NOREEN: A meth garage and the case for pay cuts
Colorado Springs City Councilman Tom Gallagher went last week to a place no councilman had gone before when he said police retaliated against him for suggesting city employees should not be immune from pay cuts.
Gallagher moved into a home with a detached garage that once housed a meth lab. Like other meth labs, the garage had placards identifying it as a place with hazardous substances.
Gallagher called code enforcement because he wanted to park a car in the garage, code enforcement referred him to the police. Gallagher was told he could not use the garage.
The inevitable newspaper story resulted in a mild calamity. Some readers had no trouble believing police would misuse their power to exact revenge on a councilman; others made much of Gallagher’s financial distress, which has forced him to live in a poor neighborhood.
First, our police department does not operate that way. Even if it did, its leadership is far too smart to pick public fights with councilmen.
Second, if you do not know someone with financial problems right now, you need to get out more.
“If I didn’t put it out there, the rumors would have started circulating that a councilman had a meth lab in his back yard,” Gallagher said Friday.
But he did back off, acknowledging that “Now I understand the city is enforcing a state law.”
CSPD spokesmen, understandably, would have nothing more to say about the matter, and it was a very good time for a columnist to get a “no comment.”
Gallagher regretted that the story “caused a lot of heat with my colleagues” and he said, “I’m not questioning the integrity of the police department.”
Let’s put the episode aside and get back to Gallagher’s original “sin,” which was to suggest that pay cuts may be in the offing.
It’s still too early to say if pay cuts should be part of the 2011 city budget, but as private sector businesses have discovered, pay freezes, hiring freezes, layoffs and furloughs can only take you so far. An organization can reach a point where further workforce reductions are not feasible, so pay cuts are on the table.
Gallagher’s motor runs a bit hot and sometimes he uses fiery rhetoric to make a point that isn’t that radical, when you stop and think about it. Despite that, and partly because of it, Gallagher was the top vote-getter among at-large councilmen.
“I know city employees are feeling under-appreciated, and that’s not me,” Gallagher said.
As unpopular as it is with city workers, Gallagher defends the pay cut notion because he thinks it would save some jobs.
CSPD was only doing its job. Gallagher, a willing lightning rod, was doing his.
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