The Portland Police Union doesn’t want the public to attend its contract negotiations with the city, which began this morning at 9am in a room inside the Portland building. The negotiations are held every four years to discuss things like how officers can be disciplined. The city announced on January 25, four days before the shooting of Aaron Campbell, that the negotiations would be open to the public.
But this morning, during the opening discussion of the ground rules, Portland Police Association attorney Will Aitchison asked that the union be able to discuss this first. Then he came back and told the City’s negotiator, Steve Herron, ““Well we’ve talked about it and I’m glad we’re taking it up first because that’s a ground rule with which we’re not willing to agree. Effectively what happens then is that we’re at our default position and that is that bargaining sessions are private.”
- PORTLAND POLICE ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT SCOTT WESTERMAN (FOREGROUND) WITH PPA ATTORNEY WILL AITCHISON THIS MORNING
The city went off to discuss the idea for a while, then came back and said the open meetings don’t necessarily need to be a “ground rule.” Instead, said Herron, some meetings could be held on city property, and some could be held at the PPA’s headquarters. The meetings at the city would be open to the public, and the PPA could take the decision to bar public access at meetings on its turf.
“Well we’re in a difficult situation here because of course we’re not alone in the room—we have all sorts of people who are in the room with no stake in our bargaining process,” said Aitchison. “And they’re only here by your notice and invitation, and I think when you are saying you want to have the public present I think what you’re saying is you want to change the way things have been done in the past.”
Herron disagreed with the characterization that the city is proposing a “de facto ground rule.” The union has gone off to discuss the idea in the next room.
“I think it’s illuminating that the police are so adamant about the police not being able to be involved, participate or be in these meetings, and I think it’s important that the public come to every meeting,” says Jo Ann Bowman with Oregon Action, who has shown up along with other police reform advocates. “It’s my hope that the city does not bend to pressure to close the public out.”
Update, 10:40: It’s been an elaborate game of chess this morning. The union came back in, and suggested holding the meetings at the Hilton, instead. But again, “just so there’s no confusion, those would be privately held meetings,” said Aitchison. He also offered to pay for the rental of the space. “It’s a union hotel.”
Update, 11:06: The decision will go to the state’s employment relations board. “The city’s interest in transparency,” said Herron. “The city obviously views PPA’s insistence that we close the meetings as seeking a ground rule for closed sessions.” Herron said the city was prepared to move forward, otherwise.
“We are prepared to move forward, as well, on the terms on which we’ve always bargained,” said Aitchison. “We’ve always assumed members on your side are representatives of the city, not just the city but the public. They’re good and aggressive and at times tireless advocates.”
“We believe that with any contract negotiations as small as purchasing a car or treaty negotiations, we believe that the free flow is a critical element of those discussions,” he said. “We certainly understand the city’s decision from a political standpoint, but not from a position of trying to move the contract negotiations forward. Which is I think what we’re really here about which is trying to get this contract solved. Before we move on, we need an answer to this question.”
The three person ERB is chaired by Paul Gamson, Vickie Cowlan, and Susan Rossiter. We have a message in the ERB’s administrator to find out more.
“They’d file a complaint with the employment relations board, an unfair labor practices complaint. And if they ask for it to be heard immediately, the board would consider clearing its calendar and scheduling a hearing immediately,” says the person who answered the phone at the ERB.
Update, 11:28: “We will look at any complaint that comes in,” says Gamson, the ERB’s chair.
Hearings before the ERB are public, he confirms. Typically a case will come in and there’s a process—an administrative law judge is assigned to the case, before a hearing happens. We’ll be there, of course.
What? “We have all sorts of people who are in the room with no stake in our bargaining process.” You are police. We are the public. If you are bargaining about things like methods and severity of officer discipline, we certainly have a stake in the bargaining process!
“. . .we have all sorts of people who are in the room with no stake in our bargaining process.”
Really? The public has no stake in contract negotiations between public employees and the city? I’m confused.
Here’s the relevant ORS statute 192.660, revised in 2007 and 2009, on public meetings:
(2) The governing body of a public body may hold an executive session:
(d) To conduct deliberations with persons designated by the governing body to carry on labor negotiations.
(3) Labor negotiations shall be conducted in open meetings unless negotiators for both sides request that negotiations be conducted in executive session. Labor negotiations conducted in executive session are not subject to the notification requirements of ORS 192.640.
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/192.html
The first two folks beat me to it – of course the public is a key stakeholder here. What possible non-nefarious reason can they have for demanding private negotiations?
@Matt – That seems to say that unless BOTH sides request private meetings, the meetings have to be public. Right?
@ Reymont – That’s what I took from it, as well.
These meetings need to be public. I only wish I could take the time off needed to attend them and comment.
Hopefully the city lays the smackdown on the Police Union. I’ve been advocating to the Mayor for weeks now to make some big changes in police oversight during the contract renewal process.
Can the IPR investigate these officers’ attempts to violate the law? Oh wait, the IPR is toothless.
I can’t blame the Police union for wanting the meetings closed because of people like Matt Davis. Davis is a hack who writes “news articles” that are full of his opinions and he is VERY biased against the Police. [COMMENT EDITED: THREATENING/SLANDEROUS LANGUAGE]
Not to respond to trolls, but it’s a blog, not a “news article”. Thanks for trying, though.
Westerman, you need to shave that goddamned dick target, all ready.
Noone is VERY biased against the police. People just want something a little more normal than what we have. Here’s a small, humble list:
annual performance reviews for police officers
a coherent protocol on police use of deadly force
the ability to let go of police officers who don’t follow the use of deadly force protocol in situations that result in civilian deaths
the ability for IPR to select disciplinary action against officers who use excessive force as determined by IPR
As it is, the vast majority of normal police officers are being held hostage by the hostile minority that sees the whole world as a dangerous place for police officers, who demand unbridled power to protect themselves.
Seriously, what’s with the police union president coming into a contract negotiation meeting armed with a gun and handcuffs visible in his back pocket? That sort of epitomizes the us-versus-them mentality that is the poison in the whole relationship between the police and the public.
Having any of the negotiations closed would be the greatest failure by the City of Portland leadership in at least the last 10 years.
If the negotiators are using language like that quoted in the story above, we have a serious separate problem.
@ gonetorio –
I like everything on your list but I have one thing to add:
– Mandatory random urinalysis. Urinalysis checks against marijuana, cocaine, meth, MDMA, steroids, and other performance-enhancing drugs.
This would mimic what the US military has been doing for decades, and is not at all out of the question to ask someone who walks around with lethal weapons and legal authority to use them.
I was there. This is just an opening skirmish, with three sides, maybe more. Be patient, but indeed come partake. It’s your money and service they’re discussing.
@Jackattak – Do other US cities randomly test their police for those drugs? Which ones?
@Gonetorio – Seems like a good list. I only worry that we might not agree on what “coherent” means in your second bullet.
@ Reymont –
Not sure, and Google wasn’t much help although admittedly I didn’t try very hard. If you Google “police urine tests” or something similar, the hits are mostly regarding citizens being UA’d by the cops.
I’m not sure if any of that would matter anyway, honestly. I can’t say the answer would change my mind in one direction or the other.
@Jackattak – Didn’t figure it would, but if it’s a unique suggestion you could probably expect some serious pushback on it from the unions.
Agreed, Reymont. I can’t imagine other police forces NOT making random urinalysis mandatory. It just makes good sense when you’re arming people to the teeth with lethal weaponry all the while granting the, the legal authority to use such weapons.
This is not rocket science. It makes good sense from an insurance standpoint if nothing else!
Reymont – Found this (finally!)
http://www.officer.com/print/Law-Enforceme…
CAUTION – The writer needs to learn what a paragraph is. 🙂
To summarize: Basically some do. With the union police forces, like Portland, it has to be part of the contract negotiations (hint, hint).
Coherent means that there needs to be thoughtful work done to forge a definition of “reasonable” that people can agree on, when referring to the idea of what a reasonable person would do in response to a reasonable fear of personal and community safety.
For example, it was not reasonable for the cop to start beanbagging Campbell, just because he wasn’t following orders. His hands were visible behind his head, but he wasn’t putting them in the air, so the question to be asked would be: “would a reasonable person starts shooting someone?” No. That is not reasonable. You could run that past 5 million people, you would get a verdict, that was not reasonable.
Was it reasonable for Frashour to taser someone with no warning because they were videotaping a search? No, not reasonable. Again, the 5 million rule applies.
And in fact, Frashour ABUSED the “reasonable” defense. He invoked the “I am a reasonable person and when I thought the videocamera could be used as a weapon, then that justified my violent actions toward a completely innocent citizen.”
Once Frashour has a history of violent abuse of citizens, and of lying about things to invoke the reasonable defense, then that history should be factored into the “reasonable” equation also.
Reasonable is a definition which needs to be very carefully researched and applied, but police actions should be better governed by protocol, so that the whole problem of having to judge whether their actions were reasonable or not is avoided in the first place.
Like, when the phrase “suicide by cop” is used, SERT should be called in ab initio.
SERT has had its issues, and killed a suicidal guy too, but my gut is that after Reyna’s lawsuit and Raymond Gwerder’s death, that SERT has been cleaning up its act and just wants to do anything to avoid getting in the news. Which means they would have probably been able to get Campbell out alive.
It is hard to find a list of cities that randomly test cops. I did, however, find this amusing story about an NYPD cop who claimed his positive results were the results of passive ingestion:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2…
I just think that it is highly suspect for a police officer to not want to be drug tested at any time. Many street drugs reappear after being confiscated and then stolen from evidence rooms. Many drug dealers keep quiet when less than the actual amount gets reported by the police after an arrest.
This could help stamp out corruption while at the same time ensuring that the police were not on illegal drugs, endangering the safety of our citizens.
Looks like narcotics are the goal of many of the random drug testing cities like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and others. Steroid testing seems to be the new topic.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/…
and
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/nyregion…
Talk about the newer efforts.