San Bernardino Police Officers' Association Responds to Mayor Morris' Fingerpointing
Posted by: Joseph Turner | 07/21/2008 7:36 PM
Over the weekend, Mayor Pat Morris suggested that the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association was to blame for Operation Phoenix' woes.
The following is the press release issued today by the SBPOA in response to Mayor Morris' claims.
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San Bernardino Police Officers' Association Denounces Mayor Morris' "Blame Game"
Chastises gross mismanagement by "out of touch" mayor;
Cites systemic accountability failures for demise of Operation Phoenix
(San Bernardino, CA, July 21, 2008) - Mayor Pat Morris' recent attempt to blame the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association (SBPOA) for the demise of Operation Phoenix is shameful and indicative of the systemic accountability failures undermining the program. The SBPOA denounces the finger pointing "blame game" by the woefully "out of touch" Mayor Morris' and demand he accept full responsibility for the gross mismanagement of his pet program, Operation Phoenix.
Mayor Morris suggested that the SBPOA gobbled up Measure Z resources and left him "no water in the well" for his programs in a recent interview with Robert Rogers of the San Bernardino Sun.
Since the molestation scandal broke, a litany of excuses has been offered by Mayor Morris and other supporters. "Operation Phoenix was established over a year before any Measure Z funds were collected by the city," stated SBPOA President, Sgt. Rich Lawhead. "These attacks are a deliberate distortion to hide the gross mismanagement of the program."
During the Measure Z campaign, Mayor Morris sought the support of the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association. Mayor Morris promised to hire 40 additional officers to fight crime with money from Measure Z. Believing the residents of San Bernardino were already taxed too much, we were reluctant to endorse and support Measure Z. We were told by Mayor Morris that this was the only way the city could afford to put more cops on the street. Aside from ensuring that the bulk of Measure Z funds were used to hire additional police officers, as promised to us and the voters, the SBPOA never interjected itself into discussions about Operation Phoenix funding.
The San Bernardino Police Officers' Association has worked diligently to become a collaborative stakeholder and to answer the call of our elected officials. When asked, we endorsed and supported Measure Z. When challenged, we stepped up our community outreach and communications efforts. In response to pleas during the budget discussions, we have been understanding and cooperative despite several million dollar cuts in funding and a reduction in the number of officers.
"We have worked in good faith with the city to identify waste and other sources of revenue to address budget concerns. These unjustifiable attacks are frustrating and demoralizing," stated Sgt. Lawhead.
For months, Operation Phoenix Director Mike Miller demonstrated a "total disregard for department and city policy" according to an internal memorandum. Mayor Morris claims to have been totally unaware of this misconduct. Simply put, no amount of additional funding can overcome the gross mismanagement and systemic lack of accountability within the program and its leadership
DISCLAIMER: I am a paid consultant for the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association.
This is why many sports ban the use of performance enhancing drugs. Another form of doping is blood...
has been painful to watch Detroit’s auto industry lose its competitive edge, mostly due to management-union issues. “For the first time in August, Toyota sold more cars in America than Chrysler. Can anything be done?” reads the headlines of an article published in the Economist October 9th, 2003. The artcile goes on to say that “many in the American car industry have been slow to appreciate how serious the problem really is”
It has been just as painful to witness a world class public education ruined by the California Teachers Association.
Now it is public safety.
It is fair to say that absent any semblance of competition, employees in the public safety monopoly will do just enough to reach retirement, as has been the case with the publicly discussed OCSD culture.
The typical politically correct response anent public safety is to increase the budget and place additional police officer on the street, in order to “improve public safety” – rarely is the argument supported by relevant key public safety indicators, specifically correlated to departmental efficiency.
We continue to make the argument that this is high time for Blackwater to come to Southern California.
This is a perfect argument for Blackwater to step in.
Coto:
In the Summer of 2006, San Bernardino enjoyed the assistance of additional police officers through partnerships with various other law enforcement agencies. Crime decreased dramatically.
Not coincidentally, when the partnerships expired, crime ticked up once again.
Our city recently hired additional officers through increased revenue from a sales tax increase in November 2006. Monies from that measure started filtering into the city coffers in the second quarter of 2007. With the hiring and training of officers, they finally started coming on line this year and recent reports are that crime has dropped 10% in the first half of this year.
Thanks for the response Joseph:
We have developed what we call public safety management tools to among other things, make sure local public officials do not misuse the theory of attribution.
Further, we are now convinced that cities such as Los Angeles cannot police their way out of gangs and other communities cannot rely on policing to fight crime and vandalism – it takes a coordinated effort, including
· Coordination of the various law enforcement agencies in the community
· Public awareness
· Engineering – traffic patters, resident patters, etc.
· Law enforcement visibility
· Metrics, metrics, metrics.
Further, in most cases, we have had to look at crime and vandalism trending in quarterly and yearly increments, as compared to monthly ones, to be sure that the trend is indeed a trend.
..sorry, should be patterns, not patters