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Health & Fitness

Making the Best of It - Thoughts on the County Budget

Thoughts on the County Budget

It’s budget season again in Montgomery County. The good news? The spending overhang is going down. The bad news? We’re not out of woods yet. Love it or hate it, the proposed County budget contains a shocker – a provision that actually contemplates increasing the operational size of the Montgomery County Police Department for the first time since the time Ronald Reagan was President. 

Our police force may not exactly be Caesar’s wife, but even its harshest critics (if they are to be fair) ought to admit that our force has done more with less for a long time. MCPD has pioneered “smarter planet” techniques and found ways to stretch its personnel to serve more than double the population with no increase in “boots on the ground.”

Today’s Montgomery County is more diverse and more crowded. The politics of the county have made it a “sanctuary” jurisdiction in fact, if not at law. That’s a legitimate public decision. But it makes the job of our police even more difficult, when they have to struggle to earn the trust of more and more people who are understandably fearful of the consequences of involving themselves with the law, even if they are victims, more sinned against than sinning.

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Good policing is like a good friend – you miss them most when they’re gone. And good policing has a severe public relations problem – it doesn’t lend itself to ribbon cuttings, public ceremonies, and media events to celebrate what didn’t happen. That often means it has little “sizzle” in the marketing machine that seems to drive our politics these days.

We hire the police, in part, to handle what we won’t (and shouldn’t) on a day-to-day basis. We authorize them to deal with the criminal, the violent, and all the ugly side of life so we don’t have to. We delegate to them both the power and the responsibility. And I salute them for their service.  

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Recently, I had a conversation with the County Executive in which Mr. Leggett challenged those of us concerned with decades of underfunding the police to step up and advocate for his proposals. I will take him up on that challenge.

I urge my fellow citizens to support this budget as much as they can, with particular emphasis on keeping the increase in law enforcement in the plan. In turn, I invite my fellow citizens to stay watchful and make sure that our government actually gets around to implementing these budget items. Our priorities are reflected by our participation. 

I've said my piece. Please make your wishes known.

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