By JOHN McCALLUM
Editor
Two information-only items on an otherwise packed agenda were what drew most of the Cheney City Council's attention at their July 24 meeting.
The first was reintroduction of a proposal to rewrite the interlocal agreement between Cheney and Eastern Washington University regarding police coverage by EWU officers within the city.
A resolution passed in 2003 restricts university police to law enforcement within a specific area, essentially the campus and streets bordering it, and can only enforce laws outside that area, called the “P Zone” at the request of Cheney police.
Cheney Police Chief Jeff Sales wants to rewrite that so that it restores his power to grant law enforcement authority to EWU police, and any other law enforcement agency – a power most every other police chief in the state possesses. Sales and EWU Police Chief Tim Walters would make sure their officers' primary duty is to enforce laws and conduct patrols within their various areas, but would be able to assist each other and enforce laws they witness being broken outside as well.
“I just don't want them to come down and feel like Cheney is a training ground for their officers,” Councilman Curt Huff said, adding that he is supportive of the work Sales is doing to improve the department.
Councilman Patrick Rast said he supports EWU backup of Cheney police, but said residents have real issues with the university department's treatment of them in the past, and wondered how EWU president Dr. Rodolfo Arevalo felt about his officers patrolling Cheney's streets.
“We're not asking for EWU patrol of streets,” Sales said. “We want them to be able to intercede when they see something, instead of waiting or requesting to do so.”
City attorney Dan Maggs noted there are insurance issues about liability as well. He also said that, despite a desire to work together, university police would still be responsible to the directions of Arevalo.
“I don't want to mislead you, but you will have no oversight – none,” Maggs said. “The oversight resides up there with the president.”
The council voted to study the issue further, bringing the proposal back at a later meeting for public comment.
In the other information-only item, Human Resources director Diane Showalter asked the council to reconsider the residency requirements for the city administrator position. Showalter said as of Aug. 1, she would be the only department head living in Cheney, and noted that finding a city residence was one of the reasons why former administrator Robert Strope submitted his resignation on June 25 after just four months on the job.
Except Pullman and Ellensburg, none of the other cities Showalter said she contacted had residency requirements. With a variety of communication devices available, a city administrator can be in contact with emergency personnel if a situation arose while en route to the city, providing quick response without having to be immediately physically present.
Showalter presented eight options for the council to consider, beginning with keeping the current residency requirement but waiving it according to circumstances, to incentive pay for living in the city to using larger boundaries for residency requirements or establishing a response time radius.
The council agreed to study the issue and see what, if any, changes needed to be made, although Councilman Tom Trulove admitted he was a hard-liner on the issue.
“I'm not interested in having a city administrator live in Medical Lake,” he said, adding he was receptive to the case-by-case basis. “To do away with the ordinance – I'm against it.”
In other business, the council approved a $21,000 contract with HDR Engineering to conduct a cost of service analysis of the city's water system, entered into a $57,000 contract with Cheney School District to provide a school resource officer, and named public works director Don MacDonald, finance director Cindy Niemeier and Sales as interim city administrators until a new administrator is hired.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected]
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