[Nettime-bold] WTO after action report: Second report now public

[Mike Weisman <popeye@speakeasy.org>]

Subject: 
          Urban Politics #91 - WTO PANEL II REPORT
    Date: 
          Fri, 25 Aug 2000 13:27:48 -0700
    From: 
          "Nick Licata" <Nick.Licata@ci.seattle.wa.us>
      To: 
          <urbanpolitics@lists.speakeasy.org>





Urban Politics #91 with Nick Licata, 8/25/00 WTO PANEL II REPORT

Urban Politics (UP) blends my insights and information on current public
policy developments with
the intent of helping citizens shape Seattle's future.

Instructions on subscribing or unsubscribing to the Urban Politics
mailing list are at the bottom
of the UP.


A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE WTO PANEL II REPORT

HISTORY OF PANEL II
DOCUMENTS
FINDINGS
RECOMMENDATIONS


INTRODUCTION

        Panel II was a citizens panel created by the City Council to
look into the planning and
preparation of the WTO Conference that was held in Seattle last fall. I
was the Council Member
charged with over sight of that panel. The findings and recommendations
of Panel II are those of
its citizen members and are not necessarily mine. 

        The following selections only highlight some of the information
contained in the 64 page
report. The full text of the report will be posted the on web at 
www.cityofseattle.net/wtocommittee


HISTORY OF PANEL II

        Seattle City Council members Nick Licata, Jan Drago, and Jim
Compton led the efforts of
the Seattle Council to examine what went wrong during the WTO
Ministerial in order to prevent a
similar outcome in the future.  Through the leadership of these
councilmembers, the city council
passed Seattle City Council Resolution 30100.  This resolution
established an Accountability
Review Committee (ARC) to "review events surrounding the 1999 World
Trade Organization (WTO)
Ministerial Conference in Seattle." 

        The Committee appointed the Preparations and Planning Panel II
to "determine what planning
and decisions by city employees, including police and elected officials,
and by other community
members and organizations, preceded the City's hosting of the WTO
Conference." The goal was to
establish a factual record and to assist in future policy making by the
Seattle City Council. 

        I selected the persons  listed below as participants on the
panel because they represent
various perspectives and interests within the community.  They are as follows:

Norma Kelsey
Sister Kathleen Pruitt
Carl Livingston
Clark Pickett
Angela Toussaint
Beth Wojick
Kay Godefroy

        The Panel met on a biweekly basis from February through August,
2000.  Carl Livingston was
named as chair.  Three members, Wojick, Pruitt and Godefroy, were unable
to continue attending
when the panel extended its work into the summer.  Starting in April,
Dian Ferguson aided the
group by facilitating meetings.  Biographical information on the panel
members is included in
Appendix B.

        The Panel decided to allow the public to attend meetings and
participate in them.  During
the course of the meetings and interviews a number of citizens attended
and helped shape the
Panel's work.  

DOCUMENTS

        The ARC Staff coded, processed, and prepared more than 18,000
pages of documents, from
correspondence and facsimile transmittals to memoranda and reports.  To
avoid overwhelming panel
members with the sheer volume of materials, the staff identified
hundreds of relevant documents
for the panel members to study.  Any panel member was free to review any
document in staff
possession at any time and several did.

        The document catalog is available through the WTO ARC website,
www.cityofseattle.net/wtocommittee,  as are several of the reports
issued by various observers and
participants. All of the documents  were made available to the public
through the City Clerk's
Office.  What follows is a list of the most important reports the Panel reviewed:

- Odenthal, Richard (LA Sheriff's Office) "The Battle in Seattle"
- Seattle Police Department After Action Report
- McCarthy & Associates, "An Independent Review of the World Trade
Organization Conference
Disruptions in Seattle, Washington November 29 - December 3, 1999.
- King County Sheriff's Office Draft After Action Report 
- ACLU of Washington, "Out of Control: Seattle's Flawed Response to
Protests Against the World
Trade Organization."
- National Lawyers' Guild - Seattle Chapter, "Bringing in an
Undemocratic Institution Brings an
Undemocratic Response."

FINDINGS

        The panel has found that planning for the World Trade
Organization Third Ministerial was
badly flawed. The planning process for the conference was inadequate,
and, in particular, the
security planning for the event was woefully inadequate to the
challenges faced by the City of
Seattle. The planning failed in large part because several of the
agencies involved did not
realistically assess what would be required in order to have the
conference and the city run
smoothly during the week of the Ministerial.

        In the actual report each of the following findings are followed
by longer, explanatory
texts as well as documentation in the appendix.  

A. Overall Conference Planning and Preparation

A-1.    The planning model was inappropriate to this event because it
divided hosting and security
considerations between the private and public sector with inadequate coordination.

A-2.    The planning model failed because public and private sector
planners did not develop a
comprehensive, written plan uniting hosting, security, and
constitutional rights considerations.

A-3.    Given that this event was as complex as past international
events hosted in Seattle, not
enough time was available to re-evaluate the plan and deploy adequate
resources to address any
changes. 

A-4     The Seattle Host Organization and the City of Seattle Executive
Office, in their eagerness
to host the WTO at all costs, became advocates for the meeting instead
of watching out for the
city's interests.


B.      Security Planning and Preparation

B-1.    The City of Seattle intelligence ordinance DID NOT materially
affect the Seattle Police
Department's ability to effectively identify and plan for possible
protest activity.

B-2.    The Seattle Police Department, despite the clear evidence that
it would need assistance,
was unwilling to guarantee payment for additional police resources from
other agencies.

B-3.    Security planners planned more extensively for extreme terrorist
activity, such as
detonation of a weapon of mass destruction, than for the more likely and
predictable mass civil
disobedience and disturbances.

B-4.    The failure to plan adequately led to the exposure of
individuals exercising their
constitutional rights and of bystanders to the effects of chemical
agents, including "tear gas,"
and the denial of the constitutional rights of all citizens within the
emergency curfew areas.

B-5.    The public safety plan failed to adequately address clearly
foreseeable management,
logistics and communications problems.

B-6.    All members of the WTO Public Safety Executive Committee share
responsibility for the plan
because they reviewed the plan and did not raise strong enough nor
formal objections.

B-7.    In failing to plan adequately for mass arrests, SPD violated its
prior understanding with
protest groups to conduct scripted mass arrests.


B-8.    SPD was aware that the Sandpoint facility was inadequate for
detaining arrestees and
failed to act.

B-9.    The department made no effort to develop comprehensive
demonstration management training
with other law enforcement agencies.

C.  Agency and Organizational Failures

C-1.    The Seattle Police Department

C-1a.   Police chief Norm Stamper abdicated his responsibilities in
hosting the WTO Ministerial.

C-1b.   While the mayor and the police chief are clearly responsible for
overseeing an event of
this type, Assistant Chief Ed Joiner's planning failures contributed
significantly to the overall
failure of the planning process.

C-2.    The Seattle Host Organization's greatest failure was in not
raising adequate funds for the
conference.

C-3.    City of Seattle Executive

C-3a.   Seattle Mayor Paul Schell should have taken an active leadership
role in the
decision making and coordination of staff overseeing the event.  

C-3b.   Mayor Schell was clearly aware of the potential for disruptions.

C-3c.   The Executive sought only to inform the city council and not to
engage them.

C-3d.   Seattle Mayor Paul Schell was less than forthright to business
and retail owners about
both the potential for large demonstrations and the amount of revenue
that the Ministerial was
expected to generate for businesses.  

C-3e.   Personnel in the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, the city
department most
responsible for the overall organizing effort, seem to have concentrated
on serving as boosters
for the conference rather than as public servants looking out for the
welfare of the citizens of
Seattle.

C-4.    The Seattle City Council should have insisted on greater
involvement and fiscal oversight.

RECOMMENDATIONS

        This report finds that the city was unprepared to host the WTO
and that planning for the
event was insufficient. We recommend several changes in the process to
ensure that similar
failures do not occur in the future. 

1. The city council should adopt an ordinance stipulating that any large
event requiring a
significant commitment of city resources be approved by the city
council. Approval may be granted
following a review that includes a cost/benefit analysis and an
opportunity to comment from
independent experts, city leaders and departments, and the public. This
ordinance would establish
the template for evaluating future events.  

        In the case of large events, the review process should include
an independent analysis of
the fiscal impact to the City, not just the hard costs of police and
fire, but the management
costs associated with the event.

2. In the case of events with a private sponsor, there should be
assurances that the taxpayers of
the city are protected from unplanned costs. That protection could take
the form of a contract
with the private sponsor, or a requirement for a bond or some other
financial guarantee.

3. The City must develop a new planning model, which includes a
comprehensive oversight structure
that has a clear delineation and hierarchy of responsibilities. This new
model must have stronger
coordination between security planning and host planning.  The new model
must also incorporate
security planning that allows for the changing nature of events and
establish a system of
incremental contingencies in response to those events.  

4. This committee does not recommend repealing or changing the City of
Seattle Intelligence
Ordinance.  We do, however, recommend that the new planning model for
intelligence gathering use
an approach that makes the most of available resources under the
ordinance.  

5. The mayor should meet with the chiefs of the various security forces
making up the mutual aid
network 120 and 60 days out from the event, in order to make sure
preparations are on schedule.
If all key members of the mutual aid network cannot guarantee 60 days
before that the planning and
training have been integrated and are on schedule, then serious remedies
need to be required to
resolve those deficiencies.

6. Protection of constitutional rights of demonstrators must receive the
same emphasis as other
topics in SPD training courses. Constitutional rights (civil liberties)
concerns should be
addressed like other security issues. The planning model for a
controversial event should assume
mass civil disobedience and plan and train accordingly. Tactics of
protesters should be planned
for and respected.


-- 
Please respond to:
Mike Weisman
popeye@speakeasy.org


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold