One of his points, point number 12 prompted me to call Ravi Bhalla and ask if he would provide any comment to the statement below:
"The Public safety Committee Chairman is Ravi Bhalla. Since assuming that position, he has never met with any police union official."
Here is the link to the whole article published earlier today:
http://thehobokenjournal.blogspot.com/2010/08/pba-attourney-issues-statement-on.html
Here is the recap of my conversation with Ravi on this issue with respect to the PBA attorney's statement:
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| Ravi Bhalla at recent City Council meeting |
Ravi Bhalla told me that no one from the union has reached out to him personally, via email or phone to discuss issues pertaining to the Union negotiations and the Police contract. Ravi stressed that in his position as the Public Safety Chair on the City Council it is not appropriate for him to be dealing with collective bargaining issues or unions with respect to contracts in any official capacity. That is reserved for the the Mayor and the Business Administrator and when Judy Tripodi was in charge, her role as well. Ravi did state that he had met with various police officers and would be happy to meet with any union representatives provided that the context of the meeting was appropriate and with the understanding that the Mayor's office is the one to deal with any issues pertaining to Union contracts. This is not our conversation word for word but it reflects the substance of what was discussed.
My comment: I don't know if the PBA attorney's statement was meant to confuse the public or not but it is clear to me that the Mayor and the BA are responsible for collective bargaining negotiations and not the Public Safety Chair of the City Council. I refer to letters like this as the kitchen sink defense where one side decides to throw everything at the other and sees what can stick. My focus on debunking any aspect of the police Union's response is to only address issues I felt did not represent the objective reality of the situation or what I consider to be fair argumentation. This has nothing to do with me having any animosity towards the police force of Hoboken. On the contrary, I respect the difficult job that they do. Some of the concerns about how bumping rules might effect other officers and performance are not completely without merit but I felt compelled to at least challenge two assertions that I viewed as fallacious argumentation. ◦
