Kojak

This is not a personal attack on you, Sharon. I think that you have very honorable intentions and will make a great city council member. I also appreciate all the support you have shown to fire and police in the past especially during the pay referendum fiasco.

I think it's time that Mayor Miller is exposed for the vengeful attack she launched on public safety employees.

I do, however, have to express my disappointment with the Mayor and your unwillingness to call out or go after her over recent events. Ever since I started reading your web site, I was always impressed with the way you took on the wrong doers, liars, cheaters and scoundrels of city politics. I was especially proud of the way you went after Con-Jerk since he was one of the most vicious and vindictive mayors ever to screw over public safety workers.

Step Back, ". . . here's why I can disagree with Mayor Miller and still be her friend and still be a big supporter.
When Mayor Miller opposed the pay referendum, she had nothing personal to gain. She had just won an election with a 17% margin of victory. I disagreed with her then, and still think denying the PSO their 17% parity raise was a mistake."

Although, I am sure you are well aware of the recent step increase cuts the Mayor shocked and surprised us with, your readers may not be since the Dallas Managed News is not reporting it.

What the Mayor did was not only a shock and a surprise, but will have a devastating effect on the police and fire departments that will last a very long time with very serious consequences.

For the information of your readers who may not have heard about it, the Mayor held a straw vote which passed to take away pay step increases for public safety workers (so much for that so called raise).

These step increases are basically cost of living adjustments that keep us from falling further behind due to inflation and lack of raises over the years. It is also a very important part of hiring and being able to retain officers in the police and fire departments.

The step increases were also thought (at least by me) to be a condition of agreeing to work in a city like Big D. Why in the world would any young officers come to work for this city without these step increases every other city has, and why would any young officer with the DPD or DFD now stay here now that he/she has been informed that they are topped out in pay before they even have a chance to climb the pay scale?

They will not stay here and I don't blame them one bit.

Back to the Mayor. The manner that she did this is very telling of her real feelings toward law enforcement and fire department personnel. Laura Miller alone proposed this budget cut at the last minute without prior notice. She obviously had planned this ahead of time and knew she had the votes to do it because the council discussed it only two minutes and voted to approve it. How often does this council agree on anything in only two minutes? Council member Mary Poss reportedly tried to protest but was silenced by Miller. The council moved on to the next item (reminds me of Con-jerk shutting people up).

If Mary Poss made a stink, it was because she knew the votes were there to pass it and she was grandstanding. Poss campaigned against the 17% as well as Mayor Miller.

Silly me, I had thought Miller had promised to listen to everyone and to get all points of view. We have been informed that after all the budget cuts, and finding a way to spend $50K to keep their hot catered meals (that one blows my mind away), the council had a surplus of $3.7 million.

The step increases they took away saved about $3.4 million. The council and Mayor could have kept our step increases (since they love us so much) and still had a surplus of about $300K. Yet they did not, they chose to keep the cuts in the budget.

I believe Mayor Miller's move was calculated, vengeful and served as a payback to police and fire for the pay referendum fiasco, the bad press she received, and those funny little T-shirts we printed up to show our disgust with her betrayal. The actions of the Mayor (and the council) are vengeful, mean spirited and down right purposely hurtful to pubic safety employees (again, I'm reminded of Con-Jerk).

I submit to you that Mayor Miller does not "love us" and is purposely hurting us to get even with us and to put us in our place. At the same time, she is breaking her promise to the citizens of Dallas to give public safety a 15% raise over three years (5/5/5). As far as the 5% this year goes, how is it considered a raise when they delay it, raise our insurance rates and eliminate all future step increases?

I want to remind you that had the DPA not endorsed the Arena sales tax -- after we had mailed out a piece stating the DPA's opposition to the sales tax -- we might not have lost by 1700 votes, we might not be in our current financial mess and Ron Kirk might not have run for a second term. But, that was another election and issue.

I notice that you enjoy assigning nicknames to public figures on you web site and feel that maybe it's time Laura got a nickname and was exposed for what she is doing to us on your web site like so many others you have exposed in the past.

With the exception of Duh Alan Walne, it takes self-dealing to earn a DallasArena.com nick name.

We are planning a march on city hall on Wednesday, September 25th, 2002 at 9 A.M. I also plan to take each city council member and the Mayor a TV dinner since their lunch time feasts take such precedence over public safety matters.

Thank you for the opportunity to expose Mayor Miller's dirty little secret in the forum of your web site.

Sincerely,

Kojak