The internal strife within the Vancouver Police Department came to a head Monday, as the majority of rank-and-file officers voted overwhelmingly to say they have lost faith in the leadership of Chief Cliff Cook.
Several dozen officers and their families gathered outside City Hall on Monday afternoon, carrying signs that read “No Confidence” and “Support your Local Police,” before bringing their concerns to the city council later, joining two hours of public testimony.
However, City Manager Pat McDonnell and several members of the city council spoke strongly in support of the chief, who has served since April 2007.
The vote generated the greatest turnout ever by members, with 150 of the 181 guild members returning electronic ballots over the past three weeks, Vancouver Police Officers’ Guild President Ryan Martin said. A total of 130, or 87 percent of ballots cast by VPD sergeants, officers and corporals, were for no confidence. The vote is the second in 28 years, he said.
“We are asking for change, asking for the city council to assist us,” Martin said, noting that morale is at an all-time low in the department. “We are asking the city manager to listen to the employees for once.”
Cook did not attend the council meeting and was unavailable for comment Monday afternoon, but has said that the he has made a standing offer to meet with Martin and the leadership of the guild. Martin said he will only communicate with the chief in writing so that “everything is black and white.”
“My gripe with them is they’re not willing to meet,” Cook said last month. “If I have to make decisions in the next several months, and they’re not willing to meet, then turn around and make criticisms about my decisions, my response is, ‘Where were you?'”
The council and city manager took no official action regarding the vote Monday; it remains unclear what the outcome of the no confidence vote may be.
The administration and union are at loggerheads about how to move the department forward.
The guild says that communication has broken down and the guild’s concerns about disparate treatment, unfair punishment and lack of management accountability have not been addressed.
Cook and city officials say that the union is simply pushing back against reforms that Cook has tried to implement based on recommendations made by the Matrix Consulting Group, which was hired last year to study and help fix the internal acrimony.
Following the lengthy testimony, the members of the guild left in the audience filed out, booing and saluting, as Councilor Larry Smith spoke up on behalf of Cook.
“We have a chain of command, the commander is given the authority to do his or her job, that’s important,” Smith said. “We need to allow the chief to go through the (Matrix) process.”
The council is forbidden by city charter to make personnel decisions for the city, except for the city manager, but is in charge of policy direction.
Testimony from the public included comments from retired Officer Navin Sharma, who won a $1.65 million wrongful termination lawsuit against the city in 2008. Many touched upon that issue, and the subsequent lawsuits by several police department members against the city that claim they were targeted for retaliation for speaking up on Sharma’s behalf.
Many also called for an independent investigation of the department by the FBI or the Department of Justice. Former Mayor Royce Pollard sent a letter to the justice department asking for such an investigation more than a year ago; McDonnell said Monday that the city never received a response.
“There was a study, not an investigation,” former Assistant City Prosecutor Winnie Clements said, referring to the Matrix report. “How much more money is the city going to pay? I ask you, go further, go beyond it. How many police chiefs are you going to go through, how many lawsuits?”
Councilor Jeanne Stewart said she doesn’t think that a new chief is the answer, but that if 130 men and women sworn to protect the city raise these concerns, the council and administration must listen.
“I think that the council can’t ignore these pleas from people who are serving the community to have an objective review,” she said.
However, many councilors said the Matrix report represents the opportunity to ease into building a greater level of trust in the department.
Some also said they think the uproar from the guild is a sign that Cook may be changing the VPD’s culture.
“If the city manager hired a police chief that was truly enacting change, this is the kind of response I would expect from the guild,” Councilor Jack Burkman said.
McDonnell said he will continue to support Cook, and pointed out that the guild only two weeks ago agreed to work through the Matrix issues until the end of this month. Voting no confidence at this point, he said, seems counterproductive.
“One of the major problems has been the revolving door of chiefs, and we need to stabilize that,” McDonnell said. Cook is the ninth Vancouver police chief since 1991. “I know that the chief is committed to doing that.”
Martin, a police officer, however, said that the city manager needs to hire a chief from within its ranks, something that has not been done in 35 years. If that change isn’t made, he said, officers will begin leaving the department for better work environments.
“We hope there is a change of leadership, that will bring us a chief who knows Vancouver,” he said.
He said that the guild would put its support behind Commander Scott Bieber, “somebody in the command level who has 25 years of experience and is well respected.”
Bieber, a past guild member, has applied for the chief position before, including in 2007, when Cook was appointed.
