TIMOTHY R. SMITH AND ASSOCIATES, L.L.C.
          Attorneys At Law
 76 SOUTH ORANGE AVENUE, SUITE 201
 SOUTH ORANGE, NEW JERSEY 07079

TIMOTHY R. SMITH
 Admitted in NJ, NY, and DC

PHONE: (973) 763-5400
 FAX: (973) 763-5458

JENNIFER BORJA
 Admitted in NJ and NY
 

 PABLO N. BLANCO
 Admitted in NJ, CT, CO

www.timrsmithlaw.com
E-Mail:  tsmith@timrsmithlaw.com

Tax ID:  203869941
CHIRAG MEHTA
 Admitted in NJ
 

Of Counsel:
STEVEN J. KAFLOWITZ
 Admitted in NJ and to practice before the
Supreme Court of the United States

  October 23, 2007  

 

 OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE ON BEHALF OF PBA LOCAL # 69

 

            The contents of this submission are entirely responsive to recent press releases, by certain Union Township political figures, which have served to falsify the genesis of the current acrimonious labor/management relationship between the PBA and the Township.  This Firm has been compelled, on behalf of PBA Local # 69, to take the unusual and extraordinary measure of issuing a formal, written, and comprehensive press release due to the pervasive nature of the inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and outright lies perpetrated by Township political officials through their recent statements to the media.

             For example, Mayor Brenda Restivo has recently asserted that the Union’s vote of “no confidence” in the job performance of Township Administrator Frank Bradley was, in essence, in opposition to Mr. Bradley’s initiation of the Compstat Program.  Stated simply, this assertion is a myth and has been proffered by Mayor Restivo as a red herring to deflect attention from the truth; which is that the PBA’s vote of “no confidence” had nothing to do with the Compstat Program and everything to with the Gestapo tactics employed by Mr. Bradley in his obvious effort to bust PBA Local # 69.  Indeed, it will become readily clear to anyone who takes the time to become familiar with the salient facts surrounding this situation, that Mr. Bradley’s actions are representative of one of the most egregious and extreme examples of abuse of public power ever seen in this State.

             The rank and file Members of PBA Local # 69 fully and unequivocally understand that it is neither their job to set the mission of the Police Department, nor dictate the policy guiding it.  It is their job to enforce the laws of this State in a manner consistent with any legal policy directives issued by the appropriate authority, including Mr. Bradley, when he is acting in the capacity of the Public Safety Director.  The officers comprising the Membership of PBA Local # 69 also understand that, as part of a quasi-military operation, it is their duty and obligation to obey all lawful orders and directives, including those associated with the Compstat Program.  Therefore, although, for reasons which will be mentioned below, the Members of PBA Local # 69 remain steadfast in their contention that the Compstat Program is not responsible for the continually declining crime statistics in the Township, they nonetheless have absolutely no issue with following any directives associated with the Program.               

 The police officers comprising the Membership of PBA Local # 69 also wish to assure all residents of the Township of Union that they have selected the position of Union Township Police Officer as their chosen life-long profession because they are unwavering in their commitment and dedication to protecting the citizens of this municipality.  Accordingly, all Union Township Police Officers are ready and willing to fully devote themselves to, and publicly support, whatever lawful measures/strategies prove most effective in combating crime within the borders of the Township.  If the Compstat Program is truly and objectively determined to accomplish this task, PBA Local # 69 would be the first to support it, irrespective of any impact that the Program may, or may not, have upon daily working conditions encountered by the officers.  

 An objective and thorough analysis of the Uniform Crime Statistics pertaining to the Township, however, clearly shows that it was not the initiation of the Compstat Program which led to a reduction in crime.  The Compstat Program was first employed by the Township in 2006.  For eleven years prior to that point, crime had been on the steady decrease in the Township.  In fact, in 2005, one year prior to the commencement of the Program, the Township of Union was labeled by Money Magazine to be one of the 22 safest cities in the United States.  Mr. Bradley, as well as other political Township officials, also neglect to mention, when seeking to publicly bestow credit upon themselves for reducing crime through the Compstat Program, that crime has been on an overall decline across the board in Union County.  For all of the foregoing reasons, there can be no doubt, therefore, that it has been the dedication, initiative, and expertise of trained police officers, and not politicos such as Mr. Bradley, who have an agenda, which are responsible for the reduction in crime in the Township of Union. 

 It is significant to mention at this point, that while the Compstat Program is designed, for obvious reasons, to solicit input from trained, experienced “street level” officers, Mr. Bradley has explicitly refused to allow the PBA to participate in the Compstat meetings, for the purpose of injecting the perspective of “street level” officers into the Compstat process.  If Mr. Bradley was truly interested in reducing crime, and not just enhancing his own image politically, why would he be resistant to seeking input from the people who most directly contribute to crime reduction – the “street level” officer?                                    

             If not the Compstat Program, as falsely asserted by the Township, what then was in fact the reason for the PBA’s recent vote of “no confidence” in Mr. Bradley?  As mentioned, Mr. Bradley has engaged in disgusting, blatant, illegal, and abusive governmental tactics in an overt effort to bust Union Township’s PBA.  For example, in 2005, the Township, headed by Mr. Bradley, unilaterally rescinded the “Jobs in Blue” program which provided a mechanism for police officers to earn supplemental income by working security details for private vendors with businesses in the Township.  Many of the officers who availed themselves of this particular program were newly hired, and thus at the lower end of the base pay scale, who also had young families dependent upon them for support.  Many of these officers had come to rely upon the Jobs in Blue program to support their families.   

             The PBA subsequently exercised its legal right to publicly speak out, through its President, against the summary rescission of the Jobs in Blue program at several Township Committee meetings.  PBA President David Dougherty, at these meetings, which were attended by large contingents of police officers, argued against the cancellation of the Jobs in Blue Program.  President Dougherty also made public the PBA’s belief that the termination of the Jobs in Blue program was a coercive attempt by the Township to strong arm the Union into accepting a contract proposal which the Union had believed was unfair. 

            Mr. Bradley became so angered at the mere fact that the PBA exercised its 1st Amendment Privilege to publicly advocate its position, that he triggered a surveillance of the PBA officers who attended one of the referenced Township Committee meetings.  High ranking members of the police department, at Mr. Bradley’s behest, followed, and, in essence, spied upon those officers who attended the public meeting.  It is emphasized that this surveillance was, by design, limited to spying on officers who were off-duty and thus engaging in private, non-work related, matters.  The undisputable purpose of the surveillance was to hopefully attempt to catch these off-duty employees in acts of misconduct and to punish them in retaliation for attending the Township Committee meetings.

            The Union filed an Unfair Labor Practice (U.L.P.) Charge to this State’s Public Employment Relations Commission (P.E.R.C) against the Township as a result of the referenced surveillance.  P.E.R.C., after conducting a comprehensive fact-finding hearing to determine the merits of the Union’s U.L.P., issued a Decision, which deemed the Township’s actions, vis-à-vis the surveillance, to be in violation of State law.  In other words, the State has explicitly declared the surveillance to be an illegal act as it was in reprisal to lawful union advocacy and served to deprive the victimized officers of “their legitimate enjoyment of off-duty time.”  As an aside, P.E.R.C., through its Decision, also upheld that aspect of the Union’s Unfair Labor Practice which charged the Township with withholding certain public information to which the P.B.A. was legally entitled for purposes of negotiations. 

 As will be expanded upon more fully, the Township, headed by Mr. Bradley, makes it a practice of withholding public information while intentionally leaking confidential/privileged information to the press.  The referenced P.E.R.C. Decision, however, is undoubtedly a public document and the P.B.A. welcomes all concerned Township residents to obtain a copy of it.  The average citizen will be shocked and outraged to learn first hand how the Township expended taxpayer dollars to fund a surveillance of its own off-duty police officers, rather than to fight crime.

P.E.R.C. concluded its Decision by admonishing the Township and Ordering it to cease and desist from any further retaliatory practices against the Union including discriminating against its members “with regard to hire, tenure or other terms or conditions of employment.”  The Township, however, failed to heed this warning when, earlier this year, it failed to promote two union representatives whose names were certified for promotion by the Department of Civil Service. 

Union Township is a Civil Service municipality which means that hiring and promotions are predicated upon the results of State developed objective testing.  The purpose of the Civil Service system is, in essence, to remove politics, favoritism, and cronyism from the public employment process.  Therefore, candidates for hiring and promotions are ranked according to their testing results.  Unless “good cause” exists to “skip” a candidate, they should be hired or promoted according to their ranking.  If “good cause” does exist, an Appointing Authority is allowed, by law, to “skip” two out of every three candidates. 

 Most apolitical municipalities, not driven by favoritism and cronyism, rarely invoke this “Rule of Three” and hire/promote consistent with Civil Service’s ranking system.  Union Township, however, motivated by other, more impure, objectives, recently “skipped” two out of approximately fifteen candidates for promotion.  What is particularly shocking about this maneuver is the fact that the two candidates who were skipped just happened to be the Vice-Presidents of P.B.A. Local # 69’s patrol and superior officers’ memberships.  Both of these union officials were very active in the P.B.A.’s efforts, through legal advocacy consistent with their First Amendment rights, to challenge the Gestapo tactics of this administration.  In fact, one of the two mentioned union officials testified at the referenced P.E.R.C. hearing and his testimony was integral to that entity’s determination that certain Township representatives’ actions rose to the level of illegality. 

 

There can be no doubt that the Township’s failure to promote the above referenced union officials, under the totality of the circumstances, constitutes another act of illegal reprisal in contravention of P.E.R.C.’s Order.  It is worthy of note that the involved Township representatives were not even classy or professional enough to formally advise the officers of the fact that they were “skipped” or the proposed reason(s) for that action.  Instead, the Union Township Committee issued a formal Press Release which: specifically identified the union representatives by name; publicized the fact that they were being “skipped;” illegally disclosed confidential information obtained from the personnel files of the officers; and purportedly “justified” passing them up for promotion based upon embellished accounts of their so-called disciplinary histories. 

 What the Township failed to inform the public is that the employment backgrounds of the two union officials who were “skipped” were among the most impeccable and commendable of all the candidates.  In fact, the union official who was a veteran police sergeant, and who was a candidate for promotion to lieutenant, had never been suspended in all his many years of employment as a police officer in the Township.  By the way, it was this particular individual who testified before P.E.R.C.  To the contrary, several of the other sergeants who were promoted to lieutenant, over the referenced union official, had disciplinary histories which included actual suspensions.  This fact, in and of itself, proves that the Township’s reliance upon the supposed disciplinary histories these two union officials amounts to nothing more than pretext to discriminate against them on the illegal grounds of their union affiliation and legal activism.                            

            In response to this retaliatory conduct by the Township, the same Newark law firm which handled the previously mentioned meritorious U.L.P. has been constrained to file yet another action against the Township with P.E.R.C.   Also, appeals have been filed on behalf of the two union officials who were “skipped” for promotions to the New Jersey Department of Personnel.  These latest legal filings have yet to be addressed on their merits by the respective State agencies.  One thing is for certain, the tactics of Mr. Bradley are prompting numerous viable legal actions against the Township.  Unfortunately, it is the taxpayers of the Township who are being forced to fund the litigation costs associated with Mr. Bradley’s attempts to break the union and make the police department his own little palace guard.  All Township residents should be aware, however, that information pertaining to the legal costs incurred by the Township in furtherance of its union busting efforts are a matter of public record and must be produced to any concerned citizens.  It is hoped that the citizenry avails itself of this right and exposes the high cost of funding Mr. Bradley’s personal union busting crusade.

             One of the latest injustices arises from the Township’s efforts, in the wake of the “no confidence” vote in Mr. Bradley’s leadership, to portray the police department as, in essence, a dysfunctional agency besieged with internal problems.  This assertion flies in the face of the accolades which had uniformly been bestowed upon the Union Police Department by public officials across the board up until the “no confidence” vote in Mr. Bradley.  As mentioned, crime has been decreasing in the Township for 12 straight years and, in 2005, Union Township was declared by Money Magazine to be one of the 22 safest cities in the country. 

             These statistics were the impetus behind:

 

 

Restivo and People have both said that crime in Union is decreasing.  They have expressed confidence in the abilities of the current police and fire departments to “adequately”
 protect the residents while noting some improvement is needed.  “Crime is down, [gang violence] is not as rampant as in other towns around Union.”  People said “The problems are being managed and I believe the police and fire departments do a good job to respond to emergencies.”  Restivo noted that “although the police do a ‘great’ job the Township is growing and the problems of gang violence are not as visible but we know they are there.”

 

It defies logic and the facts to suggest that the Union Township Police department has suddenly become ineffective.  The only intervening events between the above referenced rave reviews of the Department and more recent criticisms, were the vote of “no confidence” in Mr. Bradley and the Union’s efforts to stand its ground in the wake of Mr. Bradley's abusive governmental tactics.  Given their timing, there can be no doubt that the recent criticisms of the Police Department were in direct retaliation for the vote of “no confidence” in Mr. Bradley’s performance.   

             In short, the only negative impact to the effectiveness of the Union Police Department as a crime fighting agency has been Mr. Bradley’s improper political meddling into its affairs.  It is well settled principle in this State that crime fighting agencies perform at the most optimum level when there exists a separation of powers between politics and law enforcement.  Mr. Bradley, and his politico affiliates, have sought to break down that wall, for their own political gain, and improperly control the daily activities of the police department.  It is the PBA’s challenge to these efforts which has undeniably led to the Township’s recent criticisms of the police department.           

 By Timothy R. Smith, Esq.