Jolly pushes back on bad police plan

Mayor Mark Funkhouser kept up the pressure Tuesday for his irresponsible idea to strip millions of dollars out of the public safety sales tax and use the money to hire more police officers.Good thing that City Council member Cathy Jolly and others are pushing back. They don’t want to make any decision on how to use the tax until the police board weighs in next week. That makes excellent sense, especially since Police Chief Jim Corwin has adamantly refused to include new officers in his plan for using sales tax dollars.Instead, he wants to use most of the public safety funds for capital improvements, such as building new North and East patrols and a new crime lab.But on Tuesday, Funkhouser sent out a release imploring his “friends” to come to the council’s Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee meeting Wednesday and lobby the council to approve money for the officers.Jolly, who is chair of the panel, says she does not plan to take any vote on the matter on Wednesday. Instead, testimony will be taken but the committee will hold the matter – as it should – until next Wednesday, she says.Presumably, by then, the police board will have made its decision on what it would like to include in the tax. Right now, there’s a good bet that zero funding will be included for new officers. Police officials say the department can add more officers with the general fund – not depending on a sun-setted sales tax that could go up or down in revenues every year.So next Wednesday’s planned joint committee meeting with police board members could be the key to what goes on the ballot in November.Funkhouser, naturally, will keep pushing his bad idea. Let’s hope the police board on which the mayor sits and the council don’t approve it. mailTell a friend fb Share on Facebook twitterTweet thisComments: 1. D h: — Jul 27, 2010 3:57 p.m. They really need to start thinking what is going to happen when the E-tax go’s away after November . 2. Nukman: — Jul 27, 2010 3:59 p.m. A couple of weeks ago someone tried to break into my house while my wife was home alone. She called 911 and it took the police from between 7 and 10 minutes to respond. I believe that this was the same individual who broke into a house just south of 103rd Street in Leawood and raped a ninty year old woman. If the Leawood police had been as slow as the KCMO police my wife could have been another victim. KCMO needs more police officers on the street.

via Jolly pushes back on bad police plan | Midwest Voices.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 9:10 am and is filed under City Council, Kansas City, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.