Sammamish Police Chief Michelle Bennett gave an overview of the last year in operations at the City Council’s study session on April 2. The council also reviewed the scale and scope of their upcoming police services study with BERK Consulting.

The city of Sammamish has contracted with the King County Sheriff’s Office to provide police services for the city since its incorporation in 1999.

Chief Bennett led the council through several metrics detailing how the police department changed in 2017. Bennett said that dispatched calls for service have increased steadily over the past few years growing from 5,753 in 2016, to 6,029 in 2017.

Activity discovered by officers on patrol, called “on-views” by police, have decreased after a massive jump in 2016 after the city annexed the Klahanie area. On-view activity went from 6,688 cases in 2015 to 14,370 in 2016, and dropped in the past year to 12,745.

“Klahanie was definitely a jump for us, it was a huge addition of area and some multi-family housing so that’s going to cause additional calls and additional on-views,” Bennett said at the meeting. “We did have a lot of brand new officers in our city at that time and we had an inordinate amount of driving when suspended tickets were written so that accounts for some of our on-views.”

Bennett also explained that a new rotating work schedule where officers work for four days a week in 10 hour shifts, often called a “4/10” schedule, was implemented at the beginning of 2017.

“Our peak call hours are between about 4 p.m. and midnight, and so with the rotating 4/10 schedule we are able to augment those hours to have more officers working during that time, but then that results in fewer officers working at some of the other times,” she said.

That schedule has also improved the response time to high priority calls in the past year. However, response times have either stayed the same or have gotten sower for some of the lower level priority calls, Bennett said.

Council member Ramiro Valderrama asked Bennett about the enforcement of fireworks regulations in the city. Since fireworks were banned in July 2016, citizens have been frustrated that people are getting away with setting off fireworks with no penalty, Valderrama said.

Sammamish Deputy City Manager Jessi Bon responded by explaining that an ordinance to amend the police department’s ability to enforce fireworks violations will be coming to the council in May.

The council also received a presentation form BERK Consulting on the upcoming 2018 police services study, the first ever study of the police department the city has done. BERK Project Director Brian Murphy said his team will conduct a comprehensive operational and organizational review of the police department and develop recommendations to help make sure police services are aligned with the needs of the community.

“This is the first study of its kind (for the city),” Murphy said. “And it’s really a chance to step back and look at how that arrangement is working, how the department is functioning, and see whether your resources levels are aligned with demands, priorities align with community priorities, and whether you are providing the service as efficiently and effectively as possible.”

BERK is currently working on a online survey to get feedback from Sammamish residents and other plans for community and stakeholder engagement. They plan to return to council in July and September for updates on the process and expect the draft and final reports to be made sometime this winter.