8-07-2024 6:13pm

Shoreline seeks volunteers to interview Police Chief replacement candidates

Oliver Moffat Sr. Editor

Shoreline City Manager Bristol Ellington is seeking a new Police Chief and is looking for volunteers to help interview candidates. More information is available on the city’s website.

The city of Shoreline announced Police Chief Kelly Park was promoted by King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall to Patrol Operations Division Chief effective August 31, 2024. In her new position, Chief Park will be part of the Executive Leadership Team of the King County Sheriff’s Office. Chief Park has been Shoreline’s chief of police since October of 2022 and has served with the Sheriff’s Office for 23 years.

Park will be replacing Jose Marenco who has served as Patrol Operations Division Chief since January of 2023 and will be replacing former Shoreline Police Chief Shawn Ledford who is retiring.

Shoreline contracts the King County Sheriff Office to provide police services and the Sheriff will select a list of candidates for the City Manager to choose from.

Park’s departure adds to Shoreline’s police staffing shortages. In April, Chief Park presented the city council with the 2023 police services report in which she said police staffing shortages were impacting the department. At the time, the department had nine vacancies. In 2023, average police response times for the highest priority 911 calls in Shoreline increased by more than two minutes to 6 minutes and 21 seconds from 4 minutes and 11 seconds in 2022.

Because of staffing shortages, the traffic unit was reassigned to 911 calls and, as a result, traffic citations decreased from 2022 to 2023, from 312 to 289. The report also said that between 2018 and 2022 the city averaged 394 car crashes reported to police per year. But in 2023, the police responded to 651 crashes - an increase of 65%.