Council Meeting

Council meeting was actually shorter than I thought it would be.

We passed an ordinance lowering the late fee for water bills from 10% to 5%. We all thought it to be a good way to help out the residents, or as I called it, "Our stimulus package".

We looked at a lease agreement for some property the village owns at the lagoons that has been farmed for a number of years. I actually voted no on this first reading. I didn't care for the changes that were made at the meeting to the agreement. It did pass however.

Our chief will be off this week and next and God willing will be able to resolve his health issues. We all send him our best wishes and prayers. The chief provided a letter with his recommendation of how to cover his shift during the next two weeks. No one seems to have a problem with his recommendation, but the issue of the sheriff's department came up again. I guess I have it wrong in that the suggestion was that we only use the Sheriff if it's an "emergency" because we just can't get anyone to be here. There never would be an emergency like this if we went back to having a second officer work day shift. When our current chief was a sergeant, he worked the day shift with his chief. At one point his chief was off for approx. a year with an illness. Tim took care of business and called the chief when decisions needed to be made. Now that we have only two full-time officers (Chief on first shift, Sergeant on third), we find ourselves in a situation where if either of them needs to be off for any length of time, there is little wiggle room to cover those shifts. We have placed ourselves in a dangerous situation.

Well, it becomes a dangerous situation because not everyone is willing to pay for police protection, or simply willing to pay more.

The reserve officers, those who work for free in order for us to hold their commission, simply cannot fill these open shifts. I keep hearing from different folks about our reserves, that many are not fulfilling their shift obligations. Except every time I hear this I call the Chief, and ask him if this is true and every time he tells me EVERY TIME (as recently as today) that there are TWO of NINETEEN, that are not. One of the two is excused because he is available here locally in an emergency such as when an officer is in trouble while on shift, which has happened recently.

Now that leaves 17. Two of those are not currently working because of their own medical reasons and one is right now serving us in Iraq.

I have nine part-time employees and at any given time there are at least two who are not available to work for me for whatever reason. Excluding the officer serving in Iraq, the chief and I both have the same percentage of workers available and doing what they are supposed to. Not bad I say. Good scheduling and good leadership. You can't ask these officers who already have other full-time jobs to simply pick up the slack or we pull your commission. There are other places they can go to work for free. However a paid employee in any job is going to be much more willing to come in and help when it is not normally scheduled for them.

Here is a half decent comparison for you. Your church calls you and says "We are short on help and you need to be at church for the next three Wednesday nights to help or else we will revoke your church membership". The drive and inner spirit to help your fellow man reaches a point and then you decide you could go to church somewhere else.

We keep saying we need to move the village forward. It seems to me that that concept has been falling short in some areas. It's time to move the Police Department forward. The manpower cutbacks that we have maintained over these years, are now coming back to haunt us.

Remember last week when I said that if you simply maintain what you have and do, you will find yourself behind?

Follow-up

I talked to the mayor this morning. He doesn't think I used his comments correctly. I will give him the benefit of the doubt, even though the post itself is still a valid one. There are folks who feel its ok that the Sheriff cover for the village at times as the primary protection. He did bring up a point that frankly, I had forgotten about.

We currently leave the station unmanned on a regular basis during the week. The Chief goes to court twice a week, along with occasional prisoner transports and meeting with the law director, and there is no one here covering for him. The practice has been going on for several years. When I thought about this after talking to him my first thought was, "Well what has happened while he was gone?" Well I can't give you a list today but I can give you one quick instance. Last year we had a suicidal person in town with a gun and who fired a shot off in his home, while the Chief was at court. He had to run back lights and sirens. The response time became 20 minutes instead of 1-2. Fortunately the situation was resolved without injury.

We used to have two officers on duty during the day, and that was ended by previous administration. If we have the funds currently (thanks to the 1% tax) to get an officer to work those times, why wouldn't we? We need 24/7 protection.

We have a winner!

Our wonderful fiscal clerk trish summers answered my pop quiz question from my previous post.

The answer: Rush Limbaugh

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Great idea

I hear that this morning the mayor has suggested in an open public meeting that it is ok for the Sheriff's office to cover for the village. That we don't always need an officer here in town. That idea is one of the most absurd I have heard of. One thing I enjoy doing is "illustrating absurdity by being absurd". (Pop quiz: if you know who uses that phrase on a regular basis, I will give you a $10.00 Sterks gift certificate.)

So lets use the mayor's idea and apply it to some other things:

The Wakeman Fire Department decides they don't need to be available all the time. For several hours a day we will have to contact Townsend or Berlin Township if your house or business catches fire. I wonder how long it would take them to respond?

Citizen's Ambulance decides that its a waste to have paramedics sitting around all the time. They decide to turn over paramedic service to North Central EMS in Norwalk. So now during certain times you will have to wait another 10-15 minutes for an ambulance to show up.

DOES ANYONE LIKE ANY OF THESE IDEAS??? I don't.

Now, here are some real world examples. The Sheriff's Office does an outstanding job, don't get me wrong there. Unfortunately in a high concentration group of people, like our village, you need someone available for the protection of the residents and their property. The Sheriff's office cannot handle the needs of our village. Ask some of the residents out at Firelands Manor how long it takes for a deputy to respond. Our chief has witnessed first hand 30 minute response times to Firelands Manor for a domestic dispute, one of the most volatile situations that can occur. Do you think they will come any faster for us?

Here's another real world example. a friend of my wife was recently involved in an accident. Her vehicle lost control and ended up laying on its side. She called the sheriff and they told her they did not have the manpower to assist her. SHE WAS IN A VEHICLE ON ITS SIDE!!!

I want to move this village forward and I thought the mayor did too. This idea of using the sheriff is a giant step backwards. The village needs 24/7 police protection.

Intentionally allowing our police department to be unmanned is like turning on the timer of a bomb and not knowing how much time is left. You'll be safe for a while, but sooner or later it will blow up in your face.

Something to think about

If all you do is maintain what you have and what you do, you will find over time, that you have fallen way behind.

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