Gilman picked to lead Olympia’s Ad Hoc Public Safety Committee

The city council’s temporary public safety committee met Tuesday for the first time to discuss its purpose and goals around making the criminal justice system more equitable in Olympia.

“I’m really interested in … just laying it all out on the table and taking the chance to allow the whole community to have a conversation about ‘is this the kind of system we want to have?’” Olympia City Council member Clark Gilman said.

The Ad Hoc Committee on Public Safety did not discuss specific policy recommendations. The city council will discuss the charter and outreach for the Ad Hoc Committee on Public Safety at its next meeting on Nov. 2. The committee spent most of its meeting reviewing the proposed charter from staff and discussing the wording of its group’s purpose, goals and scope of work.

The committee chose council member Clark Gilman as its chair, and expects to make the assignment official at the next Olympia City Council meeting.

Gilman said he wants the city council and community to learn more about the path of people who enter the criminal justice system and where specifically the city council can make effective policy changes.

“I think there is more story and data sharing that could come from our public safety system that would actually help us rather than hurt us,” Gilman said. “It feels, in my perception, like we have had a reluctance to share the story.”

Olympia Mayor and committee member Cheryl Selby expressed concern about how the committee would engage public safety officers and the executive team of the Olympia Police Department.

“My feeling is that they are feeling pretty much like a target and that they don’t have a voice,” Selby said. “I feel very, very strongly that they need to be at the table around all of this. … They want to help. They want to be part of the solution.”

The Ad Hoc Committee on Public Safety currently plans to meet through August 2021, in time for forming recommendations for the 2022 budget. At that point, the committee will determine if it plans to recommend the city council create a permanent public safety committee.

This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 11:27 AM.