BY MIKE CETERA
The Aurora Police union, or someone claiming to represent the union, has a new blog. Not sure if airing your dirty laundry in public is the best approach, but we'll see if this accomplishes anything.
What's clear from the tone of the Friends of APPO blog is that some police officers are not very happy.
But we already knew that.
Tonight, the blog is requesting union members show up in force to Downtown Alive! dressed in Association of Professional Police Officers T-shirts. It's apparently an act of solidarity meant to show management who really is boss.
This is the time to make APPO's strength visible to the city and department administrators. Their present tactic appears to be "divide and conquer," and they seem to think they can do what they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want. It's time to let them see, in a crowd of navy blue T-shirts, how wrong they are.
So how much do the rank-and-file dislike how things are being run under Tom Weisner and Bill Powell? The blog claims fewer than 20 of 240 officers showed up for a group photo session as a sign of protest.
I looked briefly at the new Police Union Blog and have decided that this is a site that will not get a return visit. First and foremost, some posters referred to the paper I love as the Beconfused. Right there, they lost me and lost their credibility.
The Beacon is an award winning newspaper with top notch journalists. It is hard to please all people all the time and the most certain route to failure is to try to do just that, but the Beacon is a newspaper with heart and spirit and an obviously dedicated staff. When posters name call, they simply lose me. It shows me that they would rather divide than solve.
Quite frankly, I felt like I was in someone's bedroom and it was uncomfortable.
I would much prefer to see a police force that addresses issues in a forthright way, honestly, with their superiors. To air their grievances for all to view placed me in a position of feeling like I'm being protected by undedicated, unhappy officers who just might let their personal angst get in the way of their job. That makes me feel vulnerable. Please get your acts together!!