Time to restructure public safety

The firing this week of John Calkins, Pacific's public safety director, creates an opportunity for the city council to appropriately restructure that division of the city. 

About 12 years ago, after Howard Erickson was elected mayor, he persuaded the city to replace the position of Police chief with the position of a public safety director who would oversee police and fire duties. After filling that position with John Calkins, the city then backtracked and hired a fire chief, removing any salary savings that had been expected. 

Mr. Calkin's salary swelled over the years to more than $100,000, even after The Regional Valley Fire Authority absorbed the city's fire department. Calkins continued to be addressed as police chief, even though the position no longer existed. Although a civilian, sometimes he wore a police uniform. Mr. Calkin's performance has been reflected on in previous blogs on this site.

This nonsense came to an end this week when Mayor Cy Sun terminated Mr. Calkins.


Now it's time for the city council to respond: Eliminate the position of public safety director and restore the position of police chief, establishing a salary apropriate for a town of 6,000. The council needs to act in good faith and tone down its animosity to mayor Cy Sun, who admittedly is aggravating in his own way. It's long past the time for amateur hour and cat fights to come to an end. Show the people you can work together, giving the mayor his due without sacrificing oversight, a key council responsibility.

The new vacancy provides an alternate opportunity: The council might consider  whether there should be a regional police authority to match the regional fire authority. Auburn, Algona and Pacific might combine police functions for greater efficiency and cost savings.

Here's some perspective on Pacific's police department history: In 1975, Ronald Earwood, the police chief at that time, got a little too excited over two drunk and injured men who were awaiting an aid car, to the effect that they needed even more medical treatment and the city ended up with a $1.4 million lawsuit. That incident was the reason Mr. Erickson was first elected mayor in 1975.

About 15 years later, Pacific Police Chief Al Lee found himself in the center of controversy and was terminated. About 15 years later Public Safety Director John Calkins emerged as a controversial figure.

KOMO TV quoted Acting Police Chief Jim Pickett as saying "police chiefs come and go."  That's putting it mildly. Some of Pacific's police chiefs have only gone after doing serious damage to the lives of Pacific residents and the reputation of the city. Pacific's elected officials don't seem to find the heart or the backbone to remind the police that they are not here to dominate, harrass and insult, but to serve and protect.

The regional fire authority seems to be working well. Maybe by having a regional police authority, the kind of turmoil that grips Pacific every 15 years could be a thing of the past.

And if the council isn't willing to handle this issue in a mature and deliberative manner and create a structure that works, then I fall back on my former suggestion: Maybe it's time to just give up and disincorporate.

Time for the speed humps?

Several years ago, as a city councilman, I asked why we didn’t free up a police officer for more important duties than hiding behind a screen waiting to catch speeders on Milwaukee Boulevard. My thinking was that a passive reminder to slow down would be a lot less expensive than a full-time patrolman burning gas  in an idling prowl car. What I suggested was installing those round palm-sized bumps you see on the road that “growl” when you drive over them.

The idea was poo-pooed by the head of community development, who said growlers eventually come loose and don't have any effect unless you are driving at least 35 miles an hour to create the growler effect. 

Silly me. I believed that clap trap. Until, that is, I drove into the Sea-Tac Airport parking garage to pick up a traveler. I was driving about 5 mph when I drove over several rows of those little bumps, felt the vibrations and heard a sound something like a jack hammer.

The flap last year over former Mayor Richard Hildreth’s use of a city credit card and the police staff’s botched attempt to address the council’s concerns about it, stands as another good example of how elected officials should hold feet to the fire from time to time to make sure they are being properly advised.

Anyway, with the ongoing financial pressures on the City of Pacific, and Mayor Cy Sun’s claim that he wants to save money, maybe it’s time to look at speed humps and growlers to create passive restraints on speeders instead of paying staff to raise revenue by hunting and gathering.

A side benefit is that the public, instead of seeing uniformed staff waiting to catch them, would see the city saving money and at the same time reminding them in a gentler way to slow down on a heavily-traveled residential street. 

It’s easy to have bad feelings toward a public safety division that builds its empire through fines and forfeitures that have the collateral damage of driving up auto insurance rates, but I’ve never heard anyone badmouth a speed hump.

Lost and found documents

Here's a little reminder of how things were happening not so long ago, and why I call this blog Speed Trap City.  After I obtained this copy of the memorandum, it was destroyed and replaced by one that wasn't quite so transparent. But the purpose remains clear -- enforcement was turned into a revenue tool, not a public safety tool by a man who signed this memo as a police chief, when the position had long ago been eliminated. Why is this person still employed by the City of Pacific? (You can right click on the documents and download them to your own computer for easier viewing, and sharing.)

At the bottom of the page you can see that this practice has a long history in Pacific. Note the news clip from 1974.

 

Déjà vu,  from 1975:

Fools are in this world to make us grow

For those who are tired to death of the endless drama of Pacific city politics, here are some words of wisdom from Christina Martinez, age 75:

You shouldn't go around complaining this one's a fool and that one's a fool. They're everywhere, and you should be glad. You'd be nowhere without the fools. They show you how you don't want to be.

While they're busy acting like dolts, watch what they're doing. Even if they drive you crazy, study them carefully, then take a good look at yourself. See if you're doing any of those same things. That's what makes you do better.

Be grateful they're making the mistakes, not you. That's what fools are here for. They save you a lot of time and energy.

—From the book, What's Worth Knowing.

The author says: Christina Martinez sat for hours each afternoon in the lobby of the busy downtown building where she lived, taking up her post in the far corner shortly after lunch. Dramas erupted every day among the other residents, a mix of mentally ill people trying out life on their own, drug addicts beginning their recovery, and physically disabled people like herself. Whenever I had the time to sit next to her, I found her vantage point as edifying as she claimed—a parade of people flaunting their foibles for all to see, sometimes heroically but often foolishly.

Time for death with dignity?

The current free-for-all taking place between the sitting mayor, the dumped mayor and the city council raises a relevant question: Is it time for the City of Pacific to throw in the towel? Maybe we should just take the patient off life support and let Pacific die with dignity.

Dignity is a rare commodity in Pacific. You’re not going to find much evidence of it in the preceding blogs on this page, unless you think porn, threats, insults, character assassination, intrigue, dominating behavior and the like are an expression of respect. From what I’ve read in the Pacific City Signal (http://pacificcitysignal.tumblr.com/), it appears that the council has resorted to a vote of no confidence in order to engineer an end run around Mayor Cy Sun, who reportedly walked out of a city council meeting in response. (A lingering question in my mind is how the council was able to act with such unanimity without deliberating this approach in public. How do you do that, given the dictates of the state’s open meetings law?) One  issue that vexed the council involved trying to figure out how to handle the failure of the city to administer a grant. It’s hard to administer grants, when key department heads bailed like rats leaving a sinking ship – which is what any intelligent rat would do. 

Rich Hildreth (who continues to use an e-mail address implying he thinks he is still mayor) weighed in, blaming his successor for not being able to maintain the glowing legacy Hildreth left behind. Apparently a slow learner, Hildreth hasn’t yet grasped that the voters were only too glad to boot him in favor of a  write-in candidate who demonstrated no skills for running the operation and made it clear that he intended to drain the swamp. 

How smart does someone have to be to understand what’s happening here?

After 12 years of amateur night, with the final eight being dominated by a self-serving public official who ran the city as if it were Pee Wee’s Playhouse, the house of cards is imploding.

Pay no attention to the finger pointing, because it’s unnecessary. Virtually everyone who held public office for the last eight years shares the blame. They not only allowed the deterioration to continue – they grew a political culture which no intelligent person would want to be a part of.

An honest, decent, assertive, thoughtful person who understands the consequences of political actions, is willing to insist on proper ethical conduct and who would take time to ask the right questions, to make sure that others were kept informed and who would take the type of necessary action that the public would respect, wouldn’t feel comfortable in this government. Richard Hildreth’s conduct and his tolerance for improper behavior by city employees, and the council’s willingness to abide that approach created a house of cards that was guaranteed to collapse in time. Anyone who tries to prop it up will have to deal with the contractors who built this house. Is there anyone out there who thinks that would work?

If the City of Pacific survives – and I think that is a big "if" – it will take years, perhaps a generation, before the right group of personalities can come together to form a government worthy of the name. That's highly unlikely, because Pacific is no longer a "community." It is an accidental congregation of individuals with no commonalities that could lead to the emergency of leaders who could have a  common vision that can be shared by the voters.

Here’s a challenge for you: Sit down and make a list of reasons why a city should exist where Pacific is now.