Governor Patrick, legislature gut Quinn Bill
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By Jim Carnell, Pax Editor eneging on a 40-year promise, Gov. Deval Patrick and many members of the legislature recently cut the state’s funding for the Quinn bill to a paltry 20% of the amount they owe the cities and towns for officers who have earned college degrees. Bowing before the altar of the Boston Globe editorial board, Gov. Patrick effectively left cities and towns holding the financial bag. Police officers across the state (continued on page A5)
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Nation’s First Police Department • Established 1854
Volume 39, Number 4 • July/August 2009
PAXCENTURION Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, Inc. Boston Emergency Medical Technicians
Patrick administration replaces cops with criminals… at $20.00 more per hour By Jim Carnell, Pax Editor hen Governor Deval Patrick promised during the campaign in 2006 that he’d put “1,000 new police officers on the streets”, nobody knew that he meant giving the cops pink slips before putting them on the streets. But in an obscene, gross display of the upside-down, demented state in which we reside, the Governor’s animus towards police officers on detail assignment has now taken a bizarre, new twist: scumbags with criminal records are now applying for and receiving flagman jobs, at an average rate of $53.25 per hour, about $20.00 more per hour than a Boston police officer’s detail rate! In the last issue of the Pax, we reported that the average bid for a flagman’s services on a contract issued by Patrick’s MassHighway Dept. was $53.25 per hour. (The actual passage from that contract is reprinted inside on page A15). In light of the phony claims of “cost savings”, which come largely from cop-hating editorial boards at local newspapers, that’s bad enough. After all, a trained, armed, accountable Boston police officer on detail earns from $33.-$37. per hour (depending on location), up to $20.00 less per hour than a flagman. And as we all know, a flagman, confronted with an emergency or a traffic nightmare, can do absolutely nothing other than… call the police! But Governor “Together We Can” Patrick’s administration has managed to sink even lower than fraudulent claims of cost savings. It has come to light over the last few months that the Patrick administration’s flaggers are actually criminals earning more than police officers! In several instances, we have come to learn that newly-hired flaggers have extensive criminal records. For example, Dimitri Long, 32, of Norwood, the socalled “U-30” bank robber, has over 70 arrests on his rap sheet. But according to MassHighway spokesman Colin Durant, “the state doesn’t check the criminal records of
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flaggers”. (Herald, Thursday, July 9th) That, of course, is very much in line with Governor Patrick’s ongoing attempts to gut the CORI law as it relates to criminal records and hiring ex-felons. And Emilio J. Mendez, 32, of Lynn, identified himself to state police who stopped him on I-395 as a flagger telling the trooper “I work with you guys all the time”. Problem was, Emilio also had 11 marijuana plants in plastic bags in his car which he was transporting from Connecticut to Lynn. (Worcester Telegram, July 24th.) Soon, we won’t be able to even tell how many of these felon flagman have replaced cops on the streets at higher pay, because the Governor’s CORI reforms protecting criminals will probably have been passed by the gutless Massachusetts legislature. But the issue was never about “saving taxpayer money” or “freeing up police officers for more important duty” or any other BS. The issue was always and remains today the unbridled, deep-seated hatred of cops by elitist frauds like Governor Patrick and the editorial boards of the Globe and the Herald.
Menino demands police details for state project By Jim Carnell, Pax Editor ublicly bucking both Gov. Deval Patrick and the Globe editorial board, Mayor Tom Menino has refused to issue city permits for a road construction project on Mass. Ave. run by MassHighway. Susi Construction was awarded the $13 million contract. MassHighway and Gov. Patrick have been pushing for the use of flagmen instead of police officers on the project, which is scheduled to proceed up Mass. Ave. and into Cambridge. But the Mayor, to his credit, refuses to cede control of Boston’s streets to utterly useless and far more expensive flagmen. As the Pax has reported in the last issue, flagmen bids for a MassHighway construction project on Route 24 in Stoughton averaged an astounding $53.25 per hour, almost $20.00 more per hour than the Boston police detail (continued on page A5)
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Massachusetts will get the type of society it truly deserves. That’s why our state will soon be losing another congressman, because our population is fleeing in droves. Governor Patrick’s flaggers might not be able to do anything except call the police (who would have been there already) in an emergency or accident. But they can do one thing: give directions; if you’re looking for Concord, Cedar Junction, or Sousa-Barnowski prison facilities, that is!
Officer Michael Davey, Weymouth Police Department Killed in the Line of Duty on a paid detail.
BPPA presents 2009 retirement awards See photos on pages B12 & B13
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