What now?

I have been employed here at HPD for over 10 years. My suggestion is simple. If you are going to remain here or like me are stuck here, try and make the best of it. Do your jop and treat it as such. Do your forty hours and go home, unless your work OT. The current situation here will not change much and the new mayor did not elicit the improvments we all hoped for. The City of Hialeah will continue to run the PD department with the thinnest budget allowed. This means no take homes, big raises, better E.D. pay, latest equipment, etc. The budget is about 29 million annually for a department our size. This is sad and the budget has not significantly increased for quite some time. The City has all these ideas about zoning and restructuring the city. Is this what it is all about? Spend money to make money but for who? In my opinion, all of money for the city's budget is utlitized to fatten up certain wallets pertaining to certain people. Do not interpret this message as stealing because they are not (per se). I have heard that our City is involved with big time developers, contrators, etc who all get a piece of pie. We do not even get a bone. I am certain that every major City goes through this, but at least they are compelled to maintain their PD up to some standard.

There you have it in a nutshell. HPD will never be nothing more that a 3rd rate department. The saddest thing is that HPD is composed of many great cops. There are also great leaders, but they are shoved to the side. I know I will never see a 180 here but I hope that before I leave, I can witness a positive change worth remembering. Do not let this place make you sick. If you stay, deal with it and do not let it get to you. If you cannot do that, then you know you must change venue.

None of this is news, just a vicious repetative cycle

You're right, if you stay you might as well make the best of it. I stuck it out to the end and the result was not all that bad. $265K in the annuity, enough sick and comp to give me $25K for 2 years, and $45K a year for the rest of my life, and the money is there the first of every month.

I tried to stay under the RADAR and was pretty successful at it by just doing my job. I only ran afoul with RDB once but he actually treated me fairly. Police work is a profession, act professionally and you will be treated as such.

Real estate has always been the money machine in Hialeah. Look at where Montinari used to be, all that property condemned, bought up cheap, then they get the zoning changed and reap the benefits. Thats how it's been done in Hialeah since the beginning. Why on earth do you think these people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars campaigning for a job that pays $12K a year.

Hialeah has always tried to do everything on the cheap. I remember when they bought those Tandy computers to write reports on. They were obsolete before they even started to use them. After a while they were buying them off of e-bay just so they could keep the same system in place.

I miss most of the people I worked with because as you point out, there are some great people there. But I don't miss the organization.

In closing, I wish you the best of luck, if you can make it to the end there is a pot of gold.

What now? There is no what now, now is now. If you take a good look around you its a viscious circle,(kind of like the postings around here).
The events transpiring now are the same that have been for the last what 10 years. Guys, do what you could here because we're no going to see any changes any time soon. New commers, dont make the same mistake us mid rangers made and stick around waiting for it to get better. Its not going to. Take flight and do it quick, before the spots are all taken up with the other guys, and please for the love of god dont stay and turn into one of the negative, we have enough of those.

What's wrong with being negative about the Banana Republic?
It's like that famous phrase"It keeps me warm at night".