PAX Centurion - January / March 2016

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • January/March 2016 • Page 3 A Message from the President: Patrick M. Rose, BPPA President M arch is here and with it comes more sun shine, warmer weather and hopefully better moods. We’ll start with some positives; we have moved into our new ‘digs’ at 295 Freeport Street. It’ll probably take a month of Sundays to get fully moved in and functional, but it’ll be well worth it. This is your Union Hall, you now have a place that you can be proud of, to invite out-of-towners to, a facility that properly represents you and a place that you can hang your hat anytime, it’s your hall, so drop by. We hope to have our old property up for sale within the next couple of weeks and have had many inquiries concerning that property. We don’t believe it will be on the market very long. The Detectives’ long-awaited contract has finally been settled, with theArbitrator awarding them ( basically ) our contract. What’s this mean to us you ask? Now we can finally get down to business and enter into meaningful, legitimate negotiations with the City and work towards a new collective bargaining agreement for us. It’s no secret that our contract expires on June 30, 2016. One of our goals is to bring back a negotiated contract to you, our members, to ratify. We have a good plan and we hope that the City will sit down and become a legitimate partner in this round of negotiations. None of us want to ‘roll the proverbial dice’ in arbitration again. We want to sit down and earnestly negotiate a fair contract for both our members and the taxpayers of this great City. However, we will always follow the path that is best for our membership! We continue to whittle away at all of the outstanding grievances, attempting to settle as many as possible. For those that we can’t, we have already arbitrated a few and scheduled many more for arbitration. We continue to approach the City managers with an open mind and a positive attitude, because we believe that is the way to conduct business, ( as difficult as that can be at times ). We always keep in mind that this is about you, the membership. There have been some stumbling blocks. We don’t always agree with the It’s time to get into meaningful negotiations for our next contract administration concerning what’s in the best interest of the Patrol Officers and there have been some long and arduous discussions concerning discipline matters, but we continue in our attempt to point the ill-informed onto the path of truth and in the direction of fairness. We firmly believe that all of our members are equal, should be treated equally and with respect due their position. We believe that our members take enough ‘ crap ’ on a day-to-day basis without it being piled on by a select few within the administration. This is a very dangerous world that we live in and I don’t think it’s asking too much for our members to be treated with some amount of respect and dignity ( that they deserve ) especially from individuals that make their living from our ( dangerous and life threatening) work! Sadly it appears that there are still those within the safe and comfortable confines of 1 Schroeder Plaza that feel their sole function, their job, their career, exist to upset as many lives as humanly possible. We could pontificate for pages on the inequities within our own department, suffice it to say we will continue to point out the truth and identify those that seek to destroy the good work done on a daily basis by our members. With that said, we are looking forward to continuing in our efforts to build bridges with those that wish our department and City to be a success. As I have pointed out many times, the majority of us, have been born and raised in this City and continue to reside in this City. With that in mind, it should never be forgotten that we have a vested interest in this City. Enough said, time to get off of the ‘soap box.’ It continues to be a very dangerous job, please remember that we only have each other, back each other up and get home safe and sound to your family! That should always be your number one priority and responsibility. God Bless and Stay Safe! One of our goals is to bring back a negotiated contract to you, our members, to ratify. We have a good plan and we hope that the City will sit down and become a legitimate partner in this round of negotiations. None of us want to ‘roll the proverbial dice’ in arbitration again. We want to sit down and earnestly negotiate a fair contract for both our members and the taxpayers of this great City. However, we will always follow the path that is best for our membership!