Disingenuous

Once again we’re now hearing about how it will cost so much more to implement PWC’s crackdown on illegal aliens.  From the WashPo yesterday:

The board learned Tuesday that it will cost Prince William $6.4 million to enforce the policy in the first year, more than twice as much as estimated. The five-year price tag is about $26 million.

. . .

Driving up the cost was Police Chief Charlie T. Deane’s recommendation to install cameras in the county’s 250 police cars to record when suspects are stopped as a way to defend against allegations of racial profiling. Installing cameras and monitoring footage will cost $3.1 million the first year.

The program also will incur higher-than-expected costs for staff overtime, jail crowding and foster-care services for children displaced from their parents. The plan requires an additional 35 police department positions over five years, including 19 in the budget year that starts July 1.

Let me state this here at the outset. I have no problem with the cost of this. I don’t even have a problem if my overall taxes go up to pay for it. This is both a matter of public safety and quality of life.  Those are things that I AM willing to pay for.

What I do have a problem with is Chief Deane (and to the same extent County Executive Craig Gerhart) looking to sabotage this intiative at every twist and turn. He has done everything but come out and say, “I oppose the crackdown!” We’ve heard over the past year the logistical problems they’ll face. We’ve heard his thoughts on what he believes the societal impacts will be. Now we’re hearing him try to boost the cost of this.

Chief Deane either needs to focus on implementing this policy or else step aside and let someone else do the job who will implement it. I don’t care if he agrees with the policy or not. It is not his place to be a back bench supervisor. It is becoming all too common in my experience and others in PWC that the Chief and his top officers are more interested in placating residents with empty words and promises of action than in forming a top-notch police dept.  In fact, my community has become so frustrated by the lack of action by the county police on a variety of issues that we have just entered into a contract for a private patrol service that has arrest powers. If it works out, we may even consider going with the S-COP (Special Conservator of the Peace) option that would allow us to essentially establish our own police force. At least then we could fire them if they weren’t doing their job.

The same thing goes for County Exec. Gerhart who two weeks ago was quoted in the WashPo as saying, “It is certainly unusual for the board to use this money to start a new program.” First, why is Gerhart talking publicly to the press rather than working behind the scenes to implement the will of the BOCS? Again, like Deane, it is his JOB to institute the policy. If he doesn’t like it, he needs to just stop his whining in the press and quit already.

As for the cameras and the monitoring of the footage, that is something we should already have in place and by no means is such usage restricted solely to the apprehension of illegal aliens. I’m actually surprised that the PWC police didn’t already have this capability in place given that we are the second largest county in the Commonwealth and one of the top 20 wealthiest in the nation. Whether this policy was being implemented or not, this is something that our police officers should have.  Same thing with increasing the size of our police force.  We live in a growing county and it needs to grow as well.  However, we need to make sure that the officers that we are bringing onto the force are of the highest quality for a county of PWC’s current stature.

It is completely disingenuous, however, to lay the full cost of all this at the feet of the crackdown as Deane and Gerhart are doing.