The City Council voted 4-1 on Thursday to hire an outside mediator to help settle a money dispute between city management and the police sergeants’ collective bargaining group.
The police group declared an impasse with city negotiators last month and asked the council to step in. But city officials said they wanted to hire the mediator.
Both sides are expected to come up with suitable mediators by the next council meeting in two weeks.
This was the first time since the city adopted its meet-andconfer collective bargaining ordinance in 2004 that two sides have hit an impasse.
