All right, everyone, if we rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, thank you.

Councilman Spitola, if you do those the honor.

Thank you.

Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, everyone that's here and online.

And for the record, who do we have online?

Um line we have Councilwoman Linda Salafia, Councilman Darnell Ford, and Councilwoman Kelly Sweeney.

Oh, there they are.

We see them.

Four.

There we go.

Okay.

And Sweeney.

Welcome.

So if I can now uh have our council clerk read the call of the meeting, please.

The chief of police of the city of Middletown greetings.

By authority of the state of Connecticut, you are hereby commanded to summon and notify Vincent J.

Lafredo, Jeanette Blackwell, Darnell Ford, Grady Faulkner Jr., Kelly Sweeney, Anthony Mangiofico, Linda Salafia, Anthony S.

Gennaro Sr., Jonathan Polino, Leslie Spitola, Chine Fulton, Ava M.

Hart, members of the Common Council of the City of Middletown, to attend a special meeting of said common council for the purpose of considering a the arbitration award in the matter of the collective bargaining agreement between the City of Middletown and United Public Service Employees Union UPSU local 6457, effective July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026, including a presentation and discussion, and B a resolution to accept or reject the arbitration award.

Said meetings shall be a hybrid meeting to be held in the council chamber of the municipal building 245 DeCoven Drive in said city and remotely via WebEx at Join A Meeting, event 2348-396-6463 on Tuesday, May 12, 2026 at 5 30 p.m.

Hereof fail not, but make due service in return to the clerk of said city, three hours prior to the time of fixed meeting.

City of Middletown May 11th, 2026, attested by Honorable Eugene Pinocchera Mayor.

City of Middletown, May 11th, 2026.

I hereby certify that I have delivered an attested copy of the foregoing order and attached agenda of the common council meeting to each and every council member named above via electronic mail, attested by Chief of Police Eric M.

Costa.

All right, thank you.

And um welcome to our special meeting uh on the uh upsu contract effective July 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026.

So now I'm gonna open up uh the public hearing.

Um uh anyone who would like to address the council uh here or um online.

So anyone here uh anyone online with their hand up.

No hands, no hands raised online.

All right.

So given that, we're going to close the public hearing.

And um I'm going to call up uh I'm gonna defer to our council president.

Do we want to have a presentation now from um attorney hogson?

Um yes, um thank you, Mayor Nelsara.

I would say um that we would have the presentation um uh by Christopher uh attorney Christopher Hoskins, and then we can go into QA from the council.

Perfect, please.

Thank you.

Thank you for inviting me tonight.

My name is Chris Hodgson.

I'm a senior attorney um Bertram Moses in Milford.

I've enjoyed uh working with um Middletown on this case.

We uh go back to the uh collective bargaining agreement with UPSU, uh which is our white collar union, which expired June 30, 2025.

Uh in May of 2025, the city and union had reached a tentative agreement concerning a one-year agreement that provided for 2.6 percent general wage increase, changes to retiree medical, including a new tier for uh new hires, and incentives in the pension and retiree medical for certain individuals to continue their employment.

The TATA, uh also provided for a change in three job descriptions and increase in pay uh for those three positions, as well as eliminating language providing for a labor management committee.

Um which reviewed job descriptions.

The common council voted to against the tentative agreement on June 18 of 2025.

The uh council subsequently agreed on all the issues except for the uh change to the three job descriptions as well as the change to the labor management um committee.

So we went to interest arbitration under the statute.

And under that statute, there are three arbitrators appointed, including a neutral that we uh present evidence and uh which included witnesses and I have an exhibit book.

You can see it stick sticking out of my uh my briefcase.

The uh um hearing went forward on March 4.

We had one day hearing, uh both sides presented evidence, and then I submitted a brief making our arguments.

And in sum, the arguments were that the um change to three job descriptions as well as to the um labor management committee was not appropriate at this time because we were in the middle of reviewing a Baker Tilly job study, which in fact included potential increases to those three positions.

And the argument um to the panel was we know that a tentative agreement once negotiated between uh the labor negotiators and the city's negotiators is almost always accorded deference by uh an interest arbitration panel, that there were good reasons in this case for you to not follow the tentative agreement.

The um the award came out on uh April 16 of 2026.