Police and Fire Unions To Protest Home Opener

The City is abuzz as opening night for the Miami Heat approaches. LeBron has already made his plans for where he will be spending his first night on the town after a home game, Mansion Night Club where Carl Cox will be rounding out the weekends festivities with a Halloween set for his only performance date in North America. Halloween itself will be a pure spectacle in South Beach whever you are. The City itself was planning to shut down the downtown area to have a festival for the latest reason to drink in Miami: basketball. However, what the city was not planning for was a protest of the cities Police and Fire Department in the middle of it all.

The entertainment world has a tendency to distract a reeling society by putting a layer of optimism in its heart. After 9/11, we turned to the Yankees to help us remember what normal felt like. What has gotten lost through LeBronmania was the city of Miami's $110 million budget deficit. A hiring freeze since May 2009 leaving Police and Fire departments in the same shoes as universities and other companies; a growing workload with a shrinking staff. Many of these individuals without jobs may eventually turn to the Heat to forget about their current living situation, but for now, they will be missing the games to hold a protest outside the American Airlines Arena. No word on whether this will be the only time they will be conducting such a event, but my guess is as long as they can get permits to protest while the Miami Heat are playing, they will do so.

Are they at fault for doing such a thing? Absolutely not. They understand how big of a stage this Friday is for the City. They also understand that the same funds that went into making downtown a spectacle for the game could have been allocated toward their organizations. I actually applaud them because protests like this are needed to actually show how bad of an economic situation we are facing as a country. They are needed to show how little is being done about it. They are needed to show that people need to stop paying the price for a government that has failed them. A government of individuals more concerned about conducting smear campaigns against one another rather than find a real solution to a real problem.