HUBBARD TOWNSHIP — The township police union has zero confidence in the board of trustees, as well as its police chief, Todd Coonce, according to a vote taken by the FOP Lodge 85 on Wednesday.

At their reogranizational meeting Tuesday, trustees voted to reject the fact-finder’s recommendation in order to continue efforts to save the police department. The report was compiled by Jerry Sellman, an attorney / arbitrator from Columbus.

“We rejected it because we want to continue to negotiate,” Trustee Rick Hernandez said at the meeting. He said the trustees were not totally in agreement with the report and want to discuss the matter further.

“This came as a shock,” said FOP President Chris Gifford. “We were under the understanding that it was agreed upon during the fact-finding.”

On Dec. 13, trustees and the FOP met with the fact finder to discuss the township and what can be done to continue using local police officers. Trustees verbally had agreed to the contents in the report, but at the meeting on Tuesday, went against the agreement, according to Gifford.

“This is blatant gross immorality on the part of the Hubbard Township Board of Trustees. They made an agreement during fact finding, and now they are not keeping their word. The trustees constantly say they want to do what they can to save the department; however they continue to display flagrant self-destructive behavior,” the FOP letter states.

Hernandez, regarding the verbal agreement, said trustees agreed to look at the fact-finder’s report and go through it before making a decision.

“We agreed to wait for the fact-finder report and we’d review the report then make a decision,” Hernandez said. “We rejected the report due to the fact that the fact-finder did not hit on all of the points.”

The report touched on health insurance, wages, uniform allowances, grievance procedures and duty weapons. It doesn’t mention car expenses or maintenance.

According to the FOP letter, the report, which agreed with F.O.P. Lodge No. 85’s position on health care and wages, also stated that concessions were “unwarranted.” These concessions are the proposed 10 percent decrease in wages and 10 percent increase in health care costs set by the trustees.

“The police union has ZERO confidence in the Hubbard Township Board of Trustees and also in the police chief, Todd D. Coonce. They appear to purposely continue down the path of bringing in the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office to take over police services, and disregard any recommendations made by the union, a committee of residents and a fact finder from the State Employment Relations Board,” the FOP letter states. “The great residents of Hubbard Township deserve much better than this.”

The FOP is in favor of the fact-finder’s report and will officially vote on it today, but according to Gifford, since the trustees rejected the report, a conciliator will be brought in regardless of how the FOP votes.

bshiller@tribtoday.com