Lynnwood Police Chief Discusses Grant Use and Funding Plans

Lynnwood Police chief Cole Langdon sat down in the city council chamber to advise the council on how the police department is going to utilize the safety grant and the 0.1% public safety sales tax. The chief highlighted that city is not married to any of the programs or positions they’ll use the grant for; if the council decides that they don’t want to fund those programs after the grant expires then they do not have to.

The grant was part of a tense briefing last month when council member Isabel Mata pulled it from the consent agenda before it was ultimately approved in the same meeting. One of the items that came up is the drone first responder, that was controversial in the wake of the Flock cameras, as the chief addressed in more detail some of the ways that other Seattle area cities have utilized the new drones to help cut down on cost. An example provided was how the drones can go out and get eyes on the scene to determine if it’s necessary to send an officer out to a call or if it can be responded to with different resources.

This grant will also allow LPD to hire another correction officer along with a social worker that’s jobs will be tied to the funding of this grant. According to Langdon, the police were very careful when they picked out the programs that will be funded by the grant to avoid purchasing items that the department will become dependent on and force the council to find money for it in the next budget cycle.

Other than the cell radars that will be utilized to monitor the vitals of the inmates, but there is confidence within the department that they’ll be able get funding from the same grant that currently funds the wearable monitors high risk inmates wear currently. So while there will be a future need for funding for this grant purchase, it’s likely it won’t come from the city coffers.

As for the privacy concerns that were raised regarding the drone, it was hard to pick up specific privacy guarantees for residents during the meeting. Council member David Parshall pressed about the cost and the risk of the city getting locked into a long-term contract that would force the city to find more money, Langdon was clear that there is no binding contract that locks the city into a set term.

The grant requires that any money awarded goes to new technology or positions. There are exceptions that will allow the department to back fill overtime cost for the mandated training that was required to be eligible for the grant and the public safety sales tax.

Another concern that was raised back on the July 13th meeting was the compressed timeline between the grant application and accepting of the grant. Langdon stated that the original plan was to not apply for the grant because the way the law is worded made it so specific and narrow in scope that the paperwork wasn’t worth it. But when Kent and Black Diamond for the grant, it caught LPD’s attention because their application showed a wider interpretation of the law when the application was made.

Once the department decided to go through the labor intensive application process, it was a bit of a mad dash to fill out all of the paperwork and get it submitted by the deadline. This meant that a full briefing for the council prior to the application, and its acceptance, was not completed. But, both Langdon and Parshall discussed the detailed briefing that was given to the chief’s advisory board; including a line item by line item reading of the application.

If they hadn’t submitted the application, and the council’s approval along with mayor Hurst’s signature, when they did it would have pushed the extra funds out to a future quarter.

As for the sales tax, it has raised $544,207.78 to date since it went into effect in May, 2026. The tax is used to fund the department’s efforts to help reduce homelessness, domestic violence programs, and various other criminal justice programs to help the city. When the amendment was past, the council decided to put the money raised from this 0.1% sales tax into a specific public safety fund instead of the general fund.

Concerns about guidelines for the fund were raised, and it was decided that the council would pick this back up in Q1 or Q2 next year. That way they could focus on the budget cycle first.