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Sunday, December 05, 2004

Is Bernie That Bitter? Police Schedules In The Spotlight

Bitter Bernie
The Daily News has a story about the number of police officers who now have second jobs or run side businesses as a result of the new 4/10 and 3/12 police schedules. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know these are schedules where officers can work either 4 days at 10 hours each or 3 days at 12 hours each as opposed to the old 5 days and 40 hour a week schedule. You also know that Bitter Bernie cancelled this program started under Chief Willie "Buffett" Williams much to the chagrin of the officers.
More than 3,000 officers -- or one-third of the 9,100-member force -- hold a permit to work another job, everything from teachers to bodyguards, martial arts instructors to CPAs and entrepreneurs.
-Daily News
Bitter Bernie upon his firing and later ascension to the LA City Council has not given up on deep sixing the 4/10 and 3/12 despite the fact that it seems the officers are happier and that crime is way down (to be fair - the drop in crime can be attributed to many factors but certainly officer morale helps). Parks continues to press the issue in his campaign for mayor and according to the Daily News report, Bernie has even gone as far to file a public records request as to all data on studies of the schedule program.

Bernie's bitterness on this issue really calls in his fitness to serve as Mayor of this city. His authoritarian "my way or the highway" attitude doesn't really sit well with being a leader who has to reach accords with various aspects of the city to get things done. To be sure, we do want a leader who does lead and take unpopular stances (unlike Poopy) but Bernie is seemingly just too inflexible. In addition to his displeasure with the staffing plan, we also recall his elimination of the Senior Lead Officer program and the very successful community policing programs begun under Chief Williams. This is echoed in the Daily News article by North Hollywood Neighborhood Watch activist Sandra Munz who lead the succesful effort to bring the SLOs back. I think you would be hard pressed to find very many police officers or neighborhood watch leaders supporting Bernie's campaign for mayor.

We also remember Parks draconian officer discipline policies. Even liberals hated Bitter Bernie's reign as Chief and were happy to see him go.

Bitter Bernie no doubt has some very good ideas. His pro-business views are refereshing for a Democrat. Nonetheless, his arrogance and inflexibility have most likely eliminiated any chance of moving beyond his City Council seat. He has just alienated too many people.

20 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Hey,mabe if we paid our cops what they deserve for putting their lives on the line the following would occur:
1. Cops wouldn't need to have two jobs to be able to afford to buy a house.
2. The homes cops would buy would be in Los Angeles the community it protects (which historically is of great benefit to the neighborhoods where they live even when off duty).
3. Morale would be higher.
4. We would get better quality cops.
5. We wouldn't need to worry about the 3/12 or 4/10.
6. We wouldn't need to worry about cops treating the job with the mentality of a part time position.
7. Cops would want to join our force regardless of whether or not they only have to work three days, 12 hours a day or 5 days, 8 hours a day.

While 'bitter Bernie' does need to give it up. He has a point in both the dedication of three day a week officers to the force and their abilities in the last couple or few hours to respond with the quickness or clairty that they had in the first half dozen or so hours. That is only common sense and we do want our cops to remain safe during their 'entire' shifts !!

But that is just a pipedream, since we, even under the 3/12 or 4/10 program still cannot seem to find a means of funding new cops and adding to the force, so untile we can do that....the rest is irrelevant, bitter Bernie....understand?

December 06, 2004 8:20 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

December 06, 2004 8:21 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

How sad that Bitter Bernie was a former Chief and all he's done is bad mouth the rank and file. His bitterness and vindictiness towards Hahn is now being targeted at a great Chief (Bratton). When he said on national TV that his "wife Bobbi raised me" that should send a clear message to all this is not someone to be taken seriously. He's lost the little support he had. If you don't support the rank and file you can't be mayor. His wife did a horrible job raising him because Bitter Bernie never matured.

December 06, 2004 10:40 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Sandra Munz website or whatever you want to call it is SO OLD. The stories are from 2001. Who the hell cares what happened that far back. Today is what we need to talk about. It was police commissioner Silvia Saucedo who actually did research and make a motion to the board of commissioners in 1998 to bring back the SLO's.

December 06, 2004 10:43 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Come on, give the old Chief credit. He is a bright, knowledgeable, dedicated adn honest police officer.

Also, sympathize with the old Chief. If you were married to Bitter Bobbi, you too may become Bitter Bernie or WORSE !!

Lee

December 06, 2004 10:57 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Does anyone know where MEAT is at today? Not like him at all to not respond to any of these topics. Uhmmmmm..wonder if he realized all that support for Tonny Villar wasn't going to get him anywhere and now he's reconsidering his next move.

December 06, 2004 6:49 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

FROM MEAT

I am here, lurking as always.

December 06, 2004 9:26 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Meat--since I always enjoy your posts (even when I disagree with them), would you refresh our memories about Bernie during the last mayoral campaign? I remember being at a couple debates and all the candidates said they would get rid of Bernie, except for Hahn, who was non-commital. The most strenuous "ditch Bernie" guy was Antonio Villaraigosa. We can replay the tape, I believe. Is this your memory, too? Will this hurt Antonio in the runoff as he seeks black votes? Or not?

December 07, 2004 7:04 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

FROM MEAT:

Good question...as i recall and someone please correct me if i am wrong, but i believe that hahn was the most vague about his pledge to keep Parks (which the african american community wrongly interrupted to retaining him) as for Antonio...I think he was kinda vague too, saying something to the affect of i will evaluate him when the time is right...blah blah blah. However, as the Dump Parks debate begin it was Antonio in a Los Angeles Business Journal article where he said if he were mayor he'd retain him based on the all the information he had at the time. A week later City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo hald a press conference to say the same thing - that as the city's top cop he'd retain Parks another term as well. 2 days later Hahn fires Parks, which then creates a situation in City Council where Parks gives one of the best speechs i've heard in a long time to the city council. Parks BLASTS HAHN AND THE PPL, whether or not you agree with Parks, i think most have to admit it was a wonderful time to sit in (or listen as i did) to the council that morning.

My honest political view on this -- Antonio is probably doing better in the african american community this time than last -- all the polling i've seen suggest he is, but i think he maybe vulnerable to the "I wanted to keep parks" statement. Not sure how it hurts him or with who, since it appears that Bratton and Antonio are friends and allies, in fact in today's (or yesterday's) Daily Breeze, Bratton says some very positive statements about Antonio's plan for more police. Which i think folks should conclude that Antonio's plan is good too for adding more police to the streets, if it wasn't i am sure this Chief would have said something, no one can hold this chief back when he has a view on something.

Does that help answer at least some of your question?

December 07, 2004 10:21 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Mayor Sam- It's amazing that when a minority is intelligent or articulate, he's automatically perceived as arrogant... but it doesn't quite seem to work that way with intelligent/articulate whites. Why is that?

December 08, 2004 9:03 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

From CD8 Resident:

It's amazing that when a minority is intelligent or articulate, he's automatically perceived as arrogant...
------------------------------------------------------
I perceive Bitter Bernie arrogant because he ignores the concerns of those in his council district. Fascinating read: http://www.wavenewspapers.com/print_this_story.asp?smenu=71&sdetail=3501

You seem to be pretty cozy with Bernie. Is it true he has a financial stake in the Numero Uno Market?

December 08, 2004 1:02 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

I know he does have a personal stake or so the story goes in The Pantry with Riordan. Can anyone confirm this please. Bitter Bernie still has that vindictiness from his dad's days with LAPD. Back then they were racist but now Bernie is behaving just as bad. We need to pray for him. Heaven help his district.

December 08, 2004 2:38 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Councilmember Parks can't be bought, unlike the others!!

December 08, 2004 7:18 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Bernie's leadership style may have been draconian, but remember that Chief PArker was a martinet and pulled the standards and reputation of the LAPD out of the toilet where the force remained head and shoulders above many others in the country for years. And, if my failing memory serves me correctly, LAPD even won "best dressed" awards in the uniform Olympics. After all...this is LA.

December 09, 2004 12:02 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

Bernie owns part of the Pantry? Wow! Why is he so bitter?

December 09, 2004 10:28 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

From: Spring Street Philosohper

Someone pulled out the race card I see. I don't think if a minority is articulate they are seen as arrogant. No one calls Richard Alarcon arrogrant. On the other hand, plenty of whites are viewed as arrogant from Jimmy K. Hahn on down.

Parks just has an amazing chip on his shoulder.

December 09, 2004 10:30 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

I think you have Parks confused with Riordan.

December 09, 2004 11:29 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

I don't understand how can someone work for so many years with LAPD and yet any chance they get just slams those poor officers? Wasn't he a patrol officer on the street? IF by a miracle he makes mayor and chances are highly unlikely, officers are already saying there will be a mass exodus. Voters need to remember that. IF they thought we were down officers at this stage.....

December 09, 2004 11:36 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

If one man has enough power to get in the heads of all these so-called officers, he deserves to be Mayor.

December 09, 2004 7:56 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said:

You have absolutely no idea how horrible he was as Chief. If LAPD lost over 1,000 officers and he was the reason can you imagine how bad he was. He needs to learn how to be a people person

December 10, 2004 4:54 PM  

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