Yesterday’s Winston-Salem Journal reports on overtime pay for police officers due to annexation. It takes a while to get to the real issue, and you have to wonder why City Manager Lee Garrity couldn’t anticipate this:
Ideally, Garrity said, the city would have been ready with new officers to take over the annexed areas.
But he said that after county residents filed a lawsuit challenging the annexation, the city did not want to hire new police officers and then potentially be stuck paying their salaries while the annexation was held up in court.
Once the lawsuit was dismissed and the city moved to hire new officers, there was a problem with recruitment.
City government’s true responsibility is providing protection for its citizens, yet everyone here in the Triad seems content with just winging it.
