Tumwater to be paid for port protest costs

By Matt Batcheldor | The Olympian • Published April 22, 2008

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OLYMPIA – The Olympia City Council moved Tuesday night to reimburse the city of Tumwater $7,243 for overtime costs that its police department incurred during last year's protests at the Port of Olympia. The measure requires another vote, which likely will happen next week.

In an interview, Olympia City Manager Steve Hall acknowledged that the reimbursement is an unusual gesture. Cities do not typically reimburse other cities for mutual-aid responses, backing one another up when necessary.

But Hall said that Tumwater, a small police department, supplied seven or eight officers during the protest of a military shipment Nov. 5-17.

"Every night we had confrontations, they were there," Hall said. He said Lacey and Thurston County provided other support by helping respond to police calls outside the port area, but Tumwater was consistently at the port. He said there are no plans to compensate the other agencies.

"Tumwater was the one that suited up and brought people to the protest," Hall said.

"The council felt this was kind of extraordinary support from the city of Tumwater, and they wanted to recognize it as such."

Tumwater Mayor Ralph Osgood said the reimbursement was "quite unusual" but added that mutual-aid responses usually are not as extensive or expensive as the support Tumwater police offered at the port protest.

Also, the Port of Olympia reimbursed the city of Olympia $70,000 for its expenses.

"It was felt that if the port was actually willing to pay the city of Olympia for their cost," Osgood said, "it only seemed right that we request reimbursement as well."

Matt Batcheldor covers the city of Olympia for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-704-6869 or mbatcheldor@theolympian.com.