way to go Camden

[ShaggyDiesel]

I understand that budgets are tight, but they shouldn't be cut like this.

Crime-ridden Camden, N.J., cuts police force nearly in half

(CNN) -- The mayor of crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey, has announced layoffs of nearly half of the city's police force and close to a third of its fire department.
One hundred sixty-eight police officers and 67 firefighters were laid off Tuesday, as officials struggle to close a $26.5 million budget gap through a series of belt-tightening measures, Mayor Dana Redd told reporters. The layoffs take effect immediately.
Redd said she was unable to secure the $8 million in budget concessions that she says she needed to save the jobs of up to 100 police officers and many of the city's firefighters.

The mayor -- who said she will continue negotiations with police and fire unions -- had been asking the workers to pay more for their health care, freeze or reduce their salaries and take furlough days.

The apparent impasse has left administrators of a city with the second-highest crime rate in the nation scrambling to figure out solutions to keep residents safe. Camden is second only to St. Louis, Missouri, in annual rankings of cities based on compilations of FBI crime statistics. Some clerical officers were demoted and reassigned to the streets, the mayor said, pledging that the cuts would not affect public safety. "We're still going to protect our residents," said Robert Corrales, spokesman for Redd. Public safety "will remain our top concern. We'll shift our resources to be more efficient with what we have."
But police and firefighter union officials say the layoffs will most certainly have an impact.

"It's absolutely, physically impossible to cover the same amount of ground in the same amount of time with less people," said John Williamson, president of the Fraternal Order of Police union in Camden. "Response times will be slower." One local business owner, David Brown, said he does not "understand how you can do more with less." "I don't want to be a pessimist, but I can't be optimistic."

Camden resident and sanitation worker Gloria Valentin said she is now fearful that the city does not have enough police protection to keep people safe.
"Today is a real sad day in the city of Camden," she said.

CNN.com

[The Clk Man]

Shaggy, what do you think about privatizing Emergency services?

[ShaggyDiesel]

for the most part it's already done, there are exceptions such as a municipal ambulance service.

[Hatterasguy]

Ha, they should lay off all of them, build a fence around it, and we can have the next season of Survivor their!


Its a good idea, with less firefighters maybe Camden will burn to the ground.

[dynalow]

It's not just Camden.

"Redd blasted the unions that represent the 168 police officers and 67 firefighters who were laid off, saying their leadership had refused to submit "meaningful" contractual concessions, stoked fear during negotiations, and never let members vote on cost-saving ideas."
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20110119_Axes_fall_for_police__firefighters_in_Camden.html


Jersey City cops gave some to avoid layoffs.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2011/01/jersey_city_mayor_and_police_u.html#incart_hbx

This probably would have happened last year, except fed stimulus money kept govt. employees and teachers employed here last year.

[PaulC]

Once had a client in one of the sportier parts of Camden, a pastor of a local faith-based organization. When I visited, I made sure to leave town before sundown.

[PastorJoe]

Just goes to show that there is a little bit of good in everything. They are showing fiscal responsibility. Maybe some other local governments might learn that they are not supposed to spend more than they take in. Nah, that would be way too much common sense to expect from politicians.

[mgburg]

It would be interesting to see if the politicians ALL took cuts, if there were any social welfare programs that were "last in/first out" of the money trail and whatever else was done BEFORE they decided to cut the police & fire-fighting force...and even there...how many "supervisors" do cops and firefighters need?

Better yet, keeping the lower-paid and retiring the higher-grade should have been the way to trim.

And...have a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude about the crime situation might improve the level of respect for law and order...then maybe...not.

Besides...where, in any constitution, does it say that a city/state/county/municiple employee, union or not, is guaranteed a "lifetime" job with benefits (working and retired) that exceed even private industry standards?

Drop the bennies and start putting back into the tax base like everyone else...then maybe some sensible budgeting will rear its "ugly head" and come to the forefront.

[PaulC]

Originally Posted by PastorJoe

Just goes to show that there is a little bit of good in everything. They are showing fiscal responsibility. Maybe some other local governments might learn that they are not supposed to spend more than they take in. Nah, that would be way too much common sense to expect from politicians.

If you don't protect the tax base, soon you will not have a tax base from which to draw operating funds.

While Camden's tax-based revenue may be declining, the physical size and security demands of the infrastructure is not shrinking in tandem with the revenue decline. Mom and Pop can't run a dry cleaning business if the business is being burgled every other night. Not enough police around to prevent this circumstance? Close up and move the business to the burbs.

As they move, their liability to pay taxes to Camden moves away with them, and Camden loses operation revenue. The former dry cleaning employees no longer have an income to frequent other Camden businesses, who suffer financially, and as some of the newly-unemployed succumb to the temptation to turn to crime, the crime rate rises, forcing more businesses out of the community, creating more unemployment, which creates more crime, and the cycle continues, with Camden's tax-based revenue continuing to decline, forcing greater curtailment of city services.

Now imagine trying to present an environment to attract revenue-generating new business investment under those circumstances.

This is neither an easy nor simple decision for a responsible government to make, and any inference that "politicians" are too stupid to instantly make such simple decisions evidences a lack of understanding of the stakes involved.

[dynalow]

Originally Posted by mgburg

It would be interesting to see if the politicians ALL took cuts, if there were any social welfare programs that were "last in/first out" of the money trail and whatever else was done BEFORE they decided to cut the police & fire-fighting force...and even there...how many "supervisors" do cops and firefighters need?

Better yet, keeping the lower-paid and retiring the higher-grade should have been the way to trim.

And...have a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude about the crime situation might improve the level of respect for law and order...then maybe...not.

Besides...where, in any constitution, does it say that a city/state/county/municiple employee, union or not, is guaranteed a "lifetime" job with benefits (working and retired) that exceed even private industry standards?

Drop the bennies and start putting back into the tax base like everyone else...then maybe some sensible budgeting will rear its "ugly head" and come to the forefront.

There's soooooo much corruption and good old boy bs here. But at least the new governor is getting support from the legislature to reign in some of this BS. Commissions, authorities, all these gravytrain perks have to be stopped. Citizens who can't save for their own retirements can't be asked to keep paying for govt. post retirement guaranteed benefeits.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/nj_senator_pushes_to_give_chri.html

"What’s going on at the PVSC is just so excessive," said Weinberg, who has a separate measure that would place the sewerage commission under the control of Department of Community Affairs. "The organization has been used as a patronage pit for politically-connected individuals to inflate their salaries on the taxpayer-dime, and it’s time for the feeding frenzy to come to an end."

Meanwhile, officials at the PVSC yesterday said they were scrambling to respond to Gov. Chris Christie’s demand that they explain the agency’s hiring abuses. The governor’s actions follow a report in The Sunday Star-Ledger, which documented the hiring of brothers, brothers-in-law, wives, children and cousins by commissioners, who do all the hiring.

They kept track of the jobs handed out on a scorecard known as "commissioners’ rounds," which were numbered like NFL draft round choices, showing one commissioner picked his daughter-in-law. Another hired his wife.

And with 567 employees, Passaic Valley has no formal table of organization spelling out the chain of command or lines of reporting, according to the authority.

Christie yesterday gave the PVSC seven days to explain itself. In letters that went out to each commissioner, the governor said the board "continues to resist the efforts of this administration to undertake reform in accordance with sound ethical and fiscal practices."

He demanded they each identify all individuals they have selected or recommended for hire, including justification for hiring them and their qualifications; a list of all family members or relatives, including the involvement of each commissioner in their hiring; an accounting of all promotions or salary increases for those individuals; and a list of all companies or consultants retained at a commissioner’s direction..........

[mgburg]

Not to pick on Detroit...God knows it doesn't need the grief...but Camden is beginning to sound like what Detroit was sounding like a "few years" back...declining tax revenues and a shrinking tax-base.

If Camden doesn't do something fast and solid, it too will be in the same hell-hole that Detroit seems to be floundering in right now.

Hate to say it, but I think EVERY TOWN in this nation needs to sit down and run a quick check (as in a serious round of "SIMS CITY" maybe?) to see what particular state of "health" they're really in.

I'm willing to bet that the majority of communities aren't doing any better than a C-...and the ones that are probably won't speak up for fear the rats will come running for their shorelines.

You don't need an economic degree or some politician screaming at the top of his lungs to see that it's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to continue to pay highly inflated salaries to public officials and governmental agencies all for the purpose of keeping "good, quality people" in the public sector.

Have any of you looked around lately? "Good, quality people in the public sector" is beginning to look more and more like an oxymoronic practice than anything else.

Top dollar being paid with the public's dollar for what little work that's actually being done that could better be done better by the private sector itself is absolutely stupid.

And throwing a label on it and calling it a rose doesn't mean the public has to buy "said rose" - let alone, pay retail for it.

[Txjake]

smooth move by Camden; when you boat is taking on water, punch a few holes in the hull to help it along.....

[strelnik]

Originally Posted by mgburg

Not to pick on Detroit...
.

You can pick on Detroit. It deserves it. I was born there. I know.

Incompetent, illiterate people who were in the majority took from the public trough like the pigs they are, and elected people that let them continue to feed like that until there is nothing left.

They are the cause of their own problem, let's face facts.

They've tried to blame the suburbs and everyone else but the sad fact is they are truly incompetent,

and,

as one political leader in Detroit said " We are NOT iggorant!"

After they die off, the creatures which spawned spontaneously from the detritus of the area will slowly emerge and start to eat them, kinda like in " The Walking Dead"

Nature always solves its own problems.