Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
Due to the budget crunch we, as a country, have to make an enormous amount of cuts and changes. These changes and cuts are ones that are not easy. The City Council are again looking at the police, suggesting the police men and women take a 3.8 percent pay cut which they have done, and take another cut that totals up to 14 percent. With this huge cut the City Council still wants the Police Department to “let go” 16 sworn officers. This demand of “letting go” officers is not needed.

My question is why has the Fire Department not been asked to cut wages or layoffs? What has Fire done to help the city’s budget crunch? Why is police the only ones that are suffering and making changes to save the city money?

The city needs to rethink what they are doing to the people of Manteca and the police men and women of our beloved city. The City Council needs to realize the police have taken a cut in wages. It is time that the Fire Department takes a cut. Our crime rate has gone down because of the present police officers so, if the City Council does lay off police officers, crime could go up? At whose expense?