Police contract talks lead to lawsuits
Two organizations sue Phoenix separately over city’s union negotiations
Phoenix now faces two separate lawsuits over negotiations with the local police union, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, and its decision not to submit a contract proposal before starting negotiations.
On Dec. 1, PLEA joined other city unions in refusing to submit a copy of all the proposed changes to their contract, something required under city code.
The two suing organizations are working separately, but both happened to take legal action against the city on Wednesday.
Poder in Action, a community organization based in West Phoenix, announced a suit attempting to restrain the city from continuing negotiations with PLEA until the public could view the contract proposal that was withheld in December.
The Goldwater Institute, a conservative and libertarian public policy think tank, also announced and submitted a suit against the city, asking the courts to force it to release documents about current negotiations with PLEA.
In an email to The Republic, PLEA President Darrell Kriplean explained his union felt like it was being singled out as a political ploy.
Kriplean had stated that PLEA was “following the same negotiation precedent set forth by the city with other entities who participate in the meet-andconfer process.”
At a city meeting, Assistant City Manager Lori Bays clarified that the unions had all failed to meet city law, requiring all unions to submit a proposal of changes to their contracts.
Goldwater spokesperson Joe Setyon explained in a statement to The Republic that the group filed suit on PLEA’s negotiations because it was the “most pressing in the interest of public transparency.”
Poder in Action released a statement where it explained that PLEA represents members that are given the power to restrain and jail citizens and that merits public scrutiny.
Poder’s suit
According to city code, all unions must submit proposals of changes to their new contracts by the Dec 1. before negotiations begin.
Most unions stopped doing that, but PLEA continued until last year.
At a city meeting on Dec. 14, Bays admitted that without the proposals, the public would not be able to see what might go into the contracts until negotiations likely end in the spring.
The city also admitted that there was no real action it could take to make the unions submit these proposals.
The public would only get to see the contract proposals if there was a disagreement between city management and the unions, which would trigger a fact-finding phase, where they would present the working contract to the city council.
At the steps of city hall, Executive Director of Poder in Action, Viri Hernandez, announced the lawsuit.
In it, she explained, Poder was asking the court to stop the city from continuing negotiations since the city failed to follow the procedures outlined in the city code.
“These are the same city codes they say we have to follow that in this moment, they’re saying that they are not following in the negotiations with the police union,” she said.
She claimed that the city is negotiating with a department with an open DOJ investigation and has had one of the highest numbers of police fatal shootings in the country over the last ten years.
She pointed to six fatal Phoenix police shootings in 2023, three more than this time last year.
Aside from salaries, the city also must negotiate the method for accountability of the officers within the contract.
The last contract, in 2021, increased police pay and introduced some accountability options, opening the door for the Office of Accountability and Transparency.
Not being able to view contracts and keeping negotiations behind closed doors cripples the public’s ability to keep the police accountable, Hernandez explained.
Poder named only PLEA in the lawsuit because the union is the only one with members “that have the authority to surveil, detain, incarcerate, and kill Phoenix residents,” the organization said in a written statement.
Goldwater Suit
The Goldwater Institute’s lawsuit focuses on the state’s code on the public’s right to access government records, particularly related to the way government funds are spent.
On Feb. 23, Goldwater received a letter from the City Attorney Julie Kreigh, in which she cited a case, Carlson v. Pima County. In it, a judge ruled that documents and records may be kept from the public if they can cause harm or if they are not in the best interest of the government.
Kreigh held that releasing this information would hurt the city’s ability to negotiate.
According to attorney Parker Jackson, representing the Goldwater Institute, the city needs to prove that releasing these records would cause harm, and it won’t be able to.
“We’re asking for an order, compelling the city to provide copies of the records,” he said.
The lawsuit also asks the court to declare that the city cannot legally withhold the records without running afoul of the state’s public records laws.
The lawsuit claims that it’s in the best interest of the local government to allow the public to view negotiations that would let them comment on the contract, which involves the use of public funds and defines the role of police and accountability.
When considering the state’s best interest, the law should not be narrowed to just the government, but it should also include the interests of the people, according to the legal complaint.
The Goldwater Institute named the City of Phoenix, City Manager Jeff Barton, the city Clerk Denise Archibald and Human Resources Officer and Custodian of Records Sheree Rucker as defendants.
The City of Phoenix has yet to review the lawsuits and could not comment on them at the time of this reporting.