Sergeants Union EXECUTIVE Board

From the comments, we have this portion of a larger comment posted at 3:05 PM in the post titled "Sergeant Union Caves"

• To, SCC, I appreciate, your blog tremendously, I just wish in this regard, in this particular case. You would have been a little more objective, then, what seemed to me, trying to throw an actual good cop, under the bus. Because he did support the protest. It was those merit tools on the Board that had more votes. He had to put his name on it, we shouldn't be shooting the messenger in this case.

If John Pallohusky supported the picket, he should have said so. Plain and simple. But he's the one who released this statement after the 6-5 vote:

• "The CPSA Executive Board fully understands the frustrations that have prompted the other police unions to take this action, but at this time we believe the interests of the members of the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association are best served by the ongoing negotiation process."

That quote is under President Pallohusky's name. If Pallohusky was so inclined to support the picketers, he should have let the vote stand on it's own, noted his own abstention or negative vote, then showed up to march. We don't know that he did any of this. But we'll give him a chance:

• List the vote by roll. Who were the 6? Who were the 5? Who didn't show up to vote?

We don't envy the spot Pallohusky is in. We've been informed that he doesn't even serve in the off-street capacity that FOP's field reps do. He chooses, for whatever reason, to work in a Detective Area and has one of the vice presidents work at the CPSA Lodge. Unfortunately, that makes him susceptible to outside pressure from the City, because Sergeant of Detectives is an "at-will" spot. You don't test for it. It's granted, like a blessing. And according to at least a few of our commentators, much of the CPSA Board is made up of not only "merit" sergeants, but sergeants in "blessed" spots who don't want to lose those spots. God forbid they'd have to go back to Patrol and mingle with the great unwashed blue shirts.

We understand a huge number of Sergeants turned up to march and good for them. We appreciate that they support the troops. We'll note that is was the Executive Board of the CPSA that voted to not picket and most sergeants probably are as frustrated as the Officers at the pace of contract negotiations and City shenanigans. We remain of the opinion that this was a blown opportunity for the CPSA and Pallohusky and we question that undue influence over job assignments was the catalyst for it.