August 2014

First, please attend tonight’s Board of Supervisors Candidates Forum (Tuesday 8/26/14). We will be serving free beer AND making a decision about one of the Supervisor’s candidates that could very well make a huge difference to wages and working conditions of all DDAs.

Second, start planning to attend the Awards Dinner in October! Tentatively I believe and am hopeful that the current Governor of California will attend. I also believe DA Jackie Lacey will attend and present an ADDA award to the next Sheriff of Los Angeles County, James McDonnell. The ADDA, and I personally, am delighted that these dignitaries will attend and honor the current award recipients recognized by the ADDA, the ADDA, itself, and the ADDA’s efforts on behalf of all DDAs. I think the Dinner is tentatively scheduled for Thursday 10/30, but more information and fliers will soon be forthcoming. In this regard, I want to thank Director Bobby Grace for his hard work making this event happen!

Third, FOR A FEW DOLLARS more you can join the ADDA as a full voting member and vote on the upcoming decision to permanently affiliate with AFSCME or to disaffiliate. This is extremely important to the future of your Certified Bargaining Unit which represents YOU!  You need to become a full voting member by October to ensure your right to vote on disaffiliation!

Fourth, I am informed and believe and thereupon reservedly allege that at the next Saturday Seminar we will actually present a “framed” scroll to the DDA of the Month! Shocking! The Board discussed delivering the overdue scrolls to the DDAs at our upcoming Awards Dinner.  Hopefully, this problem has been solved for the foreseeable future. Thank you Director Bobby Grace and former Director Karen Tandler!

Since we cannot obtain the results we need through local channels, we are pursuing LEGISLATION to overcome the logger jam concerning DDAs bypassing security screening. Further, we may soon be meeting generally with Lobbyists and Legislators in meetings in which we begin to address our security concerns.

Assistant DA Pam Booth confirmed that the Grade IV promotional list has been extended 6 months, or until February, 2015.

You will be receiving the next 2% COLA in October.

There has been some optimism expressed by ADDA Executive Vice President Jeff McGrath and Business Representative Tris Carpenter who have attended legislative and lobbying efforts in Sacramento, along with the efforts of DDA Michelle Hanisee, that there may be some movement to secure what otherwise should be the confidential addresses and information regarding DDAs that appear on County real estate records. While we may not get everything we are asking for, we hope to succeed in obtaining some improvements. It’s a start at protecting all DDAs.

Executive Vice President Jeff McGrath has begun a salary comparison study in preparation for the upcoming MOU/Contract Negotiations that commence next year. If you are interested in assisting him in any way in this project as well as ultimately assisting your colleagues in the ADDA’s effort to improve wages, we could use your help.  Please contact McGrath.  The sooner we begin our preparations, the stronger we will be when the time comes to explain the disingenuousness of the County’s salary position.  Tris Carpenter has also asked AFSCME International to assist in researching and analyzing these financial concerns on behalf of the ADDA.

We voted to oppose Proposition 47 which seeks to reduce criminal sentences. You will be hearing more about this in an upcoming email solely on this topic.

We voted to endorse Elan Carr, a DDA, for U.S. Congress (33rd District).

On 8/21/14, ADDA Vice President James Bozajian retired from the DA’s office. As such, his position will be open.  James has been a DDA for 24 years and has served on the ADDA Board for 22 of those years. He has been a past President of the ADDA. The New By-Laws permit retired DDAs to be non-voting Associate Members and James will be the first one and will help organize retired DDAs who are interested in assisting or participating as non-voting Associate Members. We thank James for his many years of service and wish him well in his new career.

If you are interested in joining the Board as a Director or Officer, [Secretary or Vice President] please let us know.

Also, we have openings for 3 Trustees whose duties will be to audit the financial activities of the Board.  If you are interested, please let any Board member know. There will be an election held on this, or possibly appointments, depending on the number of those who are interested in the position.

We will be informing our members of Policy 910 in an upcoming email, which basically entitles you to representation in potential disciplinary contacts with the Administration. DDAs have frequently been told by representatives of the Office that they do not have such a right.  County Policy 910 contradicts that.

Along the same lines, the ADDA will be discussing in greater depth what is called the Duty of Fair Representation. This will be the new Board’s effort to outline what the ADDA’s obligations will be to our members in terms of providing counsel or other representation.  When we determine what our general obligations should be, at that point, Richard Shinee, our General Counsel, will generate the ADDA Policy on this important topic which we will then disseminate.

In our consultation with Cerrell we have received recommendations for improving our website, and will be updating its look in the near future. They also have made several suggestions on how to begin advancing and strengthening the voice of the ADDA throughout this County.

There is a Legislative effort by this County, Assembly Bill 1881, as well as the City of L.A. to significant undermine the neutrality of ERCOM [the Employee Relations Committee] by tilting the selection of hearing officers in a way that creates a bias in favor of their ruling for the County, thus compromising any reason to seek out ERCOM as a forum to resolve disputes. This Legislation is vigorously being opposed by those who want to ensure a fair hearing.  The three ERCOM Commissioners resigned from ERCOM in a public protest of what they consider the County’s outrageous effort to take over a forum that has historically been impartial, detached, objective and not aligned with the County. ERCOM is, essentially, the County Forum that addresses issue which arise between the Departments or Administration, on one side, and the Certified Bargaining Units and employees, on the other side. ERCOM replaced PERB [which is the state wide forum] and functions much the same as the NLRB [which is the federal forum].

We are closer to approving a booklet which contains our current MOU/Contract for distribution to DDAs.

The new By-Laws passed.

The PAC [Political Action Committee] can now be formed. We are hiring a treasurer for that. We should have more to tell on the initial and monthly allocation structure by the next Board Meeting, which is Tuesday, 9/16/14. All DDAs are invited.

The new By-Laws require a quarterly Membership Meeting. We will be disseminating information on the first meeting soon! Tentatively, it may be 9/16/14 at a meeting hall/restaurant downtown.

The new dues structure, 0.6%, will soon be implemented.

Please consider volunteering on any of the ADDA’s multiple committees all of which have but one overall goal, to assist DDAs and improve wages and working conditions.

 

Marc Debbaudt

ADDA President

 

ADDA Leadership

OFFICERS:

Marc Debbaudt, President

Jeff McGrath, Executive Vice President

Vice President                 — OPENING

Secretary                          — OPENING

James Evans, Treasurer Stuart Lytton

DIRECTORS:

Anthony Colannino

Craig Gold

Bobby Grace

John Harrold

Loren Naiman

Eric Siddall

 

COUNSEL AND STAFF:

Richard Shinee, General Counsel

Tris Carpenter, AFSCME Business Representative [tris@afscme36.org]

Juliana Konze, Recording Secretary

Website: laadda.com