The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs elected Grays Harbor County Sheriff Rick Scott as its next vice president.

At its annual meeting May 23 in Spokane, the organization — which is based in Lacey and has about 900 members — picked Scott for a four-year term, serving one year each as vice president, president elect, president then past president. Scott will be part of the 15-member WASPC executive board

“On behalf of our Sheriffs and Chiefs we appreciate Sheriff Scott’s willingness to take on a key leadership role in law enforcement across the state,” WASPC Executive Director Steve Strachan said in a release. “His election is indicative of the respect he has earned from his colleagues.”

Scott had recently served a four-year term on the group’s executive board as sheriff-at-large. King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht will be the next sheriff-at-large. Scott also is a member of the Washington State Sheriff’s Association.

Scott said the board meets at least four times a year plus it holds a two-day planning retreat “where we map out our goals and objectives going into the year.”

The WASPC, which was founded in 1963 is made up of management personnel from law enforcement agencies statewide, the release states. Its members includes the “39 elected county sheriffs, and 240 police chiefs, as well as the Washington State Patrol, the Washington Department of Corrections, and representatives of several federal agencies.”

It is involved in education of members regarding best practices for law enforcement as well as lobbying on behalf of its members to the Legislature.

“Because sheriffs are elected, we can get more involved in the political component that WASPC has,” Scott said. “We work to come up with legislative objectives that WASPC might want to put forward or identify issues that are being brought forward that we have concerns about. … The Sheriffs Association and the executive board come up with a legislative agenda that we try to work toward any given year.”

When Scott serves as president in three years, he will be able to appoint unelected members of the WASPC executive board, such as treasure and at-large members.

“We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing, which is trying to advance the education, the training, working with the (state) Criminal Justice Training Commission to identify things that we need to do relevant to Initiative 940, that’s now come into law.”

I-940 is the voter-approved initiative that provides for reforms in training and use of force.