Friday, February 13, 2009

"The unknown is killing us right now"

FRANKLIN —

Losing two good police officers is a difficult reality for Police Chief Stephen Williams, but seeing them wait in line for unemployment checks would be even worse, he said.

So he's feeling relief that two officers who hired here from North Attleborough in the last two years have landed jobs on the Walpole force.

Williams said he knew Walpole was looking for officers, so he helped get Eric Zimmerman and Robert Kilroy hired there.

...

"I don't think anybody anticipated what happened to the economy, or that it would happen as fast as it did," Williams said, adding that he was still trying to restore his force of 46 back to the 50 officers he had in 2000.

Foreseeing the layoffs he would have to make this year because of the town's projected $5 million budget shortfall, Williams said he decided to be proactive to take care of his force.

"Do I feel better these officers (did not face unemployment)? Yes, absolutely I do," Williams said. "It's a win-win for us both. I feel better they were not laid off, and Walpole gets two good officers with several years' experience."

As someone who has had personal experience observing job reductions and then been finally affected by one, good people are the most flexible to move and generally the earliest to leave. I believe that to be the case here. There is likely to be more of the real Franklin "brain drain" before the numbers settle out and we really know what will happen.

Read the full article about two of Franklin's finest moving on in the Milford Daily News here


2 comments:

  1. It is bad that the 2 officers had to leave, what is worse is that the police could be helping themselves by actually giving out tickets when there are violations. Instead, they have been handing out more verbal warnings for some driving violations.
    I was told about 15-20 years ago from one of our officers in blue, that the money they collect goes to the town. To me that implied that the reason they do not want to hand out that many tickets is due to that fact, they want money for the police.
    Well.. I am sorry - but logically that makes no sense what so ever. If the town gets the money to go into the general fund, then that money benefits all depts..
    Nice cozy town ..all one has to do is look out their realitistic window. Ticket money in - beneficial for town from the stupidity we call speeders...and then money for expenses that the police are apart of.

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  2. There should be discretion is ticket enforcement. A zero tolerance policy takes all the judgment out of any situation. A warning may be the best thing for that individual at that time. Repeat failures would then warrant the issuing of a ticket.

    I do believe that ticket revenue does go to the town. Heaven forbid the police actually start doing as you suggest, the hue and cry to the newspapers of injustice will ring supreme like it does any police dept tries to enforce the ticket policy.

    Spend the 20 minutes and review the Barry Schwartz video on practical wisdom. We need more of that, not less.

    The video can be found here
    http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2009/02/celebrate-ordinary-hero.html

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