After hearing about Robin Eschliman’s performance on the Colby Mach radio program last Monday, I was struck dumb by her self-righteousness and by her total ignorance of the giving nature of the employees of the Lincoln Police Department.

On the radio, Eschliman compared the participation of two union memberships in the city’s United Way Campaign. The unions were the Lincoln Fire Union and the Lincoln Police Union.

When the city started the United Way Campaign there was a sort of informal competition between the fire department and the police department to see which one could get more of their employees to participate. The fire department won.

When Eschliman talked about this on the radio she singled out the Lincoln Police Union for criticism because of, in her mind, our low numbers of participation in the United Way Campaign. First, it is none of her business what anyone outside of her family gives or does not give or to what organization(s) they give to. Secondly, for a city council member, she is totally out of touch if she thinks the Lincoln Police Department is made up just of LPU members. Our employees are represented by four different unions and we have employees who are not represented by any labor organization. Yet she singles out LPU members. And she does it in reference to Lincoln Fire Union members. If she is attempting to stir up dissension between the two unions, especially considering the upcoming contract talks, she better try harder.

Finally she tied LPU’s giving to United Way to our negotiations with the city over wages, benefits and working conditions. Who gave her permission to change the law concerning such things? Who made her the final judge and arbitrator of what is enough giving?

Then, according to Deena Winter’s Wednesday column in the Lincoln Journal Star, Eschliman put every other city employee on notice, especially union members. If they don’t give enough to United Way their contract negotiations will be affected. In fact, she threatened their very jobs if they chose not to participate in United Way.

I can’t speak for every city employee, nor can I speak for every Lincoln Police Department employee or every police officer represented by the Lincoln Police Union. If I could, I would say this to Eschliman: the City of Lincoln would go broke if it (as Eschliman wants) based the pay of Lincoln Police Department/Lincoln Police Union members on their charitable contributions and their active involvement, off duty, with charitable institutions and volunteer work in our city. My guess is that this is true for every other city employee group.

The Lincoln Police Union has a separate and distinct branch with its own chairman or president.

Less than two weeks ago, LPU Charities had its annual Santa Cop Auction. We raised over $40,000. Every penny of that money will go to underprivileged children in our city. I say LPU, but every employee of the police department is involved in the auction one way or another. LPU Charities raised more than $15,000 last winter for children during its Polar Plunge Campaign. Every year we participate in the Law Enforcement Run for Special Olympics and with other agencies, raise tens of thousands of dollars for those children. LPU Charities gives out annual scholarships to college-bound students. We support midget football both with money and many, many volunteer hours. Lincoln Police Department employees donate thousands of dollars of leave time to other employees throughout the city who are in dire straits because of family and health problems.

We give to juvenile diabetes, we support several youth sport teams — the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign is an organization we support with our city earned wages each year. Lincoln Police Union members and Lincoln Police Department employees have served on and are serving on the boards of just about every charitable organization you can think of in Lincoln. Such organizations as the YMCA, YWCA, Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach, Big Brothers Big Sisters, many mental health organizations, Lincoln Council on Alcohol and Drugs, Cornhusker Place, Friendship Home, Malone Center, Lincoln Action Program and many more I cannot recall. You may find a group of city employees as involved with helping “the least of these” in our city. You just won’t find one more involved. Evidently this isn’t enough to satisfy Eschliman.

Let me repeat that none of this is any of Eschliman’s business. None of this should be anyone’s business. LPD and LPU members give back to the city because it is their nature and because they see the need, not because some politician wants to pat herself on the back about the amount of money she has extorted or attempted to extort from other city employees.

Also none of her business is what LPU members and LPD employees give to their schools and churches. She would be flabbergasted. Still it is none of her business.

I hope the mayor and Eschliman’s fellow city council members recognize her for what she is and do what they can to ensure that she does not drag them and their decision making down to the petty self-righteous level she has set for herself.

Edmund Sheridan is former president of the Lincoln Police Union.