Name: Houston reform advocates: Give us a seat at the police contract bargaining table
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Houston reform advocates: Give us a seat at the police contract bargaining table

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateChas Moore watched in shock one night in 2017 as Austin City Council voted on the city’s proposed police contract.He and other criminal justice reformers had spent months observing contract negotiations and lobbying council members to reject a deal they said was too expensive and lacked crucial accountability measures.The city’s 10 council members and mayor raised their hands to vote the deal down.“I don’t think anyone thought that would happen,” said Moore, president of the Austin Justice Coalition. “Historically people fight police unions — and they do not win.”The vote sent police back to the negotiating table, and the resulting contract included a slew of reforms — at half the cost of the previous version.In Houston, that negotiating table is behind closed doors.Activists here want to change that as the city and the police union negotiate a new contract this year. They are again seeking the right to observe deliberations and to try to change provisions they say protect officers accused of wrongdoing. But while other cities with similar bargaining rules allow residents to observe negotiations, Houston does not, aided by what critics say are gaps in the state’s government code that do not clearly require union contract negotiations to be open to the public.Houston’s police budget in 2020 tallied about $911 million — by far the largest allocation in the city budget’s general fund. While other cities across the U.S. slashed police budgets, Houston’s City Council unanimously in June passed a budget with a $20 million increase for the police department.The pressure for reform rose around the country in the wake of the killing of former Houston resident George Floyd in police custody, and organizers say it’s overdue here.Not long after that Austin contract rejection, community organizers in Houston sought to observe police contract deliberations here.Local criminal justice advocate Tarsha Jackson said she approached City Hall in 2018 to try to share community concerns — but the criminal justice reformer with the Texas Organizing Project said she found an opaque process.“It was not public. It was like a guessing game,” Jackson said.The contract was settled behind closed doors without them getting a chance to see it or offer their input.“As we’re having these conversations around police accountability and reform, how can we have these conversations without the community?” Moore asked regarding the efforts around the country to get a seat at the table during contract negotiations.LABOR BATTLES:Mayor Sylvester Turner responded to calls for reform with a 45-person task force. Activists fear the group won’t have time to make recommendations before Turner strikes a new deal with the union.Earlier this month, the ACLU of Texas. On July 6, a coalition of criminal justice advocates urging the mayor to pass ordinances limiting discretionary arrests, making body camera videos public, expanding the use of nonpolice first responders and banning no-knock warrants.On HoustonChronicle.com:They also want reforms in the next union contract regarding protections officers receive when they are accused of misconduct, which they say are far stronger than those for employees in other professions or those that criminal suspects receive.State law requires that departments give officers accused of misconduct 48 hours notice — and all witness statements or other evidence — before questioning them about allegations of impropriety.They also take issue with contract rules that require the department to investigate — and punish — officers for serious offenses within 180 days of the date of the alleged misconduct.HPD Chief Art Acevedo has also criticized those provisions but suggested changes need to be addressed at the Texas Legislature. Activists argue changes implemented in the contract would supersede state law.Union officials contend that the protections are necessary because police can be fired if they refuse to answer questions during internal investigations and say that if activists want reform they should address the issue via legislation.Community organizers say being at the bargaining table is necessary and have worked to get there in Chicago, Portland and Spokane, Wash., where city officials last month rejected a proposed contract with police officers over accountability concerns.“What we’re talking about is the process by which cities negotiate accountability structure of local police departments,” said Samuel Sinyangwe, with Check the Police, a national criminal justice reform group.In Houston, organizers face significant barriers.City officials declined to provide the Chronicle any information about the negotiations, including meeting dates, locations or agendas.“The contract negotiations will move forward at Mayor Turner’s direction and in the city’s best interest,” city spokeswoman Mary Benton said in an email. “I have no additional information to provide at this time.”Bargaining rules across the state vary. Cities typically negotiate with unions under either “meet-and-confer” or “collective bargaining.”In Houston, the city’s firefighters use collective bargaining, which by law also is open to observers. But state law makes no such requirement for Houston’s “meet-and-confer” negotiations with its police officers.Other meet-and-confer cities have nevertheless made police contract negotiations public. A Fort Worth spokeswoman said officials made that decision in order to be consistent with its process with firefighters. Negotiations in Austin are also public. There does not appear to be any law preventing the city from opening its negotiations to observers.HARDING STREET SCANDAL:Douglas Griffith, vice president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, argued that residents are already represented by the mayor’s negotiating team. Officers don’t want “someone uneducated with the process gumming up the system we’ve worked so hard for,” he said. “That’s why they elect the Mayor and city council. Either you trust them or you don’t.”He accused critics of trying to change a discipline process they did not understand and said he was willing to meet with council members or community organizers who have concerns.“I’ll meet with anybody and talk to anybody who wants to know about our discipline process,” he said.When the Chronicle polled City Council members about activists’ concerns, several called for greater reforms and transparency, or said council should have a more significant role in the process.“It is clear that the contract between COH and HPOU needs to incorporate a number of changes that we have heard from the community — real measures to increase transparency and accountability,” council member Abbie Kamin said.Council member Greg Travis said he believed council should have a broader say in the process but criticized the city’s strong executive system, saying it prevents council members from participating more fully.“Those people who have been duly elected need to be involved. And right now, only one, the mayor, is involved.”Other council members said that any proposed contract would be accessible to the public before council votes on it. But community organizers said reviewing a document after negotiations have concluded allows little room for change.“In 2018, nobody got a chance to see (the final contract) before it was up to vote before City Council,” said Brennan Griffin, deputy director of Texas Appleseed.HPOU President Joe Gamaldi and his predecessor, Ray Hunt, were unavailable for comment.RELATED:Traditionally, the city and union negotiate contracts about every two to three years. The union’s top leaders and their lawyers sit down with the city’s negotiating team — which includes six to eight members of HPD’s command staff, along with police and city lawyers, and members of the city’s office of budget and finance.The contract lays out rules on how the department investigates and punishes officers accused of misconduct, such as the 48-hour rule that troubles activists. And it outlines officer pay and benefits, such as “patrol officer incentive pay,” which rewards longtime patrol officers with a stipend of an additional $2,000 a year.Community organizers say the process is outdated and fails to recognize residents’ desire for an open and transparent process.“We cannot have elected officials who think they are just doing what’s best for us and we should sit down and be in the child’s playpen and be OK with what they are doing,” said Ashton Woods, president of Black Lives Matter Houston. “We have every right to question or demand information. And the information should be public, it should be accessible easily, and it should be clear and concise.”Nor are the calls for greater transparency limited to activists. At a City Council meeting last week, DeAndre Hutchison, president of the Afro-American Police Officers League of Houston, said his organization should be present at the negotiations.“We believe we have a huge role and responsibility to law enforcement and to the community,” said Hutchison, who said his organization represents about 40 percent of the department’s officers of color.In Austin, when residents sat through one round of negotiations with police in 2017, they were allowed to only observe, and not speak, said Kathy Mitchell, an activist with Just Liberty, one organization involved in the effort. But they used the information they gathered to lobby City Council members about specific concerns.Labor attorney Ron DeLord helped negotiate both contracts for the Austin Police Association.“My position was, ‘You have a seat at table because you elect council and council picks the negotiating team,’” he said. But after the December 2017 vote, negotiators spent more time listening to activists, he said.“We made our point to try to hear what their concerns were and try to fix what we could to get the contract passed,” DeLord said.The second contract — which the Austin City Council approved a year later — cost the city $40 million less and included several reforms the Austin groups were seeking.“They didn’t have a single activist testify against the contract the second time,” DeLord said.st.john.smith@chron.comtwitter.com/stjbs

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateChas Moore watched in shock one night in 2017 as Austin City Council voted on the city’s proposed police contract.He and other criminal justice reformers had spent months observing contract negotiations and lobbying council members to reject a deal they said was too expensive and lacked crucial accountability measures.The city’s 10 council members and mayor raised their hands to vote the deal down.“I don’t think anyone thought that would happen,” said Moore, president of the Austin Justice Coalition. “Historically people fight...

Houston reform advocates: Give us a seat at the police contract bargaining table

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