Hey MDM

If you are only paying 22k a year for a 4 family, you must be turning quite a profit. Don't cry about paying taxes when you bought the building.

There are ways to generate revenue to balance the police budget without hurting the taxpayers.

Lets get everyone who is against the cops to do ride alongs on New Years eve. You will never want to see a cop laid off after that

The traditional plan was merely one of the plans offered by blue cross. If you ask anyone, the plan that we agreed to go to is actually a better plan while it saves the city millions.

The 9 percent decrease I believe only affects state workers, although I could be wrong on that one.

The union has provided a 27 point plan in which the city can obtain the revenue to balance the police budget. The city will not look at it. If you take a look at the points, obviously not all of them are practical, but many of them are. Many of them are so practical that the city's unwillingness to look at them shows that they are probably looking to lay off no matter what and this concession thing is all a charade.

The ninety guys who are eligible to retire should. Although many of them will not because they are young and have their own situations, the city should offer some type of incentive for them to leave, such as hunterdon county has recently done.

In the city's defense, if the ninety guys went, the city would not realize the amount of financial relief you think they would, due to pre-existing contractual agreements regarding sick time, etc, the stuff that the governor is changing now.

We all know that its the in thing to do now to lay off cops. You can see how well it worked in Newark. If that is ok with you fine, but be prepared for the aftermath. The men and women of the JCPD will always do their job, and do it well. In that type of business you cannot please everyone, and we know that by reading this board.

If the corporate people were asked to forego their bonuses to save their co-workers jobs, what do you think they would do?

I honestly think that both sides of the situation have not been fully elaborated enough for people to make an educated decision.

The city is crying poverty, and saying all the union has to do is a and b, what the city is not telling you is that even if the union gave up a and b, this will happen again next year.

The union is looking for a long term solution, which the 27 points would accomplish. I think both sides need to explained more.

You can change the pension however you want. You have a large number of peo;le vested in that pension (10 years) and there is no way you can change take it away from them.
The union is not looking to bleed anyone dry. They have given back much more than anyone knows. The savings from the traditional plan itself is millions. After Jan 1 2012 they will have to pay into their benefits as well. What else does the public want. Bottom line is that this is a business as well for the cops.
They have bills, mortgages, etc and you cannot just take off their plate because you want to. These contracts too decades of negotiations to get this way. No one cared about what the cops got until the private sector started getting hurt, now the cops and fire and teachers are in the crosshairs.
No one cared about raises when hte private sector people were getting bonuses that dwarfed a cops yearly salary. Now they want to take from the guy getting $35 an hour at the construction site because their unemployment is running out. I think it is a bit selfish.
The publc pensions are poor now for no reason other than the politicians borrowed and borrowed and never paid back. Had they paid back we wold not be in this situation. It started with Whitman and it continues now.

letssavejc@yahoo.com

JCPD is one of the best police departments in the state of NJ. While it is a young aggressive department, it is at the same time an older police department with 90 men being able to retire any day.
Layoffs are detrimental for many reasons. Obviously losing the botttom rung of officers in terms of senority is hard because those are the front line guys answering calls on all tours. I think what many people fail to realize is that not only will the department lose those guys due to the layoffs, but the main crime fighting element of the department will also be descimated. When you lay off these 82, you will essentially be running a skeleton crew police department 24/7.
Radio cars and cops in uniform are fantastic deterrents for things like speeders, drinking, and to handle calls like motor vehicle accidents, disputes, etc. By running a bare bones police dept and removing the guys in plain clothes you now virtually disable the ability to make arrests of people that endanger the safety of residents.
The last thing criminals worry about is the radio car driving down the block. They are not worried about the guy im in uniform. Its the ones they cant see that do the most damage to them.
Patrol is the backbone of the department, it maintains order in the streets. Unfortunately patrol is unable to do the surveillances of drug houses and dealers, or the other many types of criminal enterprises that are ongoing in JC.
Running a skeleton crew department will end up with skeleton crew results simply because certain things just will not and cannot get done, which will result in a lowered quality of life in JC.
From what I understand the union is absolutely willing to give concessions, but at what cost? They already gave up the traditional plan which saved the city MILLIONS of dollars. They are willing to do the pay lag, but the city only wants to give a one year guarantee. With an even bigger deficit projected for 2012, the union will be put in the same situation next year and then what?
Everyone has to share the hurt in this tough economy and I understand that, but with the govenor hitting cops on the pension and benefit end and the city with the budgetary stuff, unions have to fight to stay strong.
You can hate the cops all you want, bottom line is there is not a finer police department in NJ and the only people to suffer with the layoffs here is the citizens of Jersey City because you can guarantee the same results as in newark.