SPOKANE VALLEY – Crime rates have been rising all through the region, and several residents voiced their concerns to city council during the Dec. 5 meeting in Spokane Valley.
Caleb Altmeyer, Dan Allison, and John Harding all commented on the crimes rates in and around the city.
Altmeyer runs a non-profit called Bikers Helping Captives that primarily work to help the victims of human trafficking.
He said his group was looking into a one-million-dollar allocation that could help his group, but due to some of the restrictions his group could not participate because religion is a big part of their operations.
“After looking at the RFP process from the city and the grant requirements from the state the recipients must use the grant funds for secular purposes only,” Altmeyer said. “Unfortunately, we will have to respectfully bow out of the race and not be able to apply because of our stance on Jesus.”
“Obviously we would never turn someone away for their faith, but unashamedly all of our programming does have Christ in it.”
He said the group believes that when someone suffers as much trauma as trafficking victims, they can’t just heal physically and mentally, but spiritually as well and that’s why they keep religion as a main aspect of their organization.
He said it may seem crazy for a group to turn down the chance at a million dollars, but no amount of money will remove Jesus from their process.
Altmeyer said he understands there are several groups that also work to battle trafficking, but he feels one of the main groups is being underfunded, law enforcement.
“Who we feel is not funded well in this fight is the police department,” Altmeyer said. “After meeting with the police chief and the sheriff yesterday and hearing directly from them on how bad the trafficking problem truly is in our town and how underfunded they are, my request to the city council from a Valley resident is that you would seriously consider opening up this funding opportunity for the Valley police department.”
“Then giving all of that funding to them so they can hire officers to fight this.”
He also said if council would choose to do that, that he hopes they would send a letter of recommendation to Spokane City Council to follow suit.
Dan Allison spoke next, and immediately echoed Altmeyer’s words.
“We need to get our police department funded,” he said to council. “You guys are derelict in your duty if you don’t do that.”
Allison said he wants to see more officers working for the department because according to him there have been six since the city started. He also said the city paid to put a survey out, and the results showed the city needs more officers.
According to Allison there are politicians in Texas who view Spokane as a sanctuary city.
“We’ve got governors from Texas going down the list of sanctuary cities saying let’s send some there,” Allison said. “Then load them up on a bus and away they go.”
“Spokane is on that list.”
He didn’t provide any documentation to show that though.
John Harding also had public safety concerns he brought to council during the meeting.
Harding, quoting the First Amendment of the United States Constitution said that the requirement to have the funds used for secular purposes only was a violation of Altmeyer’s rights.
“I don’t know where this requirement came from, but I don’t think it’s legal,” Harding said. “And I would like to see an interpretation that says it is.”
“Shame on you people for not allowing a man who knows what he’s doing to help our kids.”
Harding went on to describe that he was at one of Altmeyer’s facilities recently when a teenager had come in claiming she had been raped.
“In our Valley, this is going on all the time,” Harding said.
Harding then said he believes Altmeyer runs one of the best groups in Washington, and he doesn’t like to see the limitations stand in the way of funding.
“Priorities people…priorities,” Harding said. “The fact that we’ve limited his ability to do his job is a sad commentary.”
“I apologize for being upset, but boy I am. This is not good government,” he concluded.
Matthew graduated from West Virginia University-Parkersburg in 2011 with a journalism degree. He's an award-winning photographer and enjoys writing stories about people.
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