Department Measures Related to the Corona Virus [UPDATED]

Information has been a bit scarce and there seems to be some confusion going on around the Department. We're just putting up this post wth the little that we currently know so that folks can utilize the comments section to share their concerns and comments about the measures the Town has taken so far.

Originally we had heard that if any employees got sick that it would be covered under worker's comp no questions asked to encourage people not to come to work sick and possily spread it. But the Mayor's email yesterday stated that if employees get sick they'd have to use their own accrued time off and provide proof to the Town that they were sick, we assume in the form of a doctor's note. I think that's a bad idea as people may come to work anyway to avoid using up their time off. Or they will be going to the doctor unecessarily even though they have mild symptoms as most with the virus do just to get a note, which could cause unnecessary traffic at Doctor's offices who should be focusing on more critical patients.

I'd like to see, at least for first reponders, that we just get covered under worker's comp if we get sick for the duration of this issue. Of course if you can prove you got sick at work you should be covered anyway, but I don't see how anyone can definitively prove that. Especially in a Town where they're so aggressive about worker's comp cases that they tried to deny coverage to employees who got run over by cars on duty by claiming they had pre-existing conditions.

The Mayor also stated that all Town buildings would be closed to the public, but as of today the lobby of our building is still open to everyone. We're not sure if that policy will apply to us or not.

We've seen other area PDs instituting policies of allowing Officers to take reports for minor complaints over the phone instead of sending an Officer to someone's home unnecessarily. I think this is a great idea as it limits exposure in people's homes and is something that larger Departments do even under normal circumstances. So far we haven't heard anything about EHPD implementing this kind of policy.

We have been issued some PPE kits and there's disinfecting wipes in all the cars. Obviously this is a rapidly evolving situation and we expect the Admin is still working on getting more done in the coming days. We know they read this blog, so use the comments section to relay your opinions and concerns about what you think they're doing right, and what more you think they can do.

UPDATE 3-20-2020......

In the past week we've seen the Chief authorize Officers to respond to non emergency calls via telephone like many other Departments. We think that's a great move to limit exposure. The lobby at our Headquarters has also been closed to the public which is especially important at EHPD where our building layout requires crossing the lobby to get from one end of the building to the other unless you use the basement or second floor. We'd like to applaud the Admin for taking these measures.

Unfortunately the Admin refused to cover time off for employees who have been exposed saying that they will have to use their own accrued time for any missed work or be docked pay if they don't have any accrued time. Their opinion seems to be that they shouldn't have to cover you for free because if you get sick that's your problem. While we agree that under normal circumstances folks should use their own time, these are not normal circumstances and the Department should be doing everything they can to encourage employees who may have been exposed to voluntarily come forward and stay home without worrying about a personal cost to prevent the potential spread of sickness through the Department and community we are in contact with. This seems like trying to pinch pennies when one slip up could end up costing thousands, it just doesn't seem worth it.

The Chief did say that when this was all over they'd try to seek Federal or State reimbursement to get people their time off back, but that's not a sure thing and seems unnecessary when he could just choose to put anyone on Administrative leave without any red tape and then seek reimbursement for that later on. Of course that means the Town has to come out of their own pocket initially instead of ours and they'd take the hit if they cant get reimbursed down the line.

That's all we have for now. Stay safe out there everyone.

Personnel Appeals Postponed Indefinitely

We just got word yesterday that the three PAB hearings we had scheduled over the next 3 weeks have all been postponed indefinitely due to the Mayor closing Town Hall to evening meetings (Because we all know viruses only come out at night.). We were hoping to be able to wrap this issue up with these three hearings and have a decision by the end of the month, but now we may be pushed into June or even July depending on how long this goes on. I'm sure once Town Hall is re-opened there will be a lot of people vying for time to reschedule all sorts of hearings. Obviously we'd like to get this wrapped up as soon as possible, but that may be out of our hands at this point. We'll keep everyone updated when we find out more.

March Meeting [CANCELED]

Our March regular meeting will be held on Monday the 30th at 1630 in the usual spot. We will discuss updates to the Sergeant's test process as well as the latest with contract negotiations. Our second set of proposals should be exchanged by then so we will have new information. We have a PAB meeting afterwards at 1730 so we will be keeping the meeting brief and to the point. Hope to see you all there.

UPDATE: The Executive Board has decided to cancel this month's meetings. All of our contract meetings have also been canceled as well as PAB and pretty much everything else we're working on so there wouldn't be much to share anyway. We'll use this blog and lineups to keep people in the loop for the time being.

Postponements and Reschedulings.

Just to update everyone since we've been quiet on here for a couple weeks. The PAB meeting that was scheduled for February 20th was cancelled about 2 hours before it was supposed to start because Town Hall realized they had failed to post notice of it as required by law. The irony here of course is that the hearing was going to closed to public due to the "confidential" documents anyway. But they still are required to post notice to the public that there was going to be a hearing that they wouldn't be allowed to attend because the Town doesn't want anyone, especially the voting, tax paying public, to know the truth about what happened with the Sergeant's test. Of course we shouldn't be surprised that a Town government so incompetent that it can't manage to administer a simple promotional exam without it being mired in scandal and legal action also can't manage to adhere to it's own rules on public meeting notices.

The next PAB meeting isn't scheduled until March 19th at 1730. Again that meeting will most likely be closed to the public.

While we're on the topic of Town Officials shooting themselves in the foot with their own incompetence, at the last PAB hearing before the meeting was closed to the public it was accidentally revealed that the Town showed the "confidential" documents to the lawyer that's representing them in their CHRO defense. This was a point of contention when we were arguing the language for the protective order over the test documents. The Union asked to also be allowed to use the documents in our CHRO case but the Town threw a fit and opposed that saying that these documents weren't relevant to that case (even though the test results are clearly mentioned in the affidavit). The judge decided that the documents could only be used in the PAB hearings and if either party wanted to use them in another venue we'd have to come back and negotiate another order for that specific venue. So by showing these "confidential" documents to their other lawyer that's representing them in the CHRO case, the Town most likely violated the protective order that they asked for in the first place. You really can't make this stuff up, East Hartford must have hired it's attorneys at a job fair when Ringling Brothers went out of business.

On another note we were also scheduled for mediation in our CHRO case for February 25th but that was cancelled by the plaintiff at the last minute, though we were never notified of the cancellation so we showed up anyway. We're not sure right now what or when the next step in that process will be and we don't currently have anything scheduled at this time.

During this process we were made aware of an email from one of the Town's attorneys to the CHRO where she blames the Union and the PAB appellants for causing delay to the process by exercising their legal rights to an appeal and the Union's right to a grievance. These are complete lies as the Union has made several efforts to expedite this process so we can get the Department back to functioning like normal, a desire that the Town should share if they weren't desperately trying to hide what really happened. As we've documented here over the last several months, the Town has done everything in it's power to intentionally delay and draw out this process unnecessarily long. Just last week we made another offer to try and expedite the grievance which the Town again refused. And as I just wrote above, the most recent delay was caused by the Town failing to post the meeting notice, so trying to put the blame on the Union for the delays is a ridiculous proposition.

We are currently scheduled to begin the grievance process for the Sergeant's exam at the Labor Board on March 11th but that may be getting postponed as well as we're still waiting for a decision on the MPP that relates to it.

Otherwise we have a few contract meetings scheduled with the Town over the coming weeks including the first one tomorrow. We have received the Town's initial proposals and shared them at the last meeting. We can't post them here due to a provision in the ground rules but if any member wants to know what they are feel free to ask any member of the committee which is posted on the board in the break room. Please refrain from referencing them in the comment section as we agreed to keep them private during the negotiations process.

We'll keep this space updated but since we're limited in what we can speak about on multiple ongoing matters it may be a while. In the meantime try to attend the meetings as we will be able to discuss more there particularly in regards to contract negotiations.

Update on PAB Hearings

Our next PAB hearing is scheduled for February 20th at 1700 at Town Hall. As of the last hearing the confidential portion has begun so from now until I assume the end of the process the hearings will be closed to the public so our members who aren't witnesses or appellants will no longer be able to attend. We'll keep members updated as best we can without violating the agreement.

February Meeting

Our February regular meeting will be on Thursday the 20th at 1600 at the usual spot. We have a PAB meeting immediately afterwards at 1700 so we're going to keep the meeting brief and will just go over the latest items we've been working on.

Personnel Appeals Board Hearing February 10th

We have another PAB hearing this Monday at 1700. It's looking like the Town will use their court order to close it off to the public so none of their dirty secrets get out. So unfortunately our members who aren't a party to the order will be unable to attend, and neither will members of the media who have come to a few of the hearings.

The first portion of the hearing may be open to the public while DC Davis testifies, but after that we think it will be closed. So if you want to attend for that portion you may be able to, but we can't guarantee it.

Union Meeting Tomorrow

Just a reminder that our monthly meeting is tomorrow at 0830 at the usual spot. We have a lot to cover so if you're interested and/or have questions feel free to attend.

EHPOA and Town Open Labor Contract Negotiations

Yesterday the EHPOA Negotiating Committee had our first meeting with the Town to open negotiations for a new labor contract to replace the current one set to expire on June 30th 2020. This meeting was just to set the ground rules for negotiations and set future meeting dates, no actual contract items were discussed.

One of the ground rules both sides agreed to is that we will conduct all negotiations in private. This means we will not be able to post anything regarding what is being negotiated on this blog since it's a public forum. We are free to discuss all the details with our members at our meetings and at lineups however. So if you want to know what's going on with negotiations, you're going to have to come to the monthly meetings where we will be giving updates. We'll get a list of committee members posted on the Union bulletin board in the Patrol breakroom as well.

If you have any ideas that you'd like addressed in negotiations and haven't already passed them on to the Union Vice President, please do so by February 4th.

Summary of January 22nd Personnel Appeals Board Hearing

Thanks again to everyone who came to the hearing to show their support for our members. This hearing picked up where the last one left off with the Appellant's testimony. The second Appellant testified to his reasons for filing his appeal which were pretty much in line with the first Appellant who testified at the last hearing. He went over his experience and test preparation, but otherwise there wasn't anything new revealed.

The Appellants also called a Lieutenant from our Department as a witness. He testified that when he took a Sergeant's exam several years ago he too had questions about the reasoning behind the low passing score he received on his oral board exam. In that case he contacted HR Director Santiago Malave and asked to see his score sheets, which he was allowed to do without any questions or having to file any official requests. He also testified that he learned he could do this from another Sergeant who told him that she had been able to see her oral board results and suggested he do the same. This of course stands in stark contrast to the experience the three Appellants had in this case where they were lied to and then denied the ability to review their paperwork, even after filing the official paperwork as instructed by Mr. Malave.

Because we were limited in time at this hearing, that's all we were able to cover. There is another hearing on Monday the 27th at 1700 were the Appellants should be able to wrap up their initial case and the Town will begin theirs, but at this time we don't know if that hearing will be open to the pubic or not.

After the hearing the Appellants, the Union President and Vice President finally received copies of the documents that we've been seeking regarding this matter. We haven't had time to review everything in depth yet since there's a large number of pages, but we'll be working on getting that done and meeting amongst ourselves in the coming days. As we detailed in a previous post we are prohibited from disclosing the contents of the documents to anyone not involved in this process due to a court order. But we can say that after what we've seen so far in a brief overview of the documents, the Union absolutely intends to continue to pursue our grievance on this issue and our assistance to the Appellants for all the reasons we've previously stated here and at our meetings.

Personnel Appeals Board Hearing January 22nd

The next PAB Hearing is Scheduled for Wednesday January 22nd from 1700-1900. We have a fixed end time due to another group using the room after us. This hearing will still be open to the public as we will not be using the "confidential" documents at that hearing since we may not have them yet and/or will not have had time to fully review them, so members are still free to come to observe and show their support if you wish.

EHPOA Wins Limited Release of Sergeant's Oral Board Documents in Superior Court

As most of you are aware we have been fighting with the Town over viewing the documents related to the contested Sergeant's test for 7 or 8 months now in multiple venues. The Union has consistently argued that if we were allowed to see the documents and everything appeared legitimate as the Town claims it is, then this issue would go away and we could move forward with promotions. Instead the Town has fought us tooth and nail and spent tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep these supposedly benign documents hidden from anyone's view despite past practice of transparency. In the meantime the custodian of the documents suddenly put in for retirement which has further raised suspicion that maybe they're not so benign after all.

One of the venues we've been fighting in is Superior Court where we filed a motion to release the documents for use the Personnel Appeals Board hearings. Last week when the attorneys went before the judge there was no question on his part that the candidates should be allowed to see these documents and use them in their appeals. But he wanted to come up with some sort of protective order over the documents to satisfy the Town's desire to keep them shrouded in secrecy. Yesterday we received the judge's decision on the matter which is as follows;

The Union's attorney, President, Vice President, and the three appealing candidates will be allowed to view all documents related to the test unredacted.

The seven non-appealing candidates will be allowed to view all documents pertaining only to their own individual tests unredacted.

Witnesses and outside experts may view only the content of the documents pertinent to their testimony.

All parties allowed to view the documents will have to sign a confidentiality agreement to not disclose the information contained in the documents to anyone not listed in the above paragraphs. They must also agree to only use this information for the PAB hearings and may not use them for any other hearing without going through this court process again. Additionally once the hearings are over we must return the documents to the Town for destruction, never to be seen again.

The last main point, which was a point of contention between the Union and the Town, is that when these documents are being discussed in the normally public PAB hearings, the hearing will be made private with only those given access to the documents allowed to be in the room. The Union has pushed for these hearings to remain open to the public and members of the Department because we believe the only cure for corruption in Government is transparency, without it nobody can be assured that the process is fair. The Town unfortunately doesn't share this belief and made a big push to close the hearings to the public and the judge ultimately sided with them.

There's been a lot of speculation over the last few months about what these documents will show, fueled by the Town's irrational grabbing at straws to hide them, and now we'll finally have the answer. Whether they reveal corruption or nothing at all really doesn't matter at this point, the damage has been done. The employees here at EHPD have lost all faith in our Town's HR Department to conduct a competent, impartial, and transparent exam and promotional process. Whenever a new HR Director is finally appointed they're going to have a real challenge on their hands to rebuild trust and fix the complete mess Santiago Malave has made of the Department.

We are also still arguing for the release of these documents through an MPP for use during the grievance process since this order only allows us to use them in the PAB hearing. we have a hearing scheduled for that at the labor board later in the month.

The next PAB Hearing is Scheduled for Wednesday January 22nd from 1700-1900. We have a fixed end time due to another group using the room after us. This hearing will still be open to the public as we will not be using the documents at that hearing since we may not have them yet and/or will not have had time to fully review them, so members are still free to come and show their support.

January Meeting

Our January meeting will be held on Thursday January 30th at 0830 at the usual spots. Due to a packed schedule with PAB Hearings, Superior Court dates, grievances, training, and the opening of contract negotiations we are unable to do it in conjunction with a common day like we usually try to.

On the Agenda will be updates on the Sergeant test appeals/grievance, opening of labor contract negotiations, Appendix F issues, and any other issues that may arise. As always we will have an open floor for members to bring up their own issues.

If you're a Supervisor I encourage you to attend as we've recently had some productive discussions with the Chief about how to resolve the constant Appendix F disputes in contract negotiations and I'd like input from those it affects most.

Summary of Jan 8th PAB Hearing

Thanks again to everyone who came and sat in on the hearing last night. Unfortunately it got off to a rocky start with confusion over the start time so we didn't get started until around 1730, and once we did there were a few Administrative motions by board members. Based on the language of the motions and the support from two of the three Board members, it seems to me as though the majority of the Board agrees with the Appellant's position that the Town should be open and transparent with test results to get this rather simple issue cleared up instead of muddying the waters with deception and unnecessary secrecy.

Once we got the hearing started Attorney McEleney began by submitting all the documents he was going to be referring to in his case to the Board as exhibits. The Town's attorney Meredith Diette objected and insisted that the entire 58 page FOI packet the Town gave me months ago including the letters to the examiners and candidates be entered as 58 separate exhibits instead of as one whole document. So we all sat there while all 58 pages were individually numbered and entered. This set the tone for the rest of the hearing with Attorney Diette objecting to almost every document submitted by the appellants after that, including one that was just a chart listing all the candidates and their grades, and relevant emails between the candidates and HR Director Malave.

Both Attorneys then gave their opening statements with Attorney McEleney using his time to simply lay out the facts of the case and reasons for the appeals as we've laid out on here previously. Attorney Diette then gave her statement which continued the Town's theme of "nothing wrong happened but we're not going to prove it you, and you need to stop asking." During her statement however she repeatedly stressed that the one candidate with the perfect score and 28 point gap to second place was female, bringing it up over and over again with a strong verbal emphasis. It was obvious to everyone there that Attorney Diette was trying to make the implication that this appeal was only happening because the appellants had some sort of sexist bias and not because everyone else who took the test either failed or just barely passed with a minimum score. Not only is her implication unfounded and offensive to our members, but it seems pretty stupid to accuse your client's employees of sexism against a coworker while your client is actively being sued by that same coworker for sexism in the workplace. I'm no lawyer but that seems like a pretty bad legal strategy to me. Chief Sansom complains about morale being low among the ranks, why not try telling your lawyer not to make completely unfounded implications of illegal behavior by your employees in a public hearing as a morale booster?

In fact when the first appellant, began his testimony the first thing he did was call out Attorney Diette on her offensive comments to which she had no response. He then went on to detail his extensive preparation for the tests, the test questions and his feelings on them, his discussions with other candidates and employees about his answers and his lack of understanding of his score. He also described how after the scores were released, he was mislead by Human Resources.

The Officer explained that he went to HR and asked Suzan Kyeremateng how he could view his test results to help understand his score and she told him he would have to wait 15 days after the posting to look at them, but he would be able to. A short time later he learned that in order to file a PAB appeal he only had 14 days, so had he taken Suzan's advice he would have missed the window to file an appeal. Either she isn't familiar with the processes of the Department she works in, or she intentionally mislead the Officer to prevent him from filing an appeal. After realizing this he emailed HR Director Malave and asked how he could view his test results, Malave responded that he would have to file an FOI request, but implied that after that he'd be able to see them. Several days after filing the FOI Malave responded that it was denied and refused to show him anything. This whole exchange was captured via email, when a copy of the email was submitted as an exhibit Attorney Diette objected and was able to keep it from being seen by the Board members. Fortunately during a blunder later during cross examination she accidentally opened the door to the email and it was allowed to be submitted to the Board.

This seems like a recurring theme with HR where we never can quite tell if they're simply incompetent, or if they know exactly what they're doing and are just lying. Either way our members should take it as a warning for future interactions with them that you cant believe anything they tell you. You're going to have to look things up for yourself.

We had a scheduled stop time of 2000, and during her cross examination of the first Officer Attorney Diette seemed to be asking a number of repetitive or irrelevant questions while repeatedly looking at the clock. It seemed to me and others watching that she was simply trying to waste time  and run down the clock to prevent Attorney McEleney from calling another witness that day, and she succeeded in running just past 2000. Fortunately for us, the PAB, perhaps noticing Attorney Diette's tactic, allowed McEleney to call one more witness before adjourning.

Attorney McEleney called one of our members who took the Detective's exam in 2018. That member detailed how she questioned her oral board score and requested of Mr. Malave that she be allowed to view her score sheets. Mr. Malave not only allowed her to see the sheets, but he didn't request that she file an FOI or take any other additional steps. It was a completely different exchange to the one Officers had with this test. Of course this exchange was also captured in an email chain which Attorney McEleney tried to give to the Board members but Attorney Diette again objected to it.

The hearing was adjourned after that. The next hearing will be in two weeks on Jan 22nd at 1700, unless they change it to 1730. We expect that the Appellants will proceed with the rest of their witnesses on that date.

PAB Hearing this Wednesday January 8th

The Personnel Appeals Board hearing for this Wednesday is going forward. The plan is to have the appellants and other witnesses on our side testify at this hearing. The hearing will take place at 1700 hours in Town Council Chambers at Town Hall. If you're free and would like to attend to show your support or just learn more about what's going on with the process, the hearing is open to the public and we encourage you to attend.