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Near the end of Jenny Durkan鈥檚 tenure as mayor, she is bearing the brunt of the Seattle Police Department鈥檚 criticism — for handing them checks.

To address the 鈥渋mmediate need鈥� to fully staff SPD and emergency dispatch, Mayor Durkan has announced in the form of additional signing bonuses.

While the order is ultimately subject to city council approval, the measure is intended to ramp up staffing in light of 310 vacancies in SPD and 21 in Community Safety Communications (CSC), as of July 2021 (62 SPD and 17 CSC new hires are reported in 2017). Neither figure accounts for recent separations over the vaccine mandate, for which the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) attributes 130 officers taken off duty, a figure encompassing exemption requests that have yet to reach decision.

Rantz: Mayor quietly admits Seattle Police staffing crisis, but could be too late

SPOG President Mike Solan has dismissed the mayor’s order as an attempt to deflect blame away from her administration in light of 鈥渉istoric levels of crime, putting public safety into jeopardy,鈥� Solan told 成人X站 Radio鈥檚 Dori Monson Show.

鈥淒angling money to recruit new or lateral hires won鈥檛 get the job done,鈥� Solan in an SPOG Board of Directors press release Nov. 1. 鈥淪eattle cannot simply hire enough people to balance the loss of so many officers as other agencies across the nation are competing for those same jobs.鈥�

鈥淭hey’re trying to optically look good as if they are championing employment for new police officers,鈥� Solan added in the interview. 鈥淏ut the reality is these same politicians caused this staffing crisis.鈥�

Solan mentioned that SPD was deemed fully compliant in 2018 with the Department of Justice鈥檚 consent decree, something he views as validation of the the department鈥檚 reform, and as important context when discussing political movements that call for police defunding.

鈥淭hey said that this agency was the model, reformed agency for other police agencies across the nation to emulate,鈥� Solan noted. 鈥淒ays later, sadly, when George Floyd happened, these same politicians ran away from us as fast as they could.鈥�

鈥淭hey caused this staffing crisis because of that political betrayal,” he continued. “And then now dangling money to lateral hires and new hires, mind you, who are competing with other agencies across the nation for their employment, isn’t going to get the job done. This could take decades to recover.鈥�

Solan characterized SPD鈥檚 staffing issue as a 鈥渉emorrhage,鈥� which cannot be resolved with hiring bonuses.

In the same SPOG release, Solan indicated that he is looking toward a new mayoral administration to ramp up SPD staffing to the level he considers appropriate. That release implies that the issue not only lies with increasing new hires, but improving relationships with current SPD officers.

鈥淪POG would like to suggest to our current and soon-to-be newly elected politicians that if you want to hire new and lateral police officers, we suggest you also take care of your current officers,鈥� the release continues. 鈥淭hese officers worked during the pandemic, are feeling the impacts of dangerous staffing levels and are without a union contract. SPOG is looking forward to working with our new mayor and the current/new city council members to remedy our city鈥檚 issues.鈥�

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on 成人X站 Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.