In a letter addressed to Rye residents, Rye PBA prez Franco Compagnone is warning impending 2011 budget cuts are "reckless" and asking residents to speak out at the city council meeting next Wednesday, December 15th.
Compagnone details the impacts of proposed cuts in manpower including cuts in the youth officer / D.A.R.E. and the marine unit. The letter says in part:
"The mayor stated several times that ”hard choices” needed to be made. Mr. Mayor, there are “hard choices” and there are “bad choices”, your 2011 choices are “reckless choices”. A new City Manager & New City council with no Police experience or expertise whatsoever in “restructuring” the city’s most important public safety resource is a recipe for disaster."
I couldn’t agree more. Public safety should always be the last thing you cut in a budget. More importantly, I didn’t see anyone that spoke last meeting about any of the issues including the Rec department, library etc say they want lower taxes except for Mayor Dunn. If you lose police manpower because of forced retirement or restructuring of the department and then all of a sudden you need it, what happens then? People move to Rye because of what we have and offer. Don’t tell me that services won’t change. Why wasn’t eliminating one of the lieutenant’s positions mentioned? What happens if Det. Wood is busy on a burglary investigation and then some youth incident happens. You can’t have him 2 places in one time. How do you then prioritize the importance of whatever investigation he is working on and the youth problem? What happens if they both happen to be huge problems? I am not saying don’t give the money to the library but I don’t believe that they have as many people going in to the library as they are insisting. Instead of closing their doors on a Saturday why can’t they be closed on a Tuesday? Why does the library always benefit but the public safety of this town doesn’t seem to really be high on the list. Why can’t you just let the budget stay status quo?
If I sat here and said I wasn’t thoroughly CONFUSED, I would be lying!!!
I thought PEDESTRIAN SAFETY was the PRIORITY????
Everyone knows I was the biggest pain in the ass for the last 4 years to the RPD. My methods and language may not have always been received the way I hoped, but my message was always the same……we need the POLICE to do what they were sworn to do on oath, “PROTECT & SERVE”……. keep us safe!
Now that the RPD (for the most part) is hearing that message and adhering to it, we tell them “do it with less”……
I DON’T GET IT???
The RPD is a big part of the SOLUTION to PUBLIC/PEDESTRIAN SAFETY!!!
How in the world is cutting man power to a bare minimum resolving our problems and keeping THE CHILDREN SAFE???
We don’t have enough man power now to even put a cop on Purchase Street all day, the most CONGESTED STREET we have!!!
i keep hearing nothing but folks screaming about how we can’t cut money from their favored groups BUT THEY NEVER TELL US WHERE THE CUT SHOULD COME FROM ELSEWHERE .
HOW ABOUT IT FOLKS ……. TELL US ALL SPECIFICALLY WHERE WE SHOULD CUT SPENDING BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW WE HAVE TO CUT SOMEWHERE !! WESTCHESTER COUNTY IS CUTTING AND NY STATE WILL BE CUTTING . RYE HAS TO AS WELL . WE HAVE LIVED BEYOND OUR MEANS . OUR TAXES IN WESTECHESTER ARE HIGHEST IN ALL USA .
The old saying is that if you want to hide an elephant – hide him in plain sight. Thus all the nonsense the administration puts citizen’s through if they dare ask to see the books about the hidden elephantine spending this tiny municipality does on unnecessary legal fees and unnecessary litigation.
These amounts are so substantial that the scope of Rye’s overall litigation activities is now being purposely obfuscated at the council meetings. Thanks to The Rye Record, we’ve discovered a case Rye just lost at a jury trial in White Plains that was never even mentioned as being in court! How much more of this stuff is out there? And how much do we spend on it? Could it be in excess of say – $500,000? That’d end this budget debate right here and now.
Try getting an answer (a complete and candid one) from any one of them up there these days. And so I have to ask – what’s next? Attendance by taxpayers at council meetings is maybe to be by FOIL only?