Page 5 - November 2018

CHICAGO LODGE 7
Official Magazine
President’s Report
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE CHICAGO LODGE #7
EXECUTIVE BOARD
KEVIN GRAHAM
President
PATRICK J. MURRAY
First Vice President
Martin Preib
Second Vice President
Jay R. Ryan
Third Vice President
Greg Bella
Recording Secretary
Michael P. Garza
Financial Secretary
John Capparelli
Treasurer
Dean C. Angelo, Sr.
Immediate Past President
Sergeants-at-Arms
William Burns James Jakstavich Michael Mette
Trustees
Harold Brown Andrew Cantore Mark Donahue William Dougherty Pat Duckhorn Sergio Escobedo Fernando Flores Joseph Gentile Danny Gorman Ken Hauser Rick King Frank Quinn Carlos Salazar Ron Shogren Mark Tamlo Daniel Trevino Michael Underwood
Field Representatives
Robert Bartlett Rich Aguilar
Consent decrees, the contract and legal defense
I sincerely hope that all the members, active and retired, had the opportunity to spend time with their families during the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend.
There are several important messages I want to communicate to our members.
As many of you are aware, the Lodge is facing a possible consent decree as a re- sult of a lawsuit that Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed against the City. A consent decree would place a great deal of power in the hands of a judge to make changes to the Department that the judge deems necessary. The threat of a consent decree also arises from another, separate lawsuit filed by a collection of anti-police advocates, including Craig Futterman from the University of Chicago, and Black Lives Matter. Still a third possible consent decree possibility arises from threats by the ACLU to
file a lawsuit against the Department.
While we oppose any consent decree and reject the arguments used to justify one, it is ex-
tremely important that the Lodge respond wisely to these lawsuits and the possibility of a con- sent decree. Toward that end, we have placed this issue as a top priority. We have excellent legal representation from attorney Joel D’Alba, and a good strategy. For now, this is a dynamic process, including back and forth with the U.S. Department of Justice, which has stated that it does not want to enter into a consent with the Department and the City.
I want to point out two key issues that would result from the imposition of a monitor in a consent decree. Apart from the false arguments about police discrimination that are rooted in the lawsuits, a consent decree would result in a tremendous waste of money and resources that would be better spent on hiring and training more police officers and providing better equip- ment, rather than spending it on monitors, attorney fees and court costs. We’re talking about millions of dollars here.
The second major problem with the consent decree is that it will place the daily functioning of the Department under the purview of a judge who may know nothing about law enforcement. The power of that judge could include making changes to our collective bargaining agreement. Would this judge make reasoned, informed decisions, or would he or she be acting out of bias and a political agenda? We believe that any changes to the Department and the collective bar- gaining agreement should be made through the negotiating process.
This is a complicated situation the Lodge finds itself in. I want to assure you that we are work- ing very hard to look out for our members’ best interests and believe we will make the right decisions.
The Contract
We have met with the City and discussed the general parameters of what we are looking for in the upcoming collective bargaining agreement. We are waiting for the City and the Department to give us a list of what they are looking for in the contract.
As many of you know from previous contracts, the negotiating process is not a sprint but a marathon. We need to prepare for the possibility of going to arbitration, while at the same time negotiating in good faith with the City. I believe we will negotiate a good contract at the end. I do want to assure members that there are some things we will and won’t negotiate.
We will not give up rights in disciplinary actions that the Lodge has fought years to obtain. This is nothing more than fair and equal treatment for all of us.
When it comes to medical issues, we want officers to be able to leave as soon as they are eligi- ble for retirement without having to spend all of their pension on medical care until they qualify
KEVIN GRAHAM
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ NOVEMBER 2017 5