George Beattie surprised some folks last November when he resigned from his post as president of San Jose’s police union. He surprised some more people a short time later when he then withdrew his retirement papers.

With many people rushing off for Thanksgiving last week, the Police Officers Association came out with a surprising announcement that George Beattie, the union president, was retiring from his POA position. Beattie, a lieutenant with the San Jose Police Department, has never been a fan of the media, so he didn’t give an interview in the Mercury News’ report. But his successor, Sgt. Jim Unland, who was previously vice president of the POA, was quoted as saying that negotiations with the city over pension reform are still proceeding “one day at a time.”

Until a few days ago, the city of San Jose and its employee unions appeared to be a lot friendlier than they were at the beginning of the month—when City Manager Debra Figone and police union president George Beattie were squabbling about why the city punted on a federal grant. But this week, as the pension-reform plan inches forward, the unions are back to voicing outrage.

Campaigning against Measures V&W last November, police union leader George Beattie issued numerous thinly-veiled warnings: If San Jose voters allowed the city to renegotiate contracts with cops and firefighters, he said, people might die. That strategy failed—V&W passed with an almost 80 percent majority—but Beattie is sticking to his guns.

City manager Debra Figone didn’t let the police get the last word of the fiscal year regarding contentious labor negotiations and first layoffs of officers for the first time in the city’s history. On Thursday, she sent a memo to the mayor and city council countering an op-ed written by Police Officers Association president George Beattie, which blamed city officials for the layoffs of 70 officers.

Fresh off the heels of Spy-PA Gate 2010, Bobby Lopez is throwing his hat in for another run at San Jose Police Officers’ Association president next fall.

Apparently, there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the cop union’s current leadership—and Police Sgt. Lopez’s media-shy predecessor, George Beattie, in particular. There’s been a sense among the POA’s rank and file for awhile now that everything has gone to pot since the never-afraid-to-speak-his-mind Lopez stepped down.