I agree with you wholeheartedly. My thoughts were the same about the measly sum of $5,000 dedicated to helping Tosans pay their medical bills, which help is apparently outside of the purview of a municipal government's responsibilities. This $300,000 allocation for a ("it is not a tank") vehicle should not be made. Let's have more community policing and attention paid to our infrastructure and roads.
Council had one of the most intense debates we ever had; over $5,000 of the previous year's council development funds for medical debt relief of Tosans, which failed, yet with little fanfare, we will spend $300,000 on this. What about getting all the new community service officers some gear for $300,000? Also, my district has plenty of potholes and a broken creek.
Escalation is not the answer in times of societal decay. I shake my head with all the stuff going on in the national news.
All this said, the new strategic plan we did feels like window dressing.
There’s some precedent for the “not a tank” messaging. Fortunately the article makes clear that the differences between the BearCat and a tank are real, significant and important:
I agree with you wholeheartedly. My thoughts were the same about the measly sum of $5,000 dedicated to helping Tosans pay their medical bills, which help is apparently outside of the purview of a municipal government's responsibilities. This $300,000 allocation for a ("it is not a tank") vehicle should not be made. Let's have more community policing and attention paid to our infrastructure and roads.
Bearcat for $300,000? Ridiculous. One more step toward militarizing the police force.
Council had one of the most intense debates we ever had; over $5,000 of the previous year's council development funds for medical debt relief of Tosans, which failed, yet with little fanfare, we will spend $300,000 on this. What about getting all the new community service officers some gear for $300,000? Also, my district has plenty of potholes and a broken creek.
Escalation is not the answer in times of societal decay. I shake my head with all the stuff going on in the national news.
All this said, the new strategic plan we did feels like window dressing.
There’s some precedent for the “not a tank” messaging. Fortunately the article makes clear that the differences between the BearCat and a tank are real, significant and important:
https://omaha.com/opinion/columnists/column-why-the-differences-between-a-bearcat-and-a-tank-are-important/article_83bf39a0-61f6-11ed-b41f-0f3cd1aa9473.html