Another View: Police have sacrificed plenty already - Sacramento Opinion

Another View: Police have sacrificed plenty already

 

By Brent J. Meyer

 

Published: Friday, Jun. 17, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 14A

 
Re "Stand with council on pensions" (Marcos Breton, June 12):



Recently, a majority of the Sacramento City Council voted to lay off 81 police officers, cut 68 civilian Police Department staff and eliminate 14 unfilled police officer positions. More bad decisions from an increasingly dysfunctional council, consumed with petty politics, personal agendas and political posturing.



These layoffs – supported by council members Sandy Sheedy, Rob Fong, Jay Schenirer, Kevin McCarty, retired police Capt. Darrell Fong and Bonnie Pannell – are in addition to the council's earlier votes that eliminated 372 Police Department positions, including 180 officers, over the last four years.



Sacramento residents now have one of the lowest ratios of police officers to residents of any major California city despite ranking second in violent and property crime rates.



We know these are tough times. That's why – when the city came to us just two years ago asking for concessions – police officers, detectives, community service officers and public safety dispatchers agreed to more than $12 million in wage cuts and salary freezes through 2013, to help protect Sacramento. We did not negotiate those concessions expecting that the city would squander the savings.



Unfortunately, the council dismissed our good will by giving raises to other employees, wasting scarce resources on pet projects and replacing the city manager with two highly paid "temporary" managers.



The council is spending more than $150,000 for an outside law firm whose strategy is to move money out of the general fund, create the perceived threat of bankruptcy and engage in public employee bashing – apparently acceptable to our elected officials. When the city manager casually announced Sacramento was one payroll away from bankruptcy, there was no outcry, no alarm, no plan, only silence from the council. When asked to permit an outside auditor to help with providing a clearer and more understandable financial review, the council ignored us, continuing to move numbers around in the budget, causing even more confusion. While exploring further wage and benefit cuts, the council won't commit to stopping the layoffs – layoffs that are politically motivated, at best. Though responsible for years of bad decisions, four of them now try to reinvent themselves for their next election.



We continue to hope that the council will come to its senses, and finally put the safety of the public first. If they don't get reasonable soon, there will be very little they can do to protect Sacramento.





Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/17/3707283/police-have-sacrificed-plenty.html#ixzz1PYhV7N7D