Without a doubt this is a highly controversial issue for our community, especially for our Officers and their families. Massive numbers once again showed up for Tuesday night's meeting at the fairgrounds to discuss the take-home-car program. The meeting showed that this issue has many layers.
There are some individuals who would deride the police and say they are not being team players or that they are not pitching in to help out. Others have lately cast scorn on Officers to deflect it from the true source of this issue, Jerry Abramson's inability to manage Metro Government. Let me clearly state to the public, that there is not a single Officer on our department that is unwilling to help out in a crisis, but we have yet to have proof that there is a shortfall. We have only the word of the individual that has mismanaged our finances to the point we now find ourselves in.
This issue means something different for each individual officer. For some Officers it is more about the continuous lack of respect shown by Abramson's administration. For others it is about finding out the truth before we have to dig into our own pockets. For all of us it is about concessions already made at the bargaining table and Abramson's continued disregard for labor law and contracts. For others there are very real economic issues that ending this program would incur upon them. It could be a combination of these and other factors as well.
To the community that I have served faithfully for over 20 years now I tell you that this is now a simple issue about cars. Jerry Abramson has spent lavishly and foolishly. He has diverted Metro funds to private businesses without anyone's approval. His oftentimes snide and contentious spokespeople claim that, ?his interpretation? is that he does have the executive privilege to make decisions that we have seen have had a direct affect on Louisville's economy.
All Metro Employees have been delivered and ultimatum. Pay up or someone will lose their job. His threats and scare tactics were emboldened by the fact that in private industry and across the nation times are hard. The problem that many of us have is that would times be so hard here locally if the Mayor would have been shopping at Sears instead of going on a spending spree at Macy's?
This is not a problem that has happened overnight and it will not be corrected overnight. A bipartisan coalition from Metro Council recently went to the Attorney General's Office for some answers on whether or not Abramson is overstepping his bounds with his lavish spending without anyone else's approval.
As we have pointed out they want answers to questions about why he has given $3.5 million to a private think tank (Downtown Development Corporation) to come up with ideas on improving downtown. They want to know why he gave away the rights to the Naval Ordinance plant's new Technology Park to a client of the law firm he worked at. Titan R&D LLC, ( a tiny company with direct links to Abramson) that for their role in managing Metro Government property get to keep 97% of the proceeds and he gave them a 99 year lease for $1 a year for the rights to do so.
The Metro Council and all Metro Employees not just the unions want to see the numbers. Abramson's short deadline decrees to City Employees to solve a ?projected? budget crisis do not sit well in any corner. Chief White told Officers last week that the fee for the cars was not about paying for gas anymore, it was about making money.
Tuesday's meeting showed that officers were concerned with more than just the ?privilege? to take their cars home. It showed that they were fed up and willing to give up their cars and all it entails. It showed that some were willing to wait and pay Abramson's Extortion for two months so that the council, the AG's office, other yet to be disclosed investigating bodies and Metro Unions has opportunity to go through the records and find out just how deeply this problem goes.
We have seen that this multilayered issue goes far beyond take-home-cars. It shows as the Metro Council is also now questioning that the ?Lordly Ways? as Mr. Dyche so aptly put it, the arrogance and spoiled attitude that are at the forefront of these decisions that have made a train wreck Louisville's economy.
I have hopes that the truth will prevail. I do not have the media in my pocket or my own press corps, but I know that this Country was founded by a grass roots rebellion that started with the dissatisfaction of the common people and spread because the ideals and truths of this community and this nation are greater than one individual's desire for importance and power.