Questions raised on police reform’s best path

Last Friday was a big day for the police reform movement.

Fix SAPD, a local activist group formed last year in response to the horrifying video of a Minneapolis police officer putting his knee on the neck of an African American man named George Floyd for nearly nine minutes, submitted a petition to the city clerk’s office.

The petition included more than 20,000 signatures in support of the repeal of Chapter 174 of the Texas Local Government Code, which provides police officers with the power to engage in collective bargaining. If at least 20,000 signatures prove to be valid, San Antonio voters will be able to decide in May if they want to eliminate collective bargaining for police.

The signature-gathering process was a labor of love for local activists, who are driven by righteous frustration with a process that has failed in the past to produce real reform.

They are disgusted by a San Antonio collective bargaining deal that limits disciplinary action against police officers to 180 days after an incident occurred, provides an accused officer 48 hours of preparation time before an interrogation can take place and enables the officer to examine all relevant evidence before being interviewed.

Without question, many local progressives are celebrating Fix SAPD’S petition achievement. But some local advocates of police reform are privately expressing concerns about the implications of a ballot initiative that could take away collective bargaining for police.

This isn’t coming out of sympathy for the San Antonio Police Officers Association. And it isn’t coming out of a lack of appreciation for the noble intentions of Fix SAPD’S leadership.

The conflict is over strategy, not objectives.

It’s important to realize that Fix SAPD’S repeal effort has been aimed at two statutes: Chapter 143, which provides a civil service system for police and firefighters, and Chapter 174.

While it takes only 20,000 San Antonio petition signatures to force a vote on the collective bargaining statute, nearly 80,000 signatures are required for the civil service law. That’s not going to happen anytime soon.

When police unions in this state negotiate contracts with cities, the terms of those contracts supersede the employment provisions in Chapter 143. If you repeal Chapter 174, however, you’re left with Chapter 143.

The practical effect is that we go from having a publicly negotiated collective bargaining process, in which disciplinary reforms could be hammered out, to a default Chapter 143 structure in which state-prescribed disciplinary procedures (such as the 180day statute of limitations for incidents) come into effect.

That helps to explain why Police Chief William Mcmanus, a longtime critic of the way the city’s contract has tied his hands on disciplinary matters, sounds lukewarm about the prospect of a Chapter 174 repeal vote.

“I am not opposed to collective bargaining,” Mcmanus said during a Jan. 4 news conference with Danny Diaz, the incoming president of the police officers association.

“I think that what we need to do can be done at the negotiating table.”

That is a fairly common view now at City Hall, even among SAPOA’S fiercest critics.

Last Saturday, Fix SAPD made a presentation to the North East Bexar County Democrats. According to attendees, the response was polite but hardly enthusiastic, no surprise given that oldschool labor union people made up a major part of the Democratic contingent in the room.

Ojiyoma Martin, the co-founder of Fix SAPD, said police accountability can be achieved only by repealing both 174 and 143. She said her organization will continue to work on the difficult task of meeting the signature threshold for a 143 repeal.

“Progress comes in strides, and we will take those steps,” Martin said.

Ron Delord was the chief negotiator for a 2018 Austin police contract. He played the same role in San Antonio’s last round of collective bargaining.

Delord was often depicted by municipal officials as the epitome of a win-at-all-costs police union mentality that has poisoned the bargaining process in the past.

Delord, however, describes himself as a liberal Democrat who is receptive to the idea of police reform. He argues that such reform can best be achieved through collective bargaining.

“When the parties work it out, everybody has a buy-in,” he said. “We can get something that everyone thinks is a better deal.”

There’s reason for hope on that front, but also plenty of cause for skepticism.