Police Officers' Association of Nebraska
A contributing member of the Law Enforcement Community since 1953.

Police Officers' Association of Nebraska

President's Message

James Peschong, POAN President

First of all, I want to thank Past President Don Dreyer for his leadership this past year. It was a very busy year for him. It appears this next one seems to be heading in the same direction. However, I'm up for the challenge. It's hard to believe the 2009 Annual Conference has come and gone. It was a great conference that provided us with an opportunity for continuing education, exposure to some fantastic vendors and a chance to enhance our networks. The bar has been set for next year's conference.

As a member of the POAN for nearly thirty-five years, I consider it a tremendous honor to serve as your President for the 2010-2011 term. I will rely on my experience as a long-time active member of POAN to help carry our Association forward. Nebraska , like most states in the country today is facing many critical financial issues. Local governmental entities are going to assume even more duties and responsibilities. This means that we all are going to be asked to do more with less. We also know that our greatest public responsibility is to provide a safe and secure community --to raise our families, to work, and to allow us all to live a decent and comfortable life. Therefore, it is even more paramount that we continue to work closely with our counterparts in county, State and the Federal law enforcement agencies in order to keep us safe. In today's fiscal climate, we have to work even harder to make sure that all of our available tax dollars are used most wisely and efficiently.

Over the years, I have been privileged to witness firsthand the fruits of the outstanding work carried out by our past leaders. One thing that has always impressed me is the dedication to the job that they have had. They have worked hard at professionalizing the job by enhancing training and training opportunities. They have fought for better pay and benefits for the personnel who do this job. They have policed their own profession to ensure there is strong integrity in the profession and they have worked hard to enhance the quality-of-life in the many communities across the State.

This coming year the association will aggressively continue its pursuit to enhance the retirement benefits for police officers of 1st Class Cities. As you know, this will be our third year at trying to move a retirement bill through the legislature. Obviously these are tuff economic times but we have continued to build a significant amount of support from Senators, other professional organizations, the League of Municipalities and the legislative Retirement Committee. I am hopeful that this will be the year that we can achieve this goal. However, there is still a lot of hard work that needs to take place in order to accomplish this goal. If you are willing to help out with this effort I would appreciate a phone call.

As an association, we continue to experience a significant challenge to bring new members into the association. While our membership still holds strong, I would like to challenge each and every member to try to sign up a new member into the association this upcoming year. Our Membership Committee will also be working hard to increase our membership in order to ensure we represent voices from all aspects of the law enforcement profession. Please take some time and visit with a perspective member and tell them about the association.

This year we will also be doing some upgrading to our website. I have appointed a committee to make recommendations for this modification. I'm hopeful that this can be accomplished by the Spring of 2010. If you have some thoughts on this, certainly feel free to share them.

I thank you for this opportunity and look forward to everyone's participation. Your voices will be heard.

~Assistant Chief of Police James Peschong, POAN President