As survivors slip away, call to teach about Holocaust grows
There are about 120 survivors left in the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors’ Association.
Five years from now, only a handful may remain.
“Last summer, the association lost about five. You’re talking about people in their late 80s,” former president Kae Knight said.
When it comes to educating the public on lessons learned from the Holocaust, Knight knows that meeting someone who actually hid for years from the Nazis, survived a concentration camp, jumped from a train headed to certain death or fought in the resistance movements
pensions by cashing in unused sick leave, vacation, bonuses and other things at the end of their careers.
Some bigwigs in Phoenix city management (who also get the benefit) have become rich on the deal.
From the reports I’ve read, however, the average pension for a publicsafety retiree is a little under $60,000 a year, which is said to be roughly $10,000 more than the statewide average. Then again, most cops and firefighters don’t get Social Security.
Still, DiCiccio said, “Taxpayers have been ripped off for so many years.”
If you’re wondering what kind of ne’er-do-well would do such a thing, I found one who’s willing to talk. His name is Jim Maish. He is a retired Phoenix police officer with 26 years of experience, most of it as a member of the Special Assignments Unit, the department’s SWAT team. During his career, he was involved in a number of potentially deadly situations. And in all his years of service, he used only three sick days. In retirement, Maish works as a reserve officer (that means for free) training other officers.
Doesn’t sound like much of a reprobate to me.
And to be honest, I didn’t so much “find” Maish as stumble upon an essay he wrote for a publication of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association.
When I contacted him, he told me: “It’s funny — I’m a conservative guy. I vote for conservative candidates. Those are my values. Most of the people in PLEA don’t vote for liberals. They’re conservative people. So it’s bizarre that someone like Sal (DiCiccio) or the Goldwater Institute people use words like union ‘boss’ or union ‘thug’ at people like us. I’m grateful I have a good retirement. But that was never my motive. The people I worked with didn’t sit around thinking about how we were going to spike our pensions. The guys I worked with loved being officers. It wasn’t just a job; it was a calling.”
In his article for the PLEA publication, under the headline “Thoughts from a Pension Spiker,” Maish wrote in part:
“I never worked a desk. My entire career was working south Phoenix patrol and almost 25 years on SAU (SWAT). I never had a desire to promote. I loved my job. I had no idea in 2005, when I was working 12-hour shifts, sometimes seven days a week for months to find the ‘Baseline Killer’ responsible for nine murders and the ‘Serial Shooters’ who wounded 18 people and who were convicted of six murders, that my motives were to ‘spike’ my pension. I wish the good lawyers at the (Goldwater) Institute could have counseled me or held workshops so I could have refused to work overtime and save the citizens money. In my ignorance I didn’t ‘put the taxpayer first’ by working overtime to arrest serial murderers.
“I was in over 20 situations where people shot at me or were shot and killed by me or someone else within a 10-yard radius. I thought those were dangerous circumstances; however, it takes a lawyer to redefine the word ‘dangerous.’ One of the Goldwater Institute’s ‘boss lawyers,’ Nick Dranias, said public safety unions are ‘dangerous.’ ” It goes on. Pension spiking might not be good public policy. Lots of people want it changed. That’s fine. What’s not OK is characterizing people like Maish as cheaters, not when they’ve spent years standing between the criminals and us.
Like the time Maish and other officers had to break down the door of an armed man who was firing at them. One officer was shot in the chest. His protective vest saved him. The way Maish remembers the incident, neither the officer who took a bullet nor any of the other officers on the scene were thinking at the time about pension spiking.