At the end of 2018, the Seattle City Council finally approved a hotly debated new contract for the Seattle Police Officers Guild that critics said didn’t go far enough to cement needed reform. It was a six-year deal.

So why is the City of Seattle heading back to the bargaining table again? Most of the deal struck last November was about the past — a back-dated contract to cover the city’s officers who had been working without an agreement since 2014.

By the end of 2020, Seattle will need a new deal in place. The city’s Community Police Commission is hoping you’ll be there from the start to help shape it:

Public hearing on SPOG police contract
Thursday, December 5th 5:30 PM – 7 PM
Seattle City Hall
Come make your voice heard about what you want to see out of contract negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild next year. The CPC and City Council are jointly holding a public hearing before contract negotiations begin. This is the community’s chance to publicly tell the Council what they need and expect from contract negotiations next year. We need you there.

Many of the flashpoints from the 2018 agreement that brought much needed wage increases but also, critics said, rolled back progress on reforms, will again fire up for the 2020 process. The Seattle Community Police Commission called for a compromise position that would see the council approving the contract “giving the officers the fair pay they deserve” while moving to “immediately reopen negotiations on the limited matters in the proposed contract that touch on the accountability system.” The commission and critics of the proposed deal said the contract agreement gave up many of the reforms won in the landmark Police Accountability Legislation passed by the city council in 2017.

Seattle has been under federal pressure to reform its police force including a Justice Department consent decree that came out of an eight-month DOJ investigation of Seattle policing. Released in winter 2011, the investigation’s results revealed troubling findings about the department’s use of force. SPD’s overhaul included a DOJ-approved use of force policy.

In this summer’s District 3 election, incumbent Kshama Sawant took the race while continuing her blistering attacks on SPD. “Far too often, the conversation on police accountability has had to start at the grassroots level in the wake of tragic events, with the political establishment rushing to catch up, and the SPOG standing in opposition,” Sawant said in a statement on her boycott of a union-hosted candidates forum. “I stand with the Movement for Black Lives, which has called for independently elected community oversight boards with full powers over police departments.”

Sawant was the lone vote against the council’s approval of the current contract last November.

SPOG representatives, meanwhile, have continued to criticize city officials and reforms as “unreasonable special interest policies” even as new bonus and retention programs are being shaped. Many SPD proponents, meanwhile, continued to contend that the department is understaffed. CHS looked at East Precinct staffing levels in an examination of a summer slaying on Capitol Hill and the police response here.

In this fall’s finalization of Durkan’s $6.5 billion 2020 budget, Sawant and the council were able to chisel away some funding earmarked for SPD initiatives like retention and recruiting bonuses to help push more cash toward homelessness and restorative justice programs.

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