The Center Square YT: Transparency Concerns Raised Over Proposed Ombudsman Office

Charter amendment 54 that's going to the voters creates an ombuds office that does give authority to an unelected appointed um office of that will have authority over safety issues and um they are not subject to public records disclosure and there was no fiscal note attached to this so it's a whole new department and when we were going through our meetings with the charter review uh spokane has uh apparently an office like this and it was like a million dollar a year budget and in a time where we are coming into some um you know fiscal concerns with regards to our county budget we were arguing this is very inappropriate it should be legislated through the county council which is an appropriate way to start a department and it wasn't so they put it in the charter uh or did a charter amendment and they're putting it out to the voters so i think that ombudsman office is more similar to the 59 74 than um the the one that we are arguing right now