Bruce Beeker was back at the "complaints desk" in the Leelanau County Sheriff's Office as usual this week following an order issued on Monday by Circuit Court Judge Philip E. Rodgers Jr. dismissing a police union suit against the county and Sheriff Mike Oltersdorf.

“Not much has changed as a result of the judge’s decision and order,” said county attorney John McGlinchy. “All is at the status quo at this point. Beeker will continue working in the Sheriff’s Office in a non-law enforcement position. The judge did not vacate the arbitration award (to put Beeker back on the county payroll),” McGlinchy added, “but we have no sense of where the (union) will go with this next,” McGlinchy said.

An attorney for the Police Officers Association of Michigan, George J. Mertz, did not return a phone call from a newspaper reporter seeking comment on the judge’s ruling.

Rodgers’ ruling in favor of Leelanau County and the sheriff dismissed a complaint filed by the union that the county should pay a share of the expense associated with a union arbitrator’s continued involvement in Beeker’s case. The lawsuit also demanded that Beeker be returned to full law enforcement duties.

But the judge noted that only the Sheriff has the power to deputize people and give them law enforcement authority.

“This being so,” the judge wrote, “the Arbitrator did not have the authority under the collective bargaining agreement to order the sheriff to restore Beeker’s law enforcement powers. Nor does this Court have the authority to enter such an order,” Rodgers said.

The sheriff fired Beeker in April 2006 for “severe misconduct” involving Beeker’s relationship with a woman under investigation for domestic violence. A union arbitrator subsequently ordered that Beeker be returned to duty with back pay and benefits following a series of psychological evaluations. Beeker returned to employment with the Sheriff’s Office in August 2007 and began collecting his $44,532 annual salary – but the Sheriff has refused to issue Beeker a gun or badge, or allow him to carry out any law enforcement duties.

During a hearing last week, Rodgers opined from the bench that he believed opinions rendered by union arbitrator E. Frank Cornelius appeared to be written by “somebody recently off their medication.”

In a 16-page written decision and order, Rodgers reiterated his criticism of Cornelius, calling the arbitrator’s opinions “moronic and wrong.”

“The Arbitrator’s opinion belittles domestic violence and sexual harassment in the workplace,” Rodgers wrote. “He enables behavior which is both inappropriate and illegal.” The judge added that the arbitrator “not only missed the point, but he also demonstrated that he is just as base as Beeker.”

In September 2007, Beeker filed a union grievance demanding that he be returned to full law enforcement duties as Cornelius had ordered. But another union arbitrator, Kenneth P. Frankland, issued an opinion indicating that only the Sheriff can confer law enforcement duties on deputies – an opinion confirmed this week by Rodgers.

Last month, Beeker filed yet another union grievance, complaining that the Sheriff had not notified the Michigan Commision on Law Enforcement Standards of Beeker’s reinstatement to duty. The sheriff responded by notifying the commission, and asserting that no grievance was warranted.

“We just don’t know what to make of that grievance,” McGlinchy said.