Lakefront Overtime

We're going to go ahead and take full credit for providing our readership with this opportunity. From the FOP website:

• The Lodge was notified today that a new lakefront overtime initiative is scheduled to begin Sunday, June 6, 2010 and will continue through the end of August 2010.
  
  This initiative is open to Police Officers pay grade 9161. Officers may sign up on the CPD Intranet site in the same manner as other overtime initiatives. Officers will have until Friday, June 4, 2010 to sign up for dates in June. Officers will have until Tuesday, June 15, 2010 to sign up for dates in July.
  
  There will be day and afternoon shifts available. Anticipated start times are 1000 hrs and 1400 hours. Officers will be in full uniform and assigned to foot posts.
  
  A FAX message with the complete details of the initiative is expected to be released some time this weekend. It was not available when this update was posted.

So the city would rather pay everyone time-and-one-half than actually make up the increasingly obvious shortage of officers on the street. We're not denying we could use the money in these trying times, but didn't we used to cover all of this just 10 years ago without breaking a sweat?