My column, featured in the Herald Sept. 25, raised the issue of whether police presence is necessary at road construction sites.
Because that question has been submitted to us by the public, I took the opportunity to ask two policemen at a Shellbay Avenue construction site for their opinion on the matter. They supported the practice, and felt it is a worthwhile expenditure to guarantee the safety of the workers and the public.
I concluded my column by stating, “If we, the public, don’t want to see resources used this way, we need to exercise due care at such sites making the police presence unnecessary.”
My column prompted the president of the local PBA union to write a caustic letter to the editor, which appeared in the Oct. 9 Herald. He referred to my column as a “‘hit piece’ with only one objective, to further divide the community from the law enforcement officers who swore oaths to protect them.”
It was nothing of the kind, and I was baffled as to how anyone could read it that way. I had a conversation with a friend to seek insight.
He told me that he disagreed with my column’s conclusion. As he sees it, we don’t need police cars there with their lights on to prompt us to slow down; at most, all we need are flagmen.
He added that when we employ our police on these jobs, we need a larger police force, or we will tire them out with unproductive overtime, rendering them less effective in their regular work. We also need a larger fleet of police vehicles.
In many ways, this practice adds significant expense.
I also spoke to a policeman friend of mine to get his perspective on the letter. He said, you know of course, that I support the police, to which I added, so do I. He went on to say the letter is from the PBA, and the PBA is all about increasing police compensation and benefits, and to the issue of this practice, it is wrong.
He observes officers fast asleep in their cars, with their heads back. It is a shame, he said. You know, it costs the contractor around $75 per hour to have each car there, and they don’t have any choice because they have a gun to their heads; they have to pay it, which means in the end, we all foot the bill, he added.
Having mulled this over, I am of the opinion Americans don’t need to be coerced to do what is right. Thus, having the police there in their cars is unnecessary. Where safety requires it, a flagman will do.
If we were the type of society that needed to be coerced, waitresses would not get tips – we would just walk out of the restaurant, leaving her nothing. I see it as a revenue ploy on the part of the PBA.
