Editor’s note: The public hearing on this issue was postponed until the April 22 city council meeting.
The Richmond Police Officers Association (RPOA), the union representing sworn officers, is fighting a city decision to put new crisis intervention positions in a different bargaining group, saying that the roles include duties currently performed by officers.
The eight new community intervention specialist positions, which haven’t been filled yet due to the dispute, were put under the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bargaining unit rather than the police union.
The Richmond City Council will hear the RPOA’S appeal of the city’s decision at its Tuesday meeting and is expected to issue a final ruling on the matter, according to an agenda report released Friday by Human Resources Director Sharrone Taylor and Deputy City Manager Nickie Mastay.
At the center of the dispute is the Community Crisis Response Program (CCRP), now known as ROCK (Reach Out with Compassion and Kindness), which the city has been developing since 2020 in an effort to “reimagine public safety.” The crisis intervention program, which currently has a director and an administrative assistant, aims to create a team of non-sworn employees who would respond to non-emergency calls, including noise complaints and wellness checks.
“Given this position’s operational and organizational placement, as well as the City’s organizational patterns, it is logical for this classification to be in the General Employees unit,” Taylor wrote in a January email.
She cited several factors for this decision, including that there are currently no non-sworn positions in RPOA, while similar non-sworn positions, such as Office of Neighborhood Safety neighborhood change agents, who deal with gun violence intervention, and code enforcement officers, are represented by the general employees bargaining unit. Additionally, she said, because the intervention specialists job description is different, if it were to be included in the officers’ union it would require extensive revisions to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding wages, benefits and working conditions.
“This process would be time-intensive and create an administrative burden for our staff,” Taylor said in the email.
According to Tuesday’s agenda report, the community intervention specialist job was the first job description created for ROCK and was presented to the city’s personnel board for approval on March 23, 2024. At that time, RPOA president and police Sgt. Ben Therriault expressed concerns regarding the classification, triggering a city-union meeting process.
The RPOA then formally objected to the position being assigned to SEIU Local 1021 in December of 2024, stating that the position belongs in the police union’s bargaining unit since the role would include duties currently handled by officers.
In a Feb. 6 objection letter, RPOA attorney Jonathan Murphy argued that the city engaged in “bad faith bargaining” and that the classification decision was “premature and erroneous.”
“Notably, before we had held a single meeting to begin good faith negotiations, the City reached out requesting permission to present salary figures to the City Council for approval, further cementing the appearance of this meet and confer process as mere window dressing,” Murphy wrote.
Murphy also added that the RPOA was “prepared to file” an unfair labor practice complaint with the California Public Employment Relations Board.
Taylor rejected the union’s objection on March 19, determining that the job classification is a better fit for the city’s general employees bargaining unit than with the officers’ bargaining unit.
Crisis team director hired nearly a year ago but has no team yet
ROCK was established after the Richmond City Council voted in 2021 to reallocate $3 million from unfilled police department positions to fund the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force recommendation that the city establish four programs: ROCK, YouthWORKS, the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Safe Organized Spaces (SOS) Richmond.
Michael Romero was hired as the executive director of ROCK in May 2024, but since then the program has only hired an administrative assistant. So far, according to many sources, only Romero has been working in the community.
Romero was contacted Friday by Richmondside for comment but he declined.
During a January city council discussion about tracking police use of military-grade weapons District 6 council member Claudia Jimenez said that the city has tried to lighten officers’ workloads through ROCK, which would allow social and mental health workers to respond to non-violent calls. She expressed her frustrations with the RPOA for “stalling the hiring process.”
Jimenez told Richmondside Friday that she’s continued to be frustrated with the delays in setting up the ROCK team.
“This is something that we as a council have had a priority for many years since 2022,” she said. “We want to support the services and by (the police union) using tactics that I don’t think have ever been used before it just sends a message that they don’t really want this program to be up and running.”
Jimenez added that residents have asked her why there has been a delay in implementing ROCK — a program she said the council had expected would have launched last summer.
“Hopefully after Tuesday we can move the program forward. We have had the resources to hire the positions to answer calls but it’s disheartening,” she said, adding that similar new programs have successfully been created, such as the Office of Neighborhood Safety. “It isn’t something that we are coming out of nowhere. We continue to be on a pathway to have more alternatives to support our communities with what they need the most.”
Therriault could not be reached for comment Friday but told Richmondside in January that the dispute is about labor rights, not about opposing the program itself.
“The city violated the correct process to create a new classification and the RPOA is asserting its labor rights,” Therriault said. “We are abiding by normal labor law practices. It’s all grandstanding politics.”
