Mayor Jim’s Weblog

By a vote of 6-3, the City council tonight voted for the Mayor’s parking plan, the fourth plan which has been presented to them.

Unlike previous plans, this parking plan did not recommend charging for parking in the downtown.

Voting for the plan were Councilors Hart, Hall, Daley-O’Brien, Scatamacchia, McGonagle, and Quimby.  Voting no were councilors Macek, Donahue and Ryan.  

After the vote, Councilor Macek said he would have changed his vote to yes, bringing the total to 7-2.

The plan called for two hour free parking on Washington and Wingate Streets, free parking in the lots, and strict enforcement with civilian ticket takers.  Several councilors objected to the civilian ticket takers.  Councilor David Hall, a former police officer, made and impassioned plea for civilians, pointing out that using police officers was three times more expensive.   

What is your opinion?  Are you happy with the new parking plan?  Should it be enforced with civilians or with police?

Jim Fiorentini

I met today with the race organizers from several races and with Deputy Thompson from the police department  It was a very cordial and friendly meeting. 

Everyone was in agreement that, whenever possible, we will use auxillary police to avoid charging for details at road races.  The races we have in Haverhill today are charitable races.  We all agreed that if a for profit group wants to run a race to make money, they should be treated differently than a group raising money for charity.

We also agreed that there will be an application form, that road race organizers will give the city at least 30 days to review the race route to make certain it is a safe route and that the police chief has the final authority to determine safety at races and, for that matter, on Haverhill streets in general. 

Everyone there went out of there way to praise the Haverhill police for their past cooperation on road races.

We have more to do, and follow up meeting to be scheduled soon, but it appears we are on our way towards developing a policy we can all live with.  Overall , it was a great meeting!

JIm 

There has been a good deal of comment in the newspapers lately about
police details.  Our police chief has been the subject of a good deal of criticism, most of it unjustified.  I thought I would write and start a discussion about it.

Contrary to popular belief, no Massachusetts law, at least no law that we can find, requires that the police provide roadside details.  In the 49 other States, roadside details are sometimes provide provided by police, and often by civilians known as flagmen.  Here are some details:

What are police details?

You know what they are.  These are the police you see by the road (hopefully) directing traffic while work is being done on the roadway.  Police details are done if a road is being paved, or if construction work is being done that affects the roadway.

There are many times when it is perfectly legitimate to have a police officer directing traffic while construction work is being done.  There are other times when we all scratch our heads and say, why is an officer required here?

Who pays for police details?

The short answer is, you do.  Most of the details, most of the time, are paid for by the utility companies that are doing the work.  They add it to your bill.

But the State and local governments do roadway work all the time, and in those instances, the government (that’s you) pays for the roadway details.  The city of Haverhill paid only a small amount of money for roadwork last year, about $20,000.  However, we have some major projects scheduled next year, and we estimate we are going to spend $80-$100,000 next year of your money on police details. 

Why don’t we use flagmen here? 

The short answer is, it isn’t that easy.  Although no State law prevents it, nearly every city and the State have collective bargaining agreements with their local unions that require that police do the details, not civilians.  Even when it is not in the agreement, the collective bargaining laws require that if work that is traditionally done by a group covered by a collective bargaining contract, you must first bargain over that.   How likely do you think it is that the police union is going to agree to give this up?

It will probably take a State law to bring in flagmen.  That State law would have to say that notwithstanding any collective bargaining agreement, a city or the State could use flagmen to direct traffic at roadsides. 

Would a community save money if you they used flagmen?

That isn’t as clear as might think.  The Massachusetts prevailing wage law requires that if you hire private people to do public work, you have to pay them what is called the “prevailing wage.”  The prevailing wage is a the equivalent wage to what the job would be if it were unionized. 

I have no idea what the prevailing wage is for flagmen, or even if the the prevailing wage law applies here, but it is definitely something that has to be considered.  The prevailing wage is set by a committee of business people and unions, municipal leaders are not at the table when the prevailing wage is decided.  The prevailing wage for lawn mowing is set at $43 an hour, which seems outrageous to me.  (We all know we can get people to mow our lawns much cheaper than that.)

 What is we can’t get enough police to do the details?

Here is where the police can not have it both ways.  In many communities, there simply are not enough police to do the details.  Why can’t a community use flagmen here?  The communities instead resort to hiring retired police officers, axillary police, reserve police, police from other communities, sheriff’s officers, and, sometimes, fire fighters. 

All of these folks, respectfully, are not police.  The argument often given by the police unions that it is critical to have police officers by the side of the road quickly goes out the window when you see non police such as firefighters doing the details.

How can Haverhill save money on details?

This is the critical issue to me, as Mayor.  The easiest answer is, don’t have details.  Details are not required every single time you dig up the roadway, it is in the discretion of the project manager and the police chief when details are needed.  We are looking into when we need details, and when we can do without them.

What are your thoughts?