Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the perfect town. It's got everything spotless.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
They're talking about Spokane.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Right, Boise is driving metropolis, similar populations, but both with
different results.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
When it comes to homelessness.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
You're not going to see people shooting up or smoking fentanyl.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
What are they doing different and what can we learn
from it?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hi?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Everyone, I'm Sean Olsley. This is the question that we
are asking. Helping save Spokane is NonStop Local khq's focus
on helping to find solutions to the homelessness issue that
our community is facing. And joining me now is Andrew Bartline,
one of our stellar reporters that non Stop Local. You
traveled to Boise to talk about solutions that they're using,
(00:42):
that they are making some traction on this issue. You
report last night was in depth about the secret in Boise.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Just your bottom line takeaway.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
You have some familiar with that area, coming from there
to here, you talk to some city leaders. What's your
big picture takeaway about what they're doing different than we're doing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I think a big piece of it, Sean, is that
Boise also has a different playbook, right, They play by
different rules. The state of Idaho has different laws than
the state of Washington, and so when you look at
what Boise does differently, the conversation could almost be, well,
why can they do it differently? And they have a
conservative state legislature there, And routinely when I talked with
(01:21):
the deputy chief and Boise, when I talk with the
Ada County sheriff, the Ada County prosecutor, they routinely pointed
to the fact that we have a state legislature that
empowers law enforcement to enforce laws the way they are written,
and we do. And it can almost be as simple
as that. At face value, that undesirable behavior for the
(01:41):
average citizen is nipped in the bud and they won't
tolerate it at all.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
The legislative tools gives them a little bit of stronger
ability to enforce it. Chief Kevin Hall, who I interviewed
here in Spokane a few days ago, said they are
looking to strengthen the legislation to allow them do the job. Basically,
that is the model that Boise is using. They're able
to enforce things that our authorities here cannot do because
(02:09):
of the difference in the state legislation.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, and you can almost look at it as the
slippery slope theory. Perhaps it's strange for me, because you know,
marijuana has been legal in Washington since I was in
high school. Like, I really don't know a world to
where that is a very terrible thing legally because I
grew up in Washington, grew up here in Spokane. But
if you cross the border into Idaho, even marijuana is
(02:33):
against the law still. So when someone has heroin or
fentanyl on the street, you see lighter hit and tinfoil,
I mean to them, that is so jarring because it
is a whole step above a lesser substance that is
still against the law. So when you see that, they
call police. Regular citizens do police show up? And we
(02:55):
got the SoundBite directly from the Ada County sheriff you're
going to jail for that? And they do.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Chief Hall here said we need to be able to
put some people in jail. He still thinks it'd be
a small percentage of the people that are homeless, but
he said there are some that do need to serve
some jail time. Most here in Spokane. If it's a
low level offense, it's cite and release. That's the law.
The police officers, law enforcement are handcuffed on what they
can do. That is not the case in Boise elaborate
(03:23):
on that.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, I mean a big piece of it is they
have a similar problem we do as well. YadA County
recently had a failed levy. I think it was back
last summer. I'd have to see what happened this last
time around for the election, if they tried it again
and if it passed or not. But their jail also
needs more capacity, so they have a similar issue there.
But when somebody is under arrest for doing drugs out
(03:48):
in public, if they commit a property crime, I mean
there is a system in place where the prosecutor is
not deciding what crimes they will prosecute or not. Jan
Bennet's hername and county. Great woman. I have a lot
of respect for her, and she says, I look at
other places wink wink, Seattle, Portland where you will see
(04:09):
prosecutors that decide a property crime less than one thousand
dollars isn't worth our time just catch and release. It's
not worth it to us. Where in Ada County, Idaho,
specifically at large, No, you committed a crime and you
wronged someone, how is the law written? That is how
we will enforce this? And do we have the facts
to prosecute it. If we do, we are prosecuting.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You talked about who.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
You interviewed for your story that people can see it
NonStop local dot com.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Well, I'll try to go chronologically if I can remember them.
First guy we talked to it was actually at a
at a laundromatic.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's a fury Miller, Yeah, Austin fury Miller.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
And it's actually funny. I think he agreed to talk
to me because I used to work down there and
my boss in Boise. I think he worked with her
husband at a brewery, so.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
There was some type of you know, six degrees from
Andrew Bartlin.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
He's like, sure, man, i'll talk to you. But he
was born and raised in Boise. He went to Boise
High School, which is is their version of Lewis and Clark.
It's the cool, old looking high school in the center
of the town. He left to go to college at
Colorado State, I believe, and he came back to Boise
because he loved it and it was great. He gave
great insight on his respect for police. Maybe he didn't
(05:18):
care so much for them when he was younger, but
as he got older, he sees that that order makes
Boise a desirable place, and as an adult, he loves it.
We talked with Tammany Brooks, who's the deputy police chief
in Boise. He came from Antioch, California, if I'm saying
that right, and he routinely pointed to the fact that
this is something that didn't make the story. I think
(05:40):
that police officers deal with something similar we do as journalists.
It's not exactly a sexy job anymore, because there is
a group of society that inherently thinks we're lying or
part of this big lie. There are also a group
of people that, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It's it's highly scrutinized. You're under a magnifying glass as
a police officer. Yep, every day what you do, your
behavior is checked every step of the way.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So I think that's what you're alluding to.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, and I'm a big fan of skepticism. I think
there's a healthy amount of that that can exist anywhere
in Boise, though in Idaho. He says, it's very nice
to be a police officer here because the culture is
not immediately assuming everything we do is wrong. And so
he says, officers come to work and want to do
a good job for the community, and the community wants
them there, so I think that's a piece of it.
(06:26):
When we talked with the county prosecutor in the county sheriff,
I mean they are in lockstep the whole way. There
are laws that are written down. Do we have the
facts to enforce them? That is what we'll do. And
then on the back end of it, we talked with
Thurmond Albert, who is a man who lives in Cooper Court.
That is Boyse's version of second in Division. For the
lack of a better analogy, I've known him for a
(06:49):
couple of years. I did a story on him three
years ago when I first started working in Boise, and
he told us, when this woman got detained by police
in front of my eyes, she is mentally ill, screaming
into the sky. She was not under arrest, she was
charged with no crime, but they took her to the hospital.
And a fellow person who lives on the street said, yeah,
(07:12):
that was for her own good. She's going to get
hurt if you just leave her out here like that.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So it's enforcement, but it's also compassion and tough inhumane.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, and it was interesting to hear that perspective. From Thurmond,
because I hear a lot of people that live in
five Mile or the South Hill that will have that perspective,
but you've never lived there, so it's tough to see
what that opinion's worth. But a guy who lives in
the shelters and Boise the low Barrier shelters, who tells me, yes,
(07:42):
that woman that you just saw get handcuffed by police,
thrown in the car and taken to the hospital, that
was probably a good thing. It was a perspective I
haven't heard from that demographic.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well, I think that is definitely something to highlight and
helping them help themselves basically.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, yeah, And I think I've heard you say this before,
and I hear this from a lot of people law
enforcement specifically too. You know, people have to want the help.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
They've got to connect to it.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
You can give them all the resources that they want,
they have to be able to take it and want it.
And that is such a challenging dynamic, and I think
that's something that so.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Far has been unsolvable based on what I've seen. What
else did you learn?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Obviously you're familiarity with Boisy, but then going down there
to do this story and you take away what I'm
reading the tea leaves here on your reporting, there's a
lot of communication among the city leaders and the top
brass of law enforcement. Sounds like they're all on the
same page. My inference right now is the new chief
(08:46):
Kevin Hall, who I've talked to I'm going to talk
to Mayor Lisa Brown tomorrow, is they're trying to get
on the same page with each other here as well.
I would imagine based on what sounds like healthy communication
between the leadership and Boise, that's step one. We all
have to get on the same page and come up
with a short and long term strategy to tackle a
(09:08):
problem that so far nobody has solved one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, and the problems a little different too. You bring
up a good point with communication. I do think that's
a huge factor in this. But the other part of it, too,
is just the reality that it's not just a homeless
problem or a crime problem. There's also the drug problem
and that three headed monster and Boise is really more
(09:32):
of a two headed monster. Yes, people are doing drugs.
I'm not an idiot, but it is nothing like what
you see and spoken. I didn't see anyone with tinfoil
or a ladder. I didn't even see a pipe. When
you go into Cooper's Court their version of second and division. Again,
you don't even smell marijuana because that smell is going
(09:53):
to trace them to you. Right, that's stainer clothes. Basically
for a hot minute there, you'll see people smoking cigarettes
and that's kind of all you see visually as an
average citizen walking through that part of town. And so
I think the percent of people that are deeply in
the throw of a lethal addiction is so much smaller
(10:14):
than what we'll see and Spokane. So their version of
solving the problem, I think is simplified.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Let me give you the last word.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
What was your bottom line takeaway from your report from
what they were told to you, either on camera off camera,
the conversations you had before you put this story together.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, I think that just thinking that a conservative state
legislature that is tough on crime and tough on drugs,
I mean, that's not the end all, be all solution.
I'm not pointing to Olympia and saying that they're the
reason we have these problems. I do think there are
benefits to conservatism and there are benefits to progressivism. Boise
is a liberal city for people that haven't been there.
(10:53):
Everyone on city council is liberal. The mayor, while municipal
elections are not. What's the word I'm looking for partisan,
She's a Democrat and everyone knows that. It's not a secret.
She would tell you that too. And so you get
the benefits of progressivism in the city and the city government,
(11:14):
but you also get the benefits of conservatism through the
state legislature. So I think Republicans need democrats like democrats
need Republicans. And Boise is in a unique situation where
while they don't agree on everything, they do benefit from
each other and push each other forward to be better.
It's a very unique and nuanced But the city does
(11:37):
a lot of things well with housing first and getting
people off the street, and the state does a really
good job of not tolerating any nonsense that degrades the
quality of life for the average citizen. And so it's
they're in a unique position that we're just not in
in terms of what governing bodies are overseeing them.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Well, I know right now.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
City leaders in Spokane have told me directly they're looking
at the boy and the Denvers and the San diegos
that have had some traction on improving the situation with
this issue. Andrew Bartlin, thanks for being with us on
the non Stop Local KHQ podcast and if you haven't
seen Andrews story, please go to NonStop Local dot com.
An important story, this communication needs to continue. Andrew, thanks
(12:16):
for being here.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Thank you. Sean.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
All right, I'm Sean Alsley.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Have a great day finding solutions to the homeless crisis
on NonStop Local exclusive podcast