Stonewall Thrives at City Hall

Between Jan. 30 and Feb. 7, 2017 information related to the completion of contract negotiations between the City of Long Beach and the Police Officer’s Association (POA) was announced via a city hall press release and, later, a public letter of transmittal to members of the city council that outlined, in very general terms, the negotiated contract that was approved by over 90 percent of the POA membership.

City hall information provided to the public (and I assume the council) prior to council approval of the contract raised several questions about the fundamentals of the negotiation and the resulting historical change – and enrichment – of several key contract elements.

First, city hall stressed that a “market study” conducted of 10 comparable police agencies found that LBPD consistently “ranked at the bottom and more than 10 percent behind today’s median pay for a police officer.”

Second, city hall stressed that increases in skill, longevity pay and education pay were essential to “mitigate recruitment and retention issues,” which Mayor Robert Garcia said, “will allow us to retain quality officers and attract new recruits to our police department in a very competitive job market.”

And, third, an alarming, precedent-setting element of the new contract included a “me too” provision that guaranteed if any other city bargaining unit received a greater compensation increase, “such an increase, including one-time payments, will be given to the POA bargaining unit as well.”

Repeated phone calls to city hall to obtain the kind of detailed information an elected decision maker (and informed citizen) would need prior to the city council vote were stonewalled. So, I attended the council meeting to get answers as well as protest city hall’s lack of transparency.

What I got back from the mayor and six council members (three disappeared when the agenda item was called) were blank stares and no answers – making it obvious that our mayor and the council members who voted to approve the contract had no interest in raising questions about any of it and no concern for the fiscal impact the historical contract changes will have upon future negotiations with the POA and all other city representation units.

So, I took my quest for information a step further and filed a Public Records Request (PRA) with the city as authorized by California Government Code Section (CGCS) 6254.

With regard to the so-called “market study,” I asked for a copy of the study as well as answers to the following questions: (a) what was the criteria used to select the 10 comparable agencies, (b) who selected the cities for the market analysis and (c) who conducted the study?

The city replied: “Information being withheld pursuant to CGCS 6254 (a)”, which reads: “(a) Preliminary drafts, notes, or interagency or intra-agency memoranda that are not retained by the public agency in the ordinary course of business, if the public interest in withholding those records clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

Translation: The market study upon which the entire negotiation is based is none of my (the public’s) business, not in the public interest – and by extension – not to be of interest to the council or mayor as the information was excluded from the public agenda council package.

Having read that the LBPD received over 4,000 applicants the last time they recruited for an academy class, I questioned the need to mitigate recruitment and retention issues and asked in the PRA: “What reports, if any, were provided by the LBPD that were instructive to the city negotiation team that concluded the LBPD had both a recruitment and retention problem that merited increases in skill pay and longevity pay? Please provide those reports and/or documents.”

The city relied upon CGCS 6254 (a) once again and let me know that there was no public interest in providing a response and the records would be withheld.

Moving on to the issue of the “me too” provision I asked: “What is the rationale and/or policy related to the city agreeing to the ‘me too’ provision in the contract and has city management established any kind of policy relative to upcoming negotiations with other represented groups to hold the line to the extent that the POA contract will not have to be modified upward?”

The city responded: “No responsive records to this request.”

I was surprised that the contract moved skill and education pay from a flat rate (that could have been increased as a flat rate) and instead tied both to a cumulative percentage of fifth step police officer pay in addition to allowing advanced post certificate and advanced degree holders (also cumulative) to be paid for both rather than choose one or the other as historically established in past contracts.

But to say that there are no responsive records supporting the “me too” clause – a first for any public union contract with the city that is not only precedent setting but also has massive future financial ramifications – goes beyond rational comprehension.

We know that the LBPOA was responsible for funding the successful Measure A campaign to raise our retail taxes to become among the highest in the state, but that funding should not afford the police union special consideration in the contract negotiations that followed the tax windfall.

The “me too” provision has effectively served to remove the word “negotiation” from the negotiation process and serves to set up every other union in the city – including the employees who serve on the city negotiation team – with ammunition to ask for the same consideration – thus effectively neutering future city labor negotiations across the board.

Instead of “me too” clauses the taxpayer should be entitled to outside – independent – negotiators who publicly report negotiation status during each stage of the process. But, until such time that we the people are able to force our political leaders to require that kind of negotiation construct we should expect city hall leadership to take a stand on this issue and require unions and their staffs to look at the whole picture and not just the “gains” that come from negotiations.

To fully understand closed door negotiations with the POA one merely has to look at who benefited most in the contract approved by the city council on Feb. 7, 2016.

What was advertised as a 9 percent increase in compensation over the next three years for those who serve our public safety needs became a 19.8 percent increase for the president of the POA, a man who has not served a day on behalf of the people over the past 17 years, but has been allowed to manage his private union full time and support the personal and tax campaigns launched by our mayor and a majority of the present city council with union money.

The image above provides insight into how the elements of the new contract enriched the police union boss who – in effect – sat on both sides of the negotiation table.

Stephen Downing is a resident of Long Beach and a retired LAPD deputy chief of police.

Stephen@beachcomber.news