The Tribune today editorialized in support of Methuen’s stand on the grievance and arbitration request of the Methuen Patrolman’s Association. Read the Tribune editorial here. And while a story yesterday had the union indicating that they had made every attempt to “negotiate” this matter the truth is vastly different than their statement. From yesterday’s Tribune.
“We exhausted every opportunity to negotiate short of filing this grievance. There was no attempt made to mediate,” the union leadership said, adding that the only correspondence received from the mayor was the one that said “DENIED.”
The Union did not place one call to my office to negotiate this matter or to schedule an appointment to speak with me on it. I am not sure what is meant by “exhausting every opportunity” but I can assure you all that phrase has a significantly different meaning in the private sector. I will post an estimate of the cost to the taxpayers of the union “request” on this blog at some point shortly.
And that number, by our estimate, is $20,729. With all of the financial difficulties we face the union expects the taxpayers to pay close to twenty one thousand dollars to fund a non-existent benefit. I would like to point out that the Fire Union did not file a grievance on this matter.
Bill Manzi.com 
The Tribune has said it all this time. The police union deserves nothing on this issue and we taxpayers should not have to pay just because they say so. Mr. Mayor I whole heartedly agree with your stand on this issue. Instead of negotiating this matter to any degree you might send over a large wheel of cheese to go with that whine coming from the police department.
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As mentioned in the earlier trib article, I found it interesting that the patrolman’s union is willing/able to furnish payroll records from years past to support their case for Christmas/New Year’s holiday pay, and yet payroll records from that same department to prove that $170,000 in grant money wasn’t misspent can’t be found?!
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