Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Cop Out

Mayor Berry is having difficulty with the term 'cop out.'  He should practice it in the manner that would have him throw some cops out of the force.  Like the Chief and a few Deputy Chiefs.  Things just keep getting worse at APD after an officer kills an innocent girl with his patrol car after hanging out in a bar with other cops for a few hours.

No, the Mayor's definition of 'cop out' is to not enforce the new minimum wage ordinance.  He says he can't really do it because his City Attorney doesn't think he should.  Berry says though that he wishes folks would just pay the minimum wage.  He thinks minimum wage employees should just hire lawyers to get the boss to follow the voter mandated new wage ordinance.

Does this mean that if a burglar comes to my house I can't rely on government to prosecute?  Or will the city attorney not go after zoning law violators?  This attitude on the minimum wage is dangerous because it opens the door to selective enforcement of laws.

The Mayor also says that although he hires the City Attorney, he cant really tell him what to do.  As a former Mayor, I can tell you that is the biggest load of b.s. I have heard in at least a few days.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim, you need to rewrite your first paragraph it is in error.

An APD officer did get involved in a car crash that killed a young woman. That officer was NOT hanging out a bar prior to the accident.

You are mixing a second incident where an APD officer was drinking off duty and went home and threatened his wife.

Two completely different APD officers and incidents. I believe they happened a week apart.

Please post a correction, I think the correction is better than your original story.

Ok, then said...

So that is why Eric Szeman, owner of Rt 66 Malt Shop, refused to comply with the new minimum wage ordinance. He isn't afraid of being prosecuted for disobeying the law. The story is on the front page of The Lobo.

Anonymous said...

I'll bet Berry would enforce these no strike clauses a lot of public employees around here have in their contracts.

But I predict we're hearing the last few utterances from Mayor Berry. Voters didn't just approve the minimum wage hike three months ago for nothing. I don't think it was put through by people making minimum wage but by people who believed it was the right thing to do, so since it passed, that constitutes the majority of people in Albuquerque.

They'll not be inclined to vote for him, and the people who voted against it now have a moral question to decide. They could excuse voting against it because the Journal was constantly whispering in their ear that it would hurt the economy, but now that it's law, it's as you say, him deciding which laws to enforce and which not. People don't like it when people play God.

With him as one big exception, I don't think Republicans in this state have entirely lost their moral compass like these ones who cheat right out in the open, like the ones who passed these laws to intentionally disenfranchise Democratic voters, or those ones up in Wisconsin who sneak into the capital at midnight and vote things through.

The governor has dabbled but hasn't done anything that blatant, and has pulled back from things she did do. Of course she still has her Rasputin up there, but she doesn't always heed him, I don't think.

Anonymous said...

No Jim you are wrong. Not only as mayor you can't tell your appointed employees what to do but you also can't fire them! You see in Berryville that is the only explanation as to why Schultz is still around!!! (Insert sarcasm)