Jul 17, 2000 - Lt. Robert Brown, president of the Greenwich Police Department Silver Shield Association, which paid for the ad, said the ........

FED UP, COPS TRY TO SHAME TONY TOWN

Daily News

Cops in Greenwich, Conn., are seeing red over sluggish negotiations to renew a contract that expired a year ago.

So this week, the police union decided to put the issues in black and white - hoping to embarrass officials in the tony town by placing sarcastic classified ads in several newspapers, including the Daily News.

"COMMUNITY WANTED: Police department seeking community willing to pay competitive salary, compensation for dedication, loyalty, personal sacrifices & proven results," states the ad, which was scheduled to run in today's News.

Lt. Robert Brown, president of the Greenwich Police Department Silver Shield Association, which paid for the ad, said the association's 154 members have been working without a contract for the past year and have not received a raise in two years.

First Selectman Lolly Prince, the top elected official in Greenwich, said the town is "ready, willing and able" to address the issues through negotiation.

"We will entertain any proposal that they agree to among themselves," Prince said of the union and town representatives who have been negotiating for almost two years.

"Negotiations haven't been going well, so we went to binding arbitration," Brown said. "We are still negotiating, but it doesn't appear that we are going to reach a happy medium via negotiation."

Brown said that in addition to 77 other issues, cops are asking for a less than 4% raise and relief from costly health insurance that hits retirees hardest in one of the most affluent towns in the country. The expired contract sets the starting salary for a patrol officer at $38,618, rising to a top pay of $48,709. Such salary levels, Brown said, are 17% below those of comparable police departments.

"We just had a major upheaval with every union member that has retired, the town is self-insured . . . and they just raised the insurance, some from $200 to $900," Brown said. "In another incident, a fireman's widow was getting half of his pension and they raised the insurance rates and now she has to pay the town instead of receiving a paycheck."

Prince declined to discuss details of the contract, but she is expected to address the insurance issue during a meeting with police officers and other union members at Greenwich High School tomorrow night.

In her keynote speech during a luncheon for the local Chamber of Commerce in April, Prince boasted about the "healthy finance status" of the town, a median home price of $880,000 and a per capita income of $67,041.

"Right now, a lot of our young police officers that are getting married cannot even afford to rent an apartment because of the rates," Brown said. "It's a very affluent community."