Police and living wage

There were two things yesterday that caught my interest.

The first would be the report I heard on WSPD that a local businessman is making an effort to raise private money to fund a police and fire class. I was disappointed that in the report, they never elaborated on who or how, but I found it interesting. I was hoping to find a link to a story about it where I could get more info, but I could not. Hopefully I can soon.
Even more interesting was the mayor's reaction, saying that the businessman should not bother and that his office was better equipped to deal with such things. Apparently, the mayor hasn't looked at his budget lately. That would be the budget that contains no money for a police and fire class. One can only assume that if the businessman had been raising money for flowers in front of vacant storefronts, the mayor would have been on board.

The second item of interest was Ben Konop's attempt to institute a living wage resolution for the County Commissioners. An interesting idea, but from my research, not something that the commissioners can do legally. According to Maggie Thurber, Pete Gerken attempted this before and was informed of the same thing. You can link to her blog at the left to read about it. You would think that a lawyer would be able to figure these things out ahead of time. Maybe it's just best that Konop stick to his own version of planting flowers and tend to fairly harmless and uncomplicated things like poet laureates, artists and fat czars.

At some point, the city and the county have to elect some public officials who can do something besides rearrange the deck chairs on this sinking ship without tripping over themselves.