I notice that Homicide, year to date, is nearly 50 percent less than last year in your city.

http://www.seattle.gov/police/crime/13_S…

But yeah, it's not like cops handle any of that or put themselves in harms way for citizens.

Bailo, you fucking tool. Slow day at work? Stood up on eHarmony again? Aspergers got you all twitchy and you cant resist unspooling your nitwittery in every Slog thread again?

Public Disclosure Requests are backed by law, so SPD is in direct violation of the law when they ignore or block PDR's.

Got it, simpleton? The agency charged with enforcing the law has been caught flouting the law over and over and over.

Now go be stupid somewhere else, Bailo. Don't you just get embarrassed when this keeps happenning?

#2

Look, are these bad things that SPD did. Yeah.

But I look at it in the 20 year history of neglect and chicanery in this region. The "leaders" of Washington State had a policy of malign neglect for entire swatches of downtown and South Seattle and King county. Much of it was left to fester as a combination shooting gallery and open air mental asylum.

Now everyone is on their high horse about SPD? They were meant to do double duty as both military police and butterfly net wielders so that liberals could nest in "safe" areas that properly appreciated (since there was no where else to move to).

Good fucking post, sir. I suspect it's going to be as true this election as it was last time that we won't wind up with anyone better to vote for than McGinn, so in the meantime let's keep a tighter rein. Plus pinwheel sandwiches are not allowed.

So is the postulation here that McGinn is incompetent, or malfeasant?

@1: Even if we believe that the lowered homicide rate is purely due to police work,* you're suggesting that we should accept their flouting of the law as some kind of quid pro quo? Does that mean if I do my job well I can get a free grand theft auto, or maybe an assault with a deadly weapon? You truly are an idiot.

* Not saying it isn't, just saying that (as usual) you are pulling data out of your trollish ass.

The SPD's non-compliance with public disclosure requests is well past the point where the city attorney office needs to slap them around for not following state law. Both Pete Holmes, as well as McGinn, campaigned on a commitment to government transparency.

I'm saying that if you want to be a blog that blithely ignores the real criminal violence of two long decades and paints a picture of perfect "urban living" while ignoring the violence outside the perimeter because it suits the party that appears to pay the bills, and when suddenly eyes open, and you see what people in the streets, not in the citadel, have been dealing with, then you are the hypocrites not SPD.

McGinn's been *WAY* better on SPD reform than he's often given credit for, but I agree. transparency with the police department is seriously lagging. I hope this changes -- and I take today's settlement as (tentatively) a sign for positive movement in that direction.

@8: The City Attorney represents the city government, not its citizens, and not state government.

Even if Holmes disagrees with how SPD is run, it's not his job to do anything about it, unless explicitly directed to do so by the mayor.

If SPD is in violation of state law, then the attorney general is free to sue them. Again, not Holmes's job.

If people realized there is 1 cop for every 1000 citizens treated like serfs ...

Take a look at SPD's record of responses to Public Records Act requests on MuckRock: https://www.muckrock.com/place/united-st…

I regularly wait months for them to complete even small requests. Information about their "wireless mesh network steering committee" I requested days after the story about the Alki Beach surveillance cameras blew up in February is still in progress. It's taking them several months just to turn over their log of records requests.

Harrell goes on to add that "the department’s senior level officers must adopt a culture of a learning organization—they must own up to mistakes, work collaboratively to identify a solution and then institute the changes.”

Bullshit. What is stopping the City Council from passing a law ordering the SPD and all other city agencies and departments to comply swiftly and in a transparent fashion with requests?

@14: Where would they find the time? They're too busy making sure that people can't afford to live in South Lake Union.

@11, your civics lesson is only half right. The city attorney doesn't need to be directed by the mayor to ensure city departments comply with the law, and my term "slap around" wasn't a reference to litigation to force compliance. There's plenty of influence the city attorney could wield to ensure the city departments follow the law and avoid penalties.

And by the way I'm a former city employee tasked with responding to public record requests.

@14: That law already exists as RCW 42.56. If the SPD isn't going to follow state law, what purpose would an identical municipal ordinance serve?

@16: I grew up in the East Coast, where most of our public officials are appointed rather than elected. If a Boston city attorney decided to publicly battle the mayor, the way that Holmes has done, he would be fired in a heartbeat.

It may be the case that things are different when you have an elected attorney. I'll take your word for it, since you have much more experience than me with city government. But to me, that's just an indictment of Washington State's fetish for subjecting everything to a public vote

@18: Do you suppose someone could become a Boston city attorney after campaigning for drug policy reform as Pete Holmes did? If it weren't for that position being elected by the people instead of appointed by the executive, it's likely that we would still have a prohibitionist as city attorney (one who is now off in Boulder making a "ham-fisted attempt to manipulate the Boulder City Council into substituting his prohibitionist views regarding marijuana legalization for the judgment of Boulder's voters.")

I'm very happy having a city attorney who is accountable to the people.

@19: The very first question on the City Attorney's FAQ page is:

"Can a citizen receive legal advice from the Law Department?

Generally, no. Attorneys in the Law Department serve as the attorneys for City government and City officials, rather than for individual citizens. Individuals normally must retain their own attorneys for legal advice and representation."

The city attorney represents the city government. The head of the city government is the mayor. Therefore, the city attorney works for the mayor. Not for the people.

I'm not aware of a single private business in the United States where the CEO doesn't get to choose the people who report to him. It just doesn't make sense.

There is no campaign to be Boston's Corporation Counsel (their name for the city attorney). It's not a political office. The attorney generally keeps a very low profile. This model seems to work just fine for the 99% of Seattle city departments whose head is appointed, rather than elected. Only the legal department has an elected head.

All of that isn't to say that the city attorney needs to be a robot, awaiting orders from McGinn. No organization could function that way; people need to have autonomy. But ultimately, organizations run best when they are staffed by people who want to work together, rather than by people who are forced to work together.

And honestly, do you really think that McGinn would have appointed someone like Tom Carr?

@20: Your CEO example is irrelevant to this discussion. The City of Seattle is not a business. Our municipal government does not exist to generate profit, and it should not be run as such. *Everyone* in government works for the people.

@21: Any organization that executes something at a large scale has a chief executive officer. That in no way implies that there is a profit motive. You just need someone who's in charge. And in the vast, vast majority of organizations in the world -- *including most governments* -- the person in charge gets to pick the people who works for them, and it works.

As you say, everyone in government works for the people. So I don't see what their being elected has to do with it. The head of the Department of Neighborhoods works for the people. So does the head of Seattle City Light. So does the custodian who cleans the Central Library. Somehow, all of these people are able to effectively do their jobs, and help the people, without being elected. I don't see why the city attorney's office needs to be singled out.

@19

Wow. I don't know where you get your notions of how the population of Boston swings on drug law, but you really, really need to find a new source.

Also, the most progressively revolutionary government official on drug policy in living memory was Robert DuPont, who worked to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing, instituted demand-reduction programs, and practically invented drug-treatment as a government policy in the US, where only punitive policy had existed before.

He was appointed, not elected. And the man who appointed him was Richard M. Nixon.