Bloglander

Spokane is apparently the 22nd most dangerous city in the entire United States. At least, that's what the folks over at Safewise would have you believe. 

You remember Safewise (or maybe you don't). They're the home-security system advertiser/seller who has a monied interest in scaring you out of your hard-earned cash and into a fancy new alarm system. 

Earlier this month, the company released a list of the "30 Most Dangerous Cities in America — 2016." Using the most recent FBI crime data and population data, Safewise crunched the numbers for violent crimes per 1,000 people and property crimes per 1,000 people, and voila! You get the 30 most dangerous cities in the country.  

(They left out cities with less than 10,000 residents and those that didn't submit a complete crime report to the FBI.)  

Topping the list is little Tukwila, Washington, a suburb in King County with a population approaching 20,000 as of 2014. According to Safewise, Tukwila sees 8.18 violent crimes per 1,000 people and 165.75 property crimes per 1,000 people. 

Spokane, which has the lowest violent crime rate among the 30 cities listed, comes in at No. 22: 5.48 violent crimes per 1,000 and 85.59 property crimes per 1,000. 

But there are a few problems with Safewise's rankings. 

First, it appears that the number crunchers simply added the rate of violent crimes and the rate of property crimes, which means murder and rape are weighted the same as stealing a TV from Wal-Mart. 

Second, big cities such as Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis, which frequently top "most violent cities" lists, are missing from this report. One explanation could be that beleaguered places like Chicago are less likely to bother police with something like a burglary, when they have drive-by shootings to deal with.

Finally, according to Spokane Police Officer Teresa Fuller, crime reporting systems across the country can vary. Although Safewise is using data from the FBI, how that data is collected at the state level is not necessarily consistent.

"There's a bunch of other towns from different states on that list, and I don't know what reporting system they use," Fuller says. "It could be like comparing apples to oranges to bananas.

"You really do have to question the methodology and the reason behind them publishing this study. It's hard to say if their ranking has any validity at all." 

Fuller adds that other factors contribute to how safe or dangerous a city might be, such as number of officers per population and area and prevalence of gang violence.

An international news outlet based in New York, The Epoch Times, did some digging into the top five cities on the list. Four are relatively small cities near larger, crime-ridden cities. 

No. 1 Tukwila, for example, the south Seattle suburb, saw one murder in 2014 and zero in 2013.

On August 18, 2015, a month before Police Chief Frank Straub would be forced to resign, the chief laid out a vision for the future of Spokane Police Department facilities in a memo to the mayor and city administrator.

It was one, however, that diverged significantly from the direction desired from City Hall.

For example, Straub wanted to make one thing very clear: The idea of moving the headquarters for police and fire department to City Hall was a bad one. 

Police headquarters will remain in the Public Safety Building.

... 

We do not believe City Hall provides a viable location for several reasons:

- The presence of the police department increases the threat level to City Hall, which is already a target. 

- Moving police and/or police-fire administration into City Hall would require significant target hardening and capital investment. 

— As we learned from Mayor Maddox, government resources should be spread out to ensure continuity of government in a crisis. Simply put, if all our resources, including police and fire are in City Hall, and we lose city hall because of a Natural Disaster or Manmade Attack, we are done.

— If we move police administration into City Hall, we would have to move associated units and investigations as well. This would require two floors in City Hall. We say because the chief and his/her immediate staff cannot be removed from police operations. To put it in context, it would be untenable for the mayor and city administrator to be in one building, and the rest of city government to be dispersed throughout the city. 

But in a brief email sent the next day, City Administrator Theresa Sanders made it absolutely clear. Mayor David Condon planned to move the fire and police department to City Hall.

"On the HQ topic — Mayor has been clear that Fire and PD leadership will be at City Hall," Sanders wrote. "Many details need to be worked out [on] that topic." 

The strange thing here is that Sanders had moved former police spokeswoman Monique Cotton to her Parks department position in City Hall precisely to get out of Straub's orbit. (Cotton had informally accused Straub of sexual harassment.)

Texts between Cotton and Straub's assistant, Angie Napolitano, show Cotton was worried about running into Straub as she gathered up her things to move to a new office. 

If Straub had been moved to City Hall without relocating the Parks department, it could have made things more difficult for Cotton. 

In the months since Straub was forced to resign, however, the push to relocate police and fire leadership appears to have been abandoned — or at least set aside amid the current search for a new chief. 

"I was not part of any of those discussions [in August,]  but my sense is that move has been tabled," Assistant Police Chief Craig Miedl wrote in an email. "I have not heard of any impending move." 

Coddington says the issue had not been brought up with the current interim head of the Police Department, Jim McDevitt. Pressed on whether Mayor Condon was still pushing to relocate the fire department and the police department to City Hall, Coddington would only speak in generalities. 

"I don't know if there's any ongoing conversation for asset management as it relates to police and fire," Coddington says. “There’s a lot of discussions all the time about the best use of real-estate and asset management. Anything that would happen in city hall would have a domino effect in other departments.” 

Lt. Dave McCabe, president of the Lieutenants and Captains Association, says he had never heard of discussions to move police leadership to city hall. 

"I think it would be a ridiculous move," he says. "[SPD] needs to have their leadership in-house. They need to be seen. Being able to call somebody up on the phone is not the same as being able to sit down and talk in person."

Rethinking Precincting
But there appeared to be a deeper division between Straub and the city administration. In his August memo, Straub outlined his frustrations with the slow progress the department had in switching to a "precinct model," dispersing police stations throughout the community instead of having them focused in a central location.  

“The idea is to put the police right in the heart of the community,” Straub said in 2013, with the opening of the downtown police precinct in the Peyton building near the STA Plaza.

And Condon, back then, was optimistic. 

“We’ve been doing things the same way for a long time,” Condon said, “and we may need to switch that up.” 

But in the August memo, Straub's irritation with the pace of change shown through. 

"Although we have made significant progress and are achieving dramatic results, our operations have been hampered by — (a) the pace of precinct implementation, (b) the lack of a South precinct, (c) the fact that space issues in the Intermodal [Center] remain unresolved," Straub wrote. 

He wanted to more firmly establish a South precinct location, noting asset management had identified two buildings that would require minimal construction to work as South precinct buildings. If that didn't happen, he wrote, the city would have to shift from divided into three precincts, South, Central, and North, to be divided into only North and South.

"This change will have significant impact on our staffing, operations, and [computer-aided dispatch] configuration," Straub warned. "Additionally, the North-South model is inconsistent with key principals of community policing that call for 'embedded' police resources and neighborhood specific strategies. 

But in her response, Sanders poured cold water on his enthusiasm, suggesting that he hadn't shown the plan was logistically feasible. 

"You refer to slow implementation of precinct model yet I see we are not staffing the precincts (Hillyard and Downtown) we do have,"  Sanders wrote. "It surprises me we have another precinct coming on line (in fact, ready to go) that we aren't prepared to staff."

She told Straub to develop an affordable staffing model and facilities plan before any other precincts could be added. She messaged Scott Simmons, then director of the business and developer services, to tell him that any other progress on Straub's ideas should wait until a more detailed plan.

"Scott — move nothing else forward until we have a facilities plan in place," she wrote. (Again, a plan we can afford and one we can staff in the current budget.)

Less than a month after Straub was kicked out of his job, the city announced it was shifting to a new direction. The precinct model wasn't dismantled entirely, but the vision the former police chief laid out was abandoned. The police division didn't have the number of staff required, the new police leadership explained. 

“We don’t have the staffing levels, nor do we have the financial resources to decentralize,” then-interim Chief Rick Dobrow said in the Spokesman-Review in October. “We are so call-for-service driven that [precinct leaders] had bodies, but they didn’t really have the time to focus on neighborhood issues.”

The Plan For the Plaza
The memo also reveals that, in August, Straub had explicitly planned to shut down the SPD presence at the Peyton Building, across from the STA Plaza, after the lease expired in 2016. It was a major shift from his previous rhetoric, where he repeatedly expressed his desire to keep some police presence in the space.

Although we do not pay for the space or associated utility costs with the current Downtown location, we no longer receive $50,000.00 from [the Downtown Spokane Partnership] to offset the cost of bike patrols. In June 2016, when the lease expires, we should close that location. Once it is closed, we should re-establish our agreement with DSP to be reimbursed with for police services.

A few weeks later, however, then Asst. Chief Rick Dobrow wrote an email to leadership explaining that the downtown precinct was staying put, and the South precinct would move to the Intermodal center instead. 

After Straub was ousted, confusion reigned, DSP struggled in vain to figure out what the plan was for the Peyton building. Without much in the way of clear communication from the city, DSP canceled the lease early. 

Pig Out in the Park recently announced its big headliner for the annual long Labor Day weekend event — the one and only Sir Mix-A-Lot, which is seemingly an unusual selection as it feels like the artist was just here. The Seattle rapper played a sold-out Sandpoint Halloween show two years ago and also September’s Perry Street Shakedown. The latter brought out hundreds of loud fans spilling into nearby roadways.

While Sir Mix-A-Lot is a perfect addition to the Pig Out lineup, hopefully people won’t soon tire of the MC’s talents. As Sir Mix told the Inlander in a 2014 interview: “Unlike a lot of rappers, I embrace capitalism, otherwise it's a life of struggling.”

And perhaps that’s a look into why the performer wants to come back to the area on an annual basis. We, so far, like coming to his shows, and he likes getting paid. In recent years the artist has seen a resurgence in popularity after Nicki Minaj's huge hit "Anaconda," heavily sampled his 1992 No. 1 track "Baby Got Back.”

Of course, Sir Mix isn’t alone. Plenty of artists like Hell’s Belles and Tech N9ne, come through on the regular to the delight of their fans. It shall be fascinating to see where Sir Mix-A-Lot performs next.

The rest of the Pig Out in the Park lineup includes: Mark Farner, formerly of Grand Funk Railroad, Cowboy Mouth, Heart By Heart, featuring original members of Heart, the U.S. Navy Band and also local favorites Peter Rivera & Celebrate and Too Slim & The Taildraggers. The free three-day food/music will bring in more than 90 bands to three stages for this year’s family-friendly festivities.

Also, with the construction on Riverfront Park, take a look at the new festival map below. 

Call it a sign of the times, call it "laziness," call it prudent financial sense, but the numbers don't lie.

The Pew Research Center just released a summary of its census data analysis on young American's living arrangements, which found that adults in the 18-34 age bracket living with their parents have now edged out rates of those living with a spouse or partner in their own household.

This trend is an indicator of another modern lifestyle movement — most young people are not settling down into traditional romantic partnerships or marriages before they turn 35.

The percentage difference between young adults who are living with a spouse or partner, as compared to living with their parents, is small, but it's the first time this trend has reversed in 130 years. At the time of the last census in 2014, 31.6 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds were living with a spouse or partner. Comparatively, the Pew study found that 32.1 percent of people in that age group were living with their parents, a .5 percentage difference. 

Less than half of those not living with their parents (14 percent) were heading their own household in which they lived alone, living as a single parent, or with one or more roommates. The rest, 22 percent, shared a home with another relative, non-relative or in group quarters (including college dorms). 

While this trend reflects recent demographic shifts in marriage, as well as finance and education, Pew points out that the rate of young people living at home is not at the highest it's ever been. That was in 1940, when about 35 percent of people in the 18- to 34-age group were living with their parents. Of course, in that era, it was commonplace for couples to not cohabitate until after marriage. 

The study also found several differences between genders when it came to living at home or not. More men live at home (35 percent) than with a spouse/partner (28 percent), while women are more likely to live with a partner (35 percent) than with their parents (29 percent).

While the Great Recession is considered to have contributed to more young people living with mom and/or dad, the study notes that this trend was rising before then, as 28 percent of 18- to 34-year olds lived at home in pre-recession year 2007.

So, fellow young adults, don't be ashamed to say you're living with mom or dad — you're clearly not alone. At age 28, I was one of you until very recently, and while it was an awkward thing to bring up amongst casual acquaintances (the need to justify it to others was always there), it was a financially smart choice I made, and which I don't regret.

Read the rest of the Pew analysis findings here.

Last week, our cover story explored how school districts sometimes fail to protect kids from sexually abusive teachers. We focused mainly on the story of Emily Keenan, who reported she was raped by her 6th grade teacher, Anthony Cucinotti, five separate times during the 2008-09 school year. (Read the story here, if you haven't yet.)

The alleged rapes occurred after principals or administrators in Central Valley School District heard complaints about Cucinotti's misconduct for a period of over 16 years. Keenan recently was awarded $2.5 million dollars in a settlement with Central Valley, though the district didn't admit any liability. (Cucinotti has not been arrested or charged with any crimes.)

But it's not just districts in our region that sometimes fail to protect students from sexual abuse. Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest school district, recently settled two lawsuits worth a total of $88 million with dozens of children and their families for cases involving sexual abuse at elementary schools. 

Both lawsuits — $58 million for students at one school and $30 million for students at the other — alleged that the school district failed to take complaints about the teachers' behavior seriously, an argument Keenan's lawyers also made in the lawsuit against Central Valley. 

Paul Chapel III, the teacher involved in one of the lawsuits, reportedly abused children over the course of a decade. Court documents, according to the Los Angeles Times, show that teachers had warned administrators that Chapel was placing children in his lap, attempting to take them on unauthorized field trips and closing his classroom door with students inside. Then, according to the Times, a parent complained to an administrator that Chapel would kiss boys and girls in class. Those allegations were confirmed by several students, but he remained in the classroom for six more weeks. 

Chapel is now serving a 25-year sentence after a no-contest plea. 

The other teacher was Robert Pimental. He would later plead no contest to sexually assaulting four girls before he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. But his case, too, involved a series of accusation that led to minimal action. From the Los Angeles Times story:

Former district Principal Irene Hinojosa fielded complaints about Pimentel's aggressive affection for children as early as 2002, when she documented a conference with Pimentel about touching and slapping young girls' buttocks and touching their calves. 

The teacher admitted the conduct, according to the document, with the excuse that he was on medication, which increased his sex hormones. Three years later, Hinojosa received a search warrant requesting "Mr. Pimentel's employment and personnel files" because of an investigation into Pimentel's alleged abuse of a minor who was related to him. 

And those settlements came less than two years after the LAUSD agreed to pay nearly $140 million to families of students sexually abused by Mark Berndt, an elementary school teacher who was accused of taking bondage-style photos of more than two dozen students and feeding them afterward with spoons that contained semen. He is now serving a 25-year sentence. 

The Los Angeles school district made policy changes in response to scrutiny. Most notably, now when police are investigating any allegation of sexual misconduct of a teacher, principals must send out a notification letter to parents within a 72-hour window. 

Marla Nunberg, Central Valley School District spokeswoman, says she's not aware of any similar policy change since Cucinotti resigned in 2009 or since the ensuing lawsuit. She says if a teacher is accused of abusing or harassing a student, then that student's parents will be notified that day. But she says communication with parents is handled on a case-by-case basis. 

Spokane Public Schools has a policy of notifying parents of a targeted student not only of allegations, but also of the right to file a criminal complaint and sexual harassment complaint. 

Cucinotti, unlike the teachers in Los Angeles mentioned above, is not in prison. He moved to California after resigning from his teaching position, and Spokane County deputies never interviewed him after Keenan reported the rapes a few years after she says they happened.

ON INLANDER.COM 

Mobile Homes
Local activist Keith Kelley found a way to move those historic West Central homes after all. Hint: It's easier if you remove all the furniture before trying to lift them. Also, lift with your knees, not your back.

HERE

Default! The two sweetest words in the English language!
Trump wins Washington state. But perhaps more impressively, he managed to lose one out of every four Republican votes when he's the only candidate remaining who hasn't dropped out of the race. (Spokesman-Review)

Vote Late and Often
Didn't we already have a vote where Bernie won Washington? Yes, but Democrats love democracy so much they're holding a primary, instead of just a caucus! One that doesn't count! And Hillary won this one! But it just doesn't matter! (The Stranger) 

The Harlan Crime Wave
Rich Spokane real estate tycoon Harlan Douglass's assistant has been ordered to turn over the keys to his truck, which Douglass says he bought with stolen money. (Spokesman-Review)

THERE

Weird Al tried to warn us about this place.
• Violent anti-Trump protesters in Albuquerque try their very best to create new Trump voters. (CNN)

Not the killer he claimed to be
• American Sniper Sniper-American Chris Kyle lied about his military record. (The Intercept)

FWD: FWD: fwd: FWD: RE: FWD: re: HIL'LIAR'Y CLINTON!!!
• The State Department's Inspector General's report savages Hillary Clinton's email server practices, noting she broke federal record rules, didn't ask for permission to create her own server, while her staff falsely claimed it had already passed legal muster and told people not to ask about it. Clinton, in what is becoming a familiar refrain in these kinds of stories, did not agree to be interviewed. 

So will Trump... oh, he's busy raising a long-ago-debunked conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton murdered a guy? Fun choice then. (Washington Post)

The clock has about run out the for the 13 houses on a block between Ash and Maple streets, and Keith Kelley, a West Central neighborhood activist, has managed to save six of them.

Earlier this year, Sarff Investments purchased the block with plans to demolish the houses, many of them architecturally significant, to make way for a carwash. Kelley heard about the situation and struck a deal with the company that would allow him to find private investors or nonprofits that would physically move the houses before the company started work in May.

“Some of these homes are extra special,” says Kelley. Several houses have Victorian or craftsman style architecture, which Kelley says homebuilders stopped making decades ago.

One of the houses was given to a private investor who will move it to a location in West Central. Five will be taken by The Oak Tree, a religious nonprofit that will move them to locations throughout the city.

Kelley says that it ended up not being economically viable to move the remainder of the houses, and he expects them to be demolished. However, he says that given the short time frame and barriers in the zoning code, “it’s an outcome worth celebrating.”

“At this point we are thrilled that so many are going to be saved and restored,” he says. 

Correction: A house was given to a private investor and five houses will be taken by The Oak Tree. 

ON INLANDER.COM: 

• NEWS: City Attorney Nancy Isserlis will be leaving the city of Spokane in a little more than a month
• MUSIC: Tears for Fears has postponed its summer tour, including their show in Spokane
  

In other news: 

Crash kills two teens
Two 17-year-old boys were killed in a car crash near Post Falls last night, according to the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office. A Jaguar convertible they were in left the roadway on Hayden Ave. and crashed through a fence, then into a line of trees before striking a gas line. Deputies say alcohol was present at the scene and they are investigating if it was a factor, according to a news release. 

A little more than a month ago, Assistant City Attorney Erin Jacobson announced she was leaving the city of Spokane.

Now, her boss has followed suit.

Mayor David Condon sent a letter today to councilmembers today announcing City Attorney Nancy Isserlis will be leaving the City of Spokane in a little more than a month. 

"This is her decision. She decided to resign," City Spokesman Brian Coddington says. "This was completely Nancy's decision." 

In 2012, Isserlis hoped she would be able to quell two of the city's biggest controversies.

“I think the police accountability and the ombudsman issues, at least for the time being, [are] going to be front and center. I think I can do my part in helping this community heal,” Isserlis said back then, adding, "I can’t make it heal.”

As she leaves, however, police accountability and ombudsman issues have returned to front and center.

Isserlis, who once served on the city’s ethics committee, fought to strengthen the city’s Code of Ethics in 2013.

"The old policy has a lot of vagaries and nuances," she said then. "My goal to minimize vagaries and nuances."

She also wasn’t afraid to bring down the hammer when she identified behavior that she believed was unethical. She filed a complaint against City Council President Ben Stuckart when she discovered he’d forwarded a privileged email to one of the city’s union leaders. The ethics commission ended up fining Stuckart for the violation. 

Isserlis also hired her former law firm to investigate the Office of the Police Ombudsman Commission after a whistleblower complaint raised concerns — a lengthy investigation that resulted in the ouster of three of the five commissioners. 

In 2012, Isserlis also hoped that the city attorney's office wouldn't become the focus for the media.

“The business of the city attorney’s office generally shouldn’t be making front-page news, and it has been for quite a while,” Isserlis said, referring to the office's handling of evidence in the Otto Zehm case. “And I’d like to get back to a point where everything’s just not crisis-all-the-time, like it seems to be now.” 

But ever since the firing of Police Chief Frank Straub, Isserlis and the city attorney's office have become mired by controversy. Isserlis herself is being sued by Straub.

And with an independent investigation being conducted by former federal prosecutor Kris Cappel into how the city handled the issues surrounding Straub, the City Attorney's office has been faced with sticky questions concerning the release of documents, attorney-client privilege and whether testifying in the investigation should be mandatory. 

Last week, City Councilmember Breean Beggs, who is on the committee overseeing the investigation, said that none of the city legal staff, including Isserlis, had agreed to speak to the investigator. 

Today, the Spokesman-Review reports Isserlis has decided not to testify at all. Once she leaves, it becomes impossible for the mayor to compel her testimony through the Garrity Rule, though the city council could still issue a subpoena.

When Jacobson announced her resignation last month, she said she'd be willing to speak with the investigator if her concerns about attorney-client privilege could be addressed.

"Meanwhile, however, I refuse to breach my ethical obligations to my clients because of political pressure," Jacobson wrote. 

Asked if Isserlis's resignation was related to the concerns over attorney-client privilege in the Straub investigation, Coddington declined to get specific. 

"She's just looking to move on," Coddington says. "This was just something she decided the time was right."

Coddington suggested Isserlis is unlikely to answer questions from the media about her resignation. 

"She's indicated she's not interested," Coddington says. 

The mayor's letter and Isserlis's letter of resignation follow: 

Councilmembers,

Nancy Isserlis informed me this morning that she intends to leave the city this summer. Her last day as City Attorney will be July 1. She will spend the next several weeks transitioning the matters she is currently involved in to others in her office.

Please join me in thanking Nancy for her professionalism, dedication and commitment over the past four years. Under Nancy’s leadership, the city worked to bring closure to Otto Zehm’s family, dramatically reduced the number of cases in litigation and successfully negotiated numerous labor contracts.

The city is losing a tremendous asset.

Mayor Condon

05.23.16 Isserlis Resignation by DanielWalters

After a seemingly nonstop flow of good news when it comes to the summer concert season, along comes word that Tears for Fears won't be playing in Spokane after all. 

It's nothing personal — the band postponed its entire summer tour, posting this statement to their website: 

Tears for Fears’ Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith regrettably announce today that they have to postpone their summer run of dates in the US to include theatres and festivals, due to family illness.

The band says in a joint statement: “It’s with great disappointment that we have to postpone our US summer dates due to unforeseen and unhappy circumstances. We thank our fans for their understanding and hope to get back on the road soon."

The INB Performing Arts Center, where the band was to play, has an announcement on its website that any tickets bought via phone or online will be refunded automatically. If you bought your tickets in person, head to the TicketsWest office at Spokane Arena for a refund. 

We'll let you know if and when the band reschedules a Spokane show.