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Minutes - San Leandro City Council Meeting - March 5, 1992 Page - 8 - PUBLIC HEARINGS (continued) Mayor Karp asked Mr. Tarver if the MERO delegated his authority to Mr. Tarver. Mr. Tarver responded yes, in accordance with Resolution No. 70-48. Mr. Burdick said he has been doing this type of work for 23 years and it may be the style of San Leandro's MERO not to appear at meetings, but he received the FAX regarding the meeting without the courtesy of a telephone call to schedule the meeting. He said he appeared anyway and assumed there would be some third person from the City who would help move people along. He said, instead, Mr. Rungis and Mr. Tarver tried to get him to agree to the same thing they had discussed 24 hours earlier. He said that is not what he considers the purpose of an impasse-resolution meeting. He said the City ordinance provides for mediation and he suggested mediation, but Mr. Tarver and Mr. Rungis refused to use.the..offices .of ,the,;State Mediator and said the matter must be taken to the City Council . Mr. Burdick said the FFA and POA find it hard to believe the City Council is not aware of what is going on. He said the City negotiators have procrastinated until the last minute and then gone ahead at breakneck speed. The Hearing was then opened to the public. Lou Filipovich, said the City is not the employer, the taxpayers are the employers. He said, in his experience, binding arbitration with public employees is bad. He said he has a feeling the voters will turn it down. He recommended that the City not put the City measure on the ballot, but let the voters make a decision on binding arbitration. He said this could be dangerous for the City. Jerry Waltman, San Leandro Police Officer, said he recently retired and gave up a promotion with another city to come to San Leandro because of the adversarial situation at the other city. He said binding arbitration is a double-edged sword. He said it caused the city he came from and the Association to work harder to resolve problems. He said when it was used the pie got cut up and no one gained what they thought they would. He said the Hathaway amendment will do a lot more to resolve conflicts. He said he never saw binding arbitration hurt the City of Oakland, where he worked. Larry Smith said he read an article in the newspaper. He said he did not feel an arbitrator's decision should go to the voters. He said after both sides battle it out to impasse and then select an impartial arbitrator, both sides should live by the decision. He said he doesn't believe there would be any Jose Canseco-type awards. He said arbitration means mutually assured destruction and is costly to both sides. He said if a measure to overturn an arbitrator's decision is put on the ballot, where does it go from there. He said if the FFA and POA want arbitration, he would hope they would have to abide by the decision of the arbitrator even if it goes against them.