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Fifth-sergeant debate continues
HUBBARD — Harsh words erupted at Monday’s council meeting over how many sergeants the city police department should have.
The city’s dispatchers, however, emerged with their jobs through the end of the year.
Council approved an ordinance that releases $48,000 from the city’s general fund to the police department to keep it in the black until Dec. 31.
The money is actually insurance money owed to the department after an electrical fire this summer and a lightning strike in September damaged equipment at the police station.
City council had tabled action on transferring the money at a meeting in October after finance committee chairman Pat Gilliland questioned whether the insurance money was actually coming. Gilliland told The Vindicator he also wanted to know why the police department had five sergeants when a city ordinance calls for only four.
Because the council didn’t act on the appropriation in October, city safety-services director Jan Bolchalk said she was forced to send layoff notices to four full-time dispatchers. The union contract requires a 30-day notice in the event of layoffs. The layoffs would have been effective Nov. 23 through the end of the year.
Bolchalk said she didn’t want to lay off any police officers.
She said last month that laying off dispatchers would mean the city couldn’t keep its police station open to the public and wouldn’t be able to house prisoners at the city jail.
The emergency legislation releasing the appropriation needed six votes to be adopted, and council approved it 7-0 Monday.
The issue of the fifth sergeant, though, is not put to rest.
Gilliland last month said that the city ended up with five sergeants three years ago after Mayor Art Magee promoted two officers when he should have promoted only one.
Council member Lisha Baumiller said after Monday’s meeting that Magee figured the added post would be “taken care of” once Sgt. Butch Altiere retired.
Altiere retired at the end of 2006, said the city’s law director, Jeff Adler. The city didn’t promote anyone, but because the position existed, the city was required to fill it, Adler said.
Officer Christopher Moffitt sued the city and won the promotion in 2008 because of that requirement, Adler said.
Moffitt was demoted in October, however, while the issue with the dispatchers was ongoing. The reason, said council members Monday, is that the judge ruled that though the position had to be filled, nothing was stopping council from eliminating it once it was.
Moffitt filed a grievance with the city Nov. 2, however, and the next step in the grievance process is taking it to Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, said Adler.
The issue prompted an outburst from some council members after Tony Pettola, a member of the city’s Civil Service Commission, said the commission had “OK’d that fifth sergeant.”
Council members John Darko, William Williams and Douglas Rohrer said the commission administers civil-service tests and doesn’t have the right to say how many employees the city has.
“You don’t know what your job is,” Williams told Pettola.
Williams also had another outburst at a member of the public, Julie Fox, who told council she was ashamed of the way members talked to Pettola.
“You can’t tell me to be quiet. This is America,” he told Fox, who was his baby sitter at one time.
“You’re not my baby sitter anymore,” he snapped.