Page 32 - July 2017 Newsletter

This is how we roll call
The Lodge 7 leadership has initiated weekly visits to roll calls at all districts to talk to, and listen to, members
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Second Watch roll call in 09 begins this day with a wel- come guest tendering the 900-pound question weighing on the room. Lodge 7 President Kevin Graham has started his work day at 5:30 a.m. to further the Chicago FOP’s ini- tiative of making weekly visits to roll calls across all dis- tricts and all watches, to keep with the administration’s no-nonsense leadership approach. And he has submitted one heck of an ice-breaker.
“So what do you want in the new contract?” Graham asks the day before the current collective bargaining agreement with the City will expire.
“Money,” shouts one veteran copper, no doubt speaking for many in the room, not to mention the Department.
“Gas prices...expenses...we’ve got to live in this place. I want money,” he continues. “Thanks for coming.”
The discussions, conversations, feedback, advice, infor- mation and expressions of emotion in the wee hours of June 29 move from the contract to body camera policies to the discipline matrix to duty availability to time off to new patrol cars to the indictments that came down the night before back to the contract. The Lodge visit to the roll call is met with a lot more than pitching and moaning; it is an information exchange mixed in with some brainstorming
32 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JULY 2017
and a little therapy from Graham and First Vice President Pat Murray, who has joined the fray this morning.
When a 9th District officer steps in, sees Graham and remembers that she worked with him several years back, she offers a hug and a smile. Graham has been here since a little past 5 a.m. to make sure the Lodge continues to lend an ear to every member and remind that the leaders are, first and foremost, patrol cops who are not far removed from beat cars and want to take every opportunity to roll call with their homies.
“We’re here because if there’s something I’m not doing, they tell me,” Graham reasons. “I like answering ques- tions because this is their chance to ask the person who’s responsible. I’m not afraid to listen to that, and they’re not afraid to say that.”
Since the beginning of June, the Lodge has been hitting roll calls every Thursday with a visit to a different district to hit the early and late call on a watch. So far, members of the leadership team have visited 11, 08, 22, 19, 12 and 14, in addition to 09. By the end of August, they will also have visited 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.
And when all watches at all 23 districts have been called on, the rotation will start again to make sure all members don’t have to feel what 9th District Officer Dave Tencza voices on this morning: “In the past four years, I haven’t