03-07-2009, 04:37 AM
I don't know why the agency is talking about taking away our take home cares, along with tracking the mileage. To think, they may even charge us money to drive the city's police vehicles. I know this is a bad idea, but after I read this article it is even more difficult to swallow.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20090 ... 06043/1075 (http://www.news-press.com/article/20090306/CRIME/90306043/1075)
SW FL agencies will receive about 2.2 million dollars from the stimulus package, and Fort Myers will receive 397,664 dollars for such things as "hiring and support for law enforcement officers; multijurisdictional drug and gang task forces; crime prevention and domestic violence programs; and courts, corrections, treatment, and justice information sharing initiatives"
Let's break this down: We don't have anything to do with the courts, corrections, and treatment. Also, we no longer have a domestic violence officer and very few officers do their own DV pickups. As for the gang task force I believe that G-1 went to the county a couple of years ago and he has not been replaced. We all know that we don't share information with the county or anyone else because we are too proud. Gretchen is our crime prevention coordinator, yet none of us knows what she does besides drive a city issued van and drink water from the golfview water cooler. I think that allocating anymore money to her would be counterproductive. As far as the multijurisdictional drug task force we have Newbury and his phone filled with the fictitious numbers to other law enforcement agencies in his overused Nextel. That leaves only two things that we can use 400,000 dollars for according to the guideline of our fine President: the hiring and support for law enforcement officers. Does anyone else think that fuel for vehicles along with take home cares constitutes support for law enforcement officers? I do and I think that the administration should put this money to use and save over take home cars. I don't know how much it costs in gas for us officers to travel back and forth from home, but for the sake of argument let's just say that 80 people have take home cars and they use a gallon to and a gallon from work. Therefore, 4 dollars times 16 days of work a month times 12 months times 80 take home cars equals: 61,440 dollars for all people with take home cars to travel to and from work. Let's take 61,440 from 397464 and use the remaining 336024 to hire 8 more officers and use whatever surplus to give Brian Smith a month long vacation (we all know he deserves it).
We must also examine why we got so much money compared to Cape Coral. They received about 160,000 because this grant is based upon "a formula of population and violent crime statistics, in combination with a minimum allocation to ensure that each state and territory receives an appropriate share of funding". In other words, Fort Myers is a DANGEROUS City and every officer that risks they life on a daily basis should be rewarded for a take home vehicle to not only reward them but to boost morale.
Well....that is my two cents but I am just a lowly rookie officer....I just hope that this money doesn't go to overtime for supervisors to eat up.....
http://www.news-press.com/article/20090 ... 06043/1075 (http://www.news-press.com/article/20090306/CRIME/90306043/1075)
SW FL agencies will receive about 2.2 million dollars from the stimulus package, and Fort Myers will receive 397,664 dollars for such things as "hiring and support for law enforcement officers; multijurisdictional drug and gang task forces; crime prevention and domestic violence programs; and courts, corrections, treatment, and justice information sharing initiatives"
Let's break this down: We don't have anything to do with the courts, corrections, and treatment. Also, we no longer have a domestic violence officer and very few officers do their own DV pickups. As for the gang task force I believe that G-1 went to the county a couple of years ago and he has not been replaced. We all know that we don't share information with the county or anyone else because we are too proud. Gretchen is our crime prevention coordinator, yet none of us knows what she does besides drive a city issued van and drink water from the golfview water cooler. I think that allocating anymore money to her would be counterproductive. As far as the multijurisdictional drug task force we have Newbury and his phone filled with the fictitious numbers to other law enforcement agencies in his overused Nextel. That leaves only two things that we can use 400,000 dollars for according to the guideline of our fine President: the hiring and support for law enforcement officers. Does anyone else think that fuel for vehicles along with take home cares constitutes support for law enforcement officers? I do and I think that the administration should put this money to use and save over take home cars. I don't know how much it costs in gas for us officers to travel back and forth from home, but for the sake of argument let's just say that 80 people have take home cars and they use a gallon to and a gallon from work. Therefore, 4 dollars times 16 days of work a month times 12 months times 80 take home cars equals: 61,440 dollars for all people with take home cars to travel to and from work. Let's take 61,440 from 397464 and use the remaining 336024 to hire 8 more officers and use whatever surplus to give Brian Smith a month long vacation (we all know he deserves it).
We must also examine why we got so much money compared to Cape Coral. They received about 160,000 because this grant is based upon "a formula of population and violent crime statistics, in combination with a minimum allocation to ensure that each state and territory receives an appropriate share of funding". In other words, Fort Myers is a DANGEROUS City and every officer that risks they life on a daily basis should be rewarded for a take home vehicle to not only reward them but to boost morale.
Well....that is my two cents but I am just a lowly rookie officer....I just hope that this money doesn't go to overtime for supervisors to eat up.....