ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY

FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

1. If elected, what specifically will you do to support rank and file law enforcement officers?

ANSWER: I want to ensure that the citizens of Anne Arundel County are safe and secure in their homes and in their daily activities. For this county to remain a first-class place to live and work, we must demonstrate a strong and consistent commitment to the personnel who deliver our essential government services. Accordingly, I support paying our officers a top salary (not just a competitive one), equipping them with state-of-the-art equipment, and training them regarding the latest developments in law enforcement. If elected, I will support full funding for all of these goals.

Some say we do not have the funds to fully fund the police department. I do not agree. In the event there were to be a fiscal crisis, however, I have publically pledged, and do so again here, that I will forego taking any salary for serving on the County Council, so that whatever funds which would be used to pay me could instead be devoted to funding essential public safety departments, such as the police department.

I also believe that, in addition to having the best personnel, the best equipment and the best training, there must be a collaborative relationship between the management of the department, the union, and the political branches of government. Accordingly, I support binding arbitration. I do not support, however, management rights clauses such as Article 3 of the current collective bargaining agreement, which, it has been my experience in representing the FOP in other contract matters, has been used by management to foist ill-considered changes upon the members, to the detriment of the force and the public.

If I am elected, labor, and the FOP in particular, will have a firm, experienced friend on the Council to look out for its members’ and the public’s interests.

2. Fire Department personnel up to and including the rank of Captain are represented by the IAFF. Would you support or introduce legislation to allow police officers, up to and including the rank of Lieutenant, to have representation of their choosing for collective bargaining? Would you allow the Fraternal Order of Police to serve as their representative if they so choose?

ANSWER: If elected, I will support legislation to allow police officers, up to and including Lieutenants, to organize, and I would allow the FOP to serve as their representative, if they so chose. I explain below.

I support collective bargaining in public employment. I also believe that collective bargaining is a help, not a hindrance, to proper management of a police department. I support fair dealing with employees, organized into appropriate units, represented by the labor organization of their choice. I support collective bargaining for police lieutenants, and their right to choose to organize under the FOP banner. In fact, I have represented a unit of police managers which included captains (Las Vegas, Nevada), but, of course, their bargaining unit was separate and distinct from the officers. As a general rule, any police rank which is attained through competitive examination should be allowed to organize.

3. Under current County Code, officers who are retired by the County on a disability suffer an income earnings cap that offsets their pension benefit by any amount over what they could have made in their rank within the police department. This is not consistent with surrounding jurisdictions. Would you support or introduce legislation to remove the income earnings cap for police officers who can no longer perform the basic functions of an officer?

ANSWER: I support equitable pension benefits for performance-of-duty disabilities. I do not, however, support an outright and complete removal of the earnings cap. I give the following example to illustrate my reasoning:

Assume a disabled officer re-trains and becomes a stock broker, earning $5,000,000 per year. Although I recognize that that person would no longer be able to do police work, and would thus suffer a substantial loss, it does not seem equitable to me to have the citizens of this county supplement what would, in this example, be a substantial income, the funds for which could go to support other law enforcement activities.

The above being said, I think the earnings cap must reflect that which the officer would have earned in the years after he or she was injured, had he or she not suffered a performance of duty injury. I would, therefore, support automatic increases in the cap to reflect the earnings and rank the person would have achieved as if there was no disability.

4. Our police department has been functioning with increasing staff shortages. These shortages were exacerbated by the unnecessary termination of 16 police officers, the cancellation of multiple academy classes, and removal of our Cadet Program based on wrongly projected budget cuts from the State. We now find ourselves unable to fill vacant positions in our police department. As more and more positions go unfilled what will you do to combat our staffing shortages and improve morale on our depleted police force?

ANSWER: As outlined above, I support raising the entry-level salary, so we can attract more highly qualified officers, I support modifying the income earnings cap so that an officer does not lose income if he or she suffers a performance-of-duty injury, and I support binding arbitration and a fair collective bargaining agreement, so there can be true labor/management peace. I believe implementation of these measures will go some distance in combating staff shortages and improving morale.

As to support from the Council, I never would have supported the firing of 16 police officers, purportedly for budgetary reasons; as I noted above, I would rather not take a salary than jeopardize the safety of the people of Anne Arundel County. Moreover, there would have been no reason to have to fight for binding arbitration; that is automatic as far as I am concerned. Lastly, with an experienced attorney on the Council, officers coming onto the department, as well as those who are already on, would know they have a dedicated supporter making laws, rather than someone who reluctantly goes along with the union=s position, today, only to reverse him or herself when it is more convenient.

5. What, if anything, have you done to support law enforcement to date?

ANSWER: I have proudly represented the FOP for the past 16 years. When Chief Fulwood tried to eliminate light duty in the District of Columbia, I, at the request for the FOP/MPD Labor Committee, filed a class action, the result of which was the light duty program was restored, millions of dollars in benefits were paid to the officers, and the union reimbursed for its legal fees. When Chief Thomas tried to change the requirements for promotion to sergeant, I filed another class action at the request for the FOP/MPD Labor Committee, and, within three weeks, got that change reversed. I have also represented the union in matters regarding contract interpretation, the result of which was the sustaining of the union=s position.

I have also represented law enforcement police officers in trial boards and in court. I was the lead attorney in the case where two MPD officers handcuffed an intoxicated woman to a mailbox while they were waiting for a transport after she had assaulted them; the result was the officers were cleared, and over $100,000 was recovered in attorney's fees.

Last year, the FOP/WMATA picked me to be labor=s representative in an interest arbitration. As a result of my work, labor got all of the wage increases it sought, as well as numerous non-economic benefits.

Within the past month, I have provided assistance to a colleague of mine working on legal matters involving two bargaining units. Rarely does the week go by wherein I am not consulted about police labor relations.

If I am elected, you will have at least one councilman who is knowledgeable and receptive when it comes to issues affecting law enforcement and labor. I intend to focus on full funding for the services that make the county work: that means police, fire, health, and education. Everything after that is secondary.