Jun. 12—The Spokane City Council has broadened the authority to investigate the city's chief of police, in the wake of complaints that police Chief Craig Meidl engaged in inappropriate communications with local business owners and Mayor Nadine Woodward's refusal to investigate the claims.

"I think fundamentally, this is an issue about transparency," said Councilman Zack Zappone. "The mayor has a choice and could build community trust if she would just start an investigation so that the community can know what happened, and she chose not do it."

"People should be asking themselves, why?" Zappone added, before noting that Meidl has donated to Woodward's re-election campaign.

On Monday, the council voted 6-1 to remove a section of city code that stipulates that complaints against the Spokane police chief will be directed to the mayor and investigated by the city's human resources department. While the mayor retains the authority to investigate city employees under a provision of the city charter, City Council President Breean Beggs stated that removing this section of city code has restored the broad powers of the Office of the Police Ombudsman to investigate allegations of misconduct also granted by the charter.

However, the ordinance passed Monday requires the Office of the Police Ombudsman to "strive to let other entities" investigate the police chief before conducting an investigation of its own. The ordinance was passed under emergency rules, meaning it takes effect immediately and did not need to undergo a first reading.

Councilman Jonathan Bingle, who voted against the ordinance, said he supported transparency and police oversight, but questioned whether the council was opening the city up to legal risk by moving so quickly.

"There are many legal concerns that I would love to get more information about," Bingle said. "I 100% believe in police oversight, and I just want to make sure we're doing it in the proper way. The understanding I had is that this does open us up to a fair amount of litigation."

On Monday, Meidl released a five-minute video through the police department arguing that the City Council should not give the ombudsman the authority to investigate his conduct.

Meidl said the ordinance was being pushed in response to a "false narrative that I refused to cooperate with an investigation," and that the media had failed to report he had agreed to an interview with the ombudsman. Beggs has said the ombudsman's investigation revealed Meidl engaged in a "shadow public advocacy campaign" with business owners, but that a full investigation was needed due to limitations on the ombudsman's ability to review Meidl's conduct. In a recent interview with the Inlander, Ombudsman Bart Logue said the investigation left unanswered questions, and argued that broader authority would have allowed his office to investigate further.

On April 24, the City Council passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the mayor to investigate the police chief, arguing Woodward was required to do so under city law. Hours before, Woodward called an impromptu press conference to slam the council for considering the resolution. They would later that evening pass a resolution calling on her to investigate the police chief as appears to be required by city code. The mayor said an investigation had already been conducted.

"I am deeply concerned about the council's insistence on keeping alive a topic that has already gone through an independent investigation by the Office of the Police Ombudsman," she said. "Another costly investigation is redundant, it is unnecessary and erodes the work of our independent ombudsman."

When pressed on why she wasn't conducting an independent investigation through the Human Resources Department by KREM 2 Chief Journalist Amanda Roley, Woodward reiterated that such an investigation had already been conducted by the Office of the Police Ombudsman. She further said she would investigate complaints "by the community," but disregarded the complaints raised by activists living in the city, saying they were politically motivated and therefore she was not obligated to respond to them.

The mayor has also argued the complaints do not actually allege any misconduct by Meidl, saying that his communications with business owners were not irregular. Meidl has stated he has equally gone out of his way to provide information and documents to other members of the community, including some of the activists calling for his resignation.

Not everyone agrees the police department or Meidl goes out of their way to release records . Debbie Novak, whose son David Novak was shot and killed by police in 2019, spoke shortly before Monday's vote to encourage the City Council to expand the ombudsman's authority.

"In my case, the city was fined $11,380 for failing to release information," Novak said. "This was after three years of asking for items to be released. Imagine what it's like to try to prove that records that you don't have exist?"

"This is a pattern that must stop," she added. "Chief Meidl should welcome an investigation to clear his name."

Now, as Woodward voices her opposition to the ombudsman having the authority to independently investigate the police chief, the administration appears to have simplified its argument. In a brief interview, city spokesman Brian Coddington said the ombudsman's review of Meidl's communications had been outside the scope of the investigation but maintained that the mayor was not obligated to investigate the complaint because the administration does not believe it amounts to misconduct.

In an interview last Tuesday, Woodward argued that a voter-approved amendment to the city charter is necessary to expand the powers of the ombudsman, and said the ordinance approved Monday is just the latest example of the City Council's left-leaning supermajority trying to usurp the powers of the strong mayor approved by voters in 2001.

A charter provision adopted in 2011 gives the mayor authority to investigate "the affairs of the city." Beggs has acknowledged the mayor's power to investigate was prescribed in the charter, but argued that a more recent 2013 charter amendment formalizing the powers of the Office of the Police Ombudsman has supremacy.

That section directs the office to independently investigate "any matter necessary to fulfill its duties ..." which includes investigating complaints alleging officer misconduct. The charter provision does not appear to circumscribe that investigative authority for the department's highest-ranking officer, the police chief.

In Meidl's Monday video, he argued that the City Council was downplaying the significance of their action, adding that in 10 years since voters formalized the powers of the Office of the Police Ombudsman, city officials had consistently understood the police chief to be exempt from the office's oversight.

"The minimizing I've heard used to describe this proposal to change the authority of the mayor is a disservice to the community of Spokane, and a significant change in working conditions for any chief of police," Meidl said.

Meidl argued that no other police chief in the country is subject to the same level of civilian oversight, and the changes would negatively impact recruitment of future Spokane chiefs.

"The city of Spokane deserves excellence in policing and this modification to the city charter is an obstacle towards that service," he said.

Meidl also questioned whether the ordinance could be passed as an emergency. In a text, Coddington concurred, and asserted that the ordinance did not appear to meet the criteria of an emergency and should have undergone the normal procedures.

In an interview last week, Beggs argued an emergency ordinance was necessary because of the ongoing controversy over Meidl's communications.

"We want to get it resolved one way or another," he said.