Crime & Safety

East Hampton Police Chief the Focus of Complaint

Grievance filed by local police union alleges intimidation and retaliation.

When patrolman Mike Salafia first appeared before the East Hampton Town Council on Sept. 27 to present a petition in support of Sgt. Michael Green, he also took the opportunity to raise several other concerns within the police department.

Salafia spoke about fear and threats of retribution, vaguely sharing an incident that happened to him just the day before.

“I got threatened [Sept. 26] because I called the union,” he said at the .

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Now, that incident Salafia alluded to has been documented and submitted to the State Board of Labor Relations by the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Local 524, as part of a grievance against the town and Police Chief Matt Reimondo.

The grievance was filed Oct. 28 and received by the town Oct. 31. The primary complaint centers around an order-in.

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Sept. 26, a Monday, was to begin a construction project that would require overtime positions. Reimondo had asked for an order-in. According to the complaint, Salafia, the union president, had advised the scheduling sergeant that the union felt there were contractual issues over the order-in and minimum hour provisions of the project. As a result, the post went unfilled. It was on that start date that Salafia and Reimondo arrived at work around the same time. The Chief asked Salafia about the order-in and when informed it wasn’t filled, ordered Salafia to get an officer to fill the position. Moments later, the Chief returned and, in front of another officer, allegedly told Salafia, “Listen Salafia, don’t [expletive] with me, don’t [expletive] with me. I know you called the union and now I’m pissed.” Reimondo went on to tell Salafia to fill the position and file a grievance.

“It was something we had to figure out,” Salafia said of filling the order-in at the last minute. “Not that we were dragging our feet. We were trying to figure that out and that’s what I was explaining to the Chief.”

According to the complaint, since that time several other officers filed grievances related to the order-in. Salafia also wrote a letter advising Reimondo that threats to him over exercising his rights to seek union guidance would not be tolerated.

Town council chairwoman Sue Weintraub said on Sunday that she could not comment on the complaint because it was a personnel matter.

The project was for sidewalk repair on West High Street and Lakeview Street that was to be completed by a private company hired by the town. The work has since been finished.

Also included in the complaint was Reimondo ending the practice of allowing police to work overtime construction projects in Portland when that town’s officers were unable to fill the positions. The complaint alleges that the Chief acted unilaterally and suggests it was retaliation for bargaining unit members pursuing their right to grieve issues. According to Salafia, the officers have always relied on private duty assignments as a means of extra income. Though there was no lack of overtime opportunities in town over the summer because of Green's absence, two officers out on light duty and another away on training, Salafia says that with the two officers back from light duty, the department is not stretched quite as a thin as it had been.

Anne McKinney, who at the time was serving as the interim town manager in John Weichsel’s absence, also raised the ending of private duty assignments to Portland in a memo to Reimondo dated Nov. 2. In it, McKinney questions why Reimondo would take such action, and without first discussing it with her.

"I don't know if we've severed the relationship, but [Reimondo] said at this point he can not provide police for us for private duty," Portland First Selectwoman Susan Bransfield said on Monday. "He did not say it will never happen again."

Bransfield stressed that this was only for private duty jobs, and not mutual aid.

"In the event of a major crime, or a disaster or an accident, we always provide mutual aid," Bransfield said. "We will always both continue to help one another and I know I have that assurance from East Hampton. This is not a mutual aid severing, this is private duty. I hope we're able to continue that relationship once they are able to give us officers, but at that this point we're not going to be asking them for private duty."

Portland has a similar arrangement with Middletown, which is where the town's private duty requests will go for now.

McKinney's memo is a result of a number of concerns that had been brought to her attention. Among the 15 concerns noted were the Chief’s use of compensatory time, his alleged use of a town vehicle for personal use, his failure to comply with a review of emails necessary for the town to reply to a Freedom of Information Request, police department deficiencies with regard to policies and procedures and concerns of very low morale and difficult working conditions within the department.

McKinney didn’t act on any of these concerns, instead giving Reimondo a deadline of Nov. 4 to reply, the same deadline he was given in a separate to conclude the investigations into Green and patrolman Hardie Burgin by deciding on what discipline, if any, was appropriate.

However, Reimondo hasn't been able to respond to the memos because he has been out on medical leave and remains out as of Monday.

The low morale and difficult working conditions, as well as the investigations into Green and Burgin, have been at the heart of Salafia’s comments the past several weeks.

Salafia, who took over as union president on July 1, is slowly getting acclimated to his position and gaining a better understanding of what recourse he has available to get problems and concerns addressed.

“When I found out I could file something official, and I knew that he was not going to stop, then I decided to do it,” he said. “This man is not going to stop and the only way I can stop him is through the union.”

Salafia says the problems within the department existed well before the attempted removal of the Chief last year. So, why weren’t these problems raised back then?

“We were just afraid to speak up,” said Salafia, an 11-year veteran of the force. “So the place was in shambles, we didn’t get much, but we just never said anything. Even the union president would always say you don’t talk to anybody, you don’t say anything. So, that’s what we did."

According to Salafia, as bad a workplace as it might have been before the controversy last year, when Reimondo was reinstated, it got worse.

In June 2010, then-Town Manager Jeffrey O'Keefe attempted to remove Reimondo and do away with the position of police chief altogether. Reimondo was returned to his position in November of that year by an overwhelming vote in a referendum.

“It changed when he came back. Now he came back with a vengeance,” Salafia said. "He now is trying to take careers just to fulfill his own personal satisfaction, which is a vendetta, and I will not allow that. ... So not only do I have to worry about working in an unsafe, unsecure place with no equipment and barely any training, I have to worry about him trying to take my career, and trying to take Hardie Burgin’s career and Sgt. Michael Green’s career.

“It was always like, this is East Hampton, here is where we work, this is what we do. We do it all without any equipment, and that’s fine, these guys can handle that and they do a great job. However, now they not only have to worry about working on the street with lousy equipment and covering each other’s butt, we have to worry about covering our own butt in the station and ruining our careers and ruining our family’s lives and that can’t happen.”

With a new town council in place, Salafia expressed concern the workplace issues he has raised, as well as the matter of having Green out on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of those investigations, will now fall by the wayside.

Weintraub, however, says that will not be the case.

“In talking with John Weichsel over the last three weeks, I am aware that one of his top priorities is to resolve these issues and he will gain my full support to do that, to unite this town and the police department, and move forward,” Weintraub said. “I am very optimistic that we will accomplish that in short order.”

The complaint filed with the state board of labor relations concludes by charging that the town violated the Municipal Employees Relations Act by intimidating and retaliating against bargaining unit members for exercising their rights to grieve issues relating to the collective bargaining unit and through the unilateral blockage of overtime work assignments.

In the complaint, the union is seeking:

An order requiring the town return to the established practice of allowing bargaining unit members to fill open overtime construction assignments in Portland.

An order requiring the town cease and desist the practice of intimidating or retaliating against bargaining unit members for exercising their rights to confer with the union.

An order requiring the town to reimburse the union for any costs or expenses associated with the prosecution of this case.

Any other relief the board deems appropriate.


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