Seattle, WA
SPOG president praises new contract for SPD recruitment
The City of Seattle has worked to get Seattle Police Department (SPD) recruitment numbers back up, incentivizing a starting salary of $103,000 and a signing bonus of $7,500 for new officers.
SPD currently has 1,200 sworn officers and 631 civilian employees, according to the city’s website. That’s up from only having 424 active officers, the lowest staffing levels since at least 1957, in April 2024.
“Numbers are up. It’s a good thing. It’s amazing what a contract can do,” Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) President Mike Solan told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the City of Seattle reached a new collective bargaining agreement with the SPOG, which represents all Seattle police officers.
Under the agreement, police officers will receive a retroactive pay increase of 6% for 2024 and 4.1% for 2025. Officers will get an additional 2.7% increase in 2026, and the 2027 increase will range from 3% to 4%, depending on the Consumer Price Index.
Solan told KIRO host John Curley the two typically go without a contract for around three years, but this time it was over 12 years before a deal was made.
“To me, it’s unacceptable. But I credit the Harrell administration for recognizing that we’re in a public safety quagmire, as I usually refer to it, and they thought outside the box, and they got serious at the table. And we did as well, our contract team, and we put a deal together that I think the constituents across the city will want to have more cops,” he said.
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
Follow @https://twitter.com/jcurleyshow
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Thanks to Carrie Brown for the westward view of our Saturday night sunset. The high today hit 68 at the airport – eight degrees above normal – but nowhere near the record for this date, which was 89 degrees back in 2016. The forecast suggests two more days of partly sunny, almost-70-degree weather, before the chance of rain returns.
CHICAGO (AP) — The struggling New York Mets placed former Seattle Mariners second baseman/designated hitter Jorge Polanco on the 10-day injured list on Saturday with a right wrist contusion.
Mariners Injury Update: Latest on Robles, Vargas and more
The move was made retroactive to Wednesday, a day after Polanco went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in a 2-1 loss at the Los Angeles Dodgers. The 32-year-old Polanco is batting .179 (10 for 56) with a homer and two RBIs in his first season with New York, which has lost nine straight.
“When doctors first took a look at him, it looked like he got hit by a pitch when he didn’t,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “In talking to him, it was just a couple of swings that he took that night. … He didn’t think much of it, but just got worse the following day.
“So you just got to let it calm down a little bit and then we’ll go from there. But we don’t have a timetable for how long this is going to last.”
Polanco, who signed a two-year, $40 million contract with the Mets in December, also has been dealing with an ankle issue.
“He was trending in the right direction,” Mendoza said of the ankle injury. “It’s definitely going to help, obviously now with him being shut down. But the biggest thing now is that we’ve got to take care of that wrist.”
Polanco spent the previous two seasons with the Mariners, who acquired him in a February 2024 trade with the Minnesota Twins.
Polanco struggled during his first season with Seattle in 2024, hitting just .213 with 16 homers in 118 games while playing through a knee injury that didn’t become public knowledge until after the season.
But after the Mariners somewhat surprisingly brought him back for a one-year contract in 2025, Polanco rebounded to hit .265 with 26 homers and an .821 OPS in 138 games last season. He then added three homers during Seattle’s playoff run, along with a 15th-inning walkoff single in Game 5 of the American League Division Series that sent the Mariners to their first ALCS in 24 years.
Seattle Sports staff made additions to this post.
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