I find it amazing that some of the institutions I’m incredibly staunch supporters of seem to be working overtime failing themselves.
When you disregard the public’s trust, regardless if you’re a business, public institution, or the police, you will quickly find yourself in a very bad place.
What’s worse, is the inflammatory incident will likely not be what got you in trouble in the first place, but it will be that one spark that sets the whole thing ablaze.
For this example, I’m going to talk about the detours surrounding Elm Grove’s Monument Place Bridge, that 207-year-old (built in 1817) stone structure that so many have used over the centuries. I have no doubt that when the Marquis de Lafayette visited Wheeling in 1825 and was a guest at Monument Place, he crossed that bridge. It was a new structure then, and I don’t think there were many two- and one-half ton SUVs using it on a daily basis. The fact that it carries today’s traffic is a testament to its builders.
Those who know such things are convinced it needs some attention to survive for the future. The bridge is closed for repairs, and there is a new traffic pattern that seems to be hell-bent on changing ingrained traffic patterns.
Our daughter and granddaughter live out that way, so I drive there often.
Before coming into the “orange cone season” and two bridge closures, I would likely head out Junior Avenue, cross East Bethlehem Boulevard and proceed down East Cove Avenue/Mill Acres Drive.
Simple. Direct. It became habit.
It’s also put the Elm Terrace shopping center back on my radar.
Unfortunately, with the construction, traffic patterns have changed, while our habits have not. There is now a small sign on the same post as the stop sign at the end of Junior Avenue. The new “rule” is RIGHT TURN ONLY. No notice about the detour. No “New Traffic Pattern Ahead” as required by West Virginia statutes.
Just “RIGHT TURN ONLY”.
And, sitting just out of sight is a police officer, writing tickets as fast as he can, sometimes having multiple cars pulled over.
No, I didn’t receive one of those tickets, but I know plenty of people who did, and are, justifiably, hoping mad.
Our public servants need to understand they undermine their authority and their ability to properly do their job when they violate our trust by ignoring the spirit of the law and enforcing a new traffic pattern in the harshest way possible. Everyone knows that a warning would have sufficed. When the residents of this town called them on it, they were flippantly told they could shut up and take it to the magistrate.
Evidently, the officer missed the class at the Police Academy where they are taught the time of the taxpayers who pay their salaries has value, and that jerking them around by being harsh is a small game with no return. The people who expressed their outrage to me are business people who, like so many of us, swap our time for compensation.
That this is permitted to occur shows a vacuum of leadership, and if it’s not addressed quickly and properly, it’s going to un-do all the fine things that our police do for our community.
Yes, I’m a huge supporter of our police. It’s why I’m so profoundly disappointed in their punitive actions during this temporary detour. Honoring the spirit of the law would have been the right course of action. What was delivered was the worst kind of policing.
The beatings will continue until morale improves?
This is the kind of policing that primes a powder keg. There is no telling how large or how explosive that powder keg can be, or what is going to set it off. Just ask Milwaukee’s police department.
I’ve always believed it takes five positives to erase a single negative. None of the half dozen or so people whom I know were “snagged” in that trap have regular exposure to the police, so it’s going to be a long time before that wrong can be “righted”.
Of course, the officer might have been equipped with a sense of discretion and could have written warnings. This ridiculous level of harshness and belligerence will affect every officer, in Wheeling and elsewhere negatively.
It’s time for leadership to show those on the front lines the big picture. Or, as so precisely articulated by William Shakespeare, hoist with his own petard.
