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Pandering Politicians to Blame
From Issue: Volume XX - Number 19
9/21/2012
Les Robbins
My first remarks this issue are to the [page 3] letter writer who identified himself as a police captain, retired. Not sure which department he is retired from but since the LBPD eliminated that rank in the mid nineteen eighties, I am assuming that he retired from some other department.
His comments, however, about the point of my article suggesting that the LBFD would be better off allowing their men and women to lateral over to the L.A. County Fire Department were not made because I have fallen out of love with the LBFD. I have and still do feel that the LBFD has been second to none in both the quality of their personnel and the service that they have provided the citizens of this city for decade upon decade.
What I do not think is fair to any of the men and women of the LBFD is the continued, systematic, destruction of this department by continuing to reduce their numbers and their resources which has and will do nothing but decimate the department, destroy the morale, and in effect turn it into a second rate department.
I cannot imagine that the men and women of this department want to see this happen either and with the exception of two or three top level management personnel all of whom have been promoted to their current ranks in the past few weeks, none of these sworn departmental members are being well served by the changes that they have seen in the past couple of years.
I would like to think that the politicians in this town, who haven’t had any problems asking these same men and women to walk precincts, put out lawn signs, and campaign for them would treat them better than they have.
They pander to these men and women and to their union promising them that they will prioritize public safety number one, but their actions say something completely different. I just don’t think that it is right to kill off this department one step at a time and that is exactly what I see happening.
I am betting that the overwhelming majority of the men and women of the LBFD feel the same way about this as I do. These brave public servants are willing to put their lives on the line each day that they come to work and to be treated with the lack of respect that most of our elected officials treat them with is unconscionable.
If I thought that things would get better in the foreseeable future I might be willing to suggest that we wait things out but I don’t think that things will get better before they continue to worsen. It seems to me that this current group of elected officials has no intention of turning things around on the LBFD.
Never thought that I would see another political candidate running for one of the two highest offices in the land who was as inept and embarrassing as Sarah Palin was four years ago but Willard Mitt Romney has found his way to my list. His recent comments about the poor, disabled, seniors, unemployed and disadvantaged were both embarrassing and ignorant.
I am very happy that the media, not just the media on the left but the main stream media has jumped all over his comments and are really starting to take a very close look at just how detached this man is from reality and just how insensitive he is to the middle class of this country. I still think that this will be a very close election but I am beginning to believe that Romney has a very good chance of self-destructing well before election day arrives.
I have always felt that he was a hypocrite on many issues and when I found out today that he demanded to see 10 years of tax returns from all of the candidates on his short list for VP, when he only releases one full year and a second abbreviated year of returns my feelings about his hypocrisy were only strengthened.
Keep up the good work Willard!
les@longbeachcomber.com
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