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Police: Woman attacked by burglar inside her home

Letter to the Editor: Breast-feeding can benefit infants of mothers taking methadone-type treatments

<p>If Wilkes-Barre City police officers dread going to work all of sudden, they better get over it because their new chief Marcella Lendacky isn&#8217;t going anywhere.</p><p>Last week, the Wilkes-Barre City Police Benevolent Association, the officers&#8217; union, continued bashing Lendacky in a 13-page letter sent to Mayor Tony George and the city council. Before that, some of the officers supposedly sent an anonymous letter warning George that if he promoted her, morale would plummet.</p><p>Talk about overkill.</p><p>George is having none of it and is standing by his historic pick, the city&#8217;s first female police chief.</p><p>Regarding the litany of complaints, the mayor said as far as he&#8217;s concerned, they amount to nothing more than hearsay because they&#8217;re not documented. Well, the jury&#8217;s still out on that.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m hearing praise from business people and the neighborhoods,&#8221; George told me. He said they&#8217;re happy seeing an increased police presence. &#8220;And if the neighborhoods are happy, then I&#8217;m happy.&#8221;</p><p>But isn&#8217;t it also important that city police officers respect their new boss, even grudgingly?</p><p>Unfortunately, Lendacky&#8217;s appointment has ignited a civil war in police headquarters. And this is about the last thing a city plagued with crime needs.</p><p>The union&#8217;s letter claims that Lendacky, a 27-year police department veteran, is an ineffective and unqualified leader. It attacks her job performance throughout her entire career. &#8220;We know who she truly is. We know her lack of ability and we know the internal and external destruction our department will face,&#8221; the apocalyptic letter says, according to a published report.</p><p>So who is she, truly? A closeted clone of Machiavelli? And why haven&#8217;t we heard about this alleged bad apple before now? Is this yet another case of a union having protected someone who should have been fired long ago?</p><p>Union President Sgt. Phil Myers has come out swinging, although it&#8217;s unclear just how widespread the union&#8217;s discontent is in police headquarters. Last month, the union filed an unfair labor practice with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, alleging that Lendacky has retaliated daily against Myers. There are four others on file. One regards ordering city detectives to wear a tie. Sheesh, it&#8217;s not as though they were also ordered to wear a suit to look professional.</p><p>The union&#8217;s 13-page smear campaign also claims that Lendacky has created a toxic work environment and has crippled morale. She must be a living terror to cause such damage in the few weeks she&#8217;s been on the job.</p><p>The officers also reportedly complained that they dread coming to work. At least they have each other. Dealing with a bunch of demoralized cops who clearly want you gone surely can&#8217;t be a walk in the park for Lendacky either.</p><p>Despite the downright mean-spiritedness of the attacks on Chief Lendacky, the union deserves to be heard and its concerns and complaints taken seriously.</p><p>The city council didn&#8217;t act on a resolution resident Matt Ford proposed for conducting an independent investigation.</p><p>Mayor George said brokering peace negotiations would be futile. Maybe so, but what&#8217;s the alternative? Expecting Lendacky to continue running a department of police officers who apparently can&#8217;t stand and, even worse, don&#8217;t respect her? And leaving the public to wonder whether the union&#8217;s complaints and concerns are valid?</p><p>Standing by his police chief is admirable, especially considering she might be the victim of some heavy-handed police brutality.</p><p>However, the mayor, who oversees the entire department, needs to at least try to get to the bottom of this volatile situation.</p><p>If he then determines the union&#8217;s complaints have no merit and its members still dread coming to work, then fine, let them seek other employment. There are likely a lot of local part-time police officers who would love to be full-time members of the Wilkes-Barre City Police Department.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Zeroing In</p><p>Betty Roccograndi</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Betty Roccograndi, a former Times Leader reporter and award-winning journalist, is a freelance columnist. Reach her by email at broccograndi@gmail.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Zeroing In: For safety’s sake, get to bottom of Wilkes-Barre police squabble