1. Just weeks after her appointment to head up the struggling Community Police Commission, acting CPC director Bessie Scott is leaving for a new position as city manager for Antioch, California. The Antioch City Council confirmed Scott’s appointment Tuesday night.
CPC co-chair Joel Merkel declined to comment last week about why Ellis was put on leave. In the past two months, almost every other member of the CPC’s small staff has resigned or gone on leave. The agency recently hired a deputy director (a new position), and has gone from biweekly to monthly meetings until the staffing problems are resolved.
Scott, who previously served as CPC director, was deputy director of the Office of Inspector General, which oversees the city’s police accountability system. According to the San Jose Mercury-News, Scott will make just over $263,000 as city manager, up from her current salary of $221,000 as acting CPC director.
2. The Seattle Police Department has begun running recruitment ads on podcasts—part of the city’s $3.4 million contract with the local marketing firm Copacino Fujikado. A reader reported hearing the ads on Unspooled, on the Earwolf podcasting network.
The ads consist of the audio from SPD’s existing video ads, which include simple animations of male officers rescuing people from dangerous situations. (SPD has since replaced the videos with two new live-action ads highlighting women officers). One typically melodramatic voiceover, interspersed with voice actors dramatizing the scene, described a Harbor Patrol response to a man struggling to swim in Portage Bay:
As the boat got closer, the officer could see the fear in the man’s eyes as he struggled to stay above water. (Sounds of gasping and coughing. ‘Help!’) The water was murky, making it impossible to see below the surface. (“Where is he?”) The officer dove into the water… again… and again… and again. The officer dove a fourth time. (“He’s got him!” “Just hang on!”) The officer carried the man to shore. After the officer performed CPR, the man revived, coughing and gasping for breath. (“All clear!”) The officer reassured him that he was safe, that the worst was over. There are many ways to protect and serve the city of Seattle. Find yours.
PubliCola has reached out to SPD to find out how much the ads cost and will update this post if we hear back. Last month, at Mayor Bruce Harrell’s request, the city council approved an $800,000 increase to Copacino Fujikado’s contract, which runs through the end of this year.
3. The Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council—the central body of labor organizations in King County—just adopted a resolution opposing a slate of legislation that would crack down on drug users and sex workers by reinstating anti-loitering laws and creating zones where their mere presence would be grounds for arrest and gross misdemeanor charges.
Councilmember Cathy Moore has proposed legislation that would reinstate an old law against “loitering for purpose of prostitution” that would make it easier for police to question, search and arrest women they suspect of being sex workers; the bill would also create a new “Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution” zone from which judges could ban people who are accused of participating in the sex trade; although prostitution and patronizing a prostitute are misdemeanors, anyone caught violating a SOAP order could be charged with a gross misdemeanor, which carries a maximum penalty of 364 days in jail. The council will also consider legislation establishing similar zones for people caught violating the city’s misdemeanor laws against using or possessing drugs while in public.
The resolution says that SODA and SOAP orders “directly impact freedom of movement, public accommodation, equitable access to resources, and due process by way of restricting people who have been accused of drug or prostitution offenses from certain areas of the city,” and that spending limited city resources to arrest and jail sex workers and drug users could divert funding from already underpaid nonprofit workers “who use evidence based strategies like harm-reduction, housing first, and permanent supportive housing.”