Last week's public hearings were held in the Central District, on Capitol Hill, in West Seattle, and in Lake City. They were supposed to serve as a backup round of hearings because the first round had been so poorly attended. Just like last time, though, this round inspired few actual members of the public to appear. Even on Capitol Hill, where memories of police mistreatment during the WTO conference still linger, only 20 people showed. And almost all of them spent their time complaining about the low turnout -- which they blamed on the city.
However, the city says it did its best to notify the public. There's a phone hotline and a website for citizen response. Notices about the public meetings were printed in both daily newspapers. A total of 2,000 fliers were distributed to a variety of places, from parks to community centers to the public libraries. Short of TV ads, there's little more that could have been done.
Everyone knows how a new police chief is normally picked: The mayor chooses someone and the city council rubber-stamps its approval, leaving the public to complain about it later. This accusation, however, would ring hollow here. The unreported fact about the search for the next chief is that Mayor Schell has made a visible effort to have an open-minded hiring process.
The mayor's approach starts with the public hearings. Here, the citizenry is supposed to tell a 22-member search committee what it wants in a new chief. This committee is composed of a broad spectrum of community activists, law enforcement officials, and business advocates -- including the Downtown Seattle Association's Kate Joncas, the Urban League's James Kelly, Queer Safety Patrol's Julia D'Annunzio, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Hugh Berry.
The committee will work with a headhunting firm in California that will come to Seattle with 10 to 15 resumes for the committee to review. The committee will take those candidates and narrow the field to three. Those three candidates will be presented to Schell. The mayor then promises to have additional public input when the candidates are presented. Exactly how he intends to fulfill that promise, though, is unclear.
Ultimately, it comes down to a 12th-floor decision, but the public shouldn't drop out yet.
Here's the danger: If community input is lackluster, other interest groups will have a greater influence. The Seattle Police Officers Guild, for example, has been pointedly aggressive. Guild President Mike Edwards, who also sits on the search committee, is trying to make sure the rank and file stick in their opinions. He is compiling a survey by which they can voice their views.
Mothers for Police Accountability head Harriet Walden is concerned that the power of the police guild will somehow prevail in this fight. As Walden sees it, the guild is more interested in getting a cop's cop than it is in having a community-oriented, accountability-focused top cop like Stamper. The guild recently characterized the hiring of Stamper as a "mistake."
City Council Member Jim Compton, who also sits on the search committee, is trying to make sure a more balanced approach is made. He's organizing a 50-person super-meeting to discuss the issue of recruiting a new chief. He has yet to decide who will be a part of that meeting, however, and it's important to note that the meeting will not be open to everyone: Only recognized community leaders will be invited.
When it comes right down to it, it's the community's own cynicism that may be hurting them this time. "I think it's a good democratic process, but I don't think the people are used to this," Walden says. "I think you're going to get a lot more people involved in the process after candidates are presented." Let's hope so.
