Well, that's where you're wrong, "Fred". According to the village manager, much more money could have been saved with furlough days and/or 4 day work weeks - more than 400K as I recall - than were saved by proposing Recreation and north station fire staffing for the cut. See her 9/8/08 memo to the Board. Do the research before getting your crayon out.
As to police, my recollection is they cannot find enough recruits to hire. And that that is the reason we are short-staffed, not funding. The funding issue is related to the desire to add more positions, like the many we would need if we had bars.
Again, tell your problems to Smith and to the voters. I have already said the RP is reviewing personnel for cuts. Less mowing? As if we haven't seen that before. Grass and trees are always the first thing to go in this administration.
Sine die: they're leaving, they're not doing anything about it until God knows when, certainly they don't know. The maximum PTT I have seen in these parts is 10%. Chicago's PPT revenues are down dramatically this year.
I would not lobby for this until what was done in the article that heads this thread was done and, perhaps more important, people were convinced it had been done. They obviously are not.