Don't try to merge city, county police

[Unregistered]

your are not responding to the original writer. THis was pulled from www.buffalo.com


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Don't try to merge city, county police

9/7/2003

When I go to work in the morning, the worst danger I face is a paper cut. Not so for police officers and firefighters. Although the odds are low, every one of these fine men and women face dangers, including death, daily. Add to that the stress of dealing with angry, irrational, distrustful citizens.
The Buffalo Police Department has been under siege lately, and the silence from the citizens it protects is deafening. How soon we forget the images from 9/11. While citizens ran away from the crumbling towers, the police officers and firefighters ran toward them and their death.

I oppose any effort to merge the Buffalo Police Department and the Erie County Sheriff's Department. We have an urban, experienced, well-trained police force. It is also an issue of home rule. Why would we merge our fine police force with a Sheriff's Department that usually patrols rural roads and guards inmates?

I have developed a healthy respect for these men and women who protect my family, my property and the community at their own peril. And I am willing to pay more taxes to assure that they and their families receive the compensation they deserve. Our lives and safety depend on it.

ANDRES GARCIA
Buffalo

[Curmudgeon]

And I am willing to pay more taxes to assure that they and their families receive the compensation they deserve

You are already paying some of the higest taxes in the United States of America today. Just how much *more* are you willing to pay?

[Unregistered]

I'll pay what ever it takes to keep every single Police Officer and Firemen to stay on the PayRolls. In fact we need more nd I'm sure others would even pay Higher Taxes if it meant staying safe.



If yu dont like the Taxes In Buffalo the 90 isnt that far away. USE IT!

[Curmudgeon]

Well, I'm not sure that a lot of others welcome that idea.

Why is it that the costs for Fire and Police are so much higher here than compared to the rest of the country? Why is that?

Is it that we have fires all the time? Is there much more crime than every other city? I don't think so.

You shouldn't encourage people who don't agree with you to leave on the 90. The city wouldn't be in the state it is now if all the people who have left had stayed instead.

[LAsurvivor]

I agree, I would pay extra to stay safe. I just don't want to throw my money away.

It shouldn't cost $5000 per man to allow management to direct the workforce in a cost-effective manner with 1 man patrol cars.

[WNYresident]

I can't believe someone said yes to the $5000. It's here's the job take it or leave it. I totally understand fair pay etc, but no one should be overly paid period when you can easily replace them. Do "police" that work desk jobs all the time get paid the same as the ones risking thier lives?

[Unregistered]

There are a few left, but under this new contract, they go by the wayside too. I agree, everyone on the planet can be replaced. Presidents, CEO's , everyone. People die all the time, things go on. Curm, what are your sources that indicate Police and Fire costs are higher in this area, than anywhere else in the country ? I would like to see them for myself. If you want go to policepay.net and you can see for yourself, different contracts for a large number of metropolitan forces throughout the country.

[WNYresident]

See curm, this unregistered user made a good point..

So policepay.net. hmm

Do they have politicianpay.net :)

[WNYresident]

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=police+salaries&FORM=DNSERR

http://www.nrps.com/recruiting/schedule2.eht

[WNYresident]

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/5030608.htm


Check this one out. Seems thier local goverment employees have thier hand deep in the till too

[WNYresident]

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/5030608.htm


Check this one out. Seems thier local goverment employees have thier hand deep in the till too

[Unregistered]

Its interesting that everyone jumps all over police and fire salaries that include overtime. NO one calls work and demands to be brought in on overtime, they are there to fill what was agreed to manpower requirements. To elimate this overtime you can do one of two things; hire more workers so no matter who is off on vacation or sick there is no need for overtime or elimate manpower minimums and work with what you have each day. If there is not enough people, tell the people that call 911 to handle the problem themselves until someone shows up. Maybe if everyones salary info was printed we would have a bigger picture of where our money goes. I know what your saying "but OUR taxes pay your salaries". Well I pay for the salary of the local grocer, gas station attendent, barber and every other business owner that receives a tax incentive to do business but I have no idea how much they make.

[Curmudgeon]

Its interesting that everyone jumps all over police and fire salaries that include overtime.

How many of those "overtime" hours were totally wasted on useless patrols? It's a shame that we had so many police patroling paired up in two-cop-per-car units on on Hertle Ave. on Tuesday at 11 am..... You might say "well, now we are going to have one-cop-per-car units". Too bad it took 10 YEARS to get that concession from the PBA.

Well I pay for the salary of the local grocer, gas station attendent, ...
There are many grocers, and they are all in competition with each other. You are free to spend as you see fit. The taxpayer is not. There is only one police force and they compete with no one. You can't "shop around" for police services, unless you move away (which a lot of people have done recently).

In case you haven't noticed, the people around you now recognize they have been getting screwed. Thank your buddy Meehan.

[Unregistered]

There's a lot of "useless" things. How much have you spent on car insurance, home insurance and never needed it? If there is so much competition why are prices so similiar? I don't see milk selling for 75 cents a gallon anywhere. Health care (doctors, hospitals) can be shopped for but that cost is skyrocketing. My point is EVERYTHING could be cheaper if EVERYONE made less money.

[LAsurvivor]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Unregistered
[B]Its interesting that everyone jumps all over police and fire salaries that include overtime. NO one calls work and demands to be brought in on overtime, they are there to fill what was agreed to manpower requirements. To elimate this overtime you can do one of two things; hire more workers so no matter who is off on vacation or sick there is no need for overtime or elimate manpower minimums and work with what you have each day. If there is not enough people, tell the people that call 911 to handle the problem themselves until someone shows up.

Or you can implement one officer patrol cars and save millions??? of dollars, allowing the City and the department remain solvent and continue to pay employees.

If there are 500 employees making an average of $50,000, then the $5,000 payment could fund 50 more officers. Isn't that better protection for the citizens and safer work environment for the employees? Or doesn't that matter?

[WNYresident]

Originally posted by Unregistered
Its interesting that everyone jumps all over police and fire salaries that include overtime. NO one calls work and demands to be brought in on overtime, they are there to fill what was agreed to manpower requirements.

I was told by various retired police that a lot of police scheduale court appearances in order to pad overtime in various ways. Also mentioned was the longer employeed police get more over time than the new guys seeing it pads thier pay checks. PLUS!! did you know they count overtime into retirement benifits. We should do a peek at the average over time for the last 3 years of a police officers duty of service. Perhaps we can see an increase in overtime seeing it will increase their beni's.

ONLY salary should be includd in retirement, not overtime. It leaves the system open for abuse.

[Curmudgeon]

There's a lot of "useless" things. How much have you spent on car insurance, home insurance and never needed it? If there is so much competition why are prices so similiar? I don't see milk selling for 75 cents a gallon anywhere. Health care (doctors, hospitals) can be shopped for but that cost is skyrocketing. My point is EVERYTHING could be cheaper if EVERYONE made less money.

Essentially, YOU want to determine what the relative value of everything is, rather than the free market. And, you want to impose a high value for police services.
You can join a long list of people who have tried and failed to sucessfully "game" the free market..

If there is so much competition why are prices so similiar?
Please go take an introductory course on economics. I'm not going to waste my time responding to such an absurd question.

[Unregistered]

We should strap a gun on your butt and lets you go patrol the east side. You'll see why we should pay them top dollar.

[WNYresident]

IF we forced the job on people you might of made a point. The issue is this is a free market and you are allowed to look for other jobs.

Perhaps there are some good businessmen that want to start thier own law enforcemnt agency for WNY.

1 head quarters in the city of buffalo which is basically county wide, 1 department for each burb which answers to the headquarters in Buffalo.

All centralized purchasing seeing each area would use the same basic equipment.

Level playing field for all salaries and the dangerious areas might have some salary increases.

Seeing this is NYS they probally have some type of anti competition law against the police unions.

[Curmudgeon]

IF we forced the job on people you might of made a point. The issue is this is a free market and you are allowed to look for other jobs.

Hallalula! (or however you spell that.. )

How many times do I have to repeat this? I'll keep on doing it until everyone gets it.

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by Curmudgeon
There's a lot of "useless" things. How much have you spent on car insurance, home insurance and never needed it? If there is so much competition why are prices so similiar? I don't see milk selling for 75 cents a gallon anywhere. Health care (doctors, hospitals) can be shopped for but that cost is skyrocketing. My point is EVERYTHING could be cheaper if EVERYONE made less money.

Essentially, YOU want to determine what the relative value of everything is, rather than the free market. And, you want to impose a high value for police services.
You can join a long list of people who have tried and failed to sucessfully "game" the free market..

If there is so much competition why are prices so similiar?
Please go take an introductory course on economics. I'm not going to waste my time responding to such an absurd question.


You actually think we operate in a true free market economy? maybe you should take a course. Everyone who differs with you is an idiot or just plain wrong, well guess what; no one can change someones opinion and your just going to have to live with that fact. I never wanted to determine the value of things, YOU said that I did. The cost of services is and was determined by others long before I came around. WHERE did I say I wanted a high cost of anything? Believe it or not, I pay taxes too. That and a lot of other facts are just forgotten by you time after time.

[Unregistered]

Schedules court appearances. Officers have no bearing over that. Senority decides in what order you are called for overtime. With 5 yrs on the job, I work OT on the major holidays, Christmas, New Years, Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving. And that is only if I happen to be scheduled off on those days. Don't believe alot of what you hear, I get asked alot of crazy questions all the time, there are alot of misconceptions the public has about the BPD. Some are quite comical. I can also tell you , there are no quotas for tickets or arrests. You will see OT virtually disappear under this new contract. There is no minimum manpower so if everyone takes off, there will be no police cars patrolling. Yes you read that right. There is no minimum number of police cars, for any precinct.

[Curmudgeon]

The cost of services is and was determined by others long before I came around.
Well then! That's a bit like the shoplifting suspect saying "My friends and I have been shoplifting from this store for years. Why should you arrest me now?"

well guess what; no one can change someones opinion and your just going to have to live with that fact.
OK. I'm the King of Prussia. Don't dare to disagree with my exaulted opinion.

You actually think we operate in a true free market economy?
About as free as it gets in the world today.

There is no minimum manpower so if everyone takes off...
So I'm thinking you're implying that we can see periodic "epidemics" right around when things get really nasty vs. the control board.... I wouldn't be surprised.

You will see OT virtually disappear under this new contract
Good. A good first step towards cost containment.

Everyone who differs with you is an idiot or just plain wrong
That just might be the case. If you don't agree with me, tell my how and why I am wrong.

[Unregistered]

You can have whatever opinion you want, but when you change the meaning of someones posts that only shows you argue from emotion, not thought.


The cost of services is and was determined by others long before I came around.
Well then! That's a bit like the shoplifting suspect saying "My friends and I have been shoplifting from this store for years. Why should you arrest me now?"


You yourself said:

A "career" is usually defined by the people paying the employee, not the employee.

I am paid a rate someone else set for working, not stealing things. If someone believed YOU made too much money, would you be a thief??

You also tend to belittle people to further your points:

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You seem to be a little fixated on prison life, assaults, and anything that has "whoop-a.s.s" in it. Sounds to me like you'd like to kick my ass or something. Well, that sounds about right because from what I can tell, you're a complete idiot and have been all your life and you know it.

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she just can't stop spending other peoples money. let's offer her $10,000 to move out of the state and not come back. It might be the wisest investment a taxpayer could make...

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We should have a poll to determine what we should poll....

Or.

Is "Anonymous1Music" the most biased "poll question developer" the world has ever seen?

I'm suprised that he didn't ask "Don't you think it's true that Joel Giambra was Saddam's lover when they both went to ECC?"......

silly.

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Well, we haven't heard from the "hit and run" accuser in a while and I don't think he's coming back. He must have realized that his BS wasn't going to float here and he went elsewhere. Sad to say, this is probably politics as usual here.... Almost makes me think there IS a polish mafia after all.


ohh boy... not much upstairs on this one WNYres....

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Ahh, I've never applied for a civil service job and you are a complete idiot. Met my match? Huh?


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You're not alone - people in Mariila are as selfish and irresponsible as you!

If the Marilla town board wants a library so bad, they are completely free to open up their own, and pay for it with Town of Marilla taxes. There is no rule that says the county library system has a monopoly on library operation. While we're at it, why don't you open up your own library and operate it as a charity?


You ARE stupid. if you don't like your job, get one in the private sector where there are no summer hours.

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I can't believe you refer to people who have recently left WNY as "outsiders". When you say things like that, you make a hillbilly look like einstein...

"Those durned outsiders comin in here an tellen us our business, who do they think they is, kin?"

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The region has had the same set of suggestions suggested over and over again. The problem is that people in WNY choose to ignore them. Lind of like a nice uncle that everyone likes who happens to be a jobless alcoholic. After a while his excuses and procrastination become intolerable. Obviously the state government has had enough - they appointed the control board. So, I say to you, enough is enough! Time to get your s**t together and stop living in the 1950's already. Take our "suggestions" and actually implement them. Realize that if the region doesn't change, it will turn into a giant ghetto. Get over yourself

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You call us "kids"... Looks like you need to grow up and get yourself an education. I recommend "economics 101" at ECC. You obviously have no idea how the economy works. And that is why Buffalo and WNY is such a basket-case

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well, since you asked...

your last post had the ramblings of a schizophrenic who had fallen off his medication... Freedom of speech? huh?


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To the moderator, I don't think this board will accomplish anything if we continue in this manner.

[Curmudgeon]

HOLY COW!

I can't believe you actually took the time to find all my posts on this board and compile them in "Unregistered's petition"! That probably took a little time, to say the least.

You cut-n-pasted a lot of my responses and by themselves they appear to be pretty caustic. The truth is they were usually responses to misrepresentation of facts or outright insults of my opinion.

I don't insult people here just for the hell of it. I think that my philosophy of what is wrong in WNY is consistant and credible. I often state my opinion and provide facts to bolster my opinion. People who disagree with me often seem to have an aversion to facts.

I haven't said anything here that wasn't based in fact and truth. If I had said "your momma is a !@#$", then you would have a right to complain.

You are petitioning the moderator to ban me from this site on the pretense that I am offensive person. The real reason why you want me banned is that you feel threatened by my opinion and you don't want other people to hear my opinion and agree with it. That is because in many cases I accurately describe what is really going on in terms that get peoples attention and in ways they can understand. And, sometimes I can be quite entertaining.

You are prefectly free to pick apart what I have to say and tell me why I am wrong. That is called "public debate" and I THINK that is what the creator of this site had in mind, although I'll let him speak for himself.

I think the moderator is familiar with the content of my posts and if he had found them offensive or trivial he would have banned me a long time ago. It's sad that you would attempt to have me silenced rather than telling me (and the other people) why you disagree with me. Too bad we live in the USA - if we were somewhere else, like China, you could just call the Secret Police and I would be shipped off to the gulag!

[Unregistered]

I for one have enjoyed Curmudgeon's posts, don't always agree with him but I find his writing here to be coherent and often entertaining. If he really in the computer type profession I think he has missed his calling- writing a column somewhere would be more suitable.

I can often see both sides of a debate, so it saddens me a bit when one side takes particular offense at another especially when both sides have equally relevant and interesting things to say, as in this post thread.

I hope neither of you leave because you are the reasons I visit this site and I hope some of our lackey politicans do as well.

[Curmudgeon]

That is one of the greatest compliments I've ever received. Thank you.
I've had this compulsion to write lately. I've always had a a severe adversion to writing so I don't know what is wrong with me. This place is a good outlet to explore writing.

:)

[WNYresident]

I"m still waiting for one politician to join and put thier comments up. I believe and i can be totally wrong that they worry thier comments will come back to haunt them. OR :) They don't have enough marbles to debate on topics other than " He's my bud, that's why we picked him" type comments.

We need input for a tag line for the site along with some other ideas.

THe true test will be when the radio ads start up. THere are a lot of people that don't know that the site is here. Once we open up our audience we'll hopefully get more concerned residents and business leaders. Perhaps in the years ahead we will be able to say we no longer have lifer politicians, special interest groups milking us, and the best, true WNY leaders not puppets :)

[Unregistered]

Once again, WHERE did it say you should banned?


I don't insult people here just for the hell of it.


I ask, why is there a need to insult anyone?


P.S. it took me about 30 minutes to finds these posts, I stopped after I believed I presented enough evidence.

[Allyssa]

I believed I presented enough evidence.
Evidence of what? The Buffalo police department?
Is Curmudgeon a cop and we don't know it??? ;)

Unregistered,
It appears you have found a nitch to really go off-topic within these message boards. Have you considered anyone but yourself in the posts you've made thus far?

Come on. Get with the program... The message boards aren't your personal "bi^chin' sessions" to attack other users with things that are unrelated to the thread/board topics.

It took you thirty minutes to waste everyone's time with something that has nothing to do with the Buffalo Police department.

[Curmudgeon]

To the moderator, I don't think this board will accomplish anything if we continue in this manner.
Once again, WHERE did it say you should banned?

Sounds like a plea for moderator intervention to me.

I don't insult people here just for the hell of it.
I never said you did. All I said is I don't.

I ask, why is there a need to insult anyone?
I don't know. People insult me all the time here. I'm OK with that.

P.S. it took me about 30 minutes to finds these posts, I stopped after I believed I presented enough evidence.
Too bad. You missed my identification of the "obviously drunk person" post.Truly a classic for sure. I would have liked to have seen that included in your evidence that you presented to the judge.

[Unregistered]

I don't insult people here just for the hell of it.
I never said you did. All I said is I don't.


Sorry, the first sentence was said by YOU in one of your posts;
I didn't make that clear. How can you admit to insulting people and not insulting them at the same time?




To Allyssa, I stated that she or he argues with emotion and not thought, and therefore sees the need to belittle people. These were some examples.

[Curmudgeon]

I don't insult people here just for the hell of it.

Confusion.

The original usage of that was meant as
"I don't insult people unless they clearly deserve to be insulted"

rather than,
"I don't insult people for no good reason, unlike yourself".

I wasn't accusing anyone of basless insults, rather I was citing my propensity for insulting others with due cause.

My apologies for any ambiguity on my part, you damned %&$#!!!

:)

[Allyssa]

I don't find any insults... maybe just a few comments he's made that you don't agree with, but I honestly can't find any insults to back what you're saying.

Futhermore, it's human nature to include emotion with a discussion. The are a lot of :) and :( things going on in Western New York and emotions like these help people to speak up more and more.

I as well have found nothing that includes what you've said and a connection to the
The Buffalo Police > Don't try to merge city, county police thread.

J

[Allyssa]

%&$#!!!

oops... I spoke too soon.

[WNYresident]

I am paid a rate someone else set for working, not stealing things. If someone believed YOU made too much money, would you be a thief??

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THey have a point. This isn't the part i'm not happy with acutally. It's the alkl the extra people tack on when they can.

[WNYresident]

There's a moral to his thread :) who picked up on it yet?

[Curmudgeon]

THey have a point. This isn't the part i'm not happy with acutally. It's the alkl the extra people tack on when they can.

The fact is these people now set the rate, not the employers (taxpayers). And. if we are not happy with their performance we can't get rid of them. That is extortion to me, which is a form of stealing.