Tumwater Council dissatisfied with Police Department's community outreach 

I'm having a challenge, not with the work, not with the chief, not with the staff, but missing voices, and how do we include them in addition to this as we move forward? ”

Councilmember Leata Dahlhoff 

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Tumwater council members who are also part of the Public Health and Safety Committee expressed their concerns about the public engagement process that led to the Tumwater Police Department’s (TPD) strategic growth plan. 

Among the issues raised were whether the police department could only reach out to homeowner associations and what the department did to include groups who had negative experiences with the police. 

The committee met on Monday, September 10, to hear from Police Chief Jon Weiks about developing the strategic growth plan. 

Weiks explained that the plan was developed from January to November 2023. During this time, the department spent one month inviting community members to participate and another month conducting focus groups. 

The department’s community outreach strategy involved reaching the public through social media, email, physical handouts, and the city website.  

For social media, the chief said they used both the Facebook accounts of the police department and the city of Tumwater as well as Next Door to communicate with six homeowner associations that represented over 6,300 households. Emails were also sent directly to homeowner's associations and participants of the Citizen’s Academy. 

The strategy allowed TPD to reach around 37,000 people and get 29 people to participate in the focus groups. 

City Administrator Lisa Parks clarified that they did not target any single group in their outreach efforts.  

“There's some misconceptions about when the chief talks about outreaching to the homeowner's association, there wasn't a targeted request to participate from the homeowner's association,” Parks said. 

“The request was to all of these 37,000 people and that is, please participate as a member of our focus group,” the city administrator added. 

But for the council members, these efforts might not have been enough. Councilmember Leata Dahlhoff said that she heard from community members who did not learn about the opportunity to participate. 

Dahlhoff said that she was missing certain touchpoints in the outreach strategy, such as reaching out to community members like ASHHO Cultural Community Center and people who have had negative experiences with the police. 

“I'm having a challenge, not with the work, not with the chief, not with the staff, but missing voices, and how do we include them in addition to this as we move forward?” Dahlhoff said. 

Council member Kelly Von Holtz appreciated the outreach plan but was concerned that the police only sought people who were willing to participate.  

“If I only received 30 responses, my focus group might not be the breadth of what I want,” Von Holtz said. 

Weiks agreed that they could definitely do better, saying that they reached as wide as they could with the resources they had. The chief reassured the committee that the strategic growth plan is a living document which TPD plans to revisit. 

“We hope now, through this first, anybody that might have been left out that wanted to participate we’ll get to see and know when to watch for the next round,” the chief said.