Police to provide security at Utica council meetin

[Swimmy]

Police to provide security at Utica council meetings

A wise safety precaution.

[frankcor]

From the link: “We’re going to provide it and at no additional cost to the taxpayers, meaning no overtime,” LaBella said. Security at council meetings is warranted, he said.

I wonder which neighborhood will go unprotected during council meetings? Or will the patrol in Cornhill have just one officer assigned to it until after the meeting is over?

[Swimmy]

With the additional police, I'm sure they'd be able to conceive a plan that will meet both needs.

[frankcor]

It's just a ridiculous statement: "at no additional expense to the taxpayer." It violates the first law of economics: TANSTAAFL.

I wonder if he meant no additional expense before or after the 7.5% tax increase in the mayor's spending plan?

[Swimmy]

Yeah I'm not an economics major so I don't know the TANSTAFFL law. But I imagine it's like the law of conservation of energy. I'd bet he meant after the 7.5% increase and addition of 8 police

[frankcor]

Sorry. It means: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. But you were very very close.

Oh, and I was wrong again. It's a 7.25% increase, not 7.5%. Darn, that's twice this week.

[Swimmy]

I couldn't remember, so I took your word for it. lol.

[clarencebunsen]

frankcor,
At least you learn your economics from the right books!

[frankcor]

LOL, clarence, you busted me.

I must confess that I discovered Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Goddess real late in the game as the result of my very first "Internet" search. I was trying to find out what TANSTAAFL meant. I had seen net-God Brad Templeton use it in several Usenet postings some time around 1990, I think? Brad may have been the first to discover how to make money on the Internet and was using the term to justify his creation of a commercial enterprise to all the net-anarchists who thought of him as the anti-Christ. He was selling (or maybe still developing) a better version of Usenet called Clarinet.

We had just gotten a copy of Gopher installed on our Unix box at work so I wrote a search to test it out and got a hit! It was pretty exciting despite being so primitive compared to today. There's no way I could have predicted Google based on those early searches, even as we progressed through Archie and then Veronica which gave us the first hypertext links. Heck, we didn't even have a mouse back then and had to type the number of the link we wanted to follow.

[Ralph]

Personally I think it is a little out there to be honest.

After going to the CC meetings for 5-6 years straight, those that were attended by more than 6 people were for public hears where everyonr was very polite.

The rest I sometimes had a hard time staying awake for.

They have more to fear from each other!!

[clarencebunsen]

frankcor,
I'm embarassed to admit I had forgotten Gopher. Embarassed because I still wear my maroon & gold sweatshirt.

If you want go go further back with Heinlein, try the economics lesson in "The Man who Sold the Moon".

And yes, there should be some protection against being bored to death by the CC. At least a warning sign would be good.

[Ralph]

Hell......the only excitement in those meetings was during Caucus when Teresa would read them all the riot act and they would wake up for a minute and go "huh?"

[Swimmy]

I'd take caution with the "it would never happen here" attitude. I'd rather have the safety now than 6 months from now have a fluke situation similar to the Missouri. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Ralph]

I'm not saying it could never happen, nor that we should ignore the possibility.

But considering all the variables involved, along with the response from an officer that will eventually become accustomed to what goes on there......if a similar tragedy is going to take place, it will.
It's all damage control after the first shot is fired.

You want better protection for the Council people and general public, install metal detectors along with the Police presence.

[Swimmy]

Good point. I didn't even think of that. Perhaps that is something either the police or the council will discuss in future meetings. And we'd be giving the Council too much credit to request that the officers rotate every couple of meetings. But medal detectors is a great idea.