Allegations leveled at forum for candidates

Published 1:53 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

SNOQUALMIE – Discussion about the issues that will face Snoqualmie in the coming years was overshadowed Oct. 23 at a forum for City Council and mayoral candidates when one incumbent council member accused another current council member of working to create a police force that “rivals the Lincoln Memorial in grandiosity.”

Councilwoman Cathy (Runkle) Reed, who is running for re-election to her Position 5 seat, said Colleen Johnson, a reserve police officer who is also running for re-election to her Position 1 seat, uses her position as chair of the council’s Finance and Administration Committee to influence city spending. Reed also alleged that Johnson tried to recruit City Council candidates – including Reed and Councilman Frank Lonergan – who shared her views concerning police services.

At the candidates’ forum, which was held inside the union hall in downtown Snoqualmie and moderated by the League of Women Voters, Johnson said, “I vehemently deny some of your accusations tonight, Cathy. And I thought we were here for the issues.

“This is a democratic council. I don’t rule this place.”

Reed said the proof of her allegations lies in the fact that during Johnson’s time on the City Council, the size of the police force has grown from a handful of full-time officers to 14, giving Snoqualmie more police officers per capita than any city in the state.

“Officer/council member Johnson has consistently recruited council candidates favorable to the police department and managed their campaigns, hiding her real agenda behind issues such as flood control and growth management,” Reed said, alleging that four years ago, Johnson recruited her to run for the City Council.

“When I said I was not sure I wanted to return to public office at that time, [Johnson] said no problem, I could win the election, step down in January, and she could have the council appoint a member more favorable to her agenda,” Reed said.

In a subsequent interview, she added that Johnson’s alleged attempt to recruit her “was an attack on my personal ethics to assume that I would even do such a thing.”

In a written response to Reed’s allegations following the candidates’ forum, Johnson stated: “I feel sorry for Ms. Reed that she found it necessary to attack others and myself in her attempt to be re-elected – we are not her opponent.

“I have no further comment.”

The size of the police department became an issue as the city annexed what would become the Snoqualmie Ridge community. Capt. Jim Schaffer of the Police Division said representatives from Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Co. (WRECO) met with different city departments, asking them what they would require to meet the demands placed on them by a growing population, without hurting services to current residents.

The Police Division said it would need to double its staff from six to 12 officers. During the city’s shortfall agreement with WRECO, the company paid for the additional officers, but since that agreement has ended, Snoqualmie is responsible for funding the positions.

To house the larger police force, Snoqualmie issued $2.9 million in general obligation bonds in 1997 to build its current facility on Snoqualmie Ridge.

“We gradually increased as the need increased, so we stayed ahead of it,” Schaffer said. The city’s comprehensive plan calls for three officers for every 1,000 residents. Snoqualmie’s current population is 3,416, according to a census recount conducted earlier this year. The Police Division’s proposed budget for 2002 is $1,804,010.

Snoqualmie Councilman Dick Kirby agreed with that, saying that building the staff of the Department of Public Safety in advance of the population “was the philosophy for both the police and the fire departments.”

“The police department has been put on hold since the shortfall,” he said.

Currently the Police Division has a staff of 14 officers, including Director of Public Safety Don Isley, one assistant chief, one captain and two sergeants. It also has three support staff members. Of the 14, Schaffer said two are school resource officers (SROs), and the positions are funded through grants that specify that the SROs work in local schools. Minus those two officers, he said the Police Division is at the 12 officers originally called for.

Reed countered that the city will be forced to pay for the SROs when the grants end next year, and the department is asking to promote two officers to sergeant. She has other concerns as well.

“No other city of this size has an indoor firing range or an armored personnel carrier or the hovercraft that shows up each year in the chief’s budget request,” she said. “There are more sergeants, captains and assistant chiefs in our police department than there are other officers in most cities of our size.”

Mayor Fuzzy Fletcher, who’s running for re-election, told those who attended the candidates’ forum that the hovercraft didn’t make it into the first draft of the 2002 budget, and he said there wasn’t any money to outfit the armored personnel carrier, which was donated to the city last year.

Proponents of the firing range say it saves the city money in the long run, and it also functions as a disaster relocation center for residents in the event of a flood.

Charles Peterson, a former mayor of Snoqualmie who attended the candidates’ forum, said some residents are concerned about the size of the police force, and that it was unnecessary for the city to add so many officers so soon.

“That money could have been used elsewhere,” he said.

When asked if he believed Johnson used her influence to the benefit of the Police Division, he said, “I think it wouldn’t surprise me at all. It seems to me that there’s a real conflict of interest with her being a paid officer and being on the council.”

However, Johnson is a volunteer, not a paid officer. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the State Auditor’s Office said Johnson did have a conflict of interest serving on the City Council and as a reserve police officer. But the conflict ended when the Legislature amended a 1974 law, which said a volunteer firefighter could be a member of the city council, to include a reserve police officer.

Former Community Development Director Leroy Gmazel agreed with Reed, saying it was his experience that Johnson used her position on the Finance and Administration Committee to control where money was spent.

“Cathy isn’t just going off with imagined musings,” he said.

Fletcher said he has not seen evidence of Johnson controlling how the city spends its money.

“She is one person on the council. There are five votes,” he said.

Reed also accused Johnson and Lonergan, who is seeking re-election to the Position 3 seat, and Isley of underfunding the Fire Division by two-thirds when it was created three years ago, adding that the then-city manager was forced to resign when he “protested the faulty mathematics.” The proposed 2002 budget for the Fire Division is $834,325.

Snoqualmie had its own fire department, but the city disbanded it in 1994 and contracted with King County Fire Protection District 10, which would later become Eastside Fire and Rescue, for services.

Lonergan said he was never recruited by Johnson, either for his views on the Fire Division or for the Police Division, which he said was created prior to his arrival on the council.

“There is no fact to that,” he said.

And while Reed claimed that the most recent incarnation of the fire department was established only because an alleged rivalry between police and fire personnel was quelled when Isley became director of a combined Department of Public Safety, Lonergan said Snoqualmie started its own fire department because the contract presented to the city was unworkable.

“They presented us with a package that was so loose and so full of loopholes,” he said of a meeting that occurred about three months before the District 10 contract ended. “So we went out and started our own fire department.”

“It was probably the best thing that District 10 could have done for us