We return to Sunday's NA police take-home car and gasoline discussion.

Owing to the typical ebb and flow of the blog format, worthy comments by readers often are too quickly buried in the archive as new postings and new conversations take place above them. Every so often it's good to revive the thread in the marquee slot so as to bring such comments to your attention.

Acknowledging this, we’d like to return to the Sunday discussion that began with a Saturday letter to the Tribune by police officer Todd Bailey, which you can read here in its entirety. Officer Bailey provided a policeman’s point of view as to the ongoing politicization of take-home cars and the department’s gasoline usage -- and he pointed a finger in the direction of those public officials responsible for demagoguery on these issues.

On Sunday, NA Confidential considered the predictable reaction to Officer Bailey’s letter, as voiced by the frequently anonymous graffiti artists on another local rant blog.

Running out of (t)issues? Increasingly crazed "little people" turn to cop bashing for thrills.

To refresh your memory, here’s a brief sampling of the odious opprobrium heaped on Officer Bailey’s well-meaning effort to explain the situation:

How can Police Officer Bailey be allowed to write such letters to the Tribune when he is not a resident of the City of New Albany and does not pay any of the City of New Albany property taxes that we pay? ... can someone then explain why they are using the City Police cars in their "off" hours for traffic control, or private Security jobs? Oh, that's right, they need to do a little moonlighting to make some extra money. Lord knows we don't pay them enough (highest paid in the State … The figures I am hearing about this issue staggers me. I'm hearing almost 1/2, 32 or 33 officers live outside this city. How does that help our safety?…I really shouldn't come down on the officers themselves, as they are only doing what any of us would do ... I'm sure all of us would take advantage of opportunities to bring more money home, and to move ourselves up the economic ladder.

To be sure, it’s the same irresponsible troglobyte karoake sung by the city’s masked thought vandals, but readers may have missed the following rejoinder, which was posted on Monday. It’s definitely worth today’s opening marquee slot.

At 10:05 AM, Concerned for Cops said...

New Albany Police Officers are NOT the highest paid in Indiana. Thanks to the great Mayor Overton, they were in the top 3, but are quickly now off the top 10 list and continue to slid fast. The top 3 rating wasn't salary either, it was a total package of benefits. And don't forget, they pay taxes too. So in part they pay part of their own salary, do you?

The take home cars were a bonus to the public to assist stranded motorists, assist on duty officers that had no back up, stop serious traffic violators, and be a deterrent to others. Plus SWAT members, detectives, and other officers that could be called in for an emergency have a car ready to go with all their equipment in it ready for a quick response. No take home cars, no quick response to anything.

Of course now, the citizens have lost all those bonuses except that an officer has a car to respond to a call in. Officers can not drive their cars off duty at all. Only to and from work. They are required to purchase fuel from their own pockets to put into the cars. They purchase lots of their own equipment that is not supplied by the city and put in their own cars.

You can take the cars away, and I seriously doubt if more than a handful of officers would really complain. But if you are one of those citizens out there that had an off duty officer stop to help you or stop to help you on the way to and from work, do you really want that to be gone? They can't stop in their personal cars. The choice is yours, think carefully though once it's gone it will probably never be brought back.

One other thought. If you have 10 line cars that run 24 hrs a day, and the officers using those cars run them hard. Don't care how rough they are on it, it's the next shifts problem, but with take home cars, officers wash and clean their own cars, take pride in their car by keeping it maintained and drive them much differently than a line car. Do you drive rental cars as carefully as you do your own? It is actually cheaper to have 70 maintained vehicles that last 5-10 years than to replace 10-15 cars every year in addition to heavy repair costs.

Now on the off duty jobs. Due to the concern with the cars over the past few years and gas, ALL cars used for off duty are required to have fuel and car usage fees paid for by whom they are working for.

Take Northside Christian Church for example. There are 7 off duty officers that work there every Sunday. The officers are paid by the church, NOT the city. The fuel and car usage is paid for by the church NOT the city.

Charlestown Road flowing as much as possible is the primary objective. There are around 7,000 plus cars going through a quarter mile stretch of road in one hour. The lights are all placed on flash to keep traffic flowing. Traffic is NOT stopped completely just to let all the church traffic out and then the officers jump in their cars and leave. They are there to make traffic flow faster, and safer. It would take traffic hours to drain out without them not to mention possible grid lock due to numerous accidents. Tell the church to not use them on just one Sunday and see if it's better and what happens. Oh, and by the way, the city gets directly paid by check each month by the church for the fuel and car usage of all the cars used, and it's at least $50 per car. Think they really use $50 in gas per car per hour?

I think no one has a complaint about that.