Be Heard!

The Cobb Board of Commissioner meeting is Tuesday, October 25th at 7pm.  Status Quo - they aren't planning on discussing the pay study, police retention or any of the needs of the department with the Braves coming.

People can show up to discuss things in the open comment.  I hear there will be someone there to bring up our concerns.  Feel free to join them to show support.  Encourage your friends and family to attend as well.

If they can't make it, ask them to shoot their commissioner an email highlighting their concerns.  Not sure who their commissioner is?  They can find out here:

http://cobbcounty.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=1645

Be heard! Do not go gentle into that good night.


Update:

FOP President Steve Gaynor presented the following message during the open comments section of the October 25th meeting.  Here is what he presented to the Board during those comments:

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, and Mr. Hankerson
 My name is Steven Gaynor and I am the President of the Cobb County Fraternal
 Order of Police located on Austell Road in Marietta. We represent just over
 550 sworn law enforcement members from Cobb County agencies.
 Tonight, I would like to voice our concerns about the on-going issues with
 recruitment & retention of Cobb County Police Officers. For more than two
 years this commission has expressed that public safety is your number one
 priority and you have been working to improve the issues with attracting and
 keeping good candidates for the police department. You keep saying that you
 want to attract & retain the best and the brightest. Well, I’m here tonight to tell
 you that our members have not seen this happening. You have fallen far short
 of this goal and officers continue to leave the police department at an alarming
 rate. Although the numbers show there are 691 sworn positions within the
 police department and only 37 of these slots are reportedly vacant at this time.
 These numbers are misleading and do not take into account the large number
 of officers still in the training process. If you were to exam the number of open
 positions at each precinct & unit, you would find that there are serious issues
 with staffing and with providing the fine citizens of Cobb County proper serve.
 Over 2 1⁄2 years ago, FOP President Bill Mull came before you and asked for
 your help in addressing the recruitment and retention issues within the police
 department. Your answer to that was to conduct a “PAY STUDY” which was to
 take 18 months to complete. It has now been about 30 months and we still are
 no where closer to knowing what that “pay study” determined and how you
 will address the problems that it reportedly found. At the time we asked that
 the pay study just address the public safety employees as these were the areas
 where recruitment and retention were issues, but you decided to throw all the
 employees into the mix. I believe that because of your actions to include all
 employees in this study you have now found that the $10 million dollars that
 you set aside to address the issues is now nowhere close to the funding
 needed.
 At the last Commission Meeting some of you decided to table this problem until
 the new Chairman takes office in January 2017. Given the problems that you
 have reportedly found, this is understandable, as the identified pay raises and
 adjustments would be unsustainable without identifying some type of
 alternative funding or millage rate adjustments. However, these are just
 speculations based on bits of information that have been obtained since you
 have refused to release the pay study results and we are still waiting on a
 response to our open records request.
 As many of you know, recently Governor Deal announced a 26% pay raise for
 all sworn state law enforcement trooper, agents, and rangers in the State of
 Georgia. With SunTrust Park and The Battery Atlanta set to begin operations
 shortly, you need to take action immediately to address the steady losses of
 experienced & trained personnel from the public safety departments in Cobb
 County. I leave you tonight with our concern, if you do not begin to address
 the public safety issues and issues surrounding SunTrust Park, The Battery
 Atlanta, and the steady outward flow of sworn public safety staff from Cobb
 County, the citizens & visitors to this great County will be endanger of
 becoming victims to the increasing violence that we have seen moving into our
 County from surrounding areas. You need to act and you need to act NOW.

If you care to view his remarks they can be seen on the TV23 link below (select the correct meeting and then TAB 9 Public Comments):

http://cobbcounty.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=766&Itemid=439