VOTERS REQUIRE DRUG TESTS FOR POLICE

UNION CITY -- Union City voters last week approved a contract that will
require police officers to be tested for drugs. The vote came just a few
weeks after the department's chief was arrested on drug- related charges.

Chief Brandon Ellis, 31, resigned from his position March 11 after his
arrest five days before.

Last Tuesday, the police union lost an election designed to settle a labor
dispute between officers and city leaders. Voters were asked to choose
between two contract proposals after city leaders and union leaders reached
an impasse.

Among 19 points of contention on the ballot was the drug testing issue.
City leaders were calling for drug testing of officers, while the police
union opposed the proposal.

Ellis was arrested last month by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs on a felony count of obtaining a controlled and dangerous
substance, said bureau spokesman Mark Woodward.

Woodward said the department interviewed Ellis after getting a call from
the Drug Emporium, 4202 Northwest Expressway. A store manager said that
Ellis was using a photocopied prescription for Lortab, a painkiller.

When bureau officers interviewed Ellis, he admitted using the photocopied
prescription, Woodward said. The officers arrested him.

On March 11, the Union City Council accepted Ellis' resignation, said Mayor
Cecilia Kennedy.

She said officer Eddie Dickerson is now acting as the department's chief.
She said the council will discuss options today about finding a permanent
replacement for Ellis.

"We were surprised," Kennedy said.

She said she believes Ellis may have developed a painkiller addiction after
knee surgery last year. However, she said she does not believe drug use is
widespread in the department.

"I know all those guys very well," she said.

Capt. Benny Glad, a spokesman for the International Union of Police
Associations, local 144, did not return calls to The Oklahoman last week to
discuss election results or Ellis' resignation.

The department has four officers.

Kennedy said the city's labor negotiations and Ellis' resignation were
unrelated issues.

Voters approved the city's contract proposal with 153 votes (70 percent)
compared to 65 (30 percent) votes for the union proposal.

Prior to the election, Glad said that the officers supported drug testing,
but felt that it was unfair that the city's proposal did not include
part-time employees.

Glad also complained that the city's proposal did not offer officers any
health care benefits and did not offer sick leave for the illness of family
members.

"I think they do need health insurance," Kennedy said. "Everybody is
entitled to it and they need it."

However, Kennedy said the city leaders wanted to share the costs of the
insurance with the officers, but the officers insisted that the city should
pay 100 percent of the premium costs. After this dispute, both sides took
an "all or nothing" approach.

"There are completely different views and some of the council members view
things differently than I do," Kennedy said.

Previously, Glad said the city did not bargain "in good faith." He said
they made several concessions and then in a final meeting reversed them all
and said that they were through negotiating.

Kennedy said part of the problem comes from the town's inexperience in
dealing with unions. The police department only unionized last year.

"We have never dealt with a union before," she said. "We didn't know how to
do anything."