A TRUE PARTNER

One of the most difficult tasks that confronts police officers at least once in their careers has absolutely nothing to do with fighting crime and/or evil.  It has nothing to do with any policy or procedure.  There is no hard and fast rule how to accomplish it.

The task I am referring to is finding a partner.  Think about that word for a moment.  What exactly does it mean to you?  To some, it might mean two personalities that mesh.  To others, it might mean two officers who have the same policing style. But to most, it likely means finding another person who you can trust implicitly with everything up to and including your life.  Your partner is probably the most important person in your working life.

We all work for the City of Chicago which is run by Rahm Emanuel. How many of you would ever consider him as your partner?  Stop laughing.  The question was rhetorical and only posed to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the scenario.  Yet, your FOP president, Dean Angelo, is considered a partner by Rahm.  In fact, he even considers him more than just a partner.  Rahm calls him a "true partner" in a Suntimes article dated 11/05/14.

Now, Dean is going to say that this statement is taken out of context, but keep reading and you decide.

When you look at the facts you can clearly see why Rahm would consider Dean a "true partner".  After all, Dean has saved Rahm at least a quarter of a billion dollars (yes, you read that right, a quarter of a billion) in pension contributions that were supposed to made in 2016 alone to properly fund our pension. As a matter of fact, Dean allowed Rahm to put off these payments for another fifteen years. A "TRUE PARTNER" indeed.

Dean agreed to give back free healthcare for anyone who retires at 55 after June 2017.  I know, for a fact, that this proposal was not on the contract negotiations table prior to Dean taking office as president of our Lodge.  Another sign of a "TRUE PARTNER".

Dean agreed to multi-tiered healthcare coverage where it will cost you more money to seek premium healthcare from the best doctors and hospitals.  Dean agreed to co-pays for all doctor visits and even higher co-pays for specialist visits.  Dean will try to tell you that all the other unions got stuck with this and therefore, so did we, but in a prior contract arbitration the arbitrator made it crystal clear that the FOP had the right to negotiate its own healthcare regardless of what the other unions got stuck with.  This will save the City hundreds of millions of dollars by taking hard earned money out of our pockets.  Sounds like a "TRUE PARTNER" to me.

When the City decided to scrap IPRA and form a new investigative agency called COPA did Dean fight the issue?  No. He said at a General Membership Meeting that we would just have to wait to see what the City came up with.  Why would he sit idly by and let the City dictate what it was going to do?  Maybe, it is because he is Rahm's "TRUE PARTNER".
I guess I must be naive, but I thought that when someone was elected to serve as the president of the FOP he would automatically become MY TRUE PARTNER.  I guess I was wrong because, when it comes to the union, I have been riding '99 for the past three years.