THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507220094
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
``Turning up the heat'' (Beacon, news, July 9) about the police rank and file drawing attention to their pay demands with an aerial banner - ``Crime pays, City Council doesn't'' - seems to have confused City Manager James K. Spore and mystified Councilman William Harrison. Rick Anoia, president of the Resort Leadership Council, appears to get the point but questions the equability of the police's methodology, whatever that means. Could it be that these three are too close to the problem to view it rationally?
Councilman Harrison's mystification can be easily handled: The cops are mad as hell.
They want money and City Manager Spore et al. talk of adjusting percentiles and fractional cops per 1,000 residents over a period of years. True, Mr. Spore must consider all 14,000 city employees. Why not consider reducing this number by contracting out pothole-filling and such?
The $750,000 cost of Christmas lights for a summer resort beach seems to have brought this dispute to a head. (I surmise that that's where Mr. Anoia comes in). Currently, when the ``crime issue'' is hot political stuff, maybe the cops should have been given a $1,000-a-head pay raise and the lights phased in ``over a period of several years . . . subject to the available funding and the economy.'' I suspect the police officers also noted the inclusion of a new $3.55 million a year in the city budget for the Agricultural Reserve Program. There was also the funding of the oops-we-should-have-made-test-borings increase in the cost of the amphitheater that seemed to be no real problem.
Were these actions the council's equitable way of getting the cops' attention?
Donald E. Babcock
South Parliament Drive by CNB