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Topic: How to Fund more Police in FLINT:by Scott Smith

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Steve Myers
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How to Fund more Police in FLINT:
by Scott Smith

The most obvious and more transparent dollars to go toward Police and Fire that I see will be in the following:

1.) Merge the cities 911 with the counties to create about $1 million a year in savings.

2.) Put our City courts back in our vast, nearly empty City hall building and save $800,00.00 per year.

3.) Take the concessions our public safety officers (and say thank you) have offered of around 15% and end the selfish kindergarten attitude, this will project about $3 million more.

4.) Put back the parking meters downtown, create and sell monthly or annual parking passes.

5.) Get our officers on the streets writing tickets.

6.) Increase our blight control and get them writing tickets to the banks we bailed out, along with the absentee landlords. 6.) Drop the Mayors appointments down to six , $500,000 + in savings here

7.) Bring back our laid off officers from 2010, when the current administration did this it caused the cities unemployment rate they paid in to MESC to fluctuate from a projected $450,000 to around $1,500,000 million thus $1 million more in savings can be captured from this self inflicted act.

8.) Simply turn off the lights and turn down the heat at city hall at night and other city buildings.

9.) Change out the outdated electrical fixtures at all city buildings

10.) Quit paying consultants and friends millions yearly.

11.) Demand that our refuse department run on budget or privatize it, as it looses $300,000 to $400,000 yearly.

12.) Merge departments and departments heads as we are a city of 100,000 not 250,000 thus eliminating more administration waste. All of these combined will contribute to around $8 million or better to pay for 80 more officers!!!!

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Steve Myers
Post Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:30 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

1. WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE 911 CONSORTIUM. Now we have a quandry about how to finance the required upgrades. The consortium helped small communities pay the cost. Flint was on the outside and lucjkily was able to get a patch to communicate.

2. Moving costs are great. Moving DCED at a time it is struggling with HUD and the OIG could be disastrous. The building would need renovation. Using Flint police in the courts is probably less costly than using the deputies.

Hire a magistrate and prosecuting attorney to process the fine money. Perhaps then eliminate one judge.

3. Quit playing these mind numbing games with public safety and the unions that Eason and Walling have been playing. Totally agree.

4. Doesn't that fall under the purview of the DDA? They need the revenur to pay off the parking deck.

5.We have a unit that is supposed to be doing just that, but in the past they got preferential treatment and more weekends off. Like people don't speed on the weekends?

6. Part of #2. Council never let the unit get up and running before they axed the mechanism. Short sighted. On properties being abandoned the fines are placed as liens on the properties. These liens come back to the city after 3 yrs and must stay with the property. Try to prosecute the individuals and get payment.

Come up with a valid vacant property policy, such as registration. That way you can get a handle on the problem. Banks and absentee landlords remain on the hook and must come up with solutions to maintain these properties.

7. Few people reaalize the true cost of the layoffs and retirements. Wage concessions in the past focused on contractual promises to future retirees. Fear of an unjust administration and pay cuts that makes some take early retirements only raises the legacy costs. Plus there is a payoff in unused vacation and sick pay for officers laid off that can be considerable.
Post Mon Apr 04, 2011 7:52 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

8,9,& 10- The Department of energy grant was supposed to make city hall more energy efficent. No new windows, boilers or other improvements that I know of.

Eason was originally supposed to be CEO of the new company that Kate Fields formed, Advanced Solutions. Her expertise of building 2 energy efficient homes knocked out a company with 17 years experience. That company probably did not hug every councilman as they entered the room and have current and former GECA presidents as council members.

11. During the years of the Renaissance tax cuts the trash pickup had to run for areas that did not pay to pick up trash! I believe, an extra route actually had to be added. Certain measures have been implemented to save on costs and the newer trucks are cutting down significantly on injuries. Multiple trucks are driven out and the crews fill them all before driving to the dump sites. This cuts costs.

In the past, organized crime figures wanted to take over the trash collection,

12 and 6 b. Merging some departments won't work as certain licenses are required for department heads. May make some inefficient. Just remove the dead wood such as some of the useless appointees that go to departments they don't understand and create problems.

Putting a former purchasing director over DPW was a disaster and no one was properly trained to take over the jobs Arnold Brown did.
Post Mon Apr 04, 2011 8:07 am 
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D

1. In order to merge 911systems, Flint will have to go to the digital system, which would be extremely expensive. Where would the money come from; another bond issue, a special assessment, more millages, where? I've heard estimates of several million dollars to do this.

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Post Mon Apr 04, 2011 8:13 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Absolutely right Dave. Steven Todd of the 911 system is on top of this. He has gotten funding and has done some of the upgrades, which as you say are very costly. Williamson worked on this and under his administration the operation began. I don't know where it is currently.

Breaking from the county gave the city an opportunity to hire political friends and family.

One Stanley supporter had his daughter hired and her car was stopped with Cobra gang members in it and all of the 911 materials in the trunk, including police addresses.
Post Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:43 am 
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D

Hand held radios are in the $1,000.00+ range each. I don't know what the in-car equipment would cost, plus the new dispatch equipment. Also, there would be a possibility of having to add antenna towers to make sure the entire city is covered.

AND - I just paid $3.949 for gas - $58.00 to fill up, so don't talk to me about more taxes!

_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.

Pushing buttons sure can be fun.

When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.

Paddle faster, I hear banjos.
Post Mon Apr 04, 2011 10:20 am 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

WOW THAT IS STICKER SHOCK!
Post Mon Apr 04, 2011 1:25 pm 
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo

There is a rumor that the new computers for the police cars etc do not work and are crashing. I have been told the Chief argued for this company because it is owned by a roiend of his. hard to prove or disprove.
Post Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:36 pm 
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Adam
F L I N T O I D

Original link:

[url=http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=121151187963016]How to Fund more Police in FLINT[/url]


Last edited by Adam on Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:47 pm; edited 1 time in total

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Post Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:37 pm 
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Adam
F L I N T O I D

Scott Smith's 12-point Plan to bring back Police officers, and why it is impossible

1.) Merge the cities 911 with the counties to create about $1 million a year in savings.

The county won't do this, the out-county commissioners will never vote to combine any services with Flint, especially because of #2

2.) Put our City courts back in our vast, nearly empty City hall building and save $800,00.00 per year.

Half of the 68th is already in City Hall, if we don't re-up with the County for space in the McCree Building, they won't be offering us any help with 911

3.) Take the concessions our public safety officers (and say thank you) have offered of around 15% and end the selfish kindergarten attitude, this will project about $3 million more.

This would be amazing - the FY2012 budget was written assuming these same 15% cuts. If the current administration wants them, and can't get them, how will Smith get the same thing? And, since this is already written into the budget, it will project $0 more.

4.) Put back the parking meters downtown, create and sell monthly or annual parking passes.

The DDA is already doing this. They should all set by the end of the year. This was one of the first things our new DDA director focused on.

5.) Get our officers on the streets writing tickets.

Keep them off of 911 calls and on writing tickets?

6.) Increase our blight control and get them writing tickets to the banks we bailed out, along with the absentee landlords.

This is already happening, apparently Scott hasn't heard of the Blight Elimination Hotline, or the officers who are dedicated to writing tickets full time for those who aren't maintaining their properties.

6.) Drop the Mayors appointments down to six , $500,000 + in savings here

There are 2 #6s on this list. Here goes: here are the appointees who are taxpayer funded: Mayor's Secretary (administrative services, required by Charter), City Administrator (required by Charter), Finance/Budget Director (required by charter), City Clerk (required by Charter), Chief Legal Officer (required by Charter), Civil Service Director (required by Charter), Human Resources Director/Personnel (required by Charter), Ombudsman (required by Charter), Police/Fire Chief (required by Charter), Transportation Director (required by Charter), Utilities Director (required by Charter), Parks and Rec Director (required by Charter). All taxpayer funded appointments are required by our Charter. Can't blame the Mayor for this one, he tried de-funding some of these unnecessary positions, Council rejected those actions.

7.) Bring back our laid off officers from 2010, when the current administration did this it caused the cities unemployment rate they paid in to MESC to fluctuate from a projected $450,000 to around $1,500,000 million thus $1 million more in savings can be captured from this self inflicted act.

This can be done, if you pay those 66 officers an average of $15000 a year (including benefits) if he's expecting the $1mil in savings to fund all of the laid off officers

8.) Simply turn off the lights and turn down the heat at city hall at night and other city buildings.

He hasn't driven by City Hall at night, it seems. He should be aware of the lights being off at night, given that his office is across the street. I know he spends his nights out in Rivershyre or however you spell it out in Davison Township, but he has to have driven by City Hall at least once at night...



9.) Change out the outdated electrical fixtures at all city buildings



Admirable, but this requires capital. Who do you lay off in order to replace light fixtures?



10.) Quit paying consultants and friends millions yearly.



He tried this on me once. Told me exactly who was getting money. I challenged him to show me where this money was paid out in the City's online check register, and he tried. He couldn't do it. This was before he knew I was a Walling supporter, not sure he'd even acknowledge me on this issue today.



11.) Demand that our refuse department run on budget or privatize it, as it looses $300,000 to $400,000 yearly.



Do we need a guy in office who can't tell the difference between 'lose' and 'loose'? The Rubbish Collection Fund (Fund 226) is projected to come in at budget this year



12.) Merge departments and departments heads as we are a city of 100,000 not 250,000 thus eliminating more administration waste. All of these combined will contribute to around $8 million or better to pay for 80 more officers!!!!

First, we were NEVER a city of 250,000. When the Charter was enacted, we were a city of about 170,000. Not sure where this $8mil figure is coming from. After taking public safety into account, there's $14.7mil remaining in the General Fund. Of that $14.7mil, $10.5mil is tied up in offices required to be funded by the City Charter. Of the remaining $4.2mil, $1.3mil goes toward facilities maintenance. The remaining $2.9mil is scattered among various departments, including Blight Elimination. Where in the world is he going to find $8mil without violating the Charter and eliminating departments? Our current Mayor tried that already - Council WILL NOT allow it.

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Post Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:40 pm 
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