McAllen reaches settlement with police union

McALLEN - City and police union leaders have reached an undisclosed settlement in a lawsuit that could also end their longstanding feud, attorneys said Monday.

McAllen City Attorney Kevin Pagan said he expected an announcement on a settlement in the next two or three weeks.

"I just want to wait and see," he said.

The union's attorney sounded a bit more definite.

"It is settled, but there's going to be a joint press release with the details" later, said Bobby Garcia, who represents the McAllen Police Officers Union.

The police and fire unions filed suit against the city of McAllen in March 2007 over what they claimed was "biased" language in a ballot item for the upcoming election asking voters whether to allow binding arbitration in labor negotiations.

Union officials maintained the ballot language negatively portrayed binding arbitration, a common legal practice whereby two sides go before an independent panel outside the court system for a ruling on their case.

The proposition was left off the ballot after state District Judge Aida Salinas Flores ordered city officials to rewrite it, a decision they unsuccessfully appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.

Union president Ed Suarez declined to discuss whether the settlement would place the matter back on voters' ballots, but he said he would continue to campaign for binding arbitration.

"(Binding arbitration) helps resolve problems a lot faster," he said. "I think whatever settlement we made it's for the best for both sides."

A settlement on the ballot case would end nearly two years of bickering that first appeared to dissipate in January, when the union and city agreed on the police officers' latest labor contract. The contract had been tied up since 2006 over union demands for increased retirement benefits.

The only remaining litigation in the legal mess is a suit former union president Mike Zellers filed against Mayor Richard Cortez last year.

Cortez spoke on a talk radio program in January 2007 and made allusions to Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein when asked about the city's trouble with the police union, of which Zellers was then president. Zellers, filing the suit in his then-official capacity as union president, claims the reference to Hitler was an underhanded remark on his German heritage.

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James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.