More 911 Consolidation Nonsense
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 9/22/09 @ 11:19 pm - Filed Under City Council, Featured
The best part of the meeting tonight was when councilman Tim Pape announced that he was once again going to introduce a motion to cut the entire city Communication department’s budget. Pape introduced an identical motion last year in hopes of forcing the long-overdue 911 consolidation process between the city and county. The motion was supported at the time by councilmen Harper and Hines with several others suggesting they would be willing to give the powers that be one more year to try and get a deal done.
I spoke before council at the time and supported the cut saying that bold action was the only thing that could fix this problem. I predicted that we would be back talking about the same thing one year later and what do you know - here we are.
At the end of the meeting councilwoman Liz Brown called the proposal “dangerous” and indicated that as part of the Public Safety commission she had seen how close the city and county were to an agreement and thought it would happen very soon. How many times have we heard that before? It’s the same bunch of bullshit year after year.
People are fed up with the bureaucratic nonsense. I don’t care if the city or county runs the joint department because either solution would be better than we have now. The real “danger” is having calls transfered through a glass wall where information has to be repeated and precious time is lost for emergency responders.
Why is it that the administration and city council can act lightning quick when it involves padding somebody’s pocket (i.e. Renaissance Square) but can’t get a deal done that directly impacts public safety after years and years of wrangling. It’s pathetic and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.
Every single councilmember needs to be held accountable on this - perpetuating the status quo is not acceptable. The time for committee meetings, consultants, action plans, etc is over. I say give them until the end of the year and after that cut their entire budget. I guarantee you a solution will be in place within a week…
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Jeff,
I rarely say it; however, I agree with Tim Pape…
It hurts almost as much as when I agree with Mark Souder…
Mike Sylvester