Story on police union/city deal
This is from reporter Stacia Glenn. I was working in Big Bear Lake today.
Amends have been made between police officers and city leaders, and both sides are hoping to move past recent conflict and focus on bridging the city's $9 million deficit.
In a Wednesday night vote, 195 members of the Police Officers' Association approved a concessions packet that avoids layoffs and furloughs yet provides the city its requested $3.3 million from the union.
"We continued to work through this until we could find a happy medium. I'm very proud of our members and their generosity to help the city," said union Vice President Travis Walker. "I'm glad we can get on dealing with the bigger issues, like what led to this fiscal crisis."
Mayor Pat Morris said he is "delighted" with the agreement and grateful that both sides remained focused on budget issues.
Under the agreement, officers lose their uniform allowance and will begin paying $400 of their own monthly medical benefits.
In return, police will accrue an additional week of vacation time and bank an extra four hours in time off per week. Their contract, which was set to expire in December, has also been extended for another year.
"I'm very grateful for the memberships' approval of the contract extension, which includes the concessions," said interim City Manager Mark Weinberg. "I think it validates their claim that they were sincere about wanting to contribute to resolving the city's financial crisis."
Union leaders have said all along that officers are willing to make sacrifices to improve the financial status of San Bernardino, but lambasted city officials for not being upfront about the exact savings they sought.
"They kept changing it up on us. If they had actually come to us and bargained with us instead of trying to force what they wanted down our throats..." said union President Rich Lawhead. "This goes to prove that the cops all along wanted to give."
Police union leaders have waged an aggressive campaign against city officials' proposals since early February, when officials threatened to lay off 49 cops if the union did not agree to a 10 percent paycut.
After that proposal was tabled, the City Council discussed furloughing officers for four hours each week.
"We put all the ideas on the table initially. Those were negotiations that were done in confidentiality between the city and the laboring group," Morris said.
However, the mayor said the concessions package approved by the police union "is what we'd hoped for all the way along."
The City Council is scheduled to approve the contract at a special meeting Monday.
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Andrew Edwards. E-mail Andrew here.
The agreement would be a lot easier to swallow if the city wasn't continuing to waste money. It is terrible how the city of San Bernardino and the Admin at the PD operate. I have seen many times through the years when " special positions " have been created for former administrators at the SBPD. The positions would never have existed if it wasn't for the current administrator at the time doing a favor for a former colleague, who is also able to collect his PERS retirement. These people are brought in and usually called consultants or contractors. Although you have had to be a member of Admin to do it. They never bring back rank and file Officers, Detectives, or Sergeants, and even if they did, I would have the same problem with it. But it is the " good ole boy " network at work. Since we just agreed to take a cut, it makes me feel like we have taken the cut to pay Bildt and Kimball's wages as contractors, it makes me sick. The city has also spoken of a plan to hire more Officers once the vacancy level gets to 16. It is one thing to fight and pay for the jobs of the people that you know and that are already part of the Police force, but I don't want to pay for new Cops. Everyone working for the city should feel cheated with what is occurring and what will most likely occur.