Architectural rendering of new Hilltop Heritage school on Duvall Ave NE

Serving in any public office can be a hard job, and school board director can be one of the most difficult since the job is about people’s children.  Renton school board directors do not get paid for their service. It’s important to keep this in mind when contentious issues arise.  I’ve heard a petition is being circulated, so I thought people may want to know more about why.

While I was not personally in attendance at the Wednesday Renton School board meeting, some Renton parents say they were surprised by the quick 2-0 vote from a normally five member board that will set future elementary school boundaries.

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Three teens are in critical condition after a stolen car driven at high speed crashed into another car Wednesday morning in Renton. Photo: KOMO news

A few weeks ago Renton Council members and Mayor Pavone traveled to Olympia to discuss legislative issues including the law limiting police pursuits that has caused a skyrocketing number of stolen cars to be driven recklessly through our streets.   Would-be car thieves have figured out police can’t chase them, so they have been stealing cars and racing them hazardously, often ending in accidents, smash-and-grabs, or other crime sprees.

Representatives Steve Bergquist and David Hackney assured our city delegation they would both reliably support a sensible House bill restoring some police pursuit authority, and were even listed as co-sponsors of HB 1363 that did this.  But yesterday they voted against  a call for a vote of their bill on the house floor, potentially killing it for this session, and deeply disappointing several Renton elected officials and many of their Renton constituents.

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Homes in Medina and other small cities won’t be impacted by HB 1110; the legislature exempted them (photo from Google Street View)

The State House of Representatives just passed a sweeping housing bill, HB 1110, that some are bragging finally gets the NIMBYs (Not in My Back Yards) to stop blocking new housing.  Except the legislature didn’t actually do that.  The truly wealthy enclaves in our area, like Medina, Hunts Point, Yarrow Point, and Clyde Hill are not impacted at all, as they fall below a city size threshold included in the law.  And anyone who owns a home covered by an HOA, which is about 80% of our newer homes these days, and includes many found in expensive areas including all gated communities, typically won’t be impacted either.

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Washington’s finest! New police recruits from across our state graduate from the Washington State Police Academy in Burien Washington in June 2022.  The Washington legislature is currently working on new ways to sue police academy graduates if their training proves inadequate.

Washington legislators are in charge of police training in our state, but they want to sue officers and cities, and not themselves, when this training lets the public down. Note these police officers can already be sued today if they are acting in bad faith.

To hear some state legislators complain about police officer training, you might never know that the legislature itself has been in charge of overseeing the training of these new officers for the past 50 years.   Since 1974, every new officer gets 720 hours of training in the state police academy, overseen by the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission  (WSCJTC). Cities pay them for this service. The training covers all the necessary basics, including what they need to know about criminal law and the state constitution, using tasers and firearms,  chasing suspects,  conducting traffic stops, and other necessary skills.  Here is the syllabus. The WSCJTC also provides numerous specialty follow-on classes, in such varied areas as dog handling, accident reconstruction, and police supervision, so the WSCJTC maintains a lifetime role in training police officers.  The WSCJTC reports directly to the governor and legislature, not to local mayors or city council members.  So individual legislators only need to look in a mirror to see someone responsible for police training.

This month the legislature is focussed on developing a way that people can sue these police officers when police training proves inadequate– either because the training failed to cover a unique legal or crisis situation the officer found themself in, or because the training directed the officer to make a wrong decision.  The new legislation, HB 1025, is artfully written to still preserve immunity from lawsuits for the State and the legislators, the ones overseeing the academy classes. Only the police-officer students and their employers will be sued when the state training turns out to be inadequate.

Can you imagine how you would feel if you learned that a college or school where you earned a degree was trying to get you sued because the education they gave you was inadequate?  How angry would you be?  That’s what the legislature is cooking up for our police officers.

Thanks to our tumultuous legislature, new legal dilemmas are presented to officers everyday.  For example, should an officer run after a suspect that just sold a lethal dose of fentanyl to a 12-year-old?  What happens if the suspect runs into traffic, and is killed?  With drug-related criminal issues still unresolved, an officer would need to be an experienced trial lawyer to get every one of these questions right all the time.  720 hours of academy time and 24-hour annual follow-ups will not provide a blueprint for every situation.  Right now, when society sends an officer into danger, the officer is expected to act in good faith in applying their judgement and their training to the most confusing situations.  If the state feels our officers don’t have enough training to cover all situations, the state should improve the training– not look for ways to financial harm the officers’ families after damage is done.  And if anyone feels the officers are acting in bad faith, the officers can  already be sued.

In any large workforce there will statistically be a few employees that do bad things, and they need to be dealt with.  Police departments are no exception.  Officers can currently be reprimanded and demoted for lesser transgressions, and criminally charged for serious offences.  Officers can already be sued today under RCW 9-46.212 when they act in bad faith or gross negligence.  If the State wants to now sue someone for inadequately training police officers, they should start by suing themselves until they learn to take responsibility for their own work.

Cities do have responsibility to give at least 24 hours per year continuing training to officers, set a safe culture, and provide supervision.  Renton far exceeds these expectations with our own dedicated training center employing techniques and culture taught by the WSCJTC as a guide, and enrolling promoted officers in continuing WSCJTC training at their academy campus.  Cities also have an overall responsibility to remedy financial damages to other parties that their actions have caused, whether by the police, parks, transportation, or any city department.  In Renton our insurance fund typically covers damages caused by police work without requiring a lawsuit from a resident to make it happen.  I always advocated for a timely financial remedy and sincere apology to any parties inadvertently harmed by any of our departments.

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Local builders have tried to keep pace with market demand for rentals.  Cosmos Development’s 2nd and Main project offers large units and nice amenities in the heart of Renton’s downtown.

In a previous blog entry I shared that the King County Homelessness Authority has put forward a $25 Billion five-year plan to create temporary housing to reduce homelessness.  I mentioned that our own Renton Housing Authority has been a very efficient government housing provider, and I promised to revisit this topic of homelessness with additional practical ideas in the future.  This is my first follow up on this topic, covering what private providers can do.

The debate about solving homelessness often deteriorates into over-simplified disagreements, like “is homelessness a housing problem, or a drug problem?” I promise not to take such a simplistic approach. The issue is much more complicated than that.

As a disclosure, my wife and I have owned rental homes in our area for over 30 years, and we have taken pride in providing affordable, fair, desirable housing for families and individuals in our community.

Step 1: Maximize the capability of the private housing market by working with landlords and builders

Our region’s private housing market plays the most essential role of all in preventing homelessness, by successfully housing 90%-95% of all of our region’s residents while generating significant tax revenue.  About 61% of these residents live in homes which their family owns, and the other 39 percent are in homes or apartments they are renting under a private lease with the owner.  It’s in all of our benefit to keep this market thriving, as this private market drives new home construction with typically no subsidies from taxpayers. This new construction helps reduce housing shortages.

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