THE COURT: So first off, congratulations to the new
EST. Is he here?
MR. GEIGER: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: Congratulations.
MR. GEIGER: Thank you.
THE COURT: And how was the vote? What was the
process? Did you win by.
MR. GEIGER: It was slightly more than a two-to-one
margin. The vote was held Friday, and the votes were tallied
on Friday.
THE COURT: Nice to have you here.
MR. GEIGER: Thank you.
THE COURT: So I received a letter from Judge Jones
yesterday evening or so, and it's very helpful. What I would
like to do today is deal with these -- the following issues in
the following order.
First, in Judge Jones' letter she raises at the end of
the letter this issue about international agreements, and
frankly, I would like to hear about that first. I'm curious as
to know what that's about and where that's leading us. So
perhaps on that issue I might hear from Mr. Walsh and also then
the district council and anybody else that wants to add
anything to that. So that would be the first thing I would
like to hear about.
The second I would like to talk about the two pending
CBAs. I'm aware that they had -- you are too, that they had
been earlier submitted but never acted upon by me, and that is
because of my concern that they contain provisions that -- this
may be too strong, but on their face are not being complied
with. That's the whole point of the other discussion that
we're having here is that the so-called anti-fraud provisions
in all the CBAs do not appear to be -- well, that may be too
strong, but you understand my point about that. It's kind of
odd to go forward and approve an agreement, which I probably
would not have done incidentally historically had I known at
the time that the provisions that are mandatory in the
agreements, they use the word "shall," were not or could not or
were not adequately being complied with. That would be the
second issue.
Then I would like to talk about the proposed new
amendment of the stipulation and order, what that's about, why
people feel that's important and necessary, then to talk about
the status of electronic reporting. I did note that one of the
consultant, I don't know if that's what it's called, that
District Council retained, one of its early recommendations was
that there be in-house IT capability. That's something that I
have been thinking about and talking about for several months
now, and frankly I have been surprised that that issue hadn't
been taken care of a long time ago.But anyway, I'm all for that. And then we can talk more about electronic reporting,
where that stands.
And then there's an issue about Mr. Walsh. Is he here
today?
Not the RO Walsh, but -- well, maybe that issue will
not be pursued, but we'll see.
So yeah, with that in mind, then of course we can hear
about if anybody has any other issues that they want to
discuss.
So let's hear about this, Mr. Walsh, if we might, this
international agreements issue. It's somewhat of a concern to
me because it suggests, at least from Judge Jones' letter
that -- maybe this is too strong, but somebody is trying to
evade the terms and conditions of the collective bargaining
agreement, at least in spirit, and that is a problem, in my
opinion.
