Off-duty police hired by local churches
Posted on March 25, 2008 by admin
Question: I was wondering if taxpayers foot the bill for the three or more police cruisers and officers that sit on Tate’s Creek road during church services on Sunday mornings. I personally wouldn’t want my taxes going to some service that benefits a church only. I’d think this would cross the line between separation of church and state.
Answer: The answer comes from Lieutenant Dwayne Holman with the Lexington Division of Police:
The indicated churches pay the individual officers to direct traffic. They work the post when they are off-duty.
Linda Niemi
Filed under: Uncategorized
My mother was a public school librarian. I earned a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Kentucky. The Herald-Leader hired me as a news assistant 25 years ago; soon after, I moved to the news research department, where I’ve been ever since. We used to clip newspapers. Now, almost all of our research is online. We've come a long way.
And who pays for the gasoline in the cruisers while they are there? You know they’re running the whole time.
And I wonder if they have the same rights off duty as on? They can just stop traffic whenever they feel like it? The only people who would be inconvenienced by them not being out there would be the church members. And they’d just have to *gasp* wait their turn to get into traffic like the rest of us.
Questions on this blog have been so cynical and mean-spirited lately. Those church goers are tax paying citizens too. Whenever there is a high-density traffic situation, it’s in everyone’s nest interest for traffic to be controlled in a safe and efficient manner. That goes for churches, synagogues, temples, concerts, shows, football games, conferences, whatever.
Of course it’s not a matter of separation of church and state. It’s a predictable temporary traffic issue affecting a public road. I personally would be fine with it even if the church didn’t pay for their time.
Here’s to the return of common sense.
It wouldn’t cause a traffic problem if they were forced to wait to get into traffic like everybody else. The only problem would be in their parking lot. The other drivers, who shouldn’t be inconvenienced in the first place, wouldn’t be.
Traffic isn’t being “controlled”. It’s being flat out stopped.
I live in the Lansdowne Merrick area, and there are no police around when school is letting out at Julius Marks and the parents are lined up blocking Pepperhill. Or I don’t see them directing traffic when a movie is over.
Anybody can clearly see these churches are at least getting preferential treatment.