City, PBA finally come to terms

      The City and members of the Long Beach Patrolmen's Benevolent Association have reached a contract agreement, which is expected to be voted on by the City Council at its Nov. 7 meeting.
      The police had been working without a new deal since the previous one expired on July 1, 2000. Talks had gone into mediation last winter after no deal was struck by Jan. 1, at which time the City halted the practice of steady tours that the PBA had sought to have written into the new contract.
      The deal, announced by City Manager Ed Eaton at the Tuesday, Oct. 16 City Council meeting, returns police to what officials called a 10-hour steady tour system. Under steady tours, police work the same neighborhoods and the same hours for an entire year. The system of rotating tours, which was used until a switch to steady tours three years, featured a schedule that placed patrolmen on tour routes and times that rotated each week.
      The steady system had been a favorite of many community leaders, though officials questioned its actual effectiveness. When the two sides could not agree to a new contract by Jan. 1, the City ended the steady tours, which to that point had existed through a separate agreement between cops and the City that had been extended several times during negotiations.
      Exact details of the new contract will not be released, Eaton said, until it is officially approved by the City Council.
      The announcement did not go as smoothly as city officials likely would have hoped at the Tuesday night meeting. After a resolution was read that would authorize Eaton to enter into the collective bargaining agreement with the PBA, off-duty patrolmen in the audience walked out over their displeasure with the wording of the resolution.
      After a brief executive session by council members, they returned and amended the resolution. A line indicating that Eaton could enter into the agreement upon review by the City Council was changed to remove that stipulation. Councilman Denis Kelly read the revised resolution, stating that the change was made as a gesture of good faith