
undercut disciplinary system reforms.
c. The City agreed to generalized or ambiguous language in many parts of the SPOG contract, which
papers over how these provisions differ from the accountability law. As a result, “the contract shall
prevail” language in the SPOG contract opens a wide avenue for challenges. The City should stipulate
to the Court that it will address this issue by executing a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with
SPOG. Such an MOA can be done under the existing contract, will have the same full force and effect
as the contract, and then should be rolled into the next contract. It has been stated that any
inconsistencies, ambiguities, and errors should not be of concern to the Court or the public because
the City and SPOG share an understanding of the intent and meaning of the language and SPOG will
not challenge discipline based on any of these. First, this may be what the City hopes for, but SPOG has
not committed to it and verbal representations have no legal weight. Second, SPOG leadership has
changed and will continue to change, so whatever was said at the bargaining table may not hold true
at a later point. Third, a disciplined employee can still challenge discipline, even if SPOG does not.
Further, this reassurance does not reflect the real experience with SPOG over many years—as of July
2019 there were six SPOG demands to bargain, reflecting its ongoing willingness to litigate any issue it
can. Each of the conflicting or unclear provisions is in essence a “ticking time-bomb” that will
undermine discipline in the future if they prove useful in challenging discipline. If it is correct that the
City and SPOG each meant the same thing, and that SPOG has no intention of using conflicting or
Page 8 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
unclear provisions to later challenge discipline, executing an MOA should be a quick exercise. Doing so
will better ensure clarity and predictability, and give the Court more confidence that there will not be
future cases similar to the Shepherd case.
d. The City represented to the Court that certain critical accountability areas, including secondary
employment and subpoena power, would be negotiated under re-openers detailed in the contracts. It
represented to the community that it was not a problem that these provisions had not been nailed
down, because the City had secured the right to go back to the table and bargain at any time after the
contracts were ratified (since re-opener bargaining occurs whenever one of the parties requests
bargaining.) Yet, nine months after the SPOG contract was ratified and more than 1½ years after the
SPMA contract was ratified, the City still has not asked the unions to come back to the table. The City
should confirm to the Court what each of the re-openers are, and that it will promptly exercise each of
the re-openers that were negotiated.
e. The City should confirm to the Court that it will ask the unions to agree to expand the scope of the
negotiated re-openers to include additional topics. This approach provides the City with a way to move
forward to address other contract terms that undermine accountability without waiting until the next
round of bargaining.
f.

Unless addressed in re-opener agreements, critical accountability issues in the contracts will continue
until the City successfully negotiates future contracts. The SPMA CBA expires as of January 1, 2020,
and the SPOG CBA expires as of January 1, 2021. The notice requirement can be triggered at any time
and per State law, bargaining must be commenced at least five months ahead of the Mayor submitting
a budget to the City Council. For SPMA, this means the parties must initiate bargaining no later than
May 11, 2020 in order not to miss this window. The City should confirm to the Court a plan and
schedule to initiate the next round of bargaining for both CBAs now or by May 11, 2020, (and
demonstrate a commitment to bargain SPMA and SPOG accountability provisions together or at least
in parallel) to avoid relying on terms of expired contracts and extending for several more years the
current situation of problematic contract terms and an uncodified law. It is also important to note that
the proposed timeline for delivery of the consultant team’s report in the fall of 2020 means any of its
recommendations may not be received in time to be incorporated into the City’s bargaining agenda
with SPMA.

4. Provide the Court a schedule for swiftly curing these problems and getting back into compliance with
the Consent Decree. By the end of September, the City should:
a. Verify to the Court the implementation status of the accountability law provisions relevant to the
Consent Decree and not impacted by bargaining.
b. Execute an MOA to address all inconsistent, ambiguous, or inaccurate language between the SPOG
contract and City law not expressly intended.
c. Exercise all re-openers and nail down those terms so the Court and community can be confident
that the negotiated terms further strengthen, and do not further weaken, the accountability
system. Confirm that the City has requested that other problematic contract accountability system
terms be addressed at the same time, and identify all of those that the City has requested be reopened.
Page 9 of 10

 Community Police Commission
Analysis of Proposed Methodology
August 7, 2019
d. Request to ”meet and discuss” with the unions during the term of the contracts on certain issues.
(The parties can mutually re-open bargaining, even in a limited fashion, or talk more informally to
determine common interests short of/prior to formal bargaining.) Any agreements that result will
be incorporated into MOAs that have the full force and effect as the contracts and are addenda to
the contracts, which are then to be rolled into the next contracts.
e. Trigger notice requirements for the next round of bargaining. Ask to move forward to bargain
accountability provisions of SPMA and SPOG together. See if there is an option to reduce the 180day notice required by City law and contracts for this unique circumstance, as long as the other
City law requirements of public hearing and accountability system input can be met in a shortened
timeframe.
In sum, the CPC is concerned that the current proposed approach fails to adequately address the Court’s
concerns and will lead to further unnecessary delays in achieving appropriate and long overdue disciplinary
system reforms. We believe the City should take the steps outlined in this letter to more quickly achieve the
reforms which the City told the public it was committed to implement and which were set forth in City law
over two years ago. Lastly, we ask that the City, the Department of Justice, the Seattle Police Monitor, and the
CPC come together to collaborate as envisoned by the Court’s order.

Page 10 of 10