A message from Will Buividas, PLEA Treasurer/Chief Negotiator
The City sent your Association their opening proposal which includes a request for numerous cuts. The City’s proposal is very generic in nature, one page long, and states in part they “plan to identify potential efficiencies and cost savings, increase organizational flexibility and effectiveness, and address any issues that may arise from departmental innovation and efficiency studies and the citywide pay and benefits review…” For those unique men and women who choose to run to gunfights and actually do police work, there’s a valid concern the consequences of this opening proposal will result in:
- Compromised community policing
- No police hiring
- More police vacancies
- More police risk
- Less police wages
- Lower police standards
The City’s proposal appears to fly in the face of Mayor Stanton’s comments at the City Council inauguration ceremony on January 3, 2012. Mr. Stanton commented that public safety was not to be used as “political pawns.” One wonders if those in positions of authority (or behind desks in Ohio) look at Phoenix cops and their community partners as rats in a cost-saving research experiment. Maybe they’ll be willing to share the value and benefit of their laboratory results at the next police funeral or emergency room crisis. A short-sighted, penny-wise, pound-foolish policing investment appears to be a sure way at lowering the quality of life in a community that lies an hour away from a volatile southern Arizona border. Ask Louisiana, Miami-Dade, or our neighbor south of the border how their cost-cutting lab experiments compromised police services and neighborhood protection. PLEA can assure Unit 4 members and their neighborhood partners that we will not allow political agendas in the form of an opening proposal increase the risk to our communities and our cops.
CLICK HERE to read the memo sent to PLEA by Lori Steward, the City’s Labor Relations Administrator.