Column by Loretta Redd
The dust-up between Mike McGrew of the Santa Barbara Police Officers Association and Chief Cam Sanchez over what motorcycle pants should be worn reminds me of a petulant child stomping his foot at having to don his Sunday best for church service.
CHP Pants
Giving the term, “fashion police” a whole new meaning, I researched not only styles and materials covering the bottoms of our sworn officers, but also the origin of the term: too big for your britches.
Historically speaking, it was Davy Crockett who wrote An Account of Col. Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East in 1835: “I myself was one of the first to fire a gun under Andrew Jackson. I helped give him all his glory. I liked him well once: but when a man gets too big for his breeches, I say Good bye.”
If only we all could “say Good bye” to the exaggerated sense of importance that the POA seems to have acquired recently, the city would certainly benefit. I never thought we would have to create an anti-bullying campaign to protect our police Chief from own officers’ union, but that’s what it sounds like.
Snowboard Pants
The most recent example of POA versus management comes in a material form; literally. There was a time when the city motorcycle police wore wool pants; then they began wearing looser, “snowboarder” type britches with shorter ankle boots rather than the tall riding boots of old.
I won’t belabor that neither alternative look particularly good on overweight officers, but I will point out that the California Highway Patrol– the most revered motorcycle enforcement team around– so appreciates its 100% wool or wool/poly tighter breech pants, that it is illegal to try and mimic their uniform.
1st US Volunteer Cavalry
And we can’t forget the 1898 hero of the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry, Teddy Roosevelt, and his band of Rough Riders. This motley collection of native Americans, college athletes, cowboys and ranchers didn’t seem to have a problem taking San Juan Hill dressed in Mounties-style britches and tall boots.
Whereas POA union leader McGrew contests that the “armor” afforded by the new, baggy padded pants offers more protection from accidents, no one seems concerned for those poor suckers on bicycle patrol. I’ll bet their bike shorts don’t cost $150 or more. And what about the rest of the patrol force, riding in those hot, stuffy patrol cars?
Maybe we could commission a new uniform consisting of Hawaiian shirts and board shorts, with a smart reflective stripe down the side. Come to think of it, our cops might catch even more of the local criminals if they blended in.
I’ve got a better way to keep the POA’s tushes safe and their ankles strong… get off of your fancy motorcycles and start walking a beat for a change. I mean, really, what can a motorcycle do that can’t be done either by car or bicycle?
The real issue, it seems, is not so much what McGrew and the POA gets to wear on the fashion runway, as it is their beef with the Chief.
You don’t like your boss, boys? Well, work it out like they do in every other business, or leave the force. You want new uniforms? Learn to dance “cheek to cheek” and resolve it like adults. But enough with the “Waa Waa Waa” and “We’re gonna sue you” childishness. Chief Cam Sanchez is the one who sits in front of the Council and the City Administrator and tells them that crime is down because of your efforts, defends your staffing positions, and tries to inspire the citizens of this City to believe that you have their interests at heart, before your own.
You do, don’t you?
Will the shenanigans involving the chief ever stop?
Sounds like the usual Santa Barbara bread and circuses. Gang problems? Look at these pants! Budget trashed? What about those evil plastic shopping bags?
Psych, that tv show that’s supposedly filmed in SB (but really in British Columbia), supposedly about the SBPD wouldn’t even come up with these idiotic plotlines involving the goofy chief and his odd department because they would seem too unbelievable. Nice one Loretta.
The POA union got one huge smackdown in the last election. Their endorsed candidates all lost.
Voters are recognizing the POA union is the thug; not the professional police officers doing their daily jobs. The POA lying and making a useless line in the sand issue over these uniforms only create further distaste and distance between the public and the police union shenanigans.
My vote is for Sanchez this time. And my vote will be clearly against the POA unions next time and forever. These pants are not Kevlar and the “armor” is just some occasional dense foam padding that may or may not offer any degree of extra protection.
The POA needs to move along folks, nothing to see here. And let the courts settle the proof issue instead of their orchestrated media attacks without foundation they are indulging in now. Grow up POA. Don’t drive a wedge between the cop on the beat and your union hissy fits.
Surprising here the author cannot figure out what the POA is really doing and why they are picking a fight over pants. But the POA indeed seems to pick a fight to lose every few months.
But I would like to see a beat cop on foot chase down a speeder in a car and drivers who violate the right of ways of pedestrians.
The public sent POA a message. They need to listen to it. Their current astro-turf campaign about the nylon baggy pants looks like POA is using the same failed strategy that Mark Lee used for his Veronica Springs development project, also soundly defeated in the last election.
Don’t create false issues, POA. This is an increasingly wise electorate – not perfect yet, but no longer silent and dumb as in the past. Online rebuttals now trump union-controlled messaging.
McGrew, isn’t it time you retired as the police union boss before you sink the whole thing?
You’re so right! For the past year we’ve nagged about the extravagance within the department. Yet the POA’s ready to go to the mat over what three or four officers are wearing at any given moment. What’s the deal, are there extra doughnut size pockets in those things, officer fancy pants?