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Staying on message

Those two words form a powerful combination for the PBA when we do what they say — act to improve the politics affecting the lives and livelihoods of New York City police officers and their families. The PBA Committee on Political Education (COPE) has been putting a lot of time and effort into identifying the issues and candidates — friends and enemies alike — central to our concerns.

Now we need your help.

My COPE co-chairman, Manhattan South Trustee John Flynn, and I have been working with some 25 delegate-committee members on the strategies and logistics we believe will help elect the candidates and pass the legislation that will accomplish our goals. Now, several months before the election season heats up, we want to recruit you, the rank-and-file PBA member, to join our cause.

Here’s what all our members — both active and retired — can do.

 The most important element in any political action campaign is voter registration. So remember to register and vote and to encourage your family and friends to do so as well. A computerized database of all our registered voters numbering in the hundreds of thousands (counting family and friends) will present a powerful united front to persuade candidates that what’s in our interest is also in theirs. It will include distributing flyers, campaign literature and voter-registration forms in your neighborhoods and your precincts and manning phone banks in the weeks immediately preceding and on the primary and general election days. Phone banks, which will be set up at PBA headquarters and, when possible, in the boroughs and counties where you live, have proved to be a valuable political asset for this and other unions, one that can convince elected officials to see things our way even in their political off-season.
Register, volunteer your time, vote!

Another significant contribution you can make is just a little more time-consuming than the registration process and casting your ballot but also very productive: Volunteer your actual on-site services once or twice a year for three or four hours each time. What you will be asked to do during these periods will vary.

For us, there should never be a political off-season. We intend to keep politically fit all year long, year in and year out, so we can flex our political muscles whenever we need to. But we need your help. To get involved go to our political action page and click on the “Volunteer” button.