Board of Aldermen 4-28-2020 Page 22
gotten our money back, some people have gotten credits, some people are out the entire expense,
whatever they put forward. You know a lot of these officers have young children and things like that and
you know it is just not fair to somebody to have this happen and then say to them, “Well sorry but we are
not going to give your granted time off and it is what it is’ especially when there’s nowhere to go even if
they wanted to. | mean it’s not like you can go to the beach or you can go to Florida. Everything is closed.
So to me this is one of those, we live in an exceptional time and what | mean by that is we are making
exceptions to rules that are steadfast in every single industry across the spectrum. So the City has to do
that as well. If that means that we have to allow for the Police Department employees to have extra time to
be able to take their vacation without losing it, | don’t see that as an issue. And | would even go so far as to
say that if this continues and we are in mid-June or whenever with the stay-at-home orders, that it probably
would make sense for this to even come back to us and | would certainly support it. You know depending
on the situation and whether or not people had enough time just based on the number of employees to
actually take their vacation. So | am in full support of this and | hope that my colleagues will understand
that again, we are in exceptional times and we need to do exceptional things and this is one of them.
Alderman Lopez
| can’t agree with the statement that because crime is low the Police are under less pressure. The Police
are on the front lines and they are out working everyday with people having no idea what their health
conditions are or what their risk factors are going to be. And | think members of the Board who may not be
working directly with the public need to be really conscious of what that feels like because Police Officers
are choosing to go and serve the community knowing that they could contract COVID-19 from a person
who might be disorderly or from some parents who won't vacate a playground something that they handle
in a very discreet, casual and respectful manner, but they can bring home to their family and their loved
ones, a serious illness. | think that puts a huge amount of pressure on our Police Officers and | think we
need to recognize that.
| also think that using vacation time as vacation time and not as a cost reduction mechanism is important.
We need to leave that ability to them because not to put too much a point on it but | will remind the Board
that before we had a Global Pandemic we were struggling with First Responder Suicide and | do not think
that situation is getting better with unbelievable circumstances at play here where the Police are being
asked to enforce historic measures that not everybody agrees with. We need our First Responders. That
includes Police, to be able to help our community when it needs help the most and | don’t think we need to
be distracting them by quibbling over details like this. | think their request is entirely reasonable.
Alderman Klee
Thank you, Madam President. | want to echo Alderman Lopez’s words. First Responders are out there just
doing their normal job but as well as being there under these stressful circumstances. They are the First
Responders they are right online. | know recently we had an incident here in Ward 3 where | won’t go into
the details of it but someone was found no longer living. They are always one of the first ones right there,
no matter what. | know suicides are on the rise and of course they are there for those. Just because crime
isn’t up doesn’t mean we shouldn't be doing this. So | do echo the last two speakers, thank you.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you, Madam Chairman, | don’t mean this as a cost cutting measure. | know that it is a very, very
important job. | see it though as nobody else gets to decide that they are going to hold off their vacation
until this is all over and | you know, | just think that there is some benefit to compromising, because we are
going to need a lot of staff when this is done. Thank you.
