by Jack Lee
Today the local news was all about the Chico Police union rejecting a 5% pay cut to save the jobs of 10 police officers. Six City bargaining units accepted the 5% cut, but the Chico POA wouldn’t budge. (This looks bad guys – it looks like you are putting self interest ahead of public safety. I think you made a mistake.)
This sets the police officers association (union) apart from the rest of the city employees and to be blunt, it makes them look bad. It doesn’t matter that they suggested a 3rd option because the city wasn’t buying it, because they said it would solve the long term problem. The POA only had two realistic choices, either take the 5% cut or loose the ten positions. They chose to lose the jobs and now they look selfish. Maybe they are or maybe there is more to it, I don’t know. I only know what it looks like to the public. Times are tough and a lot of folks in the private sector have lost their jobs and many more have lost far more than a mere 5% pay cut and those police salaries look darn good to them.
When we faced almost the same situation years earlier during another recession, we voted to take the pay cut to save police jobs. Looking back I feel we did the right thing even though it made a difference in our retirement. This was about protecting our brother officers and that was our first concern.
My son is now a police officer in another area and they have faced layoffs too. He trhinks the new breed of cop doesn’t bond like past generations. They are more detached, more anal, less trusting and less trustworthy and their supervisors…well, they only exemplify where they have come from. My son and I cover law enforcement going back over 40 years and we think the evolution of law enforcement is not headed in the right direction and it’s a real shame. The officers lose and the public loses. This latest quibbling over 5% is only the tip of the iceberg – it is truly a reflection of growing internal problems and this is a topic for another discussion later.
Have we seen the budget, and the projected revenues? Presumably the POA have, and are not persuaded that the cut is necessary. They should show us.
The average compensation for Chico PD is $534 per day. 5% less would still over $500 a shift. I can’t imagine how many folks would do it for half that.
We agree, Jack.
Quentin, I am always gratified when we can agree.
Chico cannot afford to lose 10 officers/or support personnel. This City has major growing pains and this type of City/union BS has to stop. The City caused this in my opinion through lack of fore sight (imagine that!) and the Unions used it to their advantage (as would anyone), and why? to look better in the eyes of their due payers. I agree that a 5% roll back of salaries would do little to harm the take home pay of ALL PD personnel, just as a needed 20% decrease in City Staffers isn’t likely to cause some overpaid Administration types,(Top Down)any real financial difficulties. The loss of feet on the ground is what is needed and if it means a small compromise on both parties part to just balance the budget, then so be it! What happens though is the Officers take a salary cut and the City staff and City council find a way to waste the savings. Budget Basics is what both sides need to work toward, and keep the people we needed to protect us, Police and Fire.
And Q. I do not want a poorly trained ‘half priced’ person responding to my emergency call, or confronting a confrontational idiot. That just isn’t going to work out in my opinion!
I agree with you completely Harold (including the part where you say “anyone would” regarding unions. People always act in their own best interests.
This is just the beginning. Even if we can get businesses back in the business of generating sufficient wealth to support necessary government expenditures and even if we can convince them that they need to cut back on unnecessary government spending I can’t see government going quickly or quietly into a sound management style. People have become accustomed to letting governmetnsolve all problems. We are living the folly of this thinking and still we don’t get it!
“I do not want a poorly trained ‘half priced’ person responding to my emergency call, or confronting a confrontational idiot.”
Sorry, but that’s exactly what we’ve got. Except, we pay double. These people have never ‘protected” me in any way. They did a chase right by the end of my driveway in the middle of a school day with kids all over the neighborhood – doing 90 mph up the windy end of Filbert. We found out later, the subject of the chase was not armed or dangerous and was released on his own recognizance by 6pm the same day. As far as we know, charges were never filed and the man went free. After a high speed chase through a busy neighborhood in the middle of the day.
We pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for that kind of judgement. Who is being “protected” here?
The only danger my family is in around here is losing our home to outrageous property taxes, our business going under because our rents can’t meet our expenses, which include over $9000 a year in property taxes. It is the cops and fire that have caused our problems, and they are the ones who need to give.
They took advantage with that MOU that linked their salaries to revenues, and they knew it. That’s why the public is not allowed into the salary discussions, because any one of us would have seen that MOU for what it was and said ‘NO WAY’!
In this case, we would have been saying, “NO WAY VALLEJO!” instead of “NO WAY SAN JOSE!” Read about it – the cops and fire caused Vallejo’s problems too. Ditto all over California.
I think in some areas police are better trained than they were 20 years ago and certainly better trained than they were 40 years ago. Back in my day police were hired as much for their size as their intelligence. Our department was grossly understaffed and that meant when a bar fight broke out, with 10 or 20 intoxicated people you had one or two cops responding. Working patrol the swing shift would find themselves in some kind of fight or scuffle once or twice a week, usually Friday or Saturday nights. It was very common. The odds of taking someone to the ground at least once a week was real good no matter what shift you worked. I suppose all that fighting made you closer to the guys you worked with because you relied on them for your own safety, kinda like the feeling soldiers get in combat.
Juanita on the high speed chase, it will happen, I am far and away from justifying it, but I understand it. I have not always made the correct choices early on in my life’s career, heck I may be wrong here debating this with you 🙂 but I was able to learn from each incident, through proper critiquing. Me, if this happened around my place, I would request a log report and sit with the watch commander and try to help them help themselves. They have families too and are just as concerned about proper safety, sadly though there are times when adrenaline smoothers brain cells on some responses. I do agree(as you explained it)that chase in those circumstances should have been called off, but it wasn’t and Chico PD needs to find out why! and make every effort to prevent it again, or suspend the officer driving.
Jack I agree, actually most Police officers today have a better understand of the needs and the training to resolve things as a result of public pressure and the advent of video. Criminals also learn and they know better than some rookies just what they can get away with. Criminals are all liars by choice, and that alone would drive me to the deep end of the pool just to get away from their bull. However lets remember career criminals are professionals too, and prison is one heck of a university for law. I’ll bet a large percentage of career criminals know the law better than the Public defenders they cry for, let alone a rookie officer trying to do his best and stay alive. You guys deserve more thanks then you ever got and every dollar in your pay check, as long as you grew with the position as I know you did. I think next time someone is faced with a criminal and needs help in Chico they should call a staff member at city Hall to take down the bad guy. People sometimes need to experience a ride-along to fully understand the pressure and satisfaction being a Police Officer can offer.
Hi there, I read through a few of your articles here.
I did have a question though that I hope you could
answer. I was wondering, Are the risks of being a police officer worth the rewards?
I just got out of highschool and I’m thinking of becoming a cop.
I would really appreciate any help you could give me!