Council affirms SEIU placement for Community Intervention Specialists, rejects RPOA appeal

The Richmond City Council voted to reject an appeal by the Richmond Police Officers Association and affirmed the human resources director’s determination that the new Community Intervention Specialist classification belongs in the city’s SEIU Local 1021 general employees bargaining unit.

The decision preserves the city’s plan to staff the Community Crisis Response Program (branded in the meeting as ROC) with non‑sworn, social‑service‑oriented employees rather than placing the positions inside the police union. Council members voted to reject the appeal; the measure passed with one recorded abstention (Council Member Baana) and one member absent for the meeting.

City human resources director Sharron Taylor, who served as the employee relations officer in the case, told the council that assigning the new position to SEIU best serves two legal and policy aims: efficient and effective public service, and giving employees representation aligned to their community of interest. “In conclusion, the factors and considerations are overwhelmingly and unanimously favor assigning the community intervention specialist to SEIU,” Taylor said.

Taylor outlined the legal and organizational reasoning she used in reaching the determination. She noted the city intentionally located the Community Crisis Response Program under the Office of Neighborhood Safety to make clear that program staff would provide non‑criminal, de‑escalation and social‑service responses. Taylor said RPOA represents a purely sworn peace‑officer membership with distinct legal status, training and retirement rules and that folding a non‑sworn classification into that unit would fragment bargaining units and require a complicated carve‑out of contracts and benefits.

Representing the Richmond Police Officers Association, attorney Jonathan Murphy told the council the union’s objection stemmed from concerns about overlap in duties and from how the job classification was placed into SEIU during negotiations. “This was not brought to RPOA. This happened on its own. The city went directly to SEIU,” Murphy said, arguing the union had not had adequate chance to engage on how the new staff would interact with police calls for service.

City labor counsel Jack Hughes responded that the question before the council was narrowly legal and administrative: which bargaining unit should the new classification be assigned to. Hughes said the city had developed the CCRP to move some responses from law‑enforcement to social‑service approaches and that, under state labor law and the city’s unit‑definition rules, the new classification fit the general employee unit rather than a sworn‑officer unit. “When you go through every single factor that is recognized by state law and the Myers‑Milias‑Brown Act and your local labor relations rules … all the information favors in the direction of sending this over to SEIU,” Hughes told the council.

Public comment at the hearing was heavily in favor of keeping the classification outside the police union. Members of the program’s newly formed community advisory board described the program as a community‑led alternative to policing for wellness checks, mental‑health calls and other non‑violent incidents. CAB member Andrew Melendez said the role is designed to operate “as an independent response team” and urged the council to deny the appeal so the program could launch as planned.

Both sides acknowledged outstanding work remains before the program begins service: routing and dispatch protocols, training standards, and how the new staff will interface with police dispatch and patrol. Deputy city managers and Office of Neighborhood Safety staff including Sam Vaughn and LaShonda White were present in the meeting record as the program’s implementers and answered procedural questions during the appeal.

The council vote concludes the local appeal process. Murphy and the RPOA were advised on the record that their remaining remedy would be to seek review from the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) if they wished to continue the dispute; PERB reviews unit determinations but can take months to resolve.

What’s next: with the unit assignment affirmed, the city may proceed with the classification implementation steps (salary placement, recruitment and the training plan) while staff and council continue to work on operational details for dispatch, supervision and program oversight before ROC’s planned launch. The council discussion also left open follow‑up work on how dispatch and operational protocols will be structured and how the city will monitor deployments and outcomes.

Ending: The decision leaves in place the city’s stated intent to create a non‑police alternative for many routine mental‑health and wellness responses, but it also makes clear labor, operational and legal issues remain to be finalized before the new team begins field operations.