On behalf of the thousands of men and women who stand as the first line of defense against predators in communities across this nation, I would like to grant the elected officials of the City of Bell ownership of a betrayal that will replace the image of public service in the minds and hearts of those we protect and defend.
As for the chief law enforcement officer of the Bell executive giant, I will save that for last.
During the fat times, when we as a profession were diverting our negotiated funds into benefits and future security year by year and dependent on overtime to see us through the tough times, the private sector was more interested in instant dollars and high-end investments to generate their nest egg. Two different communities, two different philosophies coexisting through the peaks and valleys of the economy.
Then the fat times disappeared into the oily palms of leaders with business ethics, pulling away the buffer zone that separated the two values and exposing a modern version of the three little pigs, where those who built a structurally weak foundation wanted to destroy the house that was planned to withstand adverse conditions. Cops and firefighters suddenly didn’t “deserve” to benefit from their structured approach to their retirement. People who relied on us to resolve their emergencies at the cost of our lives were now angry because we had a dental plan, steady monthly checks or a source of income for our spouses after we were gone. Income from a pool containing those dollars we chose to divert from our paychecks during our working years. Our money. Shelter over cash. Bricks instead of straw.
But now, right in the middle of this nasty little debate, the City Fathers of Bell offered up a soft, overripe and malformed tomato just begging to be turned into slush by the victims of pension resentment. By virtue of a display of personal greed that literally baffles me, these “community leaders” have sacrificed the reputations and security of public employees for years to come. What makes the level of this recklessness so evident is the universal distain and distance coming from nervous politicians around the country, the message being that the processes used by the gang of Bell (sitting on commissions and boards) were not all that unusual, but the excessive withdrawal of swag alarmed even those who are practitioners of that system.
But I have lived in the public system which produced the contorted political leadership in Bell, putting 30 years into a theoretically vibrant and honorable structure that will over time permit rat-infested enclaves to develop on the strength of individual codes of integrity. But cops are not supposed to be part of that club, and most of us have been immunized by what we see and experience to form a natural aversion to politicians and their way of doing business. And that is why I table my indignation and trot out my bewilderment of the role played by Chief Adam’s law enforcement pedigree, I have no doubt that he entered into a contract with the City with the knowledge that he was placing himself into a situation that was radically beyond the norm in terms of compensation levels in comparison to his peers. He also undoubtedly realized that the City of Bell was not Los Angeles, or New York, or the CHP or even the White House, but somehow it managed to offer Enron-level compensation in exchange for running a Taco Bell. And he had to at least consider what the numbers would mean to the men and women who worked in his agency, sworn and non-Sworn, who were losing their peers, displacing their families, stretching their resources, doubling their workload, and eliminating their training due to economic issues. Finally, and most importantly, given his heritage as a seasoned law enforcement leader, he must have anticipated the inevitable long- term residual damage that would cloak his profession and his professional family after he was gone, having served as the smoking gun in the public pension debate, when someone finally opened the sewer.
Yeah, I believe he thought about all of that at some point during his tenure. He was trained as a cop, and cops are wired to look at issues from different angles. But I think he either didn’t care, he believed that he was worth it or he planned to leave his third agency as a chief assuming that the issue would not be coming down around his ears while he still wore our badge.
In a 2009 interview with Jerry Barrios of The Daily News, Chief Adams stated, “I like to build departments. I don’t like to dismantle them.”
Maybe so, but I think this time he may have driven a stake in to the heart of the cops who actually did the heavy lifting.
