Dear Editor,
It was interesting, but not surprising to read the PBA “union” supports and aligns itself with the Rebuild Party for the upcoming Village elections.
This is the same union, when attending a Village meeting where the Trustees were trying to find sustainable methods to keep the OPD functional beyond a one year budgeting process, and whose union attorney stated that she did not see what all the fuss was about as her math indicated that it would cost the village households only about an additional ($450) more per year to meet the OPD/PBA agenda. Can your household(s) take on any more additional monetary burdens? If so then I guess the Rebuild Party and the PBA are properly aligned.
We cannot fault the PBA attorney for taking her stance as it is her job, and ultimately affects her salary – to obtain as much money as she can from the taxpayers, but we can ask if the union has the taxpayer’s best interest at heart or theirs.
It is also the same PBA that the OPD Chief, when asked a simple question on manpower while we sorted things out, ran to even though the Chief is not a PBA member and the Village should be her first importance. A simple question that could have been properly discussed and addressed by the Chief with the then Police Commissioner instead was determined by the PBA announcing that the PBA was pulling a shift off duty. That was the Chief’s and PBA’s decision, not the Village Board’s, so again it begs the question of whose best interest is being served via the Rebuild Party? The PBA union or the Village?
In any political endeavors or functions there is always going to be hard issues to wrestle with. The choice is whether to take the easy path and hide from them, as has been the past practice, or try to find workable sustainable solutions for the taxpayers to consider, no matter how much your opponents try to tear them down.
At least the current Board has been willing to take on those hard issues and solve them instead of just passing it on to the taxpayers.
Sincerely yours,
Earl Hartman
Trustee Ward 2
