Re: Jason Oliver's Oct. 30 commentary, "Union's tactics go way too far in Simi Valley":
After reading Oliver's one-sided commentary, it is obvious who his friends are.
Just because other people decided to roll over and take a pay cut doesn't mean our police officers should have to. When other city employees start handling gang crime, arresting drug dealers and dealing with all the other situations that our officers do, then I might feel the police should take a pay cut.
I happen to be in a profession that was hit harder than most, but I don't have the gall to think others should have to suffer my fate just to "even things out."
I don't believe for a minute that Councilman Glen Becerra was scared when he and his family saw the officers in front of his house. I believe Becerra was angry, and I don't appreciate him thinking that the people of Simi Valley are so stupid as to believe otherwise.
How can the city cry poverty when they throw themselves a party with thousands of taxpayer dollars? I have lived in this city for 44 years and saw no reason for this.
I have a thought for Oliver: When you can convince criminals to commit 2 percent less crime, then you might have a good enough argument to cut police officers' wages. But I have a hunch that you'd be better off trying to hold back the tide than accomplish that.
Oliver doesn't speak for me or my family or any of my friends. When armed people go into buildings to kill others or rob stores or banks or take an innocent child, the men and women of our Police Department are heading toward the problem and helping people in peril -- including Oliver -- without so much as expecting a thank you.
-- Sandy Monroe, Simi Valley