Flood Waters in OB and Point Loma

LOL. Higher, higher… or maybe they were just trying to launch the trunk-born inflatable. Seriously, though, I hope they were alright there, hadn’t stalled out. And I don’t mean to impugn; there were lots of folks driving through high water yesterday. I do, however, find it alarming, and offensive, that the City and OBMA can legally install an armed corporate security force on public streets. Vanilla Blackwater, Inc., except they’re probably not paid better than the City uniforms, though perhaps their corporate management makes a relative killing on 6 or 12 month contracts. If so, I doubt cheaper is really better when it comes to armed uniforms on the streets. No thanks, I’m all for incentivizing the proper municipal police force, and not overpaying a corporate management for lesser paid armed uniforms who are probably lower paid than our City cops. Another example of the ill advised privatization scenario where elected officials “privatize” public services, aka spend more pennies on the dollar for the overhead of corporate profits then is paid out to actual public services and the personnel actually performing or implementing those services. Why on God’s good earth would anyone think we need to proliferate armed forces on our streets, corporate ones, at that. Doesn’t just our public police force, with its centralized and public accountability, seem like the smartest, safest, path? If there’s a demonstrated need (i.e., backed up by increase real crime stats) for more policing on our streets, then OBMA and OB ought to demand that our taxes go to pay for a couple more beat cops or patrols. (Makes me wonder, really, was their even a demonstrated quantitative case made by OBMA to/and the City for an armed corporate force? Or was it only something subjective like OBMA said in the last Peninsula Beacon, “We want people to feel safe here.” All together now…..)

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