No candidate in the March 5 election for president of the Chicago Police union, FOP Lodge 7, received more than 50 percent of the votes, sending it into a runoff between current president Kevin Graham and John Catanzara – one of the city’s most frequently disciplined officers, according to the Sun-Times.
The results of the run-off are expected to be announced in early April.
In the March 5 election 8,316 votes were counted: Catanzara received 32.12 percent of the vote to Graham’s 25.50 percent. Current second vice president of the union Martin Preib, writer of the FOP blog “The Watch,” came in less than a half a percentage point behind Graham.
One of the biggest issues facing the new president will be negotiations with the city over a new contract. The union has been without a contract for nearly three years.
Bitter relations between the FOP and the city are unlikely to soften after the election.
Graham and Preib have criticized the anti-police sentiment adopted by some city officials, and by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
And Catanzara was quoted in the Sun-Times recently as saying. “If you want to talk, we’re willing to listen and sit down and talk. If you want to fight, we’re gonna bring a fight like no FOP has ever brought to any mayor in this city — ever.”
Its unclear whether The Watch, the FOP blog, will continue after the new president is elected. In it, Preib has called out elected officials for too often treating the police as the enemy and settling civil trials over wrongful conviction cases rather than fighting them and giving them a public airing in court.
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