Pass the Details to the Left-hand Side


Tensions are building between the city and the MBTA, as the two fight over who gets to stand dumbly over the city’s various holes for $37 an hour. The fact that we use cops for traffic and construction details–instead of, say, a particleboard sign or a lightbulb on a stick or a napping cat–is infuriating enough without cop union head Tom Nee shovelling disingenuous bullshine at the taxpayers. “It’s about right and wrong,” Nee said. “It’s about the law. This isn’t about the money.” Right, and the reason we have cops doing these details in the first place is about “public safety.”

Meanwhile, a territorial feud is also building between the BPD and Boston Public Health Commission special officers over … you guessed it, traffic details. Bridges, specifically. The story doesn’t appear online for some reason, but it’s in today’s Herald (p.6, no link yet), and it includes this grammatically devastating observation from one of the BPHC officers: “Boston police just stepped in and now they have it. It’s taking money away from us that we used to be afforded out there.”