Oak Lawn 911 Dispatchers Out! Village Board Votes to Outsource

Oak Lawn’s 911 dispatchers and their supporters, some with children in tow, pleaded with the village board not to outsource the emergency communications center to a private vendor.

Trustees voted 4-2 to approve a professional services agreement with Norcomm Public Safety Communications based in Leyden Township.

The dispatchers and their union attorney from Metropolitan Alliance of Police Local 351 packed the board chamber on Tuesday, offering heartfelt testimony before the vote was taken. Each of the public speakers was timed to three minutes by Mayor Sandra Bury, who asked if they were from Oak Lawn before they spoke.

'911 CENTER OUTSOURCING: HOW THE VOTE WENT DOWN'

Elizabeth McCarthy, a 20-year village dispatcher, stated that she didn’t envy the decision that board members had to make.

“All of you have been elected by residents who saw something in you that made them believe you could be trusted to work in their best interests for them and their families,” McCarthy said. “Now is the time to do right by the residents. Contracting with a private company is a bad decision.”

Local 351’s attorney, Ron Cicinelli, told the village board that the concessions the union was asked to make amounted to approximately $18,700 in losses per each of the village’s 20 emergency dispatchers over the next four years.

“[The Metropolitan Alliance of Police] board has specifically asked [Mayor Bury] to appoint a village board committee to sit down with the union board in the attempt to reach a compromise,” Cicinelli said. “I’m making one final plea to table the vote.”

Cicinelli added that if the village broke the original collectively bargained contract with the emergency dispatchers before it expired on Dec. 31, 2014, the union would file an an unfair labor complaint and lawsuit against the village.

Oak Lawn Trustees Bob Streit (Dist. 3) and Carol Quinlan (Dist. 5), cast the dissenting votes.

Streit said the legal costs to the village would far outweigh any costs savings from outsourcing the emergency communications center.

Quinlan said she didn’t think the village did enough to sell Oak Lawn’s 911 services to other communities.

“The union has brought bargaining concessions to help close this gap. It wasn’t enough but I think it’s a start,” she said. “I think [the union] realizes how serious we are and I think it is important that we send that message as well, but I will be voting no to outsourcing the 911 center.”

Trustee Terry Vorderer (Dist. 4), a retired Oak Lawn police division chief, said he was pro-union but had agonized over his vote.

“I promised my constituents in my campaign and I hear it over and over again, ‘do not raise my taxes,’” Vorderer said. “I still sincerely hope that before contracts are signed we can reach some kind of financial compromise so that this vote didn’t have to happen. I would never vote for the interests of dollars over public safety, but I have to live up to my constituents.”

As the dispatchers and their supporters filed out of the room, a man shouted that the union would sue the village and “you will lose.”

Bury said afterward that it was a tough meeting. She said the door was still open if union representatives wanted to talk "but I wouldn't wait too long if I were them."

“The way to negotiate with unions is through their representatives, not by sending letters to the mayor and copying everyone else,” Bury said of the correspondence she received from the union's board. “There are two sides to the story."