Mayor Berry is hard at work to set up a mercenary police presence in Albuquerque. It is the most irresponsible thing a politician could do and he actually got two city councillors to support him. So, are Brad Winter and Pat Davis now in the stupid column? This is the most atrocious monumental and colossal privatization of government responsibility I can think of.
This group of police will be governed not by you as a citizen, but by corporate interests. They will be comprised of retired police officers who would no longer answer to government officials, but rather to some profit gouging CEO. Supposedly they will do the work of the present police aides that the city employs, but this is just the beginning of a Robocop scenario. Think the Blackwater mercenaries in the Duke City.
Leaders should dump this idea and the politicians who ultimately support it. Just go out and hire more police aides. It is a good government supported training ground for future officers.
Leaders should dump this idea and the politicians who ultimately support it. Just go out and hire more police aides. It is a good government supported training ground for future officers.
7 comments:
It's another "greased" Taser type contract, this time going to Brad Winter's campaign Treasurer by way of a shell company called Aralant Inc. Aralant was created in 2015 and has no history, yet Winter and Berry say this is a great idea! Yeah, it's a great idea to put $4,000,000 in taxpayer money into Brad Winter's campaign treasurer pocket. How much corruption can Berry create? The Journal story sucked, read the real story here.
http://www.freeabq.com/2016/10/21/berrys-no-bid-cop-deal/
This “pilot project” is tantamount to union busting and privatization of law enforcement, pure plain and simple. For three years Mayor Berry and Chief of Police Gordon Eden have failed in their attempts to get the New Mexico legislature to change the law to allow “double-dipping” where retired cops could return to work and get paid their salaries and be paid their retirement at the same time. This feckless pair just won’t take no for an answer and now they have come up with this scam to get their way to hire retired cops and are getting help from two equally feckless City Councilors to go along with it. Paying $1.3 million dollars to a private security company for 25 retired police officers to help with law enforcement investigation tasks amount to $53,000 per employee. Starting salaries for APD sworn is about the same! This is law enforcement work that should be done by less expensive means such as hiring more APD Public Safety aides trained by the academy to work the cases, but the Mayor has no intent on increasing the size of city personnel. The pilot project is fraught with problems, including prosecutions being jeopardized when evidence is excluded for a broken “chain of custody” with evidence gathered and processed by non-certified law enforcement personnel.
Privatizing government responsibilities is fascism: someone gets rich proving government services. Political cronies get the contracts.
Don't assume that the 25 retired officers would be paid $53,000 per year. With Leeper, Jack Jones, this Rodriguez guy and Sisi, the word is the retired officers would be part timers paid around $15 per hour. That way Leeper and pals would split around $500,000 that is left over. This is corruption, thank you Brad Winter and Richard Berry. They belong in prison.
Privatization has been going on in the city for years through temporary agencies like Select Staffing and Adecco. This isn't anything new. These guys won't get a decent wage, just like any other contracted third party that works for the COA. PERA rehires should be completely eliminated. How someone can retire and draw a pension while holding their same high pay is beyond me. It keeps the same corrupt individuals in the same positions for an even longer tenure.
Once a Contractor always a contractor!!!! So much for the Buissnessman running city government. By the way, how much did TLC pay the city to film its commercial at the aquarium? Just asking because the mayors office has no record of it but yet it runs at least once a day on the local channels.
They might be paid a minimum, but they would make their own "tips" and run with The Gang again. Beyond Breakin Bad-Burque Bad.
Cut the gang/cop chain of corruption.
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