Another example of public non/delayed disclosure

How many more examples of our local government still not coming clean do we need? If you need another, see what's going on in Tacoma. Link (probably only good for two weeks from today) and text follow.

Armen Yousoufian

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5136897p-4674190c.html

Tacoma can come clean in Brame case – we’re waiting

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: August 28th, 2005 12:01 AM

Monday should be an interesting day in the civic life of Tacoma.
Thursday the city announced it would open its files on administrative inquiries into more than 30 city employees whose conduct came into question during two investigations after Police Chief David Brame shot his wife to death and killed himself more than two years ago.

Friday the city’s police unions went to court to try to stop the city from releasing the findings, which may involve three officers and eight commanders.

Everything comes to a head Monday morning in Olympia, where a Thurston County Superior Court judge will consider the unions’ request. Also present will be the city, which holds the records, and The News Tribune, which has been asking for more than a year that they be released to the public.

This might be a pivotal new chapter in how Tacoma city government handles itself in the hot glare of a crisis. Will the city really, finally tell the public what’s going on?

While its general demeanor is a cautious defensiveness in the face of criticism, the City Council’s initial impulse on the Brame calamity was shockingly open and healthy.

Only seven days after the shootings, on May 3, 2003, the council commissioned the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to conduct a “thorough-going, no-holds-barred investigation” into how Brame got hired as a cop, how he connived his way to chief and how he ran a department that the attorney general later said was “culturally corrupt.”

The results were immediate and bracingly candid.

In the first weeks, WASPC investigators interviewed 13 city and police department employees and released information as it went. Almost daily, it seemed, we were finding out in real time what went wrong, how, and who was at fault.

That screeched to a halt when the Washington State Patrol complained that WASPC was hurting its criminal investigation. The State Patrol finished in November 2003, when it released thousands of pages of findings and interviews and announced it had reached two conclusions: Nothing criminal occurred in the Brame matter, but Tacoma had a screwed-up police department that needed fixing from the top down.

Ouch. In one stroke the veneer was stripped from the petty despots running the police department. The city’s reputation thoroughly spanked, the City Council regained its defensive composure.

It now wanted something different from WASPC. Let’s have a report whose going isn’t so thorough; let’s bar most holds. Knowing everything is too painful. Just tell us, the city said, how Brame got hired and promoted.

So the WASPC investigation that roared at the beginning finished like a kitten. How did Brame get hired when he flunked the psychological exam? Not sure. (Meow.) How did he apparently rape someone and get away with it after Internal Affairs investigators were convinced they had him? Don’t know. (Meow.) How did he ever get to be chief when the city manager knew of the rape allegation? Beats us. (Meow.)

But even that strangled investigation was too much criticism for some. When the city did its own follow-up administrative review, then-City Manager Jim Walton delayed the inquiry (what he said would take 30 days took six months) and then declined to release it.

That’s Tacoma the way some like it. See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. Nothing to see here folks. Just move along.

So The News Tribune hired a lawyer and prepared to sue.

Monday of last week we met with the city manager, Eric Anderson (on the job only five weeks), and the acting city attorney, Elizabeth Pauli. We presented our case, and reviewed the case law we believe thoroughly supports our position. We told them we are ready to sue.

Anderson asked for a few days to think it over. We gave him till Monday. Thursday he told the City Council the city would comply.

It will be most interesting to see whether the city passively accepts the unions’ ploy to keep the report secret, or whether it fights to release it.

We’re waiting, as a citizens commission said last year while Walton sat on the city investigation, to see if the city really believes in open government and full disclosure.

“When the citizens of Tacoma perceive that there has been full disclosure,” the citizens committee said, “trust in our city government will begin to be restored.”

Dave Zeeck: 253-597-8434

david.zeeck@thenewstribune.com