56%
The three top-ranking police officials Levine was
referring to were Chief Jim Hanks and Deputy Chiefs Dave Dunaway and Dan
McGoogan. Also sitting on the city's side of the table were Human Resources
Director Branda Digges and City Attorney Bob Anderson. Facing
them were several line police officers, FOP Lodge 37 chief (and VPD officer) Rob
Palmieri and two regional FOP reps, Paul Noeske and Paul Murphy. Murphy, a big guy in
his 50s with a booming voice and a take-no-nonsense demeanor, spent a good
portion of the meeting staring down Digges, who appeared to be flustered by some
of Murphy's hammering.
The city was still holding to the line that the cops had
been given a 56% increase over the previous five-year period, a staggering
figure by any standard. Murphy was stating that the policy that upped the pay
by 56% was a new hire practice that only affected three cops so far and that it
upped their pay out of a low probationary-status starting-officer pay rate over
the first five years of their employment. Murphy
mercilessly hammered at Digges to come up with anyone else in the police
department who had enjoyed a 56% pay increase over a five-year period.
Digges
stuck to the line that it was a policy that affected the whole department, but
she wasn't sticking to that line with any great sense of passion or
conviction. It was almost as though she wasn't buying into it either, but
since it was the official stance, she had to take it. Some things ya just
gotta do for the paycheck.
Murphy wasn't about to let her off the hook, though. He again challenged her to find records on anyone else other
than the three officers that he referenced.
Digges eventually capitulated after realizing that this
was going nowhere painfully slowly -- she mumbled something
about looking into the matter a little further.
Murphy shoots, Murphy scores. At the end of the first
period, it's FOP 1, City 0.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
The cops want take-home cars. The cops want their pay
commensurate with what they say the city's fire department is earning. The cops
aren't thrilled about the health insurance deductions of $40 a month for
individual coverage, something that the general public is not likely to be too
sympathetic with.
The cops want respect. That more than anything else. The
other things they are asking for are merely symbols of that desired respect.
They don't feel that historically they have received respect. In that, they are
absolutely correct.
For years, they have been used as unwilling pawns in a
four-way power struggle between council, former City Manager George Hunt, former
Police Chief Joe Slapp and current Police Chief Jim Hanks. External factions,
like the Venice Taxpayers League and Venice Florida! dot com also took their
toll -- as Hunt and Slapp were publicly attacked, the pair would seek vengeance
and tighter control on all city employees, most notably the utilities workers
and the police force.
It's always about the money, except when it isn't, and
even then, it's probably about the money
See, this was never really about the money. Yeah,
I know, it's always about the money, but in this case the money is a tool, a
tug-of-war rope that both sides are using in a game of political one-upsmanship.
For years the cops have felt that they have been stomped on by city hall, and in
that, they are right.
Because of all of the emotional baggage, I was having a
hell of a hard time understanding the actual on-paper arguments underlying the
current disagreements.
I complained about my ignorance on this issue to one cop, who then
slowly and patiently explained the
line officers' position while I scribbled away and continually interrupted him
for clarification.
"Rather than compare police department to police
department in terms of an overall economic package, what the city is attempting
to do is compare just the paycheck to paycheck aspect of police departments.
They are leaving out factors like take-home cars that officers in other
departments get, plus issues like contributions to pensions, COLAs, not looking
at shift differential pay..."
According to the officer, with all of that out of whack,
the city is then making other false analogies: "They are comparing our health
insurance package and trying to match up our out-of-pocket with the city's fire
department, and in that they are refusing to look at dollars and cents of
paycheck to paycheck when they should be. The city's fire department is the
highest paid in the county while we are not the highest paid police officers in
the county. You just can't compare us and the fire department, it's apples and
oranges."
Fat, dumb and happy?
So it sounds like it is really all about the money. But
it's not. It's about some pretty bright cops who are not happy about walking
into a negotiation session and feeling that they are being treated like dummies
who don't
understand what's going on. All through the meeting the two sides were speaking
entirely different languages. I was finally able to understand what the cops
were saying, but the city's responses sounded like double-speak. Murphy's 56%
argument with Digges was a prime example.
"Be fat dumb and happy, that's what the city attorney told
us in one of the earlier meetings," another cop told me.
"You were there, you heard Anderson say that?"
"Yup, so did a few others."
"You're kidding me."
"Nope."
"That just doesn't sound like Bob Anderson."
The cop shrugged: "He said it."
I tried to get Anderson aside during breaks in the
negotiations to ask him about the
attributed quote, but Anderson was unable to break away. Phone messages were
left at his office asking for a return call. The only thing I can fall back
on is the tired and trite 'unavailable for comment' tag.
The past begets the present
Under former Police Chief Slapp and former City Manager Hunt, a totalitarian
regime existed in the police department for years. There was a sense that the
department was made up of a handful of chosen elite insiders and the rest of the force
was made up of disposable faces in uniforms. Nobody dared speak up, officers
came in, did their time and got the hell out to go home. If a cop was lucky, he
could go a whole week or two without running into Slapp.
Then came the blue flu coup of 2001, when nearly the entire force
rose up against Slapp and talk of a work stoppage ran rampant. Slapp was offered
retirement and reportedly refused, so he was promoted up and out of the cop
shop. You'd have thought that would have calmed things down, but you would be
wrong: both Slapp and Hunt continued to meddle in police politics from their
somewhat distant city hall offices.
Cops complained. So did the media. The cops had their
automobile laptops taken away from them by Slapp in response, forcing them to
return to 1970's style written police reports for over a year (as
documented in this earlier story). Police
computers within the department's building suddenly had keystroke and screen capturing software installed so that
both Slapp and the city's computer department could look at whatever any given
cop was looking at in real time. Even Chief Hanks was subject to this electronic
surveillance (as far as I know, the spyware is still in place
to this day, allowing the city's computer department full access to spy on the police computers in real
time via the city's intranet -- anyone else see anything wrong with this picture
besides me?).
The cops were angry, but they stopped complaining publicly. What
would city hall take away next? Their guns? With Slapp still in charge and
capable of arresting someone at city hall for merely
calling the city manager a liar,
anything seemed possible. Potential and imagined lunacy had already been
eclipsed by real events.
Some cops quit the police force in disgust. Most stayed,
but there was growing sense of underlying seething anger at Slapp, Hunt, city
hall and even current chief Jim Hanks. The cops were mad at city hall for the
screw job they were getting in a number of areas. Quite a few were (and still
are) mad at Hanks for not going nose-to-nose with Slapp and Hunt.
Now,
with Slapp and Hunt gone, the bad feelings are still around. What's gone is the
fear. There's no love lost between the line patrol officers and City Manager
Marty Black, but what isn't there is the fear of Marty Black. On January 11, the
cops picketed a city council meeting in protest of the city's offered deal in
the FOP negotiations. The cops were angry and they were in no mood to hide their
dissatisfaction, nor were they shy about specific causes of their anger.
They actually picketed city hall. City employees waving
signs that blasted city hall for giving the cops' families a bad Christmas and a
lousy pay deal.
This would never have happened with Slapp and Hunt at the
helm. Retaliation for such conduct would have come fast and furious against the
ringleaders who would dare to act so brazenly against the powers that be.
Nobody got shot
And so, at the end of the negotiations, suddenly everyone
was... well... nobody got shot, let's put it that way. Both sides were stating
that the tentative agreement was closer to what each side wanted. Bob Anderson then stated that he
couldn't make the decision, that it all had to go back to council and the city
manager.
As to what the the two parties tentatively agreed to, the
Gondo's
article of 01/21/05 gave an exhaustive breakdown.
"We've closed the gap significantly, now it's up to city
council," Murphy told me as the meeting was breaking up.
Meanwhile, Chief Hanks was in front of an SNN camera
saying basically the same thing: "Both sides are getting closer and I think
that's important."
Right now, the fact that cops have picketed city hall and
the fact that they are outspokenly angry in the current union negotiations gives
me pause for hope, hope in the
sense that it's now OK to speak out against the evil empire without fear of
retaliation. While many of the line officers do not have kind things to say
about city management, it is plainly evident that they are no longer afraid to
say so.
And that's a good thing.
Ultimately, I think that's a more important development
overall than if the cops get everything that they have asked for on paper --
remember, this is the first FOP/city negotiation series that has occurred since
Slapp and Hunt had both exited the stage.
This year, the cops got something from city hall that
they haven't had in a very long time, and they fought like hell to get it:
respect. City hall learned that this is not the same welcome-mat-tattooed-on-the-chest department that
they've had the pleasure of walking on in the past. The two sides still don't
see eye-to-eye, but the police now have a sense of empowerment within the
system.
To be continued? More than likely. This is, after all,
Venice, and we do things different.
