Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

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The City of Seattle has finally figured it out.

After a couple years of decreased interest in police careers within the city limits, a new collective bargaining agreement would give officers in the  Seattle Police Department a hefty raise - making them the highest paid department in the state and the fourth-highest on the West Coast amongst comparable departments. From the P.I.:

The four-year contract offer would boost an entry-level officer's annual base pay from $47,340 to $64,312 by 2010 -- an increase of about 36 percent.

A 12-year veteran's base salary would increase at least 25 percent -- from $72,072 to $90,516 -- by the contract's final year.

The Seattle Crime Blogger and I have been arguing this point for months: if a police force is having trouble recruiting new officers, let's look at the reasons why. By and large, SPD has a horrible reputation in the city...and they are one of the lowest paid police forces on the West Coast. Take a look at some of the other cities the P.I. mentions and their base salaries for entry-level officers:

• San Francisco: $71,526
• San Jose: $70,307
• Oakland: $69,162
• Sacramento: $50,400
• Portland: $40,980

While the reputation may be harder to repair - claims of corruption, police abuse and related activities are impossible to snuff out entirely - the pay problem isn't nearly as difficult to tackle.

Entry-level officers stand to be making about $64,000 dollars a year by 2010...nearly a $17,000 a year increase from the current wages. That's like the difference between owning home and renting, or the difference between accepting a job in Seattle and looking at San Francisco (where entry-level officers already make $65,000 a year, according to the Chronicle).

With Seattle's crime rates hovering above the national average and high-profile cases drawing attention to the need for more cops on the streets, this can only help the city's futile recruiting process. After all, if you want the best and the brightest, you need to be willing to pay them as such.

The agreement still needs to be voted on by the Police Guild (though I don't see this vote failing) and ratified by the City Council. But judging by the giant monkey that could leap off of Mayor Nickels back if this does help recruiting, I think it's safe to say this will have all the support it needs. Kudos to the city for figuring this one out.

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The next time you hear a politician tell you there isn't funding for a much needed public program, feel free to slap them in the face.

I've been following the epidemic that is "pork spending," the granting of funds without public review, since Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens earmarked tens of millions to build a bridge connecting mainland Alaska to an uninhabited area starting in 2004.

Unfortunately, as is the case for most Washingtonians, we see our elected officials as being incompetent and corrupt only on a state level, but this article seems to detail that Washington Senators have also perfected the art of wasting taxpayers money to line their own pockets and fund their own interests.

Patty Murray, who liberals in this city (including myself) have long held up as the quintessential "good" politician, was found to have earmarked 208 projects totaling $372 million.

To be fair, not all earmarked funds go to do nothing, but check out some of these examples of what pork spending in our state has produced:

Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., wants $500,000 in federal money to build a welcome center in Ridgefield.

$500,000 for a welcome center in Ridgefield?  Who the hell goes to Ridgefield and derides there being no center to officially welcome them?

While programs like Social Security slowly and painfully begin to die, taxpayers are actually having some of the money they pay directly for those programs go to projects like Baird's welcome center.

The idea behind earmarks is that while they do not have to go through the public realm, they still need to be approved by various committees within the House and Senate. And who are the people heading these committees? Some of the worst offenders...like Stevens, who held the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee from 1998-2004.

For Washington state Democrats, this is just another item in a long list of things that all but ensure a strong switch to a Republican majority inside our states borders. Couple this new information with the outrage anyone interested in sports, or the economy for that matter, feels over the Sonics situation, and the party has some problems. 

Two Republican Senators have already publicly sworn off earmarks in the coming year. 

What was the Democrats response? Rick Larsen, one of the main offenders, stated that we always supplies his constituents with lists of what their hard-earned money is going to. That's like robbing someone and then sending them an itemized list of what you took with the dollar amounts next to them, only letting them know all you did was burn their possessions.

The worst part of this situation is that taxpayers are virtually unable to do anything to stop it. Vote the offenders out of office and it's only a matter of time before another does the same thing.

We can't afford to educate our kids properly...but, hey, at least when we go to Ridgefield, we'll feel a nice warm welcome.

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It seems that politicians in Seattle have figured out a way to line their own pockets in the name of being "green."

Seattle, if Mayor Nickels plan goes as proposed, will soon begin imposing a 20 cent charge for anyone who wants to use a paper or plastic bag at the gorcery store.

The charge is intended to help reduce the environmental impact of the 360 million plastic bags handed out in Washington State every year.

I have no problem with being green, but this is a classic example of how politicians have figured out how to profit on the green movement. Of the 20 cents, businesses will get to keep about five cents, with stores pulling in less than $1 million a year can keep both dimes.  The rest goes to the city.  It's no wonder Councilmembers Tim Burgess and Sally Clark were so quick to support the move. 

The city expects the charge to generate about $10 million in tax revenue a year.  That's $10 million earned in the name of being "green."

On top of that, the charge for the plastic bag use is subject to state sales tax. That's around another two pennies for the state each time someone forgets to bring their burlap sack with them to the store.

With all that being said, the craziest part of this is what they intend to do with the money they raise.

"About $2 million of that would go to promoting the use of reusable bags, including a program to distribute free reusable bags to low income families and the elderly" -Seattle P-I

One-fifth of the money being raised is going to be used to tell people that using plastic bags is bad.  I think they may get the hint when they have to pay to use them.

I'm all for going green, but politicians are using the environmental movement as a way to line their own pockets without pissing off everyone else's bottom line.  Next thing you know they'll be charging us to drive on weekends and using the money to explain their reasoning. 

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Whether he likes it or not, Mayor Greg Nickels has had to deal with a lot of questions regarding neighborhood safety lately.

As Nickels continues to insist that the Seattle Police Department will meet its recruiting goals, several high-profile cases have vaulted the problem into a major concern with community members.

To many, SPD has always had a reputation for being too rough and ridiculously unfriendly (a case of a few hotheads ruining the good name of a ton of others...check out the Amy S. story at the link above) but now they are being faced with a bigger public relations problem: high profile cases.

The random beating of a UW student and the now-infamous Shannon Harps murder have put up a curtain of fear over certain neighborhoods in Seattle.

Perhaps the most disturbing sub-plot to these horrific local crimes is the idea that the city may start to panic when it comes to their expectations for new recruits (this article from last year details some of the difficulties faced by SPD). Sadly, this situation will be determined a winner or loser based on numbers alone, with little to no focus on the quality of those recruits.

We have to put trust in Nickels not to panic on this issue, but if we've learned anything about Seattle politicians it's that they have no backbone and will do whatever they must to avoid bad press. Throw in the fact that the Seattle Police Guild has more power than Nickels will ever hope to, and we could have a serious problem.

I think those of us who possess logic can agree that these cases do not tell of an epidemic waiting to happen. But if new recruits are being hired with less stringent requirements, these high-profile cases will be the least of our concerns.

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It seems King County Councilwoman Jane Hague has reached a plea deal for her DUI charge stemming from a drunk driving incident last June.

For those concerned that public officials believe they are above the law (I'm looking at you, Eliot Spitzer), Hague's response to the deal was priceless: "It's been a tremendous learning experience," she's quoted as saying in the P-I.

At 61 years old and entrusted to make decisions for the largest county in the state, shouldn't having the presence of mind not to drive with an alcohol level of 0.14 be something Hague already knows?

The councilwoman then told reporters she felt she should be "held to a higher standard" because of her role as a public official and that she wanted to be a "poster child" for reasons not to drive drunk. Sounds commendable...if it were in any way not BS.

The hypocrisy of this situation is mind-boggling. Hague apparently verbally insulted the state trooper who pulled her over, yet now thinks she was held to a higher standard than most people arrested for DUI...despite serving no jail time and getting off with a slap on the wrist.

Oh, and the "poster child thing?"

Under the agreement, Hague's charge will be reduced in six months if she performs 75 hours of community service, attends alcohol information sessions and a drunken-driving victims' panel, airs three public service announcements related to drunken driving and stays crime free.

Yeah...turns out that's part of her plea deal, too.