Reading over the story about Saturda’s “gun buyback”, I have a question.
By Joe’s count, there were a total of six cops at the South Mpls location, most of them on overtime. Let’s assume the same number at the North Side “buyback”.
If I recall correctly, cops get about $40 an hour for overtime (someone correct me if I’m wrong.
If there were six cops at each location, and they were all on overtime, that’s $480 an hour; since the event was schedule for eight hours, that means someone, somewhere budgeted just shy of $4,000 for 12 cops’ overtime…
…for what is, let’s be honest, a frivolous political exercise – turning over Pillsbury donors’ money, essentially, to “artists” and owners of unserviceable firearms.
So was it just Pillsbury donors, or was it also Minneapolis taxpayers paying for crappy agenda art?
Just heard that they shut it down after 4 hours and $1 million spent. Now if those starving artists all hold up one convenience store each… Oh, that’s right; we haven’t had a single convenience store holdup since those little signs went up.
My assumption is that if you hire twelve police officers for eight hours, you still have to pay them for the full eight hours even if you end your event early. A combination of union rules and wanting (or being required) to have police officers on hand in order to hold your event.
But yes, I’d like to know who paid for their overtime or if they were already scheduled to work on Saturday and this was considered part of their “duties” as opposed to actually, you know, patrolling and investigating actual crimes. It would not surprise me if this was considered part of “community policing” and these officers were pulled away from other duties to work this event.
Overtime.
Plus all the administration time setting it up (granted, by appearances not much), plus the administration time to mail the payments out to those who waited. Plus the cost of putting those names in the (non existent AT database ). Plus the administration cost of installing and maintaining whatever “art” is to come of it.
Oh no…..no taxpayer money spent here.
If the pedestrian mall downtown is any indication, installing the art will take millions of dollars and years to implement, plus lost business for those firms unfortunate enough to be located near the display locations.