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Kevin
E. Black, Second Vice President
email: Kevinsoa@aol.com
"Excellence
is never an accident; it is the result of high
intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction,
skillful execution and the vision to see obstacles as
opportunities."
I
start the column this month with this quote because it
is something I truly believe. I also believe that to
achieve excellence you need all the people involved in
your endeavor pulling the same way to achieve that
excellence. They all must be pulling for the greater
good, not individual glory. Welcome to the Nassau County
Police Department.
New Commissioners – Acting Commissioner Dale and Assistant
Commissioner Hart. By now unless you have been under a
rock for a month you know we have some new leadership at
the top of the Department. I have met both of these men
briefly and I can tell you they have firm handshakes and
they look you in the eye when they speak to you, these
are two qualities I have always admired. They both have
extensive law enforcement backgrounds and are everything
you could ask for in leadership for this Department.
That is, except they aren’t from this Department.
Speaking as an S.O.A. representative those two jobs
should have gone to members or former members of this
bargaining unit. There is a reason our members keep
taking tests for Promotion to Captain and it isn’t to
be just a Captain. It is to move forward up the ranks
and possibly one day be the Commissioner. This I believe
is the ultimate goal for some members of upper
management. It is a worthy goal and one a lot of time
and effort has been put into. Now for some, that
opportunity is gone. This move causes further stagnation
in the ranks. If no one at the top moves up no one at
the bottom moves up. Plain and simple.
Shortages
and Substations – “We can do more with less” and
so it started under Tom Suozzi. We are quickly
approaching do more with nothing. We are short Sergeants
in the Detective Division and Lieutenants in patrol, we
have sub-stations unsupervised and we have a supervisor
at the range for less than half the hours it should be
in operation, that is, when it is in operation. When
does this stop? When
does someone look up and say this really doesn’t work
instead of, this is fine, we can do that without the
proper tools or the manpower. There has to be some
recognition that with the decisions being made there are
liability issues attached. These liabilities may not
come to fruition today or tomorrow but at some point
they will. When they do I hope the decision makers will
stand up and take ownership of these decisions.
Contract
Extension - Their have been no new discussions with the
county since we sat down with NIFA and the County and
were told we need to come up with 13 million and change
a year to help balance the county’s budget. The Board
has had discussions in house about possible scenarios
regarding what might happen and how a deal might be
reached. Having said that the overwhelming response from
you, the membership has been, “no more givebacks, we
have done enough” followed quickly by “why we would
we make a deal with someone who has basically tried to
destroy the contract we have in place. As for an
incentive, it would seem the best way to save cash
immediately would be to get your highest paid employees
off of the payroll as quickly as possible. You know, by
offering an incentive. Just by moving senior people out
the County and Dept. could save money in longevity
payments. The County has a guaranteed 80 million dollars
for Termination pay in 2012. Make an offer Mr. Mangano.
So, for now we sit watch and wait.
NIFA – our attorney for our lawsuit deposed NIFA Chairman Ronald
Stack. Evident among other things is that Mr. Stack is
very impressed with him and has no problems expressing
his self-admiration. The other point that stands out
from his deposition is that after NIFA approved paying
over $250,000 for an accounting firm to come up with
ways for the county to become more efficient and save
money he never read the report. Why would he read it, it
was written to help Mr. Mangano not him. This is the
Chairman of the Board in charge of county finances and
he didn’t read the report the commissioned. How will
he know if Mr. Mangano read it?
Tahoes
being removed from Supervisory patrol by the Department
- The genesis is that Chevy Tahoes were put out on patrol towards the end
of 2010. In January of 2011 we made inquiries with the
department regarding members going to EVOC due to the
differing weight differential of the vehicles as well as
the fact that on Chevrolet's website they (Chevy) did
not recommend the 4 wheel drive configuration for high
speed driving or pursuits.
There
were two meetings held where the issue was discussed and
both times the
department seemed uninterested in our concerns.
However, on January 10th the department deemed it
necessary to enter into a memorandum of agreement with
the PBA to train their members in 5-hour blocks of time
at EVOC. A series of letters back and forth between us
ensued, wherein the department continually denied the
need for training our membership. This they said was due
to the fact that they "deny any safety issue"
regarding the vehicles. This led to the filing of an
Improper Practice (IP) with the Public Employee
Relations Board (PERB), based on member safety, which is
a mandatory subject of bargaining. The purpose of the IP
was to get the department back to the table to discuss
the training issue. The Department requested and was
granted a postponement of the original hearing date with
PERB.
In the
meantime on January 20th of this year we had
a meeting with 1st Deputy Commissioner Krumpter and Dan
Schor the County Director of Labor Relations regarding a
series of labor issues we had with the department. At
this meeting Commissioner Krumpter informed us of the
decision to remove the Tahoes from supervisory patrol.
It should be noted here that we never asked for or
demanded our members to be trained on overtime. We even
gave them the example that on the day of the meeting 5
Supervisors were working in the 3rd precinct and they
could have trained 2 in the morning and 2 in the
afternoon using 4-hour blocks of training at no cost to
the county and within contractual rules. This could be
done in all commands when roll calls were fat. We also
offered them the ability to use payback time or quarter
days for a day of training that would include EVOC for
the Tahoes. All
to no avail.
Throughout
this process we have been very reasonable and while I
agree the Tahoes were a welcome addition to the patrol
fleet of vehicle. There are a safety issues involved and
as such we felt you should be trained. To this day over
800 Police Officers, by Commissioner Krumpter's count,
have been trained all on overtime. They have spent
approximately 4,000 hours training P.O.s on these
vehicles, yet there is no safety issue! As explained to
him we were not looking for overtime we are looking for
training. As an aside the next batch of 4-wheel drive
vehicles the department has ordered are Ford Explorers,
which are high speed and pursuit rated. But, don’t
worry there is no issue with the Tahoes.
As this is
a safety issue, at this point the SOA cannot say “oh
we like the vehicles, never mind leave them on
patrol”. We bent over backwards to get this done and
their answer was to remove the vehicles. I understand
your concerns; you should know we did everything in our
power to prevent this. The Department has chosen to
resolve the matter in this way.
Transitional
Training for .40 caliber pistols. As of this writing 139 out of
362 members of the SOA have been transitioned to the Sig
Sauer .40 Caliber pistols. With the closing of our range
(because it shoots back) range time is harder to come
by. The plan was and is to begin to move more
supervisors through the training as soon as more range
time can be arranged with one of the other local
departments who have unused time available at their
ranges.
The
Inspector Generals report was released after the last
issue of the Gold Shield. It is over 350 pages long and
it is in one person’s opinion, a total waste of paper.
After over 100 depositions and examining over 1000
documents and e-mails the conclusion is that within this
Department apparently only six people were responsible
for and were aware of the problems in the lab. 4 of who
are now retired and 2 who remain active.
Really? All that time, effort and evidence and
these six people were responsible? How disappointing. It
appears as if Ms. Biben and her staff took a good
portion of the ASCLD report reworded it and added some
conclusions. ASCLD, you remember them the national
accreditation society who totally botched an inspection
in North Carolina just before inspecting our lab. They
were roundly criticized in law enforcement and
scientific circles for it.
Oh yes, and
the D.A., Kathleen Rice and her people were totally
unaware of any problems until they read about it
Newsday. Unless of course you listen to what the
Onandaga D.A. William Fitzpatrick has to say. He says
Ms. Rice was aware of the problems in the lab because he
told her about them at New York State Association of
District Attorney meetings. You see he serves on the New
York State Commission on Forensic Sciences and had
knowledge of the labs failed inspections past and
present. This is the Board that has oversight over crime
labs in New York State. I guess Ms. Biben never spoke
with him. That board by the way, the New York State
Commission on Forensic Sciences has decided not to
follow any of the recommendations in the IG report. Now
there is a ringing endorsement of the report.
The
following is an excerpt of the Rules of this department
that should be read. Recently it has cropped a number of
times and you as supervisors should be aware of it.
Court
Testimony – Article 20 Rule 4 – 1 Members of the
Force who are subpoenaed to court by the defense or they
intend to appear in court for the defendant in a
criminal matter, WILL discuss the pending court appearance with their Commanding Officer
prior to their court appearance. In cases where a member
appears in court as a defense witness, he shall not
appear in uniform nor display the police shield unless
otherwise directed by his Commanding Officer. It will be
the responsibility of the Commanding Officer to notify
the Court Liaison Office of a member’s pending court
appearance as a defense witness.
a.
A written character reference is in lieu of
personal testimony and as such this rule applies.
Don’t
forget to let us know if you are called to IAU or
receive some kind of court notification that is out of
the ordinary. If you have questions you can call the
office at 681-8624, by e-mail at NASSOA@aol.com,
or kevinsoa@aol.com.
Obviously you can contact you command trustees for any
questions also.
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