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November 24, 1999
Mayor Takes Police Fight To Chamber
Public Pays For $900 Flier
By Don Hunter
Daily News reporter
Mayor Rick Mystrom is spending public money for a brochure
promoting his side of a work schedule confrontation with Anchorage
police.
A three-page brochure giving Mystrom's arguments about why
he thinks an arbitrator erred in awarding police millions of
dollars in compensation was sent this week to about 1,200 people
on an Anchorage Chamber of Commerce mailing list.
"We have an obligation to get information out,"
Mystrom said Tuesday.
Spokesman Sherman Ernouf said the mayor is trying to counter
thousands of dollars in newspaper and radio advertising paid
for by the Anchorage Police Department Employees Association.
The mayor's brochure cost about $900, Ernouf said.
Police union President Rob Heun said the APDEA only started
running its ads to counter Mystrom's political influence and
his access to the press.
"The mayor was using his bully pulpit, and nobody was
hearing our perspective," he said.
The brochure provoked grumbling among some Anchorage Assembly
members who questioned the use of taxpayer's money to sway public
opinion on an issue Mystrom already has appealed to court.
"It would be my hope they don't get into an advertising
war over this," said Assemblyman Dan Sullivan. "The
courts are going to resolve it."
The dispute goes back to 1994, when Mystrom unilaterally ordered
police to change from a four-day, 10-hour workweek to a five-day,
eight-hour shift. Union officials said the move violated their
labor contract, and an independent arbitrator agreed with them
last year. The city and union had agreed that the arbitrator's
decision would be binding.
In a second decision last month, the same arbitrator ruled
that the city must compensate officers for the loss of free time.
Mystrom says that could cost up to $4 million in overtime.
Police have offered to take paid time off to help reduce the
cost of the arbitrator's decision, but Mystrom says that would
take officers off the street and add overtime costs for others.
H has appealed the decision in court, against the advice of an
Assembly public safety committee.
Mystrom and the APDEA accuse each other of distorting the
facts.
"We needed to correct all the misinformation," Mystrom
said in explaining his decision to mail out the flier.
Heun said labor documents and the arbitrator's decisions show
it's Mystrom whose facts need correcting. The rulings and other
documents about the case are available on the APDEA's Internet
web site (www.alaska.net/~apdea), he said.
The union's ad campaign, including radio spots and several
full-page newspaper ads, has cos about $30,000, Heun said.
"We tried keeping a respectful silence for a long time,"
he said. "We stayed within the agreed-upon process every
step of the way, but the mayor wasn't satisfied with the arbitrator's
(decision)."
Ernouf said there are no current plans for additional brochures
or advertising, but Mystrom said that could change.
"We're talking about it and watching what they're doing,"
the mayor said.
* Reporter Don Hunter can be reached at dhunter@adn.com. Reporter Elizabeth
Manning contributed to this story.
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