Hoping to have some sway in the next collective bargaining agreement between the City of Akron and its police union, the Citizens’ Police Oversight Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to pass along its suggestions for what it hopes Mayor Shammas Malik’s administration will include in the upcoming labor negotiations.
Among other changes, the CPOB hopes the next contract with the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, which will be finalized later this year, gives more authority to the mayor in the disciplinary process for use-of-force cases and gives more authority to the police chief in officers’ patrol assignments.
“Those two things are what we view as most important,” said CPOB member Bob Gippin, the chair of the governance committee, which has been working on making its voice heard in the collective bargaining agreement process.
Malik’s administration is under no obligation to incorporate what the CPOB suggests in the negotiations with the police union and, off-microphone during a meeting last month, City of Akron Director of Law Deborah Matz told board members their suggestions likely won’t be incorporated if it means the union would ask for more money in order to agree to them.
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“To the extent that any of this costs money, that causes the officers to be inclined to request increased wages because of these recommendations, it’s going to be problematic,” Matz said during the July 10 CPOB meeting. “We have requests that are going to be coming out of the administration that are going to result potentially in those kinds of things. So I mean this is something that is a difficult and extensive process.”
Nevertheless, the CPOB on Wednesday voted unanimously to pass the recommendations along.
Malik’s spokesperson said on Monday morning that negotiations have not yet started and the date for when they will begin will be finalized soon. The terms of the negotiations — including whether the CPOB’s recommendations will be incorporated — will be confidential until an agreement is sent to Akron City Council for approval.
Get rid of arbitration in Akron Police use-of-force disciplinary cases
The CPOB wants to do away with the arbitration process when officers are disciplined for alleged policy violations in use-of-force investigations. Instead of officers appealing discipline to an arbitrator – a third-party lawyer who essentially acts as a judge in determining if the discipline was handed out properly – the CPOB wants the mayor to have the final say.
Gippin highlighted the case of Officer Ryan Westlake, who was terminated by then-Mayor Daniel Horrigan but reinstated during the arbitration process. Westlake, frequently cited for wrongdoing, went on after his reinstatement to shoot a 15-year-old in the hand. He was eventually fired after two other use-of-force cases were investigated. The current arbitration status for Westlake is unknown.
“Previously, when Westlake was terminated by Mayor Horrigan, it didn’t take more than just threatening arbitration and he was reinstated,” said Gippin, who is an attorney and an arbitrator, though not for labor cases. “The decision to terminate an officer over use of force should be the mayor’s final decision. That’s the most important thing we are recommending.”
Let Akron Police chief dictate patrol assignments
Anthony Finnell, a former police officer and the independent police auditor the CPOB hired earlier this year, was perturbed that officers’ patrol shifts are dictated more by officers’ seniority than by what the police chief wants. He believes that system has led to misconduct.
“The union has been allowed to exert too much control over the management decisions of the department,” Finnell said during a July 16 governance committee meeting about the shift policy.
“That should never have been allowed in the first place. … I just found it shocking that they were able to do that. Why do you think you’re having so many uses of force at a certain period of time? It’s because officers are trying to do the best they can and they just don’t have the experience.”
The premise, to the CPOB and Finnell, is that when longer-tenured officers are able to pick their shifts, less-experienced officers wind up in positions where they’re more likely to make errors on the job.
“It’s not uncommon for younger officers who are in less desirable shifts, the harder shifts at night and/or in high-crime districts, when they get a chance they bid out of those jobs to an easier assignment,” Gippin said. “The result is you’ve got less-experienced officers in the most difficult situations. You can understand why it happens that way, but it leaves an assignment pattern that isn’t optimal that can and does lead to problems because less experienced officers are more prone to mistakes.”
This practice needs to change in the next CBA, they said, and the chief should be able to appoint more experienced officers on the shifts that have more at stake.
“The chief of police is the chief of police,” Finnell said on July 16. “He should be allowed to assign anyone anywhere he needs. They are police officers for the City of Akron, so whatever the needs of the city are is where they have an obligation to serve those needs …
“At the end of the day, with any business, the boss tells you what your job is, and whether you decide to do the job is a decision you have to make, but you don’t get to dictate the parameters of your job to that extent, especially at this level.”