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Vancouver city manager backs chief

By Andrea Damewood
Published: March 5, 2010, 12:00am
2 Photos
Vancouver Police Chief Cliff Cook
Vancouver Police Chief Cliff Cook Photo Gallery

The day after the Vancouver Police Officers’ Guild approved holding a no confidence vote in Chief Cliff Cook, City Manager Pat McDonnell defended his department head today, saying Cook “has my total and absolute confidence.”

The 181 members of the guild voted Thursday night to begin a no confidence vote in the chief, citing what they say is a lack of action on Cook’s part to address numerous problems within the police department.

The vote will be conducted over the next two weeks.

“(Cook) has demonstrated every characteristic of great leadership that I require and this community needs in a chief of police,” McDonnell wrote in a memo sent to the city council. “He has spoken honestly, acted with integrity, and led by example.”

Cook has been with the department since April 2007.

The guild has tried numerous times to reach out to Cook regarding concerns it has over disparate treatment, discrimination, unfair and harsh discipline, favoritism, cronyism, and a lack of management accountability, Guild President Ryan Martin said.

He said that, along with the recommendations of a report conducted Matrix Consulting Group of Palo Alto, Calif., have fallen on deaf ears.

“Nothing changed,” he said in a statement Thursday.

McDonnell, however, said that Cook has been key in instituting change.

“Chief Cook fully supports the Matrix study, which attempts to address issues that predate his watch here, and I am happy to say he has already enacted most of its recommendations,” he wrote.

For the full story, read Saturday’s edition of The Columbian.

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