POLICE OFFICERS FACE DISMISSAL

By Chris Cook - Forks Forum editor

Forks Police Department officers face a hearing today that may result in their being fired.

What’s known as Loudermille “name clearing” hearings are scheduled by City of Forks Mayor Nedra Reed for today and for Tuesday, Feb. 19.

The actions of two police officers and a police dispatcher are the focus of the hearings. All three were placed on administrative leave in late January following a meeting with the mayor, and remain unnamed.

The police officers and dispatcher are being represented by  the Teamsters Union, which is the union for officers and staff working for the Forks Police Department. 

The hearings, and the reasons why the city employees face dismissal, are being kept confidential due to privacy laws, Reed said.

In response to the mayor’s actions, Karleen Powell, the ex-wife of Forks Police Chief Mike Powell, is seeking the mayor’s recall.

A report in the Sunday edition of the Peninsula Daily News cited two recent investigations of the police chief, one made internally last summer, and one done in November by the Association of Washington Cities. In the report Reed refused to divulge the results of the investigations.

Karleen Powell told the Forks Forum that “some say ‘she’s doing it for herself,’ but I’m doing it because police officers are being targeted for standing up against the police chief, they are the last of the old guard.”

Reed disagrees with Powell’s contention.

She said the attrition rate within the Forks Police Department is rooted in money.

Some officers the city hired are lured away by higher paying jobs. Others find their spouses don’t like living in Forks.
This comes at a cost, more than a scheduling inconvenience, she said, for the City of Forks often pays thousands of dollars to send a new-hire to the Washington state police academy.

“It takes a special person,” she said of police officers who make a decision to move to Forks to work as a police officer.
She said, for example, Clallam Bay Correction Center pays a higher wage with no shift work.

Forks Police Officers are required to work shifts. “Shift work is hard on families,” she said.
She said jobs paying $20,000-$25,000 more per year have lured away Forks police officers to Renton, the University of Washington in Seattle, to Kent, Issaquah and other cities in the state.

The department provides round-the-clock coverage for the City of Forks with a chief and seven full-time officers. A position based at the local schools is open due to funding restraints. Dispatchers work 12 hour shifts with the department. She said dispatchers are also lured away by higher pay. For example, a former Forks dispatcher moved to Jefferson County and now makes $6-7 more per hour.

She said this is a common problem for rural cities.

Reed said at the upcoming disciplinary hearings if an employee is terminated they can appeal, and seek arbitration.
“They will have a chance to respond, to present their side,” Reed said of the confidential hearings.

Following the hearings Reed said she will have “to make a decision based on the best interest of the employee and of the city.”

She will have two-to-five days following the hearing to make a decision.

Karleen Powell – who has lived in Forks for about eight years and works an accounting job and a part-time cashier’s job – placed an ad in the Feb. 6 issue of the Forks Forum seeking support for drawing up a petition aimed at recalling Reed.

“I received quite a big response,” she said, though requests for volunteers to serve on a recall committee are going unanswered. “Some are afraid of retaliation from the city and losing business,” she said of requests to business people to become part of the effort.

Powell said she needs just over 200 signatures to validate the petition, based on the number of votes Reed received when she was last re-elected, and would take the petition to the Superior Court of Clallam County. Reed won her first term in the 2001 election, and became mayor in 2002. Her current, second term runs through 2009.

When asked who would become mayor if the recall succeeded, Powell said the City Council would determine that.

Her charges against the mayor would include violation of her oath of office, not upholding the laws and some abuse of power, Powell said.

Powell is scheduling a recall meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 26 in Forks at a site yet to be determined.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Reed said of the employee hearings. “I apologize to the community for any embarrassment this might have caused.”

She backed up her actions. “Decisions I made, were made by law,” she said.

Reed worked for the Department of Corrections in Washington state for 25 years, starting at Olympic Corrections Center, then named Clearwater, in 1967.

She said from working in corrections administration she has “lots of experience with personnel issues” similar to those being faced by the Forks Police Department.

“Mayors are called upon to make decisions that not everyone agrees with,” Reed said. 

She said in taking the personnel action she adhered to the city law, policies and contracts, which are the “basis for a good decision,” she said. “I feel I am serving the community well.”