Mayor Klaas’s remarks on improving the relationship with police
From the December 13, 2022 Clyde Hill Council meeting, Item §5.1
Transcript of the Mayor’s presentation of her plan to address problems in the Administration-police relationship.
For context, the meeting packet included two documents on this topic: a timeline of Administration-Police issues (link) and a statement of police concerns as councilmembers understood them (link).
Here’s the original video:
First topic is that which is the report from me and City administrator and anybody else that may wish to chime in on kind of our plans to make the improvement in our relationship between our leadership Administration and the police department.
That goal does remain front and center. And I feel very good about the fact that there's been a lot of listening going on over these last couple of weeks and really trying to make sure that everybody has had the opportunity to express their concerns -- either directly as it may have affected them or, in many cases, it's in solidarity if you will uh for one of their peers that may have had something occur and really feeling uh strongly that you know that that needed to be improved upon.
We have and we will continue to implement a variety of different tactics and they're really going to be targeting around our culture here within all of our broad four walls… in the sense of really trying hard to be more transparent, mindful of our communication styles in a way that we are more collaborative, are seeking for and reaching out for input uh and just being respectful of people's expertise, their time, their resourcefulness, and getting us to a sense of kind of a functional family if you will and to where everybody feels like we have each other's back and that you're excited and happy to come to work and to be a part of this great environment.
There are still some activities and strategies that we are ironing out. So the plan if you will is what I would call dynamic um because it's… we're going to be testing the water in a few things seeing if this is going to be helpful if not trying something else. Other ideas are being reached out waiting for some responses. So, we are extraordinarily committed in order to try to figure out how we're going to find the right kind of process and pattern that helps us walk the talk and has all of our staff feeling like um we are backing up with what our intent is I'm hoping to accomplish.
I do not believe this is something that is going to change overnight whenever you're dealing with culture changes um that seldom is something that you can accomplish but if everybody stays to task and everyone is committed uh to the process and everyone comes with a positive intent and helping each other. If things are not where they need to be or we still have any levels of frustration then we need to be able to call each other out on that and kind of help make sure that we are moving along. We need to have timely and efficient escalation of issues um and I hope I was really clear with everyone that I had spoken to that um you know there has to be a safe and appropriate avenue by which that can occur and there can be some formal and informal opportunities to continue to have access to get answers to get clarification and um we're just hoping that um everything that has been just very if you will negative and and and foundational to kind of why we are here that we have felt like we've acknowledged that and heard that and that we are all in the state of mind that we're progressing to move forward.
What I have in writing because I know that is something that Council has asked for is a signed memo of commitment um have had several sessions with a lot of the leaders sessions with uh the staff and what we are letting you know in black and white and for our community who are some are listening and happy to post this on the website so we can you know put it out there for our community is that we are dedicated uh to this cause and we really do intend to find all the various ways that we can improve the morale improve our transparency improve our trust and ultimately the relationships that we have among and between each other and that's to our staff is to our residents and obviously with you as our Council.
So again the tactics and such are dynamics some have already been put into place we're talking around competencies we're talking about policies we're talking about collaborative opportunities listening analyzing uh opportunities making sure if we have decisions that we can provide rationale uh and having that access and with proper escalation and resolutions.
So that is my report and I'm hoping that you um feel a level of um uh support yourself um I need that from the council uh and I feel very very positive um in talking with the rest of the individuals here that we are going to be headed in the right direction.
All right. So comments? And I see Councilmember Moore's hand’s up…