Reading City Council Meets To Discuss Proposed Fire, Police Cuts

What WFMZ didn't mention was that two dozen layoff notices for the end of the month went out yesterday to the police.

God Bless the police officers and firefighters! And the citizens of Reading. Thank you Mayor for ruining the city!

of Course the first thing to be cut from a municipalities budget is money and manpower from Emergency Services or Public Safety... Maybe one day Municipal leaders will realize that they are playing russian roullette with the life safety of the citizens they serve when they do this.

Greetings from Catasauqua where every day I see in the news you have had an overnight stabbing or shooting (duh) How many cops did you say you're going to lay off.....

This is fundamentlly wrong, Every job that exists should be scrutinized in a fair impatial manner Is the job absolutely needed Are the wages and benefits in line with the private sector Dont say a file clerk is just as necessary as a policeman woman etc. I bet there are enough unecesary jobs and excessive wage structure to keep all the fire and police personnel

wow. Just another reason not to visit Reading.

good luck to the RFD and RPD.

2 dozen laid off and no one to investigate or do drug work.

This may be the 2nd worst thing yet that the city has done. Everyone else that gets paid by the city: all city officials, etc. should be the ones being eliminated or taking massive pay cuts to keep these police and firefighters from being eliminated. If the Sovereign Center and other city businesses think they suffered losses this yet, just wait till there's even less police. The crime is already the reason many of my friends & family will not go there... you can bet your life that amount will increase drastically w/this news. What a shame - the Sovereign Center could end up closing within no time at all. Concert & sports fans will feel even more so that they're risking their lives coming into the city.

Give the taxpayers the power and duty to go over every line item in the budget. Taxpayers are the EMPLOYER here not the toilets to be dumped on

Walter Allentown Pa wrote:

Give the taxpayers the power and duty to go over every line item in the budget. Taxpayers are the EMPLOYER here not the toilets to be dumped on

if you think things are screwed up now, let every Tom, Dick and Martha have a crack at the budget. NOTHING would get done

are they building atadium there?

This is like something out a bad dream. Who in their right mind lays off cops and firefighters?
I live in a house in Reading valued at $41,000, and pay $1600 in taxes to the city and county. I pay an additional $1200 in earned income tax. For that I receive nothing - no trash removal, no street cleaning, no recycling, no snow removal on my street - so I figure that my taxes are paying the wages of the city workers. Well, since they work for me, I'd like to cut the salaries of everyone except the cops and firefighters. That's what happened - salary cuts - to me and all my co-workers. That's what businesses do when there isn't enough money coming in to pay the workers. You cut out unnecessary spending on supplies, you look at expenses and you make cuts, but the one thing you don't do is eliminate your most important people. In this case, that's cops and firefighters.
Not one salaried elected official will be re-elected, I promise you. Just as in the case of the state workers, who authorized an illegal pay raise, I'll run ads in the newspapers the day before elections, and list the names of all the morons in our city government to remind people who NOT to vote for.
And I ask that anyone who's hiring to give preference to any police officer and firefighter who needs a job. Publish your company's name on this post, and all of us will make sure that we will support your companies by buying your products and services.

dumb idea wrote:

<quoted text>
if you think things are screwed up now, let every Tom, Dick and Martha have a crack at the budget. NOTHING would get done

You always have somem bozos Mr DUMB IDEA thinks very lowly about the taxpayers Whatever citycouncil votes for thats it They are infallible . The people being laid off here and endangering all the citizens should have NO SAY Does Dumb Idea know what free democracy means???

Alexis wrote:

This is like something out a bad dream. Who in their right mind lays off cops and firefighters?
I live in a house in Reading valued at $41,000, and pay $1600 in taxes to the city and county. I pay an additional $1200 in earned income tax. For that I receive nothing - no trash removal, no street cleaning, no recycling, no snow removal on my street - so I figure that my taxes are paying the wages of the city workers. Well, since they work for me, I'd like to cut the salaries of everyone except the cops and firefighters. That's what happened - salary cuts - to me and all my co-workers. That's what businesses do when there isn't enough money coming in to pay the workers. You cut out unnecessary spending on supplies, you look at expenses and you make cuts, but the one thing you don't do is eliminate your most important people. In this case, that's cops and firefighters.
Not one salaried elected official will be re-elected, I promise you. Just as in the case of the state workers, who authorized an illegal pay raise, I'll run ads in the newspapers the day before elections, and list the names of all the morons in our city government to remind people who NOT to vote for.
And I ask that anyone who's hiring to give preference to any police officer and firefighter who needs a job. Publish your company's name on this post, and all of us will make sure that we will support your companies by buying your products and services.

Alexis i agree with most of your comments Did you read what Mr dumb idea said about educated and caring people Like You??

People wise up. They cuts the people who are directly related to services, and services themselves BECAUSE they are the first thing the public will notice.
Tell me, WHY DON'T they CUT the amount of staff in EACH AND EVERY OFFICE by 20%? They won't do it because they are (figuratively speaking) fat, tired and will not wreck their comfort zones.
They are NOT THERE to serve you, but to "make out" on the public's back. The whole government institution has become a scam, and the only way it we can fix it is by NOT buying everything they tell us.
We must also raise the bar of EXPECTATIONS, lower our level of patience and be less ...forgetful.

They are trying to scare the public is all they are doing.
Then (haha) they'll raise taxes when they feel people are exhausted. Fear is THEIR tool of choice and YOUR enemy.

cops dont really do crap in reading anyway..most of the time you call them out and they hassle you for calling them ..they always say they are busy somewhere else..dont have time for you ...they really get cocky and nasty...if someone would shot me while im coming in my door im afraid to call readings finest..they will get pissed for having to come out..douche bag reading cops...

Yes, Walter, but I'm not taking it personally. Anyone who lives in Reading has seen the decline of a once great city, and people are so discouraged. I can't speak for him, but I guess he's fed up with the politicians. No one has any say in what happens because the officials never listen to the people who voted them in. And so we vote in new people who promise to listen to the voters, and they don't either.
Actually, Reading and the suburbs have an huge group of savvy, good-hearted business owners who have told me and others that they would be glad to help the mayor with budgets, cost-cutting and so forth, but their offers have fallen on deaf ears.
They are also worried about the police and firefighter lay-offs because the crimes in the suburbs, though not as bad as in Reading, are under-reported. Reading has the murders, but Exeter, Shillington, and Wyomissing have high rates of burglaries, car thefts, and shoplifting,. There are cars stolen from mall parking lots every week, and muggings, just as there are in the city, but you never hear about any of this. When we lose our police force, crime will increase in the suburbs, as more criminals move into all of Berks County.

dont think its right - cutting police & fire - reading is bad enough, take that away - crime will raise

Stop complaining about the cuts of police and firefighters. All the city drug dealers are well armed and I’m sure that they are more than willing to take care of you, and maybe they will even rush into a burning building if they think there is a sale in it for them.
PS Cables is having their Christmas gun sale, and a new hand gun makes a great stocking stuffer for the entire family

why do the firefighters think they are above other american workers? the fact is that they need to cut the budget, this is the quickest and easiest way to do it. do the poor residents of the city of reading realize that the firefighters do not pay A PENNY towards their health insurance costs and only pay ONE DOLLAR for prescriptions??? Everytime their union president opens his mouth he sounds like a total idiot and the fire chief keeps warning of infernos none of which the city has experienced. Instead of worrying about what could happen, how about worrying about what is happening with crime. It's not the police that should be layed off, start with the fire dept. or have them multi task with street cleaning between infernos.