I’ve been to two meeting – Monday and today (Tuesday). The Tuesday one is part of my Landmark SELP project. That’s one reason why I’m not doing the reasonable thing – hanging out with my family in Orlando.

Monday was an official village board meeting. Great topic - update on redevelopment of our main street (Dempster Ave) and other usual business. So far so good. Wonderful agenda: http://www.mortongroveil.org/UserFiles/File/Board_Meetings/BMAgenda20081124.pdf

Surprise!  The police’s union (Fraternal Order of Police) out of blue sky hits the police chief with a vote of no-confidence. It was ugly. Very ugly. Everyone was very polite and formal about everything, but it was still ugly. I noticed that all officers in uniform had their guns on them and joked to a friend of mine “I’m glad those guns are unloaded … I hope”.

Why? The FOP lawyer said it’s about cutback on training opportunities and removal of open-door communications between the chief and the juniors. So far so good.  Then came the real punch line. “Chief imposed policies that threatened the balance between officers’ professional and personal life”. Oops, I guess no mandatory overtime pay for working that extra hour from 5pm to 6. They should tell this to an Indian software developer in Motorola on H1-B work visa. Especially when she’s on a 10pm status call with Indian Motorolans back IN India.

Why else? Something about the chief not doing a good job with the “collective bargaining process”. Aha!!! Here we go AGAIN! The village is in union negotiations with the police, fire, and general municipal unions. I guess the police are trying to fire their chief first. “There is low morals among junior officers, which reduces their ability to perform their job – ensure safety of the residents“.  Are they going to start kidnapping village residents? Maybe they will start with a “job action”. We are going to ignore every third 911 call for the next week…

Yuck. This is Morton Grove. Full of elderly European descendants and Asian families. One of the lowest-crime suburbs in Cook County. There are no gangs, no drugs, no bars. There’s no mob, no casinos, no “adult clubs”, no “bad neighborhoods”, nothing! There’s even a handgun ban since 1981!

As John Stossel would say “Give me a Break!’

To be continued …

ps. The Mayor was NOT happy with the junior officers and their FOP lawyer. So there’s still hope for sanity in this world.