Well, what’s a Halloween without a horror story?
Proposition 1 is a $192 million public safety bond, aimed to pay for new police and fire headquarters, an emergency operations center, and a public-safety center, among other things, in various locations in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake police have gone as far as having a Halloween spectacle for the kids to share in, in the current capital public safety building. The goal was to show the public through this event, how shabby the building is, in order to draw further attention and hopefully sympathy for Proposition 1.
Personally, I don’t know enough about Proposition 1 to have an opinion on its merit. I don’t live in Salt Lake City either, so this doesn’t effect my taxes. It’s been off my radar. It took the email of a friend to clue me in on it.
It appears that “a chief”, either Police Chief Chris Burbank (who denies it) or some other police chief, or Fire Chief Dennis McKone (who’s keeping his mouth shut) or some other fire chief; directed 911 dispatchers to stuff envelopes with propaganda pushing to support Proposition 1 in Salt Lake City during their “down” times on the job.
It is first claimed that no chief was involved. Then, when an email was leaked, the claim has changed to it being the act of an “over-zealous employee”, who’s identity has not been released. Burbank denies any involvement at all, claiming he was out of town at the time. However, the email sure seems to say that either he, or the fire chief, not only knew what was going on, but orchestrated it.
The e-mail in question is from Dispatch Supervisor Roxann Cheever to all 911 dispatchers:
We have been asked by the chiefs of police and fire to help stuff envelopes with information in regards to our new building. There are 50,000 envelopes that need to be stuffed with a pre-folded letter and building brochure. If you all could please help by kindly taking a box of each to stuff over the weekend as they need to be done by the first of next week. Consider this our part of helping with the campaign for the new building! The envelopes do not have to be sealed, just put the stuffed ones back into the boxes for administration to pick up.
The materials are located in the lineup room and the hallway (west end), be sure to stuff each envelope with a letter and brochure.
The chiefs have expressed their appreciation to all of you for your time!
All told, an estimated 40,000 envelopes were stuffed, by between 14 and 16 dispatchers during the graveyard shifts.
No matter who was behind it, state law was violated. City employees are forbidden from electioneering on taxpayer’s money. Police administrators shut down the project the moment they found out about it and City Attorney Ed Rutan ordered that none of the mailers will be sent. Burbank has claimed they will be destroyed.
Furthermore, public servants should not be allowed to hide the identify of someone who is breaking the law. Cheever won’t name names, but has come out to say that it was “a chief” and that she would have never sent such a memo without that chief’s instigation.
Chief Burbank has said that he has no intention of punishing or even identifying the “over-zealous employee”, claiming that, “It was an error in judgment, but not a matter that requires discipline.”
The message here from the Salt Lake police is very, very clear: If one of The Blue breaks the law, we won’t even tell you who it was. We are above the laws we enforce. Or perhaps that should be, we are above the laws that we force on you.
