The problem with retirees is once you're a retiree, you're no longer a member of a collective bargain agreement.

[Right now] you have different choices for different classes of people. No one's challenging that. The law ... just deals with uniformity for retiree benefits, not uniformity among [current employees].

The problem you have is if you don't act on it, your ordinance ... does not comport with state law. I don't want you to get sued.

In your passage of this ordinance, we're not saying that we're paying the medical bills of people who in the past didn't qualify. I don't foresee that being a problem whatsoever. ... It's relatively limited to the area of disability retirement.

There's going to have be a lot done before we reach an agreement, but we're hopeful we can get there.

I've known about all of this for about a week. With the new (collective bargaining agreement) there's a lot of little language they had to go through. But it was already all set -- a three-year deal.