[Zeke]

Sam, someone once told me you get what you pay for. Teachers are bad enough as it is. And, you are wrong about teachers' hours. I have 2 in the family. They work a lot at home.

As for cops, well it's not a glamorous job. It might be a job with good pay for those that can handle it and don't want to go to college. I know, some do. I'm not sue what we would do with any less qualified than what we have now. Officers, don't read that wrong.

Firefighters might be a different story. A local citizen wrote to the local newspaper op-ed section recently and suggested we in LB remove one staff from each engine (there are currently 4 per engine) and replace them with volunteers. There are plenty of those trying to get on a dept somewhere. I like the idea and I think it's worth looking into.

The obstacle would be the union. The whole LB fire dept is wrong as it works today. 90% of their calls do NOT involve a fire, yet all four of these cats roll out on each affair, a lot of the times just accompanying the paramedics. They do nothing at the scene.

I would fix that.