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.
