Off-duty officers jeer, impede civilian flaggers

Policy begins on traffic details

WOBURN - As dozens of cars backed up at both ends of the road project, many of the 50 off-duty police officers lining Lexington Street yesterday began shouting at the man with the neon vest and stop/slow sign in his hand.

Arguing that allowing civilians to direct traffic endangers the public and holding signs that read "Governor Patrick Doesn't Care About Safety," they crowded around the flagger, called him names such as "scab" and "pathetic," and did their best to distract him from his work.

"I hope you sleep at night," Stoneham Patrolman Joe Ponzo yelled at the flaggers, the first to be used on a road project under new regulations. "You should be ashamed of yourself - you're union. This is a travesty."

Despite the continued protests, highway officials said they would not let police officers interfere with the flaggers' work - and they vowed to ensure patrolmen don't block future work sites.

Highway Commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky called some of the police officers' actions "unlawful" and said the state was considering how to respond.

"It's too early to speculate on what steps we're going to take," she said at an Arlington press conference. "Walking by the dozen into an active work zone is not OK, not safe, and when people are protesting in support of public safety and creating an unsafe condition, we have to take action."

The off-duty officers from Arlington, Medford, Everett, Stoneham, and Woburn assembled on the two-lane road to protest the governor's new rules, which curb police details that often earn officers $40 an hour.

The rules were first put into use Friday, when the Massachusetts Water Resources Authorities chose not to have police details at work sites in Revere and Everett. Police union members, angry over what they say was unfair treatment during the administration's drafting of the rules, protested at the work sites and forced the sewer workers there to abandon the projects.

Yesterday, the state brought in flaggers for the first time to direct traffic at seven sites.

The new regulations, which the administration estimates will save the state between $5.7 million and $7.2 million a year, will put civilian flaggers on nearly all state roads where the speed limit is below 45 miles per hour as well as low-traffic roads where the speed limit is higher. Civilians will also be used when barriers block construction sites on high-speed, high-traffic roads. Some projects, such as those on Friday, can go forward without anyone directing traffic.

Police officers, who can earn tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay from details, will continue to direct traffic on busy roads with speed limits of 45 miles per hour or more.

Paiewonsky called the flaggers' work an "appropriate balance between our number one objective of safety of our employees, drivers, all users of the road, while respecting the need to spend our tax dollars more efficiently."

At one point yesterday morning, the officers' commotion in Woburn forced the state crew to halt its work cleaning the catch basins along Lexington Street.

Woburn Police Chief Philip Mahoney was at the scene and repeatedly warned the off-duty officers to stay behind the white line at the edge of the road. He also ordered several of the officers to remove their vehicles, which had been illegally parked along the side of the street.

"This is a safety issue," Mahoney told the officers.

Shortly afterward, one of the off-duty officers drove his car the wrong way between traffic cones, saying the civilian flagger sent him in the wrong direction.

Mahoney later called uniformed Woburn officers to help restore order at the scene.

The chief was annoyed to be refereeing at the scene. "This is a total waste of my time," he said.

But Mahoney said he sympathized with his officers.

"They're absolutely within their right to protest," he said. "The governor violated his promise to these officers - and they are better trained than flaggers, better equipped, and time and time again, they have made serious arrests while on details."

Paiewonsky said the highway department at one point in the morning pulled its workers to the side of the road and called on Woburn officials to allow them to do their work.

"The fact that there were dozens of police officials walking back and forth in a work zone, interfering with the ability of lawful work, that's a real problem," she said, adding work eventually resumed after the officers had been cleared.

The department has trained 122 department employees in flagging and 14 employees to serve as flagging trainers. The flaggers - most of whom will be paid $15 to $19 an hour - receive about five hours of training before the department sends them to a work zone. Paiewonsky said the flaggers will begin appearing at work sites throughout the state over the next few weeks. "Most of them had already had work-zone training," she said.

On Lexington Street, the protesting officers said they would continue to fight the administration.

One officer shouted: "All it will take to change the policy is one person killed." Others mocked the flagger, who would not give his name. "He must have a master's degree in coneology," one officer joked. Another said: "You're not supposed to be on the phone," as the flagger communicated with another flagger at the other end of the road project.

Rick Jolly, president of the Woburn Police Patrolman's Union, was blunt: "They're taking food off of our table," he said.