Also see: Support Your Local Police Protester
If I SEE ONE, I am going to STOP and tell the protesters I SUPPORT THEM!!!
"Police protest civilian flaggers in Woburn " by David Abel, Globe Staff October 7, 2008
WOBURN -- About 50 off-duty police officers surrounded civilian flaggers directing traffic around a road project, heckling the workers as part of continued protests of the governor's new rules curbing paid police details at road projects.
"I hope you sleep at night," shouted Stoneham Patrolman Joe Ponzo at the workers in neon vests and hardhats. "You should be ashamed of yourself -- you're union. This is a travesty."
Off-duty officers from Arlington, Medford, Everett, and Woburn lined Lexington Street, a two-lane road where traffic backed up in both directions because of the protest. At one point, the workers for Mass. Highway had to stop cleaning catch basins because of the demonstration.
Several uniformed Woburn officers responded to the scene after one of the off-duty officers drove the wrong way between traffic cones, saying the civilian flagger sent him in the wrong direction. Woburn Police Chief Phillip Mahoney came to Lexington Street and warned the off-duty officers to stay behind the white line at the edge of the road.
At a press conference later at a Massachusetts Highway facility in Arlington, Commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky said the state would consider pressing charges against any police officer who interferes with the flaggers' work.
Are YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME?!
"I believe some of their actions were unlawful," Paiewonsky said. "It's too early to speculate on what steps we'll take. But clearly you cannot walk into an active work zone."
New regulations enacted by Governor Deval Patrick allow the use of civilian flaggers at some road projects instead of paid police details. The administration estimates that the new policy will save the state between $5.7 million and $7.2 million.
Police union officials are angry over what they say was unfair treatment during the administration's drafting of the law. Last week, police union members protested two work sites, forcing state workers to abandon the projects on the first day under the new regulations.--more--"
Of course, "flushing . . . millions of dollars away supporting a highly profitable industry" when it comes to $300 million in taxpayer dollars for Hollywood is o.k., even as the price of a school lunch rises; paying $13 million for a computer software system that could have cost less than $3 million is all right because the winner was a close friend of the House speaker, even as my poorer-than-dirt district "has been struggling to close a $2 million budget gap."; the lottery shellling out "millions of dollars" for sports tickets for "lottery officials, their family members, and friends" is fine, even as schools are closing; making interest payments to banks to the tune of "a staggering $22 billion" for the Big Pit, as we call it around here, is required, even as bridges are neglected across the state; and again, paying off banks like UBS, who can "demand repayment of an additional $2 million a month beginning in January" while also receiving a "$179 million payment," while the state pension fund loses $1 billion dollars -- which still didn't stop the executive director from carving himself a nice "$64,000 bonus on top of his $322,000 annual salary."
Oh, and did I not mention the $1 BILLION dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical corporations, even though "it's never been easy to turn a profit in biotech?" Flush that money away, too, taxpayer. Of course, the war looters were next in line for a handout. And should the state be appropriating money for a "multimillion-dollar reconstruction" of golf courses?
Nor is it RECKLESS to BORROW the STATE INTO OBLIVION so they can PAY INTEREST to BANKS while SITTING ON $2 BILLION DOLLARS!
But NOT ENOUGH $ to keep the cops watching the roads, huh?
PFFFFFFTTTT!?
For more Boston Globe police bashing, see: Off-duty officers jeer, impede civilian flaggers
Just the terminology shows which side the pro-corporate, pro-elite Boston Globe falls on this issue:
"Details: To protect and serve self-interest
Wrongheaded off-duty police protesters, including one who drove the wrong way down a Woburn street yesterday, are not gaining any traction with the public.
Sigh! The fucking LYING Boston Globe!
Whadda ya mena they ain't gaining traction with the public? HERE I AM, Globe!!!
An estimated $7 million is wasted each year because of paid police details for minor road work that doesn't require their presence. The Patrick administration had the gumption to use civilian flaggers instead on some state highway projects, so in recent days angry officers have taken to picketing work sites. The protesters did manage to disrupt the Mass. Highway project in Woburn for a while, but the work resumed thanks to the intervention of Woburn Police Chief Philip Mahoney. Civilian flaggers send a clear signal that government waste cannot be tolerated."
Unless it goes to PHARMACEUTICAL CORPORATIONS, WAR-LOOTING "DEFENSE" FIRMS, or FAT-CAT CORPORATE FRIENDS of LEGISLATORS!!!
Fuck you, Boston Globe!
