To Zimmer: Reconsider police layoffs

Dear Editor:
I urge Mayor Zimmer to reflect and reconsider the wisdom of police layoffs. The rationale behind this decision boggles the imagination. Hoboken, which during the 60s and 70s was barely livable because of high crime, is currently one of the safest, most beautiful urban areas in the country. All that might soon change, however, due to Mayor Zimmer’s reckless firing of 18 police officers (a cut in manpower of 20 percent), despite the fact that, as it is, only nine officers patrol a city of 50,000 at any given time! Not to mention we already have a 20 million dollar budget surplus, which means that appeals to “budget-cutting austerity” by the mayor and council are absurd.
What’s more important anyway, saving a few bucks or putting the life and limb of citizens at risk? American government, at its best (according to the vision of our founding fathers) is about ensuring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When the crime rate ticks up, though – as statistical evidence, gathered from other NJ towns that have laid off cops, shows it will – how happy will Hobokenites be? Personally speaking, I’m rarely happy when awoken by noisy bar revelers in the middle of the night; especially when the police inform me it will take a while to respond: since there aren’t enough officers on duty!
So, if the inhumane decision to weaken Hoboken’s police force is such a bad one (Let’s be real – innocent people might be injured or even die because of it) then why is Zimmer so cold-heartedly in favor of it? One plausible theory, I believe, has to do with the selfish corporate culture she emerged from, which privileges the all-mighty bottom-line over human needs. This is the same mentality that wrecked the American economy in 2008, and that is, in fact, destroying our environment with global warming. The documentary film “The Corporation,” for example, makes the excellent point that if a corporation were compared to a person, that person — because of their complete lack of compassion for humanity – would be psychopathic.
To repair these problems, I suggest we re-imagine our political and corporate cultures based on a model that values human needs. A great book to read on this is Michael Lerner’s 1996 “Politics of Meaning.” Meanwhile, let’s hope that Mayor Zimmer comes to her senses and changes her mind about laying off the cops. For further dialogue on this issue, I’d like to invite the mayor – and representatives from the police and the public – onto my Public Voice Salon program: Thursdays, channel 19, 8 p.m. I’d also like to call on two nationally recognized leaders in crime prevention, Rudy Guliani and William Bratton, to share their wisdom on this issue.
Through the power of dialogue (and trying to understand each other better) let’s hope that saner, more compassionate heads prevail here. A reversal by Zimmer, in my opinion, would be a sign of her growth – both as a politician and as a person.

John Bredin

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