SEQUIM — A Sequim Police Department investigation has absolved city police officers of any wrongdoing for taking public property for personal use when they cleaned out a city storage area on Sept. 26, Peninsula Daily News has learned.
Police Chief Robert Spinks announced in a 5:15 p.m. Friday e-mail to Peninsula Daily News that an “informal press conference” at 1 p.m. today at City Hall, 152 West Cedar St., would cover “the results of a recent investigation concerning the handling of junk and trash by police staff.”
Those items included two sirens sold on eBay for $115 each by reserve police Officer Jim Whittaker, who also took police radios and light bars he later returned.
Other employees took found property such as old bicycles and old patrol car equipment, most of which was returned, said Lt. Sheri Crain, who was in charge of the department while Spinks was on medical leave, in an earlier interview.
Spinks had already left his office and did not respond to a request for comment left on his cell phone Friday after he issued the release.
But City Attorney Craig Ritchie said no one had committed “misconduct.”
“There’s been no finding of any misconduct,” Ritchie said.
The items “were being taken to the dump,” Ritchie said. “It’s Dumpster diving, really. Is that illegal?”
The conclusion of no misconduct being committed was reached after an investigation by Crain.
She announced the investigation Jan. 8, a week after Peninsula Daily News began interviewing city employees about the removal of the public property.
Change in policy
But the incident will prompt a change in city policy.
Ritchie recommended among the toughest, if not the toughest, policy in the state of Washington regarding the disposition of public property and access to it by city of Sequim employees.
Ritchie said he will suggest to the City Council rules that will prevent all city employees from bidding on surplus property, if the city is auctioning it, and from taking property determined to be junk.
Public employees will be able to take possession of that property only if it is being sold or otherwise disbursed through a third party, such as a junk yard or an auction house.
“It looks bad” for public employees to take public property while it’s in their control or even bid on it if their employer, the city, is in control of it,” he said.
“It just looks like they may have special inside knowledge, so it ain’t gonna happen. We may be the only city [in Washington] that does this, but that’s too bad.
“If it goes to the dump, they have to go to the dump, and if it’s salvaged by the dump, they can go there.”
Whittaker told Peninsula Daily News on Jan. 18 that he took the property because, “I was told it was junk.”
Ritchie would not say who told Whittaker that, nor would he say who else was involved in the incident.
Ritchie said he would not divulge the information because he wanted to protect the employees’ privacy and because it was determined they did nothing wrong.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
