The Union and the Manor

As you may know, the CSEA and the Board have been disagreeing on the history of attempts to communicate about the Manor. Today John Imperato, the president of the Otsego County Unit of the CSEA, read a letter to the Board (actually he only had three minutes, so he only read most of the letter) regarding the union's position on this communication history. I have a copy of the whole thing, if you're interested in reading it.

I don't pretend to know nearly enough about the details of this history to weigh in with a comprehensive position on the issue. Much of what I do know is privileged and confidential, having been discussed in executive session. But substantive talks with the union were part of the Kosmer Plan, and central to any result for the Manor that did not include selling it to a private corporation, and so this is an important issue.

I do know that the possibility of a real plan to restructure the contract into something that the taxpayers of Otsego County can afford was too complex, and too fraught with peril for both sides, to ever have been achieved from the beginning. I naively thought that we could all sit down together and talk about what is needed to keep the Manor in County hands – a result that was in the best interests of all parties.

Apparently not. Apparently, you can't just sit down and have informal talks to move toward achieving a common goal. Apparently, every conversation along those lines is consdered a negotiation, and there are rules and consequences which make creative problem-solving just about impossible.

This is a tremendous disappointment. If you put the Board in a room with the residents and staff of the Manor, you'd probably have a room full of people with very similar goals and aspirations for the future of the Manor. But the kind of conversation that could come out of this convergence of interests will probably never happen – and, apparently, never could.