Grand Coulee city council re-reverses police chief protection

Grand Coulee’s city council voted Dec. 2 night to undo its prior move, made two weeks earlier, to take the city’s police chief job out of civil service protection.

The 4-1 vote was to put the police chief back under the protection of the Grand Coulee Civil Service Commission.

The issue came up as the council was setting its agenda for the evening. Council member and former mayor Tammara Byers asked that it be placed on the agenda for reconsideration.

“I just never gave it enough thought,” she said, “and I feel that I made the wrong decision.”

Byers had been one of the four voting two weeks before to remove the police chief from civil service protection.

The latest vote was a defeat for Mayor Chris Christopherson, who had made it plain he wanted the police chief under his control.

“I have had a change of heart, and I want to fix it,” Byers said.

A quick discussion was held, with all the players given a chance to speak. The vote was quick. Only Councilmember Erin Nielsen dissented. He had voted to support the mayor on previous police chief issues.

The vote means that the Civil Service Commission can again continue its search for police chief candidates, a procedure that had been temporarily put on the shelf because of the earlier ordinance.

There have been four application packets for the police chief position received at city hall.

The ordinance removing the chief of police from civil service protection had come up as a surprise two weeks earlier because the council, at its meeting before that, had voted for the protection. The ordinance had been written with a compromise, allowing the council to approve any police chief hired, but nothing was included about having a say on firing.

That time the mayor had brought in two attorneys from the city’s Wenatchee-based law firm to plead the case. It worked, at least for two weeks.

Byers’ appeal to take another look at the issue was supported by council members Paul Townsend, Tom Poplawski and David Tylor.

The repeal ordinance will come up for the council vote Dec. 16.