Talks Set in Sheriff’s Deputies Salary Dispute

As Orange County sheriff’s deputies threaten to walk off their jobs any day, a mediator in the stalled salary negotiations said Wednesday that he has arranged for the two sides to meet again today.

Wyatt Hart, a retired sheriff’s captain chosen by both sides to mediate the talks, said that as far as he knows neither side would be coming to the meeting with any new proposals. But Hart said he called the meeting anyway just to keep the parties talking.

“I’m always optimistic anytime two people are communicating,” Hart said. “You can’t resolve the differences if you’re not communicating.”

Robert MacLeod, general manager of the Assn. of Orange County Sheriff’s Deputies, said he did not know of anything new that might come out of the meeting.

“I think the pressure of this is getting to everybody; that’s the only thing different that I know of,” MacLeod said. “But we always said that we’d do anything to avoid this (possible strike) and if (Hart) thinks this will work, we’ll be there.”

County officials did not return telephone calls Wednesday, but the Board of Supervisors met in private session Tuesday to discuss the labor talks.

The two sides last talked Sept. 2 in a meeting that ended with union representatives claiming that county negotiators were being unreasonable and deceitful. The meeting ended with the county’s offer of a 2.5% pay raise next spring and the union’s demand for a 7% raise retroactive to July, 1987, when the deputies’ contract expired.

Meanwhile Wednesday, hundreds of workers with the Orange County Employees Assn. staged a lunchtime rally at the county Hall of Administration to protest their own stalled wage talks.

They circled the Hall of Administration in cars, honking their horns and marched into the offices of County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish with signs that said, “Did the money Parrish?” and “We won’t Parrish, Larry.”