Cops overtime, electronic Tolls, home grown Con Man
If you haven't heard, our Town is being sued by 100 Cops seeking 1.2 million in back overtime pay. The Union's attorney contends that the Town never notified employees of any change in calculating overtime for many years. District Court has already ruled in favor of the Town and if the appeal by the cops is won, this Town will have to pay 1.2 million, PLUS pay more in the future for overtime pay. A decision may come in 6 months to year. This is just another example of how poorly Town officials communicate. Let's see if anyone brings this subject up for the Selectman race.
Deval looks at reducing time at toll booths with electronic toll collections. How long you ask, has this technology been around? for years and years. Will it make it easier for tolls to be collected from the North and South commuters who ride the roads for free? You bet it will and would finally address the issue of fairness and equal responsibility for the Big Dig dept, now shouldered by the Mass Pike commuters.
The feds have in custody one of our neighbors. Mr. Richard Elkinson of 2 Ford Lane is accused of bilking 29 million dollars from investors to his Company, Northeast Sales. Last year, investors filed civil action against him and is only now, after failing to appear at two superior court hearings, is finally being brought to justice. It goes to show, even in our little community, con men can live next door and no one notices.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 11:02 AM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
I got to say this whole police overtime things smells bad to me. How can you change overtime pay with out anyone in the union agreeing to it. And isn’t it pretty standard by state law when overtime is being paid? I say the police should have to live by the same laws as the rest of us, you get overtime for anything over 8 hrs in a row, and overtime for anything over 40 hrs in a week, unless you are a salaried employee. How are the cops being paid, and how do they want to be paid that is different from that? Give us more information here Pillsbury.
As I understand this, the Town and the cops agreed to this formula when the Town shifted to a 24 day pay cycle two decades ago. The cops lawyer contends that the cops never were notified..... all these years later for a recent 3 year stretch in claiming overtime pay violations.
Hard to know who is telling the truth.. hence, the appeal in a higher court. Seems hard to understand how the cops could bring this to appeal after so many years and district court denial.
Keep in mind, these union contracts, under collective bargaining are closely guarded secrets with officials and the only winners, if the court rules in favor of the Town, are the lawyers. And if they do loose, the cops will look even worse in the eyes of the public.
This is just another example of their power and last week, the AFL-CIO boycotted a Democratic love-in down in Plymouth last because of Deval's push to get cops of detail work. They set up picket lines and the Governor had to decline showing up.
That toll stuff make me boil. They are going to spend all kinds of money in this economy to put up new tolls and eliminate toll booths. Didn’t we just do away with the Turnpike Authority to save money, and aren’t we at some point suppose to be doing away with tolls altogether? So what is good about this idea?
What is there to say about yet another con man? Should we really be surprised that they are living right next door? There are so many of them, they have to be living in just about every town at this point, don’t they? We should have a con man registry like we have a sexual predator registry. These guys do lots of damage, and seem to do it over and over again in many cases. We should have an easy way to identify them.
CV makes a good point.... Will a con man ever stopping conning people? Should we know where they live? A Con Mans Registry? There may be dozens of victims who lost everything. I wonder how constitutional that is?
And since sex offenders whereabouts came up... all of us should be aware of exaltedly how close some of the worst of the worst live. I hope it is understood, with history as my proof, ALL level 2 sex offenders should be housed in secure facilities, let out only with electronic monitoring for work, no access to any type of web access, drivers licence, professional licence's, and mandatory life supervision in secure mental facilities on remote islands off the coast shark bay for all level 3 offenders. Drugs, counseling and freedom are not working to deter them from repeating.
http://www.framinghamma.gov/index.aspx?NID=760
Michael... the free ride for the North and South shore commuters would be over and they would pay their fair share of the Big Dig dept... and not just us and the harbor tunnels.
It would also, stop any increase in gas tax and would not add to our budget woes, as the technology already is in use in other places and would not take a pile of crony PhD's to get the system off the ground. And no highly paid, gun token, drug dealing, traffic stopping, money stealing, toll takers that make more than teachers from being added to the payroll. Low Low maintenance and higher revenue with no retirements deals, days off, strikes, political influence, public safety concerns.
It's all good for the Pike user. We should applaud Deval for this.... as he leaves office, because it will be a cold day in July, on the beach in Hyannis, before the ruling elite on both sides of Boston, will ever let this happen.
And just think how well the traffic would move on the pike if there were no toll boths?
Geez the more I hear about this overtime thing the more confused I get. If this has in fact been in place for years, and if they have lost court battles over this already, why are they still fighting it? They are costing the town money. I suggest we say that if they lose this next battle, then the amount it cost us, the taxpayers in Framingham, come off the budget for the police department and that these union guys will have to work a certain amount of overtime hours at regular pay rate to cover that shortfall in the budget. They don’t give a damm about spending our money unless it is going to hurt them, so make them think twice about these frivolous lawsuits.
How many law suits is the town of Framingham actually involved in at this time, and how much money is it costing us for all these lawsuits. Not sure I have ever seen a figure on this, might be interesting to look at. In a budget crisis like this there has got to be a better way of doing things than pursuing every single thing in the courts which as Jim says here makes no one but the lawyers rich.
Jim, cut to the chase here. Who messed up, the union guys or the town? That is what I really want to know. Who ever messed up should be footing the bill for the legal expenses for the town, not the town residents, the department or the union that messed up here.
Annon.... That's why their in court... the Town says one thing.. and the Cops say another. I honestly can't tell by reading and since it's in the hands of the courts... none of us will know for sure anything until after the decision.
In the end, if the Town looses, it will be chalked up to bad communication.. if the Cops loose.... well... enough said.
The most valid and important point is the one Pillsbury raised in response to someone’s posting here. The lines on the Pike would cease to exist. If we have to pay for the priviledge of driving on the Pike, don’t you think we should be able to drive on it free of toll congestion? Lets face it, the tolls are never going to go away, so if we have to pay them, using these no booth collection devices seems like a no brainer to me.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home