Former sheriff Urquhart says if you liked CHOP, you’ll ‘love an appointed sheriff’

In King County, voters opted to make the King County Sheriff an appointed position rather than an elected position. This gives up the people’s power to vote for the next sheriff, instead giving the power to politicians as outlined in Charter Amendment No. 5.

KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson doesn’t understand this decision by the voters, and former King County Sheriff John Urquhart called it a “head-scratcher.”

Trio of measures overhauling King County Sheriff’s Office passing by wide margins

“I can’t figure out … why they voted that way either,” Urquhart said. “It’s just bizarre because they really take the power away from … under state law, the chief law enforcement officer in the county. It’s just really surprising.”

King County will be the only county in Washington state where the voters will not have a say in choosing the sheriff.

“You’re talking about the biggest county in the state, 13th largest county in the country,” Urquhart said. “And now they’re going to have a sheriff appointed by the King County Council and basically picked out, chosen by the county executive.”

Urquhart says the city of Seattle got to vote on these charter amendments, but the Sheriff’s Office answers zero 911 calls in Seattle.

“So they’re taking the power away, the influence away from unincorporated King County, which is over 500,000 people,” he said. “But I think even worse, it means that the sheriff is not going to be able to speak his or her mind without checking in with the county executive first and seeing what they want him to say.”

“Take the youth jail, for example,” he added. “[Executive] Dow [Constantine] is adamant that there’s going to be no youth jail and essentially no bookings of people under the age of 18. Personally, I think that’s a bad idea. I think the next sheriff is probably going to think that’s a bad idea. But he’s certainly not going to be able to voice that concern or try to influence the public without checking with his boss first. It means the county executive, and to a lesser extent, the county council, are the boss of the sheriff rather than the people of King County.”

Urquhart also used the recent proposal about decriminalizing misdemeanors as an example.

“And if you disagree with that, as the sheriff, if they try to do that in King County, and I’m sure they will, you can’t voice your concern,” he said. “If they try to cut your budget, you can’t voice your concern. Look what the … the City Council did to Carmen Best. … They treated her horribly. The same thing is going to happen with an appointed sheriff, I guarantee you.”

“If you like the Capitol Hill’s CHOP, you’re going to love an appointed sheriff,” he added.

The city of Seattle, as Dori pointed out, got a disproportionate vote on the issue that doesn’t only impact them.

“It’s like the city of Seattle telling Bellevue how to run their police department, or how to to manage their parks department when they have absolutely no say in it,” Urquhart agreed. “They have no participation in it whatsoever. It makes no sense. … That’s the shame of the County Council who put this measure on the ballot knowing full well that they were taking the power away from unincorporated King County.”

It’s the residents of unincorporated King County, Urquhart says, that ought to be able to decide what kind of a police department they want.

“And they’re not allowed to do that anymore because of the voters in in the City of Seattle, to a certain extent, and certainly to the King County Council,” he said.

“[If] the … residents of the city of Seattle want to legalize drugs, or crime, or whatever it is, that’s their choice. They can do that, and they can live with the consequences. But they shouldn’t be able to dictate to the people that live outside of the city of Seattle, whether it’s unincorporated, or whether it’s one of our contract cities — and that’s over 500,000 people. And yet they get to dictate how they live , and that’s just plain not right. This shouldn’t have happened just from that standpoint alone.”

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