With U.S. calls to defund police, Bellingham mayor will ask city to address oversight
Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood said that he will ask the City Council to set a special meeting on Police Department accountability in the wake of recent marches and rallies to protest killings of unarmed Blacks, Native Americans and other people of color nationwide.
“Many are requesting various types of policing oversight. We are open to and invite that conversation,” Fleetwood told The Bellingham Herald in an email.
Several events have been held locally over the past three weeks and Fleetwood attended the Black Lives Matter rally on Saturday, June 6, which drew about 7,000 people to Maritime Heritage Park.
He also met with several hundred marchers Monday, June 15, who went to City Hall in support of a nationwide “defund the police” movement that has gained momentum in recent weeks.
Other reforms that activists nationwide are seeking include a ban on chokeholds, required de-escalation training, required warnings before shooting, exhaust all options before shooting, ban shooting at moving vehicles, and require comprehensive use of force reporting.
“We are actively reviewing many models of police oversight, and I intend to propose the council convene a work session to identify their oversight goals, review various models and options, and determine what successful police oversight will look like for Bellingham,” Fleetwood told The Herald.
Law enforcement spending
Bellingham Police Department’s share of the revised 2020 general fund budget is $30.7 million, said Finance Director Forrest Longman.
That’s about one-third of Bellingham’s revised 2020 general fund budget of $92.7 million.
Major U.S. cities typically spend about 30% to 40% of their total general fund budgets on policing, according to a 2017 study of 100 municipal budgets by Statista, which supplies data for research.
But those numbers are getting a second look in cities across the country, as research compiled by The Center for Popular Democracy, Law for Black Lives and the Black Youth Project 100, argues that “investment in mental health, housing, youth development and living wages would stabilize communities and prove more effective than policing.”
For Whatcom County, the current amended 2020 general fund budget for the Sheriff’s Office Is $18.9 million out of a general fund budget of $98.4 million, said Brad Bennett, county finance manager.
Bellingham’s 2019-2020 adopted budget document recognizes “the need for the professional men and women in our police and fire departments.”
It adds four police officers over those two years to “increase community presence and emphasize our community policing philosophy.”
Budget discussions in 2019-2020 included these goals:
▪ Continue to operate under a community policing model that supports positive community relations.
▪ Continue building a patrol-based mental health, substance addiction and homeless partnership with local social service providers (Homeless Outreach Team, Critical Police Incident Team).
▪ Continue training in de-escalation with an expectation to meet or exceed the legislative mandate (I-940) which was passed in 2019.
▪ Continue training in mental health and critical incident handling.
More than half the Police Department’s 2020 budget is salaries, wages and benefits, totaling $21.8 million.
Another large line item is “professional services” totaling nearly $2.2 million.
Longman said that includes Bellingham’s share of countywide 911 dispatch services, almost $1 million, about $300,000 for home monitoring, employment testing, and about $150,000 to the Whatcom Humane Society for animal control.
Civilian review panel
Mayor Fleetwood promised marchers that he would set a series of community “listening sessions” to discuss racial profiling, implicit bias, and changes that would give police officers more tools to address public-safety issues stemming from homelessness, addiction and poverty, The Herald previously reported.
“There’s so much that I fundamentally agree with,” Fleetwood said to marchers. “I want to make progress. I want to make meaningful progress.”
Bellingham’s city charter, a governing document equivalent to its constitution, gives the City Council power to “establish advisory boards with such functions and number of members as it may determine. The members of such boards shall be appointed and removed by the mayor.”
Just this year, the council created a Climate Action Committee and an Immigration Advisory Committee.
So a civilian police review panel requires City Council action, and the mayor can appoint its members, but it can only make recommendations and has no legislative power.
Recent calls for action come from a community that’s almost all white, including its mayor, City Council and the heads of city departments.
Some 77.7% of Bellingham’s population of 92,314 people is non-Hispanic white, according to 2019 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. About 1.6% are Black, 1.3% are American Indian or Alaska Native and around 6.6% are Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
Nearly 5% of residents describe themselves as biracial.
And 9.3% describe themselves as Hispanic or Latino, according to the census.
Watchdog panel gains favor
The idea for local civilian oversight of police gained momentum May 31 at the website of the Riveters Collective civic-action group, along with a sample letter and email addresses for Fleetwood and Police Chief David Doll.
Lee Che Leong of Bellingham helped spark the RIveters’ efforts.
“I think it’s important to have external accountability,” Leong told The Bellingham Herald in an interview. “Independent civilian-led review is necessary for accountability. It’s a necessary and critical piece of good governance.”
In an email, Fleetwood told The Herald that the city has received “many requests for action” and would consider them.
“At this very momentous time, people like me, as we listen and learn, and at times feel discomfort, must work with our community to do the important work of translating protest into action,” Fleetwood told The Herald in an email.
“The city of Bellingham is committed to listening and learning, to promoting awareness, to facilitating dialogue, to building equity and social justice that makes the safety, dignity and humanity of all people our priority,” Fleetwood said. “We are committed to examining our structures, looking for ways in which we contribute to systemic racism, and fixing them. Cities across the nation will need to tailor actions to the unique needs of their own community. I am committed to doing that in Bellingham.”
Reform complaint process
Rosalinda Guillen is head of Community to Community, which advocates for social justice among farm workers, many of them Hispanic immigrants.
In an interview, Guillen said the work of a police review committee could parallel the council’s immigration panel and examine police cooperation with Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security.
“It’s been an ongoing struggle for Black and brown people to be believed about racial profiling,” Guillen said.
Guillen said she’d like to see a civilian watchdog panel reform the complaint process so victims don’t have to file a report at the police station, and see the department focus seriously on institutional racism and unconscious bias.
Further, she’d wants weapons and equipment associated with the military removed from police arsenals.
Support for change
City Council member Hollie Huthman, a member of the council’s Public Health, Safety, and Justice Committee, told The Herald in an interview that she favors the kind of council session Fleetwood proposes.
“I’ve always been a strong proponent of criminal-justice reform, particularly in investing our resources in prevention,” said Huthman, who has a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University in sociology and criminology.
“We have been making moves toward that sort of model,” Huthman said.
Even before the “defund” movement gained popularity, however, many Bellingham residents were seeking criminal-justice reforms, including the formation of a civilian police oversight commission.
And Bellingham and Whatcom County have taken several steps toward changing the way that law-enforcement agencies and the courts approach crime, including the Sheriff’s Office GRACE program and Bellingham Police’s behavioral-health officer programs.
Council member Dan Hammill, who heads the Public Health, Safety, and Justice Committee, was an early advocate for GRACE and worked with other agencies and secure funds to get it off the ground.
“We could be taking the opportunity to respond with social workers,” Hammill told The Herald. “Sending social workers and nurses is probably a better response than sending uniformed police, unless there is a violent incident.”
Other social and criminal justice efforts countywide include programs to fight homelessness, provide mental health and addiction services, and use home detention and work-release for low-risk offenders.
Bellingham officers undergo implicit bias training using the nationally recognized Fair and Impartial Policing model, police spokeswoman Lt. Claudia Murphy told The Herald in an interview last year.
Budget talks just starting
Budget discussions for the years 2021 and 2022 are just beginning, and all departments are aware that funding cuts are likely because of revenue shortfalls from the economic downturn in the wake of business closures and other efforts to fight the new coronavirus.
“We are receiving many requests for action and we intend to thoughtfully consider them. I look forward to working with the City Council to first listen and learn, engaging our community and hearing their diverse range of experiences and stories, then taking necessary actions that are tailored and appropriate to the unique needs of Bellingham,” Fleetwood told The Herald.
“From the tragedies we see in such large and disturbing numbers, there must be a sustaining public insistence that good comes from all of this. That is our measure of success,” he said.
▪ Continue to operate under a community policing model that supports positive community relations.
▪ Continue training in de-escalation with an expectation to meet or exceed the legislative mandate (I-940) which was passed in 2019.
