Mesa vote may end 21 years of police union infighting

Nathan Gonzalez - Feb. 12, 2010 08:29 AM
The Arizona Republic .

For 21 years Mesa's 750 sworn Mesa police officers have had two unions vying to represent them.

It's been a polarizing and often dysfunctional relationship, with loyalties on each side running deep and cooperation rare.

Both the Mesa Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 9 and Mesa Police Association claim to represent a majority of the department's officers at the discussion table with police and city leaders.

Each also claims to have superior legislative connections, both locally and nationally.

But the years of division may come to an end this month.

This week, officers began voting to determine which labor organization will represent them in "meet and confer" sessions - a type of labor negotiation -- with city leaders.

The vote is significant because the union that wins will have a say that will affect not just the city budget, but public safety standards such as response times and number of officers per vehicle.

The voting ends Feb. 23. To win, an organization must get a majority of 60 percent of the voting sworn officers.

Should the vote fall short, each group will continue pushing separate agendas with city and department leaders. Should one group win, 21 years of contention would end, leaving one voice in the departments' decision-making.

"Since our inception, it's been a nonstop battle back and forth," MPA President Sgt. Fabian Cota said of working with FOP. "Then it turned into a competition for addressing these issues. We really don't have a working relationship."

Sgt. Bryan Soller, president of the Mesa and state FOP chapters, agreed that the two groups have rarely worked together and have consistently pushed differing solutions to common issues.

"I have reached out several times and they have told me several times to pound sand," Soller said. "There's no communication between the two groups."

It remains unclear which union in Mesa represents the most officers, as the MPA claims to have nearly 600 members and FOP about 500 and Soller and Cota say those numbers fluctuate. Further distorting those figures is that a sizable number of officers carry memberships to both groups.

The MPA formed in 1989 as a growing number of disenfranchised FOP members splintered from the group. MPA founders grew increasingly concerned that their FOP counterparts were sagging in their push for competitive salaries, benefits and a better working environment for members.

Seven years later, MPA grew to about 200 members, said Cota, who was an FOP member for nine years before switching organizations in 1996. About that time, MPA changed its bylaws to allow civilian dispatchers to join the group and be afforded legal coverage.

Among the major differences between the two organizations is their legal coverage. Officers battling internal investigations, being sued by the public or involved in deadly force cases are offered attorneys by both groups.

Members of MPA pool money into the Legal Defense Fund, offered through the Arizona Police Association, of which MPA is a member. Member agencies have access to about $4 million in reserves for officers such as Julie Shelley, a police academy training officer and former SWAT member.

In April 2008, she and other SWAT officers responded to the 3300 block of E. University Drive where Thomas Kotecki fatally shot two people, according to police. Kotecki eventually came at police with a gun and officers opened fire, killing him.

"We all had an attorney that night," said Shelley who has been an MPA member for seven years..

The FOP on the other hand, retains a group of Phoenix attorneys that strictly handle labor issues, and will cover "us for anything, all the way to the Supreme Court," Soller said. The legal team has never had an issue rise to the federal Supreme Court level.

"We have the only law firm that helped win anyone their jobs back," Soller said, referring to three employees who once faced termination only to be reinstated after FOP attorneys stepped in.

FOP is the longest-standing law enforcement union organization in the state, but it has slowly lost some ground among Valley police agencies.

The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, which represents 2,571 of Phoenix police's roughly 3,400 sworn officers, has negotiation rights on that city's police contract. However, ongoing budget battles have caused more than 130 members to sway toward the rival FOP chapter.

In addition, Avondale, Buckeye, Goodyear, Gilbert, Chandler, Scottsdale and Surprise have all seen new law enforcement associations rise up to challenge local FOP chapters.

Soller said that from his perspective, the tide is turning back to the FOP.

"We have taken a ton of their members away," he said.

Wherever their alliances lie, Mesa police officers say two organizations battling toward the same goal of bettering officers only serves as a distraction.

"We want an organization the city actually has some respect in," said Officer Mark Higbee, an FOP member. "If you're constantly fighting the other organization, it's probably because you're losing the battle. The higher road will prevail."