06-23-2007, 10:36 PM
Please don't turn this into a bashing.
A truly sad turn of events led us to where we are. We can argue until the end of the sheriff's tenure about who started the adversarial attitudes toward whom, but that is as pointless as trying to figure out who came first, the chicken or the egg. With that said, read on.
There once was a candidate for sheriff who had a few simple campaign promises.
1. Take politics out of the sheriff's office.
2. Provide the deputies with the manpower/resources to have a positive effect on crime. (not just write reports and go to the next call to write another report - actually solve crimes)
3. Realign the command in the agency so there is less space between the top and bottom.
4. When "I" issue a direction "I" will be in the intended audience to ensure the message is delivered with the same intention in which it was initated.
Now the candidate for sheriff did have a few others, but these were what most employees keyed in on and I particularly liked about the candidate. Somehow his camp got my phone number and called so I attended a meeting before the election, I just went to hear the man speak.
The candidate won me over then won the election. We rejoiced and there was a "Breath of fresh air" in the agency. The deputies suddenly mattered. (All deputies; corrections and LEO) Proactive enforcement was re-instituted and we proved how effective we all could be. Things were good and the experts ran the day to day function of those in their span of control.
Then one afternoon, we became embarrassed. A young woman was arrested for a crime, but the report was written in an all warm and fuzzy tone by a smart alec, lazy deputy who would find himself and his wife unemployed years later for serious felonies. Out of this event grew a policy driven by POLITICS. Understandably, we shouldn't do things that make us all look bad. The simpler solution would have been to remediate the INDIVIDUAL and manage him so no one else would write warm and fuzzy bunny napping reports if someone ever forcibly entered a neighbors house and stole another little child's pet rabbit and cause her life to be in a temproary state of distress. If the report was written right, it wouldn't have ended up in the national news.
Next, a tragedy happened and an exparte wasn't served on a chronic runaway teen who was in need of help. Our own policy wasn't followed that day as it had been not followed before, but not on a wholesale level. But to read what was told to the press, the appearance was the supervision was incompetent and the policy was never followed. In reality, the incident was the exception, not the norm. Another POLITICAL move was done and the policy was tweaked even though the one in place was sufficient and the one/few who frequently ignored it needed to be held accountable. Most of us in the lower bowels of the agency would not have even contested our own being held accountable. Most of us are grown ups and take our medicine if we deserve it and we do learn from our mistakes.
These two events were what started our spinning into a satisfy everyone mode. If a dog barks, initiate a call because animal control doesn't correct it and we "look" better than them if we show up - even if we can't do anything, the public seeing us there makes us look good? UNBELIEVABLE! That is the mentality.
Numerous changes and several budget processes later, we decide to complete the process for trying out the whole union thing. The sheriff gave a power point/mandatory talk to us and convinced enough of us to think a stranger would come in and negotiate with the county and that John Gallagher hated unions and we would loose what we already had. Well, we bought it and voted to wait. The waiting got us %1. NOTHING more.
We also discovered the math didn't add up. We learned we didn't negotiate with the county commission but were to negotiate with the sheriff and John Gallagher wasn't the Devil as portrayed. We were blamed for things out of our control like part one crime stats. Detectives became pitted againts deputies over the issue. This led to us voting on unionizing again. This time, we decided to try it on our own and voted for unionizing.
Well, we then heard of how none of the FOP proposals were acceptable and what we had was all we were going to get. I don't think the county commission, or John Gallagher had any input. The sheriff with a long history of low balliong the county commission suddenly sent a significantly inflated budget. This smelled of politics too since EVERYONE with a heartbeat knew it would be cut into and it was. This would afford the sheriff the ability to claim he asked for basics and couldn't get them so how could any of the labor boards expect to get anything more.
Guess what, they sent in a proposal with very little money items in it. GAP insurance was it and the phase in would have cost the sheriff less than what he pays out for office supplys for the forst couple years.
Several reasons were given for why including how it is against the law to allow us to use mailboxes, John Gallagher refuses to let the sheriff give us GAP insurance when we retire, etc...
Then he comes into a roll call and tells the platoon the real reason, he was going to present it to the county for us, but decided not to after we voted for a union. This was yet another POLITICAL move. He let his personal POLITICS factor into a decision that would not have an effect on his PROFESSIONAL POLITICS. Not only that, it was like the fox and the "Sour grapes." Also, it showed he was either unclear about his own reasons, or has issues with believing we are mature enough to handle hearing the truth.
Also in the same week, he went into the jail and was greeted by several deputies in a training class. One deputy extended his hand to shake the sheriff's and was shunned. The sheriff looked at him and discovered this deputy was wearing a FOP shirt, and walked away. This was COMPLETELY out of character (public character) for the sheriff and is actually unacceptable. I thought he believed we reap what we sow.
The biggest thing our sheriff can do is recognize how POLITICS was let back into the agency and only he can close the door on it. Only he can tell the FSA to stay the hell out of his decision process and he needs to get back to the basics with the deputies. Only he can decide what his next decision will be, but the right one would be with an olive branch and a sincere apology to the one he shunned since after all WE ARE ALL REPRESENTIVE OF THE WHOLE AND THE WHOLE IS REPRESENTIVE OF US INDIVIDUALLY.
If not, I don't know how he/we can survive the turmoil of this next year. Those of us who have been around here know how it all starts during the run for a 3rd term and the two command staff members left over from the past two sheriff's aren't even telling him that it has already started.
Instead of taking your ball and going home, how about picking from a different playbook.
Just my observations and yes I will remain anonymous because I have 15 years left to survive and am not convinced the sheriff will see this as someone who gives a damn about how we look and I don't want to get fired. By the way, I agree with our union boards, but carry out my job first. The sheriff deserves the respect that comes with the office regardless of how he runs it. But, the deputies are the ones who increased the level of the respect he has been enjoying, not the fact that it is Bob White occupying the position. The people who make him feel famous and loved are no doubt the same ones who made Lee Cannon and Jim Gillum fell that way. They are called GROUPIES. We have cop groupies and he has sheriff groupies. The only difference is real estate and age.
A truly sad turn of events led us to where we are. We can argue until the end of the sheriff's tenure about who started the adversarial attitudes toward whom, but that is as pointless as trying to figure out who came first, the chicken or the egg. With that said, read on.
There once was a candidate for sheriff who had a few simple campaign promises.
1. Take politics out of the sheriff's office.
2. Provide the deputies with the manpower/resources to have a positive effect on crime. (not just write reports and go to the next call to write another report - actually solve crimes)
3. Realign the command in the agency so there is less space between the top and bottom.
4. When "I" issue a direction "I" will be in the intended audience to ensure the message is delivered with the same intention in which it was initated.
Now the candidate for sheriff did have a few others, but these were what most employees keyed in on and I particularly liked about the candidate. Somehow his camp got my phone number and called so I attended a meeting before the election, I just went to hear the man speak.
The candidate won me over then won the election. We rejoiced and there was a "Breath of fresh air" in the agency. The deputies suddenly mattered. (All deputies; corrections and LEO) Proactive enforcement was re-instituted and we proved how effective we all could be. Things were good and the experts ran the day to day function of those in their span of control.
Then one afternoon, we became embarrassed. A young woman was arrested for a crime, but the report was written in an all warm and fuzzy tone by a smart alec, lazy deputy who would find himself and his wife unemployed years later for serious felonies. Out of this event grew a policy driven by POLITICS. Understandably, we shouldn't do things that make us all look bad. The simpler solution would have been to remediate the INDIVIDUAL and manage him so no one else would write warm and fuzzy bunny napping reports if someone ever forcibly entered a neighbors house and stole another little child's pet rabbit and cause her life to be in a temproary state of distress. If the report was written right, it wouldn't have ended up in the national news.
Next, a tragedy happened and an exparte wasn't served on a chronic runaway teen who was in need of help. Our own policy wasn't followed that day as it had been not followed before, but not on a wholesale level. But to read what was told to the press, the appearance was the supervision was incompetent and the policy was never followed. In reality, the incident was the exception, not the norm. Another POLITICAL move was done and the policy was tweaked even though the one in place was sufficient and the one/few who frequently ignored it needed to be held accountable. Most of us in the lower bowels of the agency would not have even contested our own being held accountable. Most of us are grown ups and take our medicine if we deserve it and we do learn from our mistakes.
These two events were what started our spinning into a satisfy everyone mode. If a dog barks, initiate a call because animal control doesn't correct it and we "look" better than them if we show up - even if we can't do anything, the public seeing us there makes us look good? UNBELIEVABLE! That is the mentality.
Numerous changes and several budget processes later, we decide to complete the process for trying out the whole union thing. The sheriff gave a power point/mandatory talk to us and convinced enough of us to think a stranger would come in and negotiate with the county and that John Gallagher hated unions and we would loose what we already had. Well, we bought it and voted to wait. The waiting got us %1. NOTHING more.
We also discovered the math didn't add up. We learned we didn't negotiate with the county commission but were to negotiate with the sheriff and John Gallagher wasn't the Devil as portrayed. We were blamed for things out of our control like part one crime stats. Detectives became pitted againts deputies over the issue. This led to us voting on unionizing again. This time, we decided to try it on our own and voted for unionizing.
Well, we then heard of how none of the FOP proposals were acceptable and what we had was all we were going to get. I don't think the county commission, or John Gallagher had any input. The sheriff with a long history of low balliong the county commission suddenly sent a significantly inflated budget. This smelled of politics too since EVERYONE with a heartbeat knew it would be cut into and it was. This would afford the sheriff the ability to claim he asked for basics and couldn't get them so how could any of the labor boards expect to get anything more.
Guess what, they sent in a proposal with very little money items in it. GAP insurance was it and the phase in would have cost the sheriff less than what he pays out for office supplys for the forst couple years.
Several reasons were given for why including how it is against the law to allow us to use mailboxes, John Gallagher refuses to let the sheriff give us GAP insurance when we retire, etc...
Then he comes into a roll call and tells the platoon the real reason, he was going to present it to the county for us, but decided not to after we voted for a union. This was yet another POLITICAL move. He let his personal POLITICS factor into a decision that would not have an effect on his PROFESSIONAL POLITICS. Not only that, it was like the fox and the "Sour grapes." Also, it showed he was either unclear about his own reasons, or has issues with believing we are mature enough to handle hearing the truth.
Also in the same week, he went into the jail and was greeted by several deputies in a training class. One deputy extended his hand to shake the sheriff's and was shunned. The sheriff looked at him and discovered this deputy was wearing a FOP shirt, and walked away. This was COMPLETELY out of character (public character) for the sheriff and is actually unacceptable. I thought he believed we reap what we sow.
The biggest thing our sheriff can do is recognize how POLITICS was let back into the agency and only he can close the door on it. Only he can tell the FSA to stay the hell out of his decision process and he needs to get back to the basics with the deputies. Only he can decide what his next decision will be, but the right one would be with an olive branch and a sincere apology to the one he shunned since after all WE ARE ALL REPRESENTIVE OF THE WHOLE AND THE WHOLE IS REPRESENTIVE OF US INDIVIDUALLY.
If not, I don't know how he/we can survive the turmoil of this next year. Those of us who have been around here know how it all starts during the run for a 3rd term and the two command staff members left over from the past two sheriff's aren't even telling him that it has already started.
Instead of taking your ball and going home, how about picking from a different playbook.
Just my observations and yes I will remain anonymous because I have 15 years left to survive and am not convinced the sheriff will see this as someone who gives a damn about how we look and I don't want to get fired. By the way, I agree with our union boards, but carry out my job first. The sheriff deserves the respect that comes with the office regardless of how he runs it. But, the deputies are the ones who increased the level of the respect he has been enjoying, not the fact that it is Bob White occupying the position. The people who make him feel famous and loved are no doubt the same ones who made Lee Cannon and Jim Gillum fell that way. They are called GROUPIES. We have cop groupies and he has sheriff groupies. The only difference is real estate and age.