MAILBAG: Editors wrong to admonish police

I am writing in response to your June 20 editorial “Union must ease its stance.” Over the past few weeks, I’ve become bored with your opinions. You are confused with whom to blame for the city’s budget crisis.

You target the Police Department. Their union negotiated a pay increase with the City Council over a four-year period in 2007. The council now wants the police union to sacrifice what police officers, by contract, are entitled to at the tail end of a four-year agreement. The council, in a desperate attempt to hastily remedy an exhausted budget, expects the Police Department to give up some of their wage increase. The City Council mistakenly thinks the police union is going surrender to their demands.

This isn’t how the Police Department protects our city, nor is it going to happen with the police union.

Police officers work 12-hour shifts. They are highly trained, highly skilled and highly committed. They face danger daily. Hourly they triage and troubleshoot. No two minutes are alike. They could lose their lives in a second. It is shameful the council wants more from them.

There are constant comparisons drawn to the Fire Department. This is comparing apples to oranges. The Police and Fire departments are separate public services. A police officer is no more trained with a water hose than a fireman is with a gun. Their training is different, their duties are different, and their budgets are different. Your comparisons are unjustifiable.

Firemen, too, are highly trained, skilled and dedicated. Their pay is well-earned. True, they gave up their wage increase, but this is hardly a sacrifice knowing overtime hours could easily make up the difference in their annual salaries.

Some Glendale firefighters (those without rank) earned total salaries of more than $200,000 last year, much of it from overtime. The Fire Department fills overtime replacements to plug vacancies when others call in sick or take time off. This scheduling is very expensive, but the City Council supports it with a roughly $5-million overtime allowance. For a firefighter, it’s a nice incentive to cash in on.

The Police Department does not have this type of fiscal flexibility. Their overtime budget is $3.6 million. I challenge the city manager to examine this issue of overtime. It seems some of that overtime budget could be sacrificed.