Snow in forecast for police board, association

A mediation session held Thursday at the Best Western Hotel failed to result in an agreement between the North Bay Police Services Board and the North Bay Police Association, association vice president Sgt. Rick Dubeau said.

The meeting among the mediator, the association and the board began at 10 a.m. and went until 4 p.m., Dubeau said, but ended without a contract.

“The mediator wasn’t able to get the two parties to come to an agreement,” Dubeau said.

He added the mediation was part of the arbitration process the association had filed for, to see if a contract could be achieved through common consent before one is imposed by the arbitrator.

The arbitration hearing is set for 9 a.m. this morning, and both sides will present their cases to Howard Snow, appointed by the Ontario Police Arbitration Commission to settle the contract dispute between the two parties.

The Police Act gives Snow "a reasonable amount of time" to deliver a binding decision based, in part, on submissions from the board and the association.

Dubeau and his negotiating team are trying to work out a contract for 86 sworn employees and 55 civilians. They're now working under a two-year pact which expired Dec. 31/'03, and are seeking wage parity with similarly sized municipal police services in Ontario.

North Bay Fire Department fire fighters also went to arbitration and were awarded a contract last year that made their pay roughly equal to that of city police officers.