Dewey/Terry - Lying or out of touch?

[sgrizzle]

According to Dewey Bartlett, who was caught with his pants down over the JAG grant when the fed shut down due to weather, they HAD to layoff the officers in order to use the JAG grant money. (Which he repeated again to the city council YESTERDAY.

However, in DECEMBER he was told by Ron Palmer they could use the JAG money to retain jobs.
http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=11739678

Also in that same time frame, the FOP was ALSO saying the JAG grant could be used to retain jobs:
http://www.tulsafop93.org/Layoffs.asp

And a document verifying that both Ron Palmer and the FOP were correct was found in Terry Simonson's email
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=334&articleid=20100310_11_A1_Acopyo754204


So... is Dewey/Terry just completely out of touch with reality or lying?

I say we take the $300k we wasted out of the Mayor's staff's budget.. You know, the one whose budgets numbers are currently "missing" from the budget he is asking the city council to approve.

[RecycleMichael]

According to the e-mail, the layoffs had to be a certainty in order to be eligible for the grant funding to be used. It had to be documented in official meeting minutes.

The layoffs were not a certainty while the FOP was deciding whether to accept the same pay cuts as other city employees. The FOP decided for the layoffs instead of paycuts during this time period.

I don't think the administration was lying or out of touch. I think they were hoping the police union would do what I consider the right thing and accept the pay cuts. They didn't.

The money you refer to was owed the officers through accrued leave. It had to be paid upon the officers being laid off or retired.

[Conan71]

The Bartlet (sic) Administration isn't off to a great start. I understand they inherited some problems which were coming regardless of who became mayor and regardless of who the previous mayor was.  They've created some serious PR issues with some visible, high-paid executive staff and the pissing match with the FOP.

Simonson was on KRMG this morning and spoke candidly (I assume so anyhow) about what's going on and said he had no problem being forthright about what happened.  I did not hear him address anything that Chief Palmer might have said back in December.  He laid the blame on the feds shutting down in early Feb. due to the record amount of global warming that was on the ground in D.C.  I can understand the city wanting to move cautiously in wanting to know how federal grant money could be applied to keep from running afoul of the feds or wind up having to pay back something which was misapplied or committing payroll, then finding out there's no funds forthcoming from the fed.  If, in fact, they knew in December this could have been used but refused to follow up in the face of impending police layoffs, they have done us a great disservice.

There were probably some transition issues in administration here which did not help matters, but I also think our current mayor isn't as comfortable at being decisive like our past mayor was.

[Gaspar]

The Bartlet (sic) Administration isn't off to a great start. I understand they inherited some problems which were coming regardless of who became mayor and regardless of who the previous mayor was.  They've created some serious PR issues with some visible, high-paid executive staff and the pissing match with the FOP.

Simonson was on KRMG this morning and spoke candidly (I assume so anyhow) about what's going on and said he had no problem being forthright about what happened.  I did not hear him address anything that Chief Palmer might have said back in December.  He laid the blame on the feds shutting down in early Feb. due to the record amount of global warming that was on the ground in D.C.  I can understand the city wanting to move cautiously in wanting to know how federal grant money could be applied to keep from running afoul of the feds or wind up having to pay back something which was misapplied or committing payroll, then finding out there's no funds forthcoming from the fed.  If, in fact, they knew in December this could have been used but refused to follow up in the face of impending police layoffs, they have done us a great disservice.

There were probably some transition issues in administration here which did not help matters, but I also think our current mayor isn't as comfortable at being decisive like our past mayor was.

I still think it's Bush's fault.

[Conan71]

I still think it's Bush's fault.

Well there is that to consider too

[RecycleMichael]

I still think it's Bush's fault.

It is time to move on. I say blame the Bush daughters.

[T-town girl]

Dewey/Terry are both lying and out of touch! The e-mail proves it - they have been saying from day one that they are going to smash the union - well they did it with our tax money!! I agree they need to reimburse the city out of the mayors office budget!

[sgrizzle]

The money you refer to was owed the officers through accrued leave. It had to be paid upon the officers being laid off or retired.

Yes, but had they never been formally laid off, the city would still have that 300k in the bank and a few more officer on the street.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Yes.

Lying and out of touch.

[TeeDub]

So the officers were laid off and given a severance (unused vacation + unused comp and two weeks pay.)

They automatically get reinstated with vacation and comp time again?    Or do they have to repay that portion of their severance?

[RecycleMichael]

They start over as if they were on the first day of their job.

[MH2010]

The officers wanted to give the severence money back to the city in exchange for their Vacation and comp time back. The money that was paid out was for their vacation and comp time only. The administration said no. They did not want the officers to pay it back.  However the administration gave their sick time back to the officers.

[heironymouspasparagus]

How disgusting can it get??  That is beyond despicable to take those officers jobs like that and then treat them that way!

And Tulsa just keeps on loving the clowns they elect to city office!  Unbelievable!

[rwarn17588]

How disgusting can it get??  That is beyond despicable to take those officers jobs like that and then treat them that way!

And Tulsa just keeps on loving the clowns they elect to city office!  Unbelievable!

If you elect a conservative to office, you shouldn't be surprised if he does conservative things, such as busting unions.

[Conan71]

If you elect a conservative to office, you shouldn't be surprised if he does conservative things, such as busting unions.

You don't think this show-down wasn't coming even with Mayor Taylor?  I could be entirely wrong, but I think this might have more to do with trying to merge some city and county services, especially law enforcement, not busting unions.  Why else would Mayor Bartlet (sic) have brought in Jordan and Simonson from the county, screwed with the PD, but pretty much left the FD alone?  I know, total troofer stuff.