Dom’s Blog Post 28 Jan 10
Lots of people will be on the move soon. Here’s the deal, today day watch has very poor staffing and the coverage is needed yesterday. I don’t like the changing of assignments, but the bottom line is day watch staffing levels are unsafe. We have as little as 3-7 officers available for the entire city. That’s a huge officer safety issue.
Patrol will need to have 320 officers in order for it to work. I know that several members are being forced back to patrol. These decisions have not been easy for commanders and they have been working diligently to come up with the best possible scenarios. It’s very difficult with our attrition rate (4-5 members a month). Decisions are tough and none of them will be perfect. But they must be done. Bottom line is PATROL is our core function. Chief A. Batts has made a commitment to assure that we stay fully staffed on the street.
The Patrol Draw should be on March 20th. Here it is in a nut shell:
• Day watch will be a 4/10 shift with lineup start times at 0600-1600 and 0700-1700 hrs
• Third watch will be a 3/12-4/12 shift with a lineup time of 1500-0300 hrs.
• Late-Tac will be a 3-12 shift on FSS 1800-0600, with an 8 hour makeup day every other Monday. That shift will start at 1800 hrs. Each area will have one Late-Tac unit, except Area-3, which will have 2.
• Dog Watch will be a 4/10 shift with lineup start times at 2100-0700 and 2200-0800
• Each Area will be assigned an administrative sergeant, and one admin position will be available in SOD.
• Area 1 will offer 4 desk officer positions, working a 12 hour shift, which will start at 0530 and 1700 hrs.
• Area 3 will offer 2 desk positions, working a 12 hours shift, which both start at 0800 hrs.
• Watch commanders will be working 12 hour shifts to cover both A/B squads.
• RDO’s for 10 hours shifts will be:
• District One (1) will have FSS/TWT
• District Two (2) will have TFS/MTW
• District Three (3) will have SMT/WTF
• District Four (4) will have SSM/WTF
• District Five (5) will have FSS/MTW
• District Six (6) will have SSM/TWT
This is a new patrol plan. This seems to be the happy median between members and the department. Here is the bottom line. The city has the right to implement whatever shift deployment plan they want. This was won in 2007 in arbitration. We have no choice. We MUST get behind this plan and make it work. I believe it is the best possible plan we can get.
Today you should see the full amount of vacation on your check. Each member will be required to sign a form allowing the city to recover vacation upon a mid-year separation. This is a requirement to receive the vacation up front. Please sign this form ASAP. It will be with your W-2.
The department is looking into a very fancy piece of equipment that will be able to track calls for service and deployment. Personally I think a kegerator would be a better investment. But in the meantime I need everyone hit on/off scene when responding to calls. This will track important information for manpower and workload. This program will assist the OPOA with negotiations in 2013. It will be nice to show the city that industry standard (in calls for service) does not apply in Oakland.
TLO retro pay should be coming soon. The sick time policy is still outstanding. The city has been dragging its feet. We will be meeting February 2. Hopefully we can get it resolved.
On a side note, the COP for Port of Seattle responded to my letter of appreciation I sent for picking up several of our members who were stranded at SEATAC for the Washington Officers funeral. She stated they were very pleased to assist our officers.
It’s nice to know that no matter what part of the country police are, we are all brothers and sisters.
Till next time.
Dom
(arotzarena@opoa.org)
