Police, city officials face off at City Council meeting/Complaints include poor pay, lack of input on insurance and inadequate communication equipment
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
By RACHEL HARPER/Staff writer
The Marshall City Council met Monday, June 18, to hear concerns about salaries, health insurance and radio communication problems from an organization representing 23 unhappy members of the Marshall Police Department.
Marc Moore, president of the Mid-Missouri Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 16 and representing the members of the police department, addressed the council about "conditions of the Marshall Police Department."
These 23 members, excluding the police chief and the administrative staff, make up 90 percent of Marshall's police force.
The members of the police department are concerned about three things, Moore said.
The first is pay. They believe the starting pay is sufficient but there are no advancement benefits or "longevity rate." Moore said the police department has had 89 persons come and go in recent years, averaging about six people a year, a 17 percent turnover rate.
A person working for the department for 10 years is making the same as someone who has been there two, Moore said.
The second concern is health insurance. Officers feel they should be informed about competing insurance bids before a decision is made.
The third concern is radio equipment.
"You can ask any one of the officers and they will tell you there are several dead spots around Marshall," Moore said. "As a police officer myself, there is nothing more dangerous than not being able to reach (communications) for help."
Missed deadlines and meeting dates apparently are contributing to the tension between the organization and Marshall's governing body, with both sides claiming the other is failing to meet deadlines.
Mayor Connie Latimer said the city is looking into the problems police department members have identified and said some of them are already being worked on.
"You could ask any of the officers if the communications are being worked on and they are," she said, noting that Jesse Coslet is working on improving radio resources.
Latimer added that a meeting with the Police Personnel Board is scheduled to occur Tuesday, June 19, to discuss salaries.
Dan Brandt, Ward 3, said he has been on the council for 11 years and "we deal with (salaries) the best we can with the money we have. We make hard decisions every year."
Moore asked for a committee to be formed to solve the problems. The committee would consist of two council members, two officers and a person at large.
Gabe Ramsey, Ward 2, said, "I think we are already addressing the problems."
Moore acknowledged that some steps had been taken to address concerns, but he indicated they were not enough.
"While the mayor did fix some of the items, they were almost humorous," he said.
Moore was addressing the request for a bulletin board so that letters and other important information could be placed. He said that the board was so old and torn up that the board had to be turned around and placed on the wall with the back out.
"This does not show the employees that their administration cares," he said.
He also said that he was not pleased with the way the mayor addressed the officers during one discussion by comparing them to "children crying for another toy from Wal-Mart."
Latimer said that Moore had jumped to conclusions and she clarified what she meant.
"What I meant by that statement was I don't reward bad behavior."
She said the way these officers approached this matter qualified as bad behavior by writing a letter to the editor of The Marshall Democrat-News and other unnecessary action.
"Any employee can come to my office," she said, noting she believes that is the best way to work out problems.
Moore said the members wrote a letter to The Marshall Democrat-News expressing their concerns and the letter was not published.
Publisher Shelly Arth said Tuesday, June 19, that the letter wasn't published because it didn't meet the paper's letter to the editor policy, which requires that letters include names, phone numbers and addresses for letter signers.
"I was willing to work with the police officers to publish their letter," she said. "I spoke with two members of the department and made appointments with them to come in after their shifts to discuss our policies and procedures. Neither of them kept the appointments."
Shortly after the letter to the editor was submited, Moore said, members of the department were told there was to be an investigation.
Moore said there were threats that members would lose their jobs.
"They were never in danger of losing their jobs," Latimer said.
The police department issues were not specifically listed on the council agenda but were raised during the time regularly devoted to comments from the audience.
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