Editorial: Get together on cops, and get it right:
Someone apparently needs to tell Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton and Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden that if they’re ever going to negotiate any changes in the notoriously generous contract with the police union that they’ve got to get on the same page. No, not Stratton, Van Norden and the cops; Stratton and Van Norden.
As Friday’s Gazette story made abundantly clear, the mayor and members of the city’s negotiating team — which included a costly outside counsel — were at odds with one another during the last go-round. That ended up with the cops declaring an impasse last October, and an arbitrator siding with them to the tune of 8-plus percent over two years, and no concessions."
