While I think Mark Anderson is right to say that employees' opinions do matter, I do think Jonathan Palmer made a great point to distinguish between the police union in Dayton vs. the street cops. It's not necessarily a good assumption to believe that the union speaks for all members.
Look at the recent clerical workers strike at the U of MN where a number of the employees crossed the picket line on the first day. Some of those employees crossed because they could not afford to miss the paycheck even though they supported their union, but some crossed because they thought their union leadership was wrong to strike. I've seen people disenchanted with the leadership of my own union at times, but they don't do anything because they think the leadership is too entrenched. Could be the same way in Dayton with the police union. Heck, could be the same way here with Delmonico here in Minneapolis if people are right that there's really only a few bad apples on the MPD. If that's actually the case, there may well be a lot of MPD cops silently rooting for McManus to be hired. Personally, I think more telling about McManus's management skills is the way he rose through the ranks in DC. Didn't I read that they have around 3,800 cops? I think you must be doing pretty good work to get noticed in that large of a group. I think you've also got to be for real as a manager if you work in that large of a group and you keep moving up. If he weren't a good manager, he probably would have been stuck in a mid-level position rather than reaching assistant chief. As for the short tenure at Dayton, am I the only one who remembers from the finalist profiles about how McManus was looking for a bigger city because he didn't think Dayton was right for his family? Does one bad fit automatically make the guy a job-hopper? I think 30 years in DC should be given a little more consideration before assuming he's just here to add another resume line or doesn't have the stuff to finish what he starts. Mark Snyder Windom Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
