Fellow Officers: With a vote of 108 to 21 the Tucson Police Officers Association voted Wednesdayto Join the Ranks of CLEAA. The TPOA membership represents approximately 825 members and constitutes the last large organization to leave the Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs.

An extension is being granted for packet submission now requiring submission by July 1, 2012. Award winners will be notified by the end of the business day on Friday, August 31, 2012.

(The 2012 AZPOA Scholarships were originally required to be postmarked by June 1, 2012.  Scholarship winners were scheduled to be notified by July 27, 2012.)

Fellow Officers: As many of you are aware, your AZPOA executive Board voted unanimously, on March 28^th, to separate our affiliation with the Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs (AZCOPS). Your Board, per the powers outlined in the AZPOA By-laws, acted swiftly and in the best interest of our members. This was paramount due to the near $30K AZCOPS would collect in April, without this decisive action.

Fellow Officers:  AZPOA leadership is  thrilled to announce our affiliation with the Combined law enforcement Associations of Arizona (CLEAA). As a follow-up to our recent AZPOA bulletin announcing our separation from AZCOPS we would like to provide the following: 

The Arizona Probation Officers Association would like to thank our former affiliate AZCOPS for their partnership over the last number of years. As Capitol Police Officer Ed Neidkowski has announced, in today’s bulletin, your AZPOA Executive board has voted unanimously to separate from AZCOPS effective March 31, 2012

We are now at the halfway mark of the 2012 legislative session. As you may recall from the last AZPOA bulletin, there were 4 bills introduced on the Senate side that threatened the longevity of our respective unions. SB1484, 1485, 1486 and 1487 (defined below) were introduced and scheduled immediately at the start of session. Working in unison with the AZPOA membership at large (emails, phone calls), this writer was able to reach out to many clear thinking legislators to slow, possibly kill, the progress of at least 2 of the more destructive bills , 1485 and 1487.

Fellow Officers: The Legislative Session is now in full swing , having begun on January 9th. AZPOA currently has a group of bills that have been given a number and have either been assigned to a committee or recently heard in Committee. We are also monitoring a number of bills brought forth by fellow police associations as well as those Pension bills that directly affect our membership.

On January 31st, AZPOA leaders received a briefing from Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS) Director Jim Hacking. Your AZPOA leadership is committed to keeping members aware of important retirement issues. Here is what we learned.

The recent announcement that Juvenile Chief Probation Officer Vincent Iaria was resigning came as a surprise to many AZPOA members. Read the letter that AZPOA President Lu Ebratt sent to Presiding Judge Norman Davis regarding the announcement.