• In July 2022, Governor Jay Inslee announced his vision to create regional police academies in order to increase training capacity and to attract quality people within a 50-mile radius who can commute to and from an academy everyday and who will then serve their own communities upon graduation.
• Creating a regional public safety training academy in southwest Washington strongly enhances the City of Vancouver’s ability to equitably recruit and train future peace officers from Vancouver and nearby communities.
• Removing the barrier for new applicants of living five months away from their families in order to attend the BLEA improves community engagement and outreach efforts by increasing equitable access to all, and by providing more opportunities for female and persons from our underrepresented communities of color to become local peace officers.
• As Vancouver and the communities that comprise southwest Washington communities continue to grow and our population density increases, a long-term investment from the State of Washington ensures a strong Criminal Justice Training Center (CJTC) relationship.

Goal 2: Provide effective, innovative and well-resourced police, fire and emergency medical services

Goal 2, Objective 2.1: Provide reliable and responsive police, fire and EMS service

Currently, all law enforcement recruits in Washington State, regardless of employing agency, must attend the basic law enforcement academy in Burien Washington to obtain their credential. This single academy approach results in insufficient training capacity, barriers to historically underrepresented candidates for employment, and delayed service to the community for newly hired police officer candidates as they await a training slot.

A satellite CJTC academy in Vancouver or southwest Washington will better serve in our region, remove barriers to service for historically underrepresented populations, enhance competitiveness for recruiting and expand training capacity for law enforcement statewide.