>>> Dear V.P. Harris -- and ALL OTHERS:
Dear President Biden,
This is CHOCK full of Fun & Humor -- for those who find them both in "The Art of Life" (or "of Living" -- depending).
If you DON'T enjoy this -- I DO hope you soon WILL!!! The consequence to the Survival of Constitutional Democracy rests on YOUR SHOULDERS -- and there's NO TIME for all this Irish-Catholic HORSE SHIT -- GET IT ??? ??? ???
https://theweathercontinues.blogspot.com/2024/04/microsoft-today-saved-this-blog-from.html
Thank you for Your Consideration ,
Scott David Kenan
Wilmington, North Carolina
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The New Hanover County school district’s $20 million budget hole has been well covered, including here on The Dive. But there’s been substantially less said about a comparable $18.4 million budget shortfall for the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.
The county’s proposed $108-million public safety budget, over 75 percent of which goes to the sheriff’s office, compensates for that. It’s actually slightly higher than the $100.5 million public school budget for the first time in recent history.
The sheriff’s office increase is driven largely by overtime pay for staff, in particular at the detention center, which has been dealing with staffing shortages. There are currently 35 open positions among a staff of roughly 600, and turnover has been high.
Two policy changes last fiscal year also increased overtime costs: raising overtime pay from 150 percent to 200, and compressing the overtime period from 28 to seven days.
The change caught the county off guard. As Chief Financial Officer Eric Credle acknowledged during a budget meeting last week, “We missed that one, for sure.”
So, for the upcoming year, the county has budgeted $11.4 million for overtime at the sheriff’s office. County officials hope that the overtime costs will level out in time, although they’ll still face challenges recruiting and retaining officers.
This budget conversation took less than 10 minutes, without the weeks of turmoil that accompanied the school budget discussions.
That’s in part because Sheriff Ed McMahon didn’t propose thinning his ranks to cover the gap, whereas Superintendent Charles Foust has suggested cutting hundreds of positions. And unlike the schools, which get around 57 percent of funding from the state, local law enforcement is primarily a county-budget line item–in other words, there’s nowhere else to look for funding.
And historically, law enforcement budget requests get little pushback. The 2020 calls to “defund the police,” which never got much traction in New Hanover County even at their loudest, have since faded.
Still, there is an interesting sort of symmetry here.
Law enforcement and public education employees both routinely tell me they feel like a persecuted class: Broadly speaking, teachers feel attacked by the right, and detectives and deputies feel denigrated by the left. Both feel under-compensated for their expertise and experience and overburdened with multiple roles and excessive bureaucracy.
Teachers can’t just teach; they must now worry about social skills, emotional and behavioral regulation, and avoid allegations of indoctrination. One school board candidate has even suggested that teachers take up arms to help provide school security.
Patrol officers are likewise asked to be mentors, community figures, drug counselors, and–perhaps most dangerously and frustratingly out of their lane–mental health workers.
Add to that soaring inflation and housing costs which dampen any benefit that modest increases in compensation could bring. The situation is not sustainable if attrition and turnover rates are any indication.
The plight of teachers has been well documented. There’s no shortage of political wrangling over funding for schools, and the public knows what the stakes are if they are left without quality teachers.
And while there’s ample coverage of law enforcement’s problems, from use of force to lack of transparency, there’s been far less conversation about what’s going on behind the scenes. That’s due in no small part to the fraught relationship between law enforcement, which often feels like it’s under attack by the press, and journalists, who see these agencies as opaque and defensive. Cops and reporters don’t trust each other, to put it mildly.
But the erosion of morale, experience, and staff in law enforcement agencies is still an important story. We know what happens if you throw a first-year teacher, with minimal support, into a class of students dealing with mental health, learning, and language issues. What happens when we throw a rookie detective on a complex child sex abuse case or staff the jail with a small, overworked crew?
Those are concerns that can’t be fixed with a budget increase alone.
–Benjamin Schachtman
Catch up on an audio conversation on last week’s edition of The Dive here, or contact us with story ideas and feedback at wilmington@theassemblync.com.
>>> MORE EVIDENCE AGAINST SHERIFF ED MCMAHON!!!:
https://theweathercontinues.blogspot.com/2020/07/sheriff-mcmahon-helped-plan-last-nights.html
https://theweathercontinues.blogspot.com/2020/10/my-second-letter-to-pope-francis.html
It’s not yet clear what actions the city could take. However, back in 2011 — District Attorney Ben David filed a civil injunction on behalf of the state against Club Rhino, a downtown club linked to repeated incidents of gang-related violence. The establishment closed shortly afterward — although that was far from the end of the region’s problems with gun violence.
In the coming years, David would later expand his use of civil injunctions to target criminal behavior at several hotels on the Market Street corridor, and later a list of specific gang members. The so-called 'anti-gang' injunction faced a challenge from the ACLU, but was ultimately allowed to lapse; David defended the civil measure and said it had been successful. In an interview late last year, David said he would still support the use of injunctions if and when needed.
And ALL OF THESE UNCONSTITUTIONAL TRICKS on behalf Ben David's First Presbyterian Church that with the Cameron Family and their Live Oak Bank and also Brunswick County Repub D.A. Jon David and his St. Andrews/Covenant Presby Church (in New Hanover County -- LOL!!!), TOP LOCAL CIA Agent Kevin Maurer, with help of JEW-GONE BAD Atty. Gen. Josh Stein and Presbyterian Governor Roy Cooper , ALL WORK for my Kenan Family and Vladimir Putin !!!
