MEMORANDUM
To:
Port of Seattle Commissioners
From: Bookda Gheisar, Senior Director, OƯice of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,
Chief Michela Villa, Port of Seattle Police Department
Date: October 10, 2025
Re:
Policing Assessment Implementation Review Committee: Summary of 2025 Review

Executive summary
Motion 2020-15 led to the hiring of our consultants at 21CP and the formation of standing,
cross-departmental implementation teams that have sequenced and implemented policy,
training, hiring, transparency, and data improvements beginning in 2022.
In 2025, in response to Commission President Hasegawa's direction to provide additional
analysis and oversight of 21CP's work, Executive Director Metruck requested that a
committee review the 21CP annual progress reports to confirm that the recommendations
are consistent with the Port's equity and inclusion policies. This new committee, the
Policing Assessment Implementation Review Committee, will continue to meet in the next
two years to support and review reports from 21CP. For 2025, the committee has chosen
to focus on fourteen HR-related recommendations for additional independent review. This
memo describes the work that has been done to date on these items, as well as the work
that lies ahead as we near the final implementation deadline for all 52 recommendations in
Q2 2026.
Background:
On September 14, 2021, after a year of comprehensive interviews and analysis involving
over 50 external subject matter experts, Port employees, and the Port of Seattle Police
Department (POSPD), the Port of Seattle's Task Force on Port Policing and Civil Rights
released a final assessment report. This report was launched as a result of Motion 202015, which required a comprehensive assessment of POSPD utilizing "the highest
nationwide standards," with specific direction on hiring panel diversity, training, equity,
use-of-force, oversight, transparency, and advocacy.
The report, which was brought together by consulting firm 21CP Solutions, covers the Port
of Seattle Police Department's policies, protocols, and procedures impacting issues of
diversity, equity, and civil rights. External stakeholders, consultants, and staƯ identified a
total of 52 recommendations for the POSPD in the report.
In 2022, the Port established the Policing Assessment Implementation Team (PAIT),
comprised of an internal team of Port employees, which reviewed and prioritized adoption
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of the 52 recommendations. In 2023, POSPD contracted with 21CP for a second time to
review the progress of implementing the recommendations and to share its findings each
year in a report, making transparent the implementation process and outcomes. 21CP will
issue a report every April for the 2023-2026 period to report on the implementation
process.
In November 2024, Port of Seattle Executive Director Metruck requested that a committee
review the 21CP annual progress reports to confirm that the recommendations are
consistent with the Port's equity and inclusion policies. This committee is called the
Policing Assessment Implementation Review Committee, and its review (captured in this
memo) is meant to complement the 21CP progress reports.
Policing Assessment Implementation Review Committee membership:
Co-chairs: Chief Mike Villa and Bookda Gheisar
Internal:
1. Milton Ellis, Labor Relations
2. Ericka Singh, Human Resources
3. Delmas Whittaker, Maritime Division
External:
4. Monisha Harrell, King County, County Exec oƯice
5. Shaunie Wheeler, MLK Labor (formerly Teamsters, Local 117, Political & Legislative
Director, Joint Council of Teamsters No. 28)
This committee has met monthly since November 2024 and has reviewed all 52
recommendations and the most significant findings and focus areas. For its 2025 review,
this committee decided to focus on 14 of the recommendations related to HR. Please see
below for a narrative of the Committee's findings on these recommendations in 2025 and a
preview of the work still to come.

HR-related highlights and progress in 2025:
1) Improved interviews and panels. Command staƯ finalized new entry-level oƯicer
interview questions that will better assess character, integrity, and accountability in
prospective oƯicers. These have been in use since October 1, 2025. The Port's interview
policy has also been updated to allow some limited clarifying follow-up questions so
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interview panels can pursue substance on critical interview questions while maintaining
fairness. The next step here is updating the interview questions for lateral hires.

2) Complaint routing and employee protections. Work advanced on the
recommendation to explicitly map which complaints go to POSPD Internal AƯairs versus
Workplace Responsibility (WR), the investigative team within HR. The general WR
investigation infographic is now available on Compass. Negotiations regarding the
OƯicer's Bill of Rights continue with the goal of aligning the practices that will be used for
investigations by both POSPD Internal AƯairs and WR. One key note here is that the WR
investigation process will not include hard timelines (as these may compromise
investigations.)
3) A wider, more inclusive candidate pipeline. As of late 2024, POSPD employs a fulltime recruiter and has significantly scaled outreach (42 events and counting in 2025) with
emphasis on venues that reach underrepresented candidates.
4) Increased transparency RE: specialty assignments. POSPD made significant changes
that boosted visibility for candidates applying to serve specialty assignments. POSPD is
now using a ranking system in assessing applicants and all applicants are provided with
individualized assessment performance feedback.
5) Early signals of results. After several years with no female entry-level oƯicer hires, the
department hired one entry-level female oƯicer in 2024 and three in 2025 YTD. Even given
these positive early results, the Committee views continued improvement on gender
disparities as an important point of emphasis going forward. Please see below for a visual
on self-reported gender in POSPD.

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6)

Policies. All Code of Conduct policies are currently under review, and the following have
already been updated: Anti-Harassment, EEO, Reporting Concerns or Violations, and AntiRetaliation. The next group for review includes Workplace Violence and our HR-18
Corrective Action and Progressive Discipline policies.
Areas of focus for the committee in 2026: Where we still have work to do
Data and accountability to promote gender and racial diversity: The Port began
consolidating applicant and hiring data to understand where candidates fall out of the
application process and to design interventions (e.g., coaching for physical ability, refining
interview prompts, etc.) Port implementation team members, OEDI, and Business
Intelligence will continue to collaborate to access the vendor data and craft the solutions.
Standardize civilian/ERG panelist training and coverage. The Port has invited
ERG/civilian participation in oral interview boards, as a signal that hiring quality and
legitimacy are Port-wide responsibilities, versus solely internal police matters. However,
civilian/ERG panel involvement remains uneven outside promotional boards; we next need
to build a standing, HR-run training cycle (with OEDI) and a panelist "ready roster" to
normalize this practice across all POSPD hiring.
Language access incentives. Determine scope and implement a multilingual pay
premium and/or identify roles where language skills are mission-critical. This item is
subject to bargaining, and Teamsters 117 has opened this conversation.
Finish the data story and publish it. The Port needs a unified, validated hiring-funnel
dashboard (posting to application to eligibility to oral boards to background check to hire)
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that separates commissioned and non-commissioned roles and enables stage-by-stage
checks to tease out any equity concerns in any of these stages. This data is reported by our
vendors; the Port must standardize data cleaning, storage, and routine release to the
public.
Set Port-level benchmarks post-EO 14173. Even with changes to federal aƯirmativeaction reporting, the Port can still set availability/utilization baselines referencing the local
labor market and track disparities over time.
Sustain broad outreach. POSPD authorized and resourced a Recruitment Team, which
substantially increased outreach events and candidate generation beginning in 2022-2023,
with an explicit objective to align department composition with the demographics of the
communities we serve. The increase in outreach in 2025 should evolve into a deliberate
annual plan (which communities, which schools, which national associations), with
quarterly reporting to the Commission on total reach, conversion, and hires.

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