Young Emerging Leaders

Well the FOP tallied the votes and despite the slanderous misinformation put out by the letter to the editor 3 days before the meeting we were still able to capture 47% of the vote count. I guess technically this means my opponent receives the endorsement but considering every officer in the audience assumed I was out to fire their chief going into the meeting I think we did remarkably well. If they had voted without us having the chance to speak at their meeting then I might have only received 5 or 6 votes. And don't forget that my opponent is a recent graduate of the Citizens Police Academy. This was definitely a steep hill to climb.

On one hand I'm thrilled to have made the charge that we did but on the other hand I must admit that I am a little disappointed. Especially since most of the feedback we received after the meeting was so positive. One officer told me that after the candidates left he heard a handful of officers say that my presentation really changed their minds about me.

The officer who called me and gave me the news said there were 126 votes cast and of those, 35 were cast by FOP members who DID NOT attend the meeting. He felt certain had they been there for the speeches and the Q&A that we would have locked up the endorsement. That just goes to show the power in printing misinformation in the newspaper - even in the letters to the editor section.

Oh well, hopefully the public will look at the 47% and realize the hole we had to dig out of to get that much support. Not sure how the FOP is going to word their press release. Hopefully it will emphasize the lack of a majority of support for either candidate.

Congrats to Andre Good for securing 122 of the 126 votes. Nice.