Sunday, December 10, 2000
Police chief finds self in
tight spot
By Bill Whitaker
These days, Abilene Police Chief Melvin
Martin is the perfect definition of being between a rock and a
hard place.
Although the strapping, amiable Abilene
native is a 31-year police veteran who rose through the ranks
to become chief seven years ago, Martin is in the thick of a tense
dispute over pay grievances that has left his men at odds with
City Hall.
The air got chillier a week and a half ago
when police officers calling for a city charter amendment election
to hike their pay 11 percent watched as the Abilene City Council
instructed City Manager Roy McDaniel to try forging a compromise
first.
City officials are understandably worried,
especially over amending the charter so police officers’
four-day, 10-hour-a-day week is not altered. That, city fathers
fear, could handcuff the chief’s management of his own department
in the future.
But officers say they too often get the
short end of the club, especially considering the risks they take.
For instance, they point to a non-binding
pay referendum they mounted in 1985, only to agree instead to
a compromise guaranteeing them two 6-percent pay hikes.
When the oil bust hit and Abilene’s
economy went south, so did part of the pay package city officials
promised.
Late last week, Martin and McDaniel voiced
optimism a new compromise will be reached within weeks giving
police officers much of what they now want but without the dreaded
city charter amendment.
“We don’t really want to put things
in the charter like police deployment that can be handled better
through management,” the chief told me. “These are issues
that should be revisited every so often.”
Sgt. Stan Standridge of the Abilene Police
Officers Association tells me it’s “too early to be
encouraged or discouraged because we haven’t actually sat
down with anyone yet,” but that they look forward to meetings
this week.
Talk about mixed feelings. Martin recalls
his own rookie days, also pressing for pay hikes but “pretty
much taking whatever they gave us.”
Leaders of today’s campaign, he says,
are among the best and brightest of any police force — and
far more determined not only about pay but on-the-job professionalism.
Councilman Rob Beckham appreciates the chief’s
uncomfortable dilemma.
“He’s in a position where he needs
to maintain morale and get the same great service out of his department
he always has,” Beckham said. “But as a manager, he
also sees the possibility some of the tools he needs to run his
department may be taken away.”
Clearly weary, the chief is keeping his
fingers crossed things don’t turn bluer among the men in
blue, and that the police labor advocate CLEAT — Combined
Law Enforcement Associations of Texas — doesn’t dig
its heels into the sensitive situation.
“I know what CLEAT is capable of doing,”
he said. “I helped get CLEAT started back in the 1970s.
“Now,” he quipped, “it’s
coming back to haunt me!”
Contact associate editor Bill Whitaker
at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com.
His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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