(The Center Square) – The Spokane Ethics Commission dismissed a complaint against Police Ombuds Bart Logue Wednesday, following an independent investigation into his private consulting business.
The report obtained by The Center Square determined that Logue’s firm was “pre-authorized,” despite not notifying his supervisor in writing until 15 months after incorporating Pivot Consulting Group. The ombuds had already secured several out-of-state contracts by then, including just two weeks before.
The only city policy requiring employees to disclose such work is the ethics code, which applies when they believe there is a potential conflict of interest. The investigation cleared Logue’s name but failed to mention when he incorporated Pivot or that he had already accepted clients before that disclosure.
“It was a very thorough investigation,” Ethics Commissioner Patrick Harder said at Tuesday’s meeting.
The panel unanimously dismissed the complaint against Logue without asking questions on Tuesday.
The Center Square contacted Logue and Ombuds Commission Chair Luc Jasmin after the investigation, but neither responded to emails or voicemails asking what “pre-authorized” means. Jasmin signed off on Logue’s private employment agreement weeks after Logue had secured a $100,000 contract in Illinois.
Jasmin also owns a private consulting firm, but city spokeswoman Erin Hut told The Center Square that Jasmin isn’t a city employee like Logue, so he isn’t held to the same standards. However, Hut said that Logue falls under the Ombuds Commission’s supervision, not Mayor Lisa Brown or the administration.
Hut said that, given the nature of this work, city employees are required to obtain their supervisor’s approval before seeking outside consulting work. Jasmin told the investigator that Logue mentioned his consulting plans “in or around 2023,” but didn’t sign the employment contract until Dec. 3, 2024.
Two weeks earlier, the Village of Oak Park awarded Pivot the $100,000 contract in Illinois, but Logue also mentioned five other out-of-state clients in paperwork and presentations he gave to the village.
The Center Square called Evan Sims, the Spokane Valley resident who filed the complaint, to confirm whether he planned to appeal or file a new complaint, but didn’t receive a response before publishing.
“Spokane deserves and requires honest and independent police oversight,” he wrote in the complaint, “If not now, when? Maybe there is time between trips to the bank to cash $100,000 checks from different cities?”
Sims filed a complaint against Logue in May, alleging that Logue mishandled an investigation into a separate case. The Commission dismissed that complaint in June, so Sims refiled again in September with new allegations, accusing the police ombuds of using his position with the city for personal gain.
Last week, Sims told The Center Square that he disagrees with the investigation’s findings and again alleged that Logue leveraged his city position to generate business for his private consulting company.
“It seemed like he was advertising in the press for his business; it’s like, ‘Oh, see how bad it is when these things happen. Yeah, we need oversight,” Sims told The Center Square last week. “He had at least listed five other [clients] that he had [consulted] for, well before Oak Park.”
