The Bloomberg administration filed a lawsuit against a top state labor relations official yesterday in an effort to break a stalemate over a contract dispute involving the New York City police union. In the suit, the administration asks the court to order the official ? Richard A. Curreri, the director of conciliation for the Public Employment Relations Board ? to name a chairman for an arbitration panel that would take up the contract dispute. Officials with the labor board proposed nine candidates to head the arbitration panel, with the two sides expected to pick a chairman from the list. But the union, the Patrolmen?s Benevolent Association, refused to choose anyone from the panel, insisting that two candidates were biased against the union.
See "City Sues Albany Official Over Police Contract Impasse", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, February 4, 2007