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King County Police Officers Guild General Membership Meeting June 27, 2007 Guild Office
MEMBERS PRESENT: Steve Eggert – President Pat Bowen – Vice President Ron Kierce – Secretary/Treasurer Thad Frampton – Board Member # 1 Don Dougherty – Board Member # 2 Mark Lemoine – Board Member # 3 Marcus Williams – Board Member # 4 Mark Rorvik – Board Member # 5 JK Pewitt – Board Member # 6 Mike Brown –
CALLED TO ORDER: The General Membership Meeting was called to order at 1600 hrs by President Steve Eggert. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES: The Minutes from the May 30, 2007, General Membership Meeting have been posted at the worksites and website. They were submitted again for review. A motion was made by Don Dougherty to approve the minutes as submitted. The motion was seconded by Mark Lemoine. Motion passed. SERGEANT’S EXAM: There has been much ado about the recent Sergeant’s exam and emotions have run high on all sides of the issue. The Guild would like to set the record straight and clarify some misinformation that has been spread about. First and foremost, the Guild body is unanimous in its belief that the recent Sergeant’s exam was a fiasco. It appears to have been hastily put together with little thought toward content, administered poorly and butchered in the way results were sent out, taken back and resent again. It must be perfectly clear that the Guild had absolutely NOTHING; and emphasized again, NOTHING to do with how the exam was created, administered, scored, evaluated, or released. In fact, this is the first Sergeant’s exam the Guild has NOT been asked to provide input on before the testing process was put together. In the past, the Department has asked for the Guild’s input in hopes of avoiding the types of problems that have plagued the recent exam. For whatever reason, the Sheriff’s Office excluded the Guild from that historic relationship. The Guild would also like to express its displeasure with the Sheriff’s recent GIB announcement that declared that “the Guild made an agreement with OHRM with how many candidates would move forward to the assessment center.” We feel the statement is very disingenuous, if not outright dishonest in its interpretation. We feel the statement was meant to divide the membership against one another, in yet another attempt by the Sheriff to weaken the union. The Guild in no way made any deals with Civil Service or OHRM, that was made clear to the Sheriff’s Office in a meeting we had with the all the Division Chiefs present and prior to the publication of the GIB. What the Guild did do, was demand that the County uphold what was stated in the original announcement in order to represent the Membership as a whole. The Guild informed Ernie Beck of its stance and that action would be taken if the original published process was not followed. The Guild made this demand BEFORE any exam results were released. There was no agreement or deal made that would allow the Sheriff’s office to change any rule or process as they saw fit. CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS: Negotiations sessions have been suspended at this point. The lead County Negotiator, Rick Hayes has excused himself from the process mid session and has been replaced by Otto Klein. The Guild feels this may be a possible conflict of interest since Otto Klein has represented the Sheriff in the past. The conflict lies in the fact that we negotiate with the Executive Branch (Ron Sims) and not the Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff has told us that she has approached the Council and is attempting to change the County Charter, which would allow her to negotiate directly with the Guild. The Guild is opposed to this since it would undoubtedly remove the historic objectivity of negotiation with the County Executive to a very biased and self interested agenda that any Sheriff would bring to negotiations. The Guild is making various inquiries to determine whom Otto will be representing (the Sheriff vs. Executive) and if any conflict indeed may exist. New negotiations dates are being discussed. VACANT BOARD POSITION: The At-Large Board Position (#7) has recently been vacated. Any member interested in the position should send Steve an email to Steve@kcpog.com. Any member is eligible for the At Large position. BRADY ISSUES: A meeting is in the works of being scheduled with the Prosecutor’s office regarding the recent articles in the Seattle Times that contains certain officers and deputies being named on a “Brady List” by the Prosecutor’s office. In general, Brady is a court decision from the 1960’s that requires any and all information that my be exculpatory with respect to witness testimony, be turned over in discovery. The Brady decision has expanded to include internal police discipline that may be germane to the respective testimony. Most of the time, this information concerns internal investigations that are found to involve dishonesty. Use of Force and other issue could also be relevant. We are extremely concerned the Prosecutor’s office is compiling a list of “Brady Officers” that is based on unsubstantiated newspaper articles, rumors hearsay, etc. We would like to see the Prosecutor’s Office establish a legitimate basis for inclusion on such “Brady List.” NAME CHANGE FOR COURT SECURITY DEPUTIES: Virginia Kirk at the Sheriff’s request, approached Sgt. Mark “Court Security” Rorvik to inquire if the Guild would object to renaming the Court Security SA-II’s job title to that of Marshall. The Board had no input on the issue. COURT TRANSPORT UNIT: The Sheriff is considering forming a new prisoner transport unit that would consist of approximately 8 deputies. The complete job description and duties is unknown at this time however, the Sheriff would like to include all the contract cities and form a unit that would handle prisoner transports during a majority of the 24 hour work cycle. The unit would probably have other ancillary duties in the field to fill any potential down time. The Sheriff spoke with Steve and Ron and is concerned that there would not be enough interest to support the unit with commissioned personnel. We are concerned that any non-commissioned transport employees would ultimately lead to replacing commissioned personnel. We feel there is enough interest amongst the membership and are asking KCPOG members if they would contact Steve, Pat or Ron if they are interested. ADJOURNED: The General Membership Meeting adjourned at 1800 hrs. |