Loading ...A Plan That Was Already In the Making
Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson says he wants to put more than 100 new officers on the street, however I’m learning that the Administration was planning to do this a few months ago.
Sources tell me IMPD is planning to make up 200 conditional offers of employment to applicants who are going through the screening stage, with hopes of landing the 100 officers. They’ve completed the physical fitness, polygraph and interview stage. If they complete their background checks they are eligible to start at the academy when the new classes start later this year.
Sources say a decision was made last week by IMPD to combine the combine the October 15 and December 31 classes. It would take 22 weeks to train the officers and another 16 before they were fully sworn officers, so none of the new recruits would hit the streets until April of 2008.
The two classes would get the 100 applicants, the average class size is 55. The academy was not happy with this because of the large number of applicants; 55 is hard enough to manage so the quality of the training might suffer. However, the higher ups reportedly demanded they go to 100. This would explain why some of the new tax money would go towards training.
IMPD officials are meeting in the morning to talk about this, which leads me to believe there was no plan in place prior to the Mayor’s announcement today but this also begs another question. IMPD had four recruit classes scheduled between now and the end of 2008. October 15, 2007, December 31, 2007, June 23, 2008 and December 29, 2008. And assuming a recruit class size of 50 officers, we would eventually have 200 new officers. So are we really adding new officers or just speeding up the harvest by hiring people we were going to hire anyway?
This all seems a bit rushed to me. And I don’t know if this is the best way for public safety to operate. I want more officers on the street, but not like this. Besides, I thought we were only short by nine officers.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Puh-lease. The Star titled today’s article “Mayor links tax hike to crime fighting”.
Problems with that -
1) A ton of this money is for pensions. Pensions don’t fight crime, cops do.
2) Said pensions are old city, not county.
3) City could have covered its own debt if it didn’t give out tax abatements to Frineds of Bart et al.
4) City could been in black ink if it had resisted the Colts and Pacers siren calls for new facilities.
Still not enough cops being added. Half of center township plus 42nd and Post plus a bunch of other locations are under control of gangs - not the goernment.
Welcome to Detroit. Welcome to Baghdad.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Someone needs to go through Bartie’s budget. WHY does this city need six deputy mayors? Is Bart that bad? WHY do each of those deputy mayors need two cars each? WHY? Where is the accountability.
Bart lies!
June 27th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Exactly which number do we add the 100 to? The number that shows us 177 short or the one that shows us 9 short? The real question is how many officers will be on the street patrolling? Why are we just now realizing that more officers are needed? I believe Chief Spears said we were short in May and Sheriff Anderson said we were short two years ago. I’m glad we’re adding officers, but at this point, this administration has lost all credibility on the issue.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
The officer in charge of hiring for IMPD was at the Pike GOP Meeting. He said as of this evening he had not heard one word on how they were going to hire 100 more officers.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Also the mayors office has said we are just 9 under authorized staffing level. Are they going to bump up the staffing level by 100 or we will be just hitting that level after the 100 “New” officers are added ?
June 28th, 2007 at 6:46 am
There appears to be a general concensus that the 100 “new” officers that the Mayor stated would be “added” were, in fact, already included in the city’s current budget. In other words, they do not intend to “add” any “new” officers but simply count the ones already in the pipeline now and add others to replace those that retire.
So, in effect, there will not be any net gain of new officers, just a continuance of the same level of manpower that has money has already been set aside for in the current budget.
So, why was there a need for the $90 million when the money was already in the budget for what the Mayor is calling “new officers”?
Go figure. Figures lie and liars figure. This is one of the most outrageous slight of hand, play on words, deception ever perpetrated on the taxpayers of the city next to the Oil Can Stadium fiasco.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:07 am
I don’t believe a word the Mayor says anymore and am strongly considering selling my property and moving to the suburbs…and I HATE the suburbs! That should say how fearful I am about staying in Marion County with Peterson running things. He’s screwing us all over in favor of his rich friends like Irsay.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:15 am
To all Indianapolis homeowners who will be selling their homes this year.
Peterson’s development company is currently building new homes in subdivisions in Hamilton and Johnson Counties. Check them out!
June 28th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Yes, I’d love to sell my house in 46201 area too but who in the hell would buy it? Whites and their money are welcome downtown while the rest of Center Township becomes an urban prairie in a few years. That’s what Bart’s created. God help those folks in Williams Creek and Meridian Hills as well because they are going to take in the shorts too. The new Flight is starting to take shape and it’s a damn shame!
What we are really looking at is the modern day equivalent OF BLOCK BUSTING.
SELL NOW AND SELL LOW WHILE YOU CAN STILL GET OUT, unless of course, you’d like a nice $400,000 glorified apartment condo (with FULL police protection) in our new WHITES ONLY DOWNTOWN!
This town’s going to rip apart soon and I sure don’t want to be where I am now when it happens.
Complete and utter hopelessness in town of poverty, crime, death and dispair with no where left to run.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly Preside Over Graduation Ceremony for 1,097 New Police Officers
Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly today presided over a graduation ceremony for 1,097 new police officers at Madison Square Garden. The graduates recently completed approximately seven months of intensive training at the Police Academy in various field assignments.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Ok, Indy is NO NYC! And please note that it took seven months to train officers. Bart wants the money but has no intention of spending it where he says.
Can someone answer for me what happened to the money the city got when they took over Washington Township Fire? The cash is why the city wants the Fire department, and that would be fine IF they are spending the money back on the fire department, training, etc…
Bart is a liar. I have the bumper sticker to prove it.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
“Bart is a liar. I have the bumper sticker to prove it.”
Such is the epistemology of the contemporary GOP … kinda sad, really!
June 28th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I see Wilson is posting anonymously now. How refreshing.
As for what as what 1:10 pm - let me quote Wilson’s favorite lady:
“I got no nickel in that dime”
Julia Carson
June 28th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Sorry! That indeed was me at 4:09pm - somehow this particular blog requires re-entering name & email each time one comments. I overlooked it. Crumbly cookies?
July 1st, 2007 at 11:07 am
To whom it may concern,
For a donation of $10.00 You can own your own “BART LIES” tee shirt. Sizes S to XL.
For a donation of $12.00 You can own your own “BART LIES” tee shirt. Sizes XXL to XXXL.
For a donation of $7.00 You can own your own “BART LIES” YARD SIGN.
For a donation of $2.00 You can own your own “BART LIES” bumper sticker.
All donations will be used for fighting political corruption and negligence.
Take a stand. Its time to clean up Indianapolis.
The web site is up and running. We expect Yard Signs Tuesday July 3 rd. The shirts by Friday.
http://www.hoosierpac.com
Hoosiers for Honesty in Government
PO Box 29263
Indpls. IN 46229-9998
Thanks for your support!