TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: August 11, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #21

Research Activities

• Interviews: Alec Fisken interviewed an SPD platoon commander as well as several Capitol Hill residents. Kirsten Evans set up the interview with former FBI agent Pasenelli, and completed arrangements for a panel interview with the current agent-in-charge next week. Chris Neman has been assisting Councilmember Compton in interviewing numerous legal observers and other eyewitnesses.
• Research: Staff members are researching numerous factual items in connection with drafting of the panel reports, including police policies, Capitol Hill incidents, and some early planning issues.

Panel Activities

• Panel One reviewed and reworked their draft budget report. Staff is preparing a new draft for consideration by the panel next week.
• Panel Two interviewed former FBI Agent-in-Charge Burdena Pasenelli. They have been hard at work drafting and redrafting their report. Staff is also preparing a revised draft of the Panel Two report for a meeting next week.
• Panel Three's Capitol Hill subcommittee met to review their draft and conducted numerous interviews. Material on the intelligence ordinance, less-lethal weapons, and emergency orders has been drafted. Capitol Hill material is being revised for consideration at the next meeting.

Documents

• SPD Documents: No new SPD documents have been received this week.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Kirsten Evans
DATE: July 28, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #20

Kirsten Evans is standing in for Alec Fisken while he is out of town. Alec continues to work on panel report-drafting and other research issues from afar. As of this writing, it is unclear what the staffing levels will be after July 31st.

Research Activities

• Capitol Hill: Our investigator, Dick Clever, has produced a draft chronology of the events that occurred on Capitol Hill during the week of November 29th. He continues to interview bystanders and participants in an effort to resolve conflicting accounts of particular incidents.

Panel Activities

• Panel One will meet within the next two weeks to discuss their budget report.
• Panel Two interviewed City Attorney Mark Sidran. They also held their final planning matrix discussion, developed some additional tentative findings and recommendations, and suggested changes to the finding sections. They scheduled a meeting for August 10th to review the final draft. Staff are following up on several research questions raised at the meeting.
• Panel Three met to review and suggest changes to the first draft of their report. Staff are following up on several research questions, including a request from the panel to categorize and tabulate all of the e-mail messages and letters received by the Mayor's Office and City Councilmembers during and immediately following "WTO week." As the two members most involved in report-drafting will be out of town for the next two weeks, Panel Three most likely will not meet again until mid-August.

Documents

• SPD Documents: No new SPD documents have been received this week.

Budget

• Extension of Review: While the panels and staff were due to conclude their portion of the Accountability Review by July 31st, it has become clear that though the panels are actively drafting their reports, completing and exhaustively documenting the reports will require an additional few weeks. Discussions are underway to extend the project and staff contracts until August 31st and increase the budget accordingly, though this has not been finalized. Staff are developing a budget for August.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Kirsten Evans
DATE: July 21, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #19

Kirsten Evans is standing in for Alec Fisken while he is out of town. Alec continues to work on panel report-drafting and other research issues from afar. Sadly, today is the last day for Cynthia Burress’, panel coordinator extraordinaire, with the WTO Accountability Review. She is leaving us to begin her first year of law school in San Francisco. July 31st will be Chris Neman’s and Kirsten Evans’ last day as staff members.

Research Activities

• Capitol Hill: Our investigator, Dick Clever, is finalizing a draft chronology and a narrative account of events that occurred on Capitol Hill during WTO week. Confidential drafts will shortly be distributed to the panel. Our web guru, Jeffery Beckstrom, is already hard at work developing additional interactive maps of the preliminary data.
• Interactive Maps of WTO-related Incidents: The fabulous interactive maps of WTO-related incidents that occurred on November 30th are now posted on the web, with a link from the City’s homepage, http://www.cityofseattle.net Kudos to Jeffery Beckstrom for surmounting numerous technical challenges and producing such a fine product.

Panel Activities

• Panel One has decided to postpone the review and discussion of the second portion of their report until Councilmember Drago returns.
• Panel Two is actively engaged in drafting their report and in developing final conclusions and recommendations, and anticipates completing their report in the first week or two of August.
• Panel Three is actively drafting report sections and reviewing sections drafted by staff.

Documents

• SPD Documents: No new SPD documents have been received this week.
• Document Work Program: Chris Neman and Cynthia Burress are developing a rough work plan for the cataloguing and other document-related tasks that will need to be accomplished as part of the transition of our document collection to the City Clerk’s Office. The draft work plan will be forwarded to the City Clerk’s Office.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: July 14, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #18

Research Activities

• Interviews: Alec Fisken interviewed state emergency management personnel at the State Emergency Operations Center, as well as SFD Chief Sewell.

• Videos: Fisken and Chris Neman reviewed numerous videos, including footage taped at 6th & Pike the morning of November 30th and footage from the Independent Media Center.

Panel Activities

• Panel One is reviewing and editing the second part of their report, which examines budget issues.
• Panel Two interviewed Sheriff Reichert and Assistant Chief (ret.) Ed Joiner, and began reviewing the partial draft report prepared by staff.
• Panel Three interviewed Deputy Mayor Maud Daudon and began drafting sections of their report, and continued reviewing drafts created by staff.

Documents

• Seattle Police Dept.: We have completed reviewing the substantial number of documents received last week and are dismayed by the amount of staff time expended in previous months that would not have been necessary had we received these documents in a timely fashion. Chief among these were several hundred documents received July 5th that seem to have been among Ed Joiner’s files. No new SPD documents were received this week.
• Cataloguing: Matt has completed his assignment with us. Due to budgetary and report-writing constraints, it is unlikely that we will catalog many more documents.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: July 7, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #17

Research Activities

• Interviews: Alec Fisken interviewed Mike Yarrow of the Faith Community and Seattle Fire Department Assistant Chief Alan D. Vickery.
• King Co. Guardian One Videos: After much effort, we finally obtained a final response from KCSO -- apparently no footage was recorded by the Guardian One helicopter beyond the two tapes we already have.
• King Co. Budget Hearings: Alec has also obtained tapes of the King County Council meetings at which the King County Sheriff’s Office WTO involvement and budget were discussed.

Panel Activities

• Staff continued working on the Panel Two report and forwarded some sections to the committee.
• Panel Three interviewed another SPD captain this week and began reviewing sections of their report drafted by staff.

Documents

• Seattle Police Dept.: Several packets of SPD documents arrived this week, constituting an estimated 4,000 additional pages of documents which constitute a graphic illustration of Officer Grossman’s herculean copying effort. Among those documents is a packet received July 5th which appears to contain many Ed Joiner documents that seem to fill several gaps we had identified.
• Cataloguing: Several packets of SPD documents arrived this week, constituting an estimated 4,000 additional pages of documents which constitute a graphic illustration of Officer Grossman’s herculean copying effort. Among those documents is a packet received July 5th which appears to contain many Ed Joiner documents that seem to fill several gaps we had identified.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: June 30, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #16

Research Activities

• Interviews: Alec Fisken and Kirsten Evans continued to meet with SPD officers. Fisken also conducted interviews with participants in the Direct Action Network protests and Steelworkers’ march and met with King County budget personnel.
• SPD Officer Identification: At his interview with Panel 3, A/C Ed Joiner stated that the SPD officers had their badge number engraved on their helmet face shields during WTO. At Alec’s request, Leo Poort provided an example of such a helmet. It had a white label bearing black numbers, very similar to the labels produced by the 11th floor label-maker. The numbers were approximately 3/4" tall and 1/2" wide, which would certainly be visible from a 10-20 ft. distance. As a result, staff are actively reviewing videos and still shots of SPD officers during WTO week. Preliminary results indicate that at least some of the officers did in fact have such a label on their face shield while others apparently do not.
• King Co. Guardian One Videos: Staff continue to seek video footage recorded by King Co.’s Guardian One helicopter during WTO week and reviewed extensive video of police activity on Capitol Hill.

Panel Activities

• Panel One completed the first part of their report and presented it to the WTO Accountability Review Committee. The second portion, focusing on the City’s budget and efforts to cover security costs, will be completed in July.
• Panel Two interviewed Cliff Traisman and Keith Orton of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations. Staff continue developing a draft of the Panel Two report.
• Panel Three interviewed an SPD captain this week. Staff continue work on drafting portions of the Panel Three report.

Documents

• Seattle Police Dept.: Two packets of SPD documents arrived this week, including a general description of documents being withheld by the department as being exempt from public disclosure, the first we have received. Under state law, when responding to a public disclosure request, an agency must disclose any documents it is withholding at the same time it releases other documents responsive to that request. We are continuing to work with Leo Poort, legal advisor to SPD, in an effort to obtain more material from the department.
• Cataloguing: Eric and Matt continue cataloguing documents. This is Eric’s last week with the WTO ARC staff; he will begin a new position with the Clerk’s Office on July 5^th.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: June 23, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #15

Research Activities

• Interviews: Alec Fisken and Kirsten Evans conducted numerous interviews this week, meeting with King County personnel, SPD officers, and representatives from two protest groups.
• SPD Officer Identification: At his interview with Panel 3, A/C Ed Joiner stated that the SPD officers had their badge number engraved on their helmet face shields during WTO. At Alec’s request, Leo Poort provided an example of such a helmet. It had a white label bearing black numbers, very similar to the labels produced by the 11th floor label-maker. The numbers were approximately 3/4" tall and 1/2" wide, which would certainly be visible from a 10-20 ft. distance. As a result, staff are actively reviewing videos and still shots of SPD officers during WTO week. Preliminary results indicate that at least some of the officers did in fact have such a label on their face shield while others apparently do not.
• King Co. Guardian One Videos: Staff continue to seek video footage recorded by King Co.’s Guardian One helicopter during WTO week. The videos obtained last week include approximately 30 minutes of aerial footage of downtown recorded the morning of November 30th. Interestingly, at the time the video was recorded in the late morning, there were very few people blocking intersections.
• Intelligence Ordinance Research: Carol Shenk has discovered that many other cities have rules that limit the circumstances under which police may collect intelligence on citizens, and continues to research this topic.

Panel Activities

• Panel One met and reworked draft sections of their report.
• Panel Two interviewed Mayor Paul Schell and Deputy Mayor Maud Daudon (separately) and held a panel meeting.
• Panel Three interviewed an SPD lieutenant this week.

Documents

• Seattle Police Dept.: One packet of SPD documents arrived this week and was reviewed by staff. SPD also provided
• Cataloguing: We have opted not to hire a second part-time cataloguer when Eric Ervin finishes his assignment with us next week due to budgetary constraints. Given the time demands of report-drafting, it is unlikely that we will be able to catalog more than approximately 800 more documents.
• WCIT: In response to our request, WCIT has provided us with summaries of their final accounting and their 1998 tax return (by law, a non-profit organization is required to make copies of their Form 990 tax return available upon request). Staff will continue to seek a more detailed financial record as well as WCIT 1999 tax return, which apparently has not been completed.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: June 16, 2000
RE: Weekly Report #14

Research Activities

• Interviews: Alec Fisken and Kirsten Evans conducted numerous interviews, meeting with KCSO personnel, SPD officers, Mike Egan from Microsoft, former Councilmember Martha Choe, and others involved in the planning effort.

Panel Activities

• Panel One met and reworked draft sections of their report.
• Panel Two held two meetings this week, including an interview with Sally Soriano of Citizens for Free Trade.
• Panel Three’s Capitol Hill subcommittee met this week and reviewed the results of staff research.
• Staff began work on the Panel Three report, and continued working on drafts for the Panel One and Panel Two reports.

Documents

• Seattle Police Dept.: Several additional packets of SPD documents arrived this week and were reviewed by staff.
• Cataloguing: We have hired a second short-term cataloguer, Matthew Parsons, to help catch up on cataloguing. Matt just received his Masters in Library & Information Sciences and worked for the Clerk’s Office last summer.
• Videos: Staff obtained and/or reviewed several videos this week, including footage of Capitol Hill apparently taped the night of Nov. 30, 1999, and limited footage taken by King County’s Guardian One helicopter the morning of November 30th and the evening of Dec. 2nd.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: June 9, 2000
RE: Weekly Report

Research Activities

• Faith Community: Alec Fisken met with a representative of the faith community and toured key demonstration sites.
• Interviews: Alec continued interviewing SPD officers and SFD personnel this week, and met with ACLU personnel regarding several issues.
• N30 Mapping: Jeffery Beckstrom, web guru, has developed a test web page for our hourly “snapshots” of events that occurred on the morning of November 30th downtown. This interactive map uses icons to represent crowd numbers, tear gas, blockades, etc.; when the mouse moves over the icons, a text box pops up identifying the event.
• WTO Incident Reports: Chris Neman compiled all SPD incident reports and other research materials we have acquired to date that address WTO ‘precursor’ events such as the firebombing of the Gap. We still lack SPD incident reports for many of these events.

Panel Activities

• Panel 3 interviewed A/C Ed Joiner.
• Panel 2 has elected to close their interviews to the public but will release tapes and/or notes of the interviews.
• Staff continued working on drafts for the Panel One and Panel Two reports.

Documents

• Seattle Police Dept.: Several additional packets of SPD documents arrived this week and were reviewed (and stamped) by staff. To our knowledge, neither SPD nor the Mayor’s Office has responded to Councilmember Compton’s letter.
• Cataloguing: Eric Ervin continues to work on catch-up cataloguing. We have received a couple of applications from potential catalogers and hope to hire 2-3 additional cataloguers next week. Finding additional cataloguers is becoming critical as the volume of new SPD documents increases.
• Videos: Carol Shenk indexed several WSP WTO videos and the Independent Media Center’s 'Showdown in Seattle.' Kirsten Evans attended the premiere of 'Trade Off' at the Seattle International Film Festival.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: May 26, 2000
RE: Weekly Report

Research Activities

• Interviews:Alec Fisken interviewed several SPD officers and individuals from other agencies.

Panel Activities

• Meetings: All three panels met this week. Panel 1 interviewed Mayor Schell and Deputy Mayor Maud Daudon, while Panels Two and Three developed interview schedules.
• Reports: Panels One and Two have developed outlines for their reports and staff are hard at work writing the introductory sections of each report. We anticipate spending increasing amounts of our time drafting sections of the reports, possibly at the expense of conducting all the interviews we had hoped to do and certainly at the expense of document cataloguing.

Documents

• Washington State Patrol: As reported in the Seattle Times, the Washington State Patrol has released their After Action report (actually a collection of individual after action reports and other documents) and 10 videotapes. The videos include footage of WSP's Civil Disturbance Action Team, CDAT training sessions, and KIRO news coverage. Also included is footage from the WA DOT fixed camera located at 5th and Pike, which was used to monitor street conditions during the protests.
• Seattle Police Deapartment: Approximately 200 additional SPD documents have trickled in over the last week, which staff have reviewed.
• Other Recent Acquisitions: We've reviewed and made selective copies of documents provided by the SHO Transportation Committee.
• Cataloguing: Eric continues to work on catch-up cataloguing. Sadly, this is our last full week of borrowing Carol Shenk, who returns to her clerkly duties fulltime next week. She has been a tremendous asset and addition to our team.

Budget

• Target End Date: At this week's WTO Accountability Review Committee meeting, ARC members formally extended the deadline of this project through the end of July. The total budget (including funds originally budgeted through the end of May) is $185,000.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: May 19, 2000
RE: Weekly Report

• Mutual Aid: Carol Shenk has been contacting surrounding jurisdictions city by city to establish the terms of mutual aid arrangements.
• Comparison of Event Permitting Protocols: Carol has been contacting other cities of similar size to obtain information on any procedures or processes they may have in place for making decisions about hosting events.
• Capitol Hill: Dick Clever has finished over half of the interviews planned among participants in the events on Capitol Hill, and should have the timeline for those events completed next week.
• 'N30 Snaphots' Online: Jeffery Beckstrom has been hard at work adapting the results of our event mapping efforts for the WTO ARC website and has a test site posted for internal review. The plan is to have interactive hourly "snapshots" that will visually represent and document events that occurred on the morning of Nov. 30th downtown. We will seek to do the same with the results of Dick Clever's Capitol Hill investigations.
• Interviews: Alec Fisken interviewed Assistant Chief Ed Joiner over two, two-hour sessions, Bill Stafford (Trade Development Alliance), Don Lorentz (Port of Seattle), and various individuals at Bellevue, Tukwila and King County. Kirsten Evans met with Ed Parks (Port of Seattle and SHO's Transportation lead).
• SPD Officer Interviews: The obstacle that has prevented us from interviewing many of the Seattle Police Officers involved in WTO has apparently been solved, although we are waiting for official word from the Police Management Association before proceeding. Assuming we get that word, much of the next several weeks will be occupied with those interviews.

Documents

• Recent Acquisitions: We have continued collecting documents, albeit very selectively and at a slower rate, to fill in the gaps in our collection of SPD documents and respond to panel requests. Chris Neman and Cynthia Burress went through the Seattle Fire Dept. documents, pulling the relevant ones for future cataloguing. Kirsten Evans went through Port of Seattle material provided in response to a public disclosure request and brought back a number of relevant planning documents. She also reviewed SEATRAN's WTO documents.
• Washington State Patrol: We began preparing our lawsuit to force the Washington State Patrol to turn over various documents, but learned in the middle of the week that WSP has decided to make those documents available without further legal action. We hope to have them in our office next week.
• Seattle Police Department: We wrote the Seattle Police Department, expressing our concern over the failure of the department to attempt even minimal compliance with the state disclosure law. Our complaints produced a dribble of material on Wednesday and Thursday and we are debating how aggressively to push for more.
• Videos: Based on suggestions from Panel Three, we made copies of various council briefings and budget meetings that occurred prior to WTO. Some of that material is very helpful and will be distributed to panels. We have also received and partially reviewed a video that a citizen brought to CM Licata's attention. The citizen was concerned about a sequence in which she had questions about equipment being used by SPD officers.
• Cataloguing: Eric continues to work on catch-up cataloguing. We currently have approximately 4,000 of the more than 8,000 documents catalogued. We have obtained additional workstations (see below) and hope to hire additional short-term cataloguers promptly, though are concerned that the Experience Music Project's hiring of librarians may negatively impact recruitment.

Budget:

• Target End Date: Based on the results of last week's budget meeting with CM Pageler and CM Compton, we are targeting to wind up our portion of the Accountability Review by July 31st, with no additional funds for legal or investigative services. We will be extending the consultant (Alec) and TES contracts currently in place through the 31st.
• SPU Loans Workstation: SPU has loaned us 3 Techra laptops through July 31st. We're very grateful to Mark Sheppard and Debbie Broughton for facilitating this. The laptops will allow us to have our extra catalogers work on the 10th floor. They have been using workstations in the Clerk's Office that may not be available after May 31st. Having the cataloguers co-located with the documents will make cataloguing run far more efficiently, though we are tremendously grateful to Judith Pippin for housing our staff over the last two months.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: May 5, 2000
RE: Weekly Report

• Interviews: While we continue to acquire documents selectively from various agencies, we are focusing more on filling in gaps in our understanding via interviews. This week staff formally interviewed Ron Judd and Norm Stamper, and conducted background interviews the Mayor's consultants (McCarthy & Associates), Mike Dolan and other protest group representatives. A transcript is available for the Stamper interview.

• Investigator Interviews: Our investigator, Dick Clever, interviewed Ron Judd, Richard Odenthal (SPD crowd control consultant) and Joe Dear (Governor's Office).
• Panel progress: Panel 3, Operations, has developed 6 main areas of research and is actively soliciting feedback from the public. We will post the list of topics on the WTO ARC website for comment via the pre-existing forms.

Documents

• New Material: The City Attorney's office has permitted us to review and copy WTO-related documents in their possession.
• Seattle Police Department Documents: Walt Hubbard of the Mayor's Office has gotten involved in our dispute with SPD regarding the completeness of documents disclosed to date, and has designated Asst. Chief Clark Kimerer as our official contact. Meanwhile, we are exhaustively documenting what we believe are gaps in our collection of SPD documents.
• Washington State Patrol Documents: The Washington State Patrol has asked for an Attorney General's decision on whether they must release their After Action report to us, to forestall a lawsuit.
• Cataloguing: Chris and Cynthia are finding that the volume of panel requests and research is such that they have been able to do very little cataloguing over the last week. Carol and Eric continue to catalog on a part-time basis. This is unfortunate as researching panel requests is far more time-consuming when documents are not listed in our database. We would like to hire additional short-term catalogers to address this issue but are limited by computer availability and the need for additional computer accounts.

• Budget projection: Our latest budget projections are that by May 31^st we will have spent approximately $132K of our projected budget of $150K. Expenditures are lower than originally anticipated due to salary savings given the slow start-up of the project.

TO: Accountability Review Committee
FROM: Alec Fisken
DATE: April 28, 2000
RE: Weekly Report

Research Activities

• "N30 Snapshots": Carol and Chris spent much of the week creating a pictorial representation of the events of the morning of November 30^th. Their 30-minute "snapshots" – maps of protester and police movements as reported in law enforcement logs – will be used by Panel 2 and 3, and are on display in our offices. The snapshots are very helpful in understanding what occurred during this key period.
• Planning Goals Matrix: Cynthia and Kirsten created a detailed matrix of planning goals, threat to the goals and resource allocation that Panel 2 is using to guide their analysis.

• Interviews: Interviews completed this week include several Seattle Police Dept. and King County Sheriff’s Office officials, and Richard Odenthal (SPD crowd control consultant). At the request of several panel members, staff prepared transcripts and summaries of previous interviews with Cliff Traisman & Keith Orton, Councilmember Licata and Laurie Brown.

Documents

• Mayor’s Review: The preliminary report from the consultants hired by the mayor was delivered this week, and is far more substantive than we had expected. The reports does not deal with any of the specific events, such as incidents on Capitol Hill, or day-to-day management during that week; nor does it offer any suggestions as to why the planning proceeded as it did. But it does establish what experts in the field think should have happened.
• New Material: This week’s acquisitions include documents from the King County Executive Offices and the Seattle-King County Convention and Visitors Bureau. The latter is the most complete set of documents to date related to the development of the Seattle Host Organization’s final proposal to host the WTO and communications with the selection committee, and has filled in a number of gaps of our understanding of this period.
• Seattle Police Department Documents: Our discussions with the Seattle Police Department continue to be disappointing. SPD has responded to our formal disclosure request in writing, advising us that all documents have already been forwarded to our office – a statement that we know is false in some respects and suspect is false in others. We are continuing to discuss this with Chief Johnson and our attorney.
• Washington State Patrol Documents: There have been no developments in our ongoing dispute with the Washington State Patrol over its post-WTO documents.

• Cataloguing: Eric and Jill are still working on cataloguing catch-up on a part-time basis, allowing other staff to focus on panel coordination and research.

• Professional Assessments: One of the items that was specifically excluded from our budget initially was resources to seek professional opinions from elsewhere in the country as to the adequacy of the city’s security. That has increasingly been an issue with Panels 2 and 3. The Mayor’s draft report, the conclusions of which are consistent with the Odenthal Report and our research to date, offers a professional perspective on the larger planning issues and fills that gap.

• Cataloging Expenditures: Staff wages through 4/25/00 show that the additional cataloguing work leaves us still well under budget.