They Better Be Gettin What They Deserve To Be Gettin

Okay, this is important because it's a fight for overtime money, and the overtime money comes from Homeland Security funding. The same Homeland Security funding that NYC eats like cotton candy because it takes 10 "cops" to do the work of 5 or 6 anywhere else. Not that the core of the Apples force is lacking, mind you, but the affirmative-action hires shouldn't be meter maids let alone sworn police officers, and they get a lot of the OT because to do otherwise would result in charges of discrimination. NYPD isn't needed on the site, has no jurisdiction on the site, but surrounds the site en masse then wonders why the Feds are fed-up with the way they squander taxpayer money.

July 24, 2006 -- " THE NYPD has posted cops in squad cars in front of the gates to Ground Zero in a turf battle with the Port Authority over security, The Post has learned.

The NYPD began the around-the-clock blockade at the four entry points into the PA-controlled site after the PA police brass ignored requests for information about manpower and safety measures at the hallowed grounds of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Specifically, the NYPD anti-terrorism experts were troubled by the lack of armed security at the gates at the corners of Vesey, Church, West and Liberty streets, where cars and construction trucks routinely enter the site.

A private security firm, whose employees do not carry guns, was overseeing the gates, officials say, while armed PA cops patrolled the 16-acre grounds.

The NYPD's concern was prompted by the recent Lebanon-based terror threat to flood lower Manhattan by either bombing a PATH tunnel or destroying the retaining walls that keep the Hudson River out of the Ground Zero "bathtub."

The NYPD strongly suggested the PA police harden security at the fenced gates.

"The PA was not very responsive," one source said.

Sources say the PA did not feel obligated to listen to the NYPD because Ground Zero is under bi-state jurisdiction - not the city's.

When the NYPD raised the issue again and was ignored, it posted police cars on city property immediately outside Ground Zero's gates from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Within a couple of weeks, the NYPD expanded the checkpoints to 24 hours a day - requiring about a dozen cars and two dozen cops each day. Vehicles cannot enter Ground Zero unless the NYPD cars allow them to pass.

The PAPD then positioned its own vehicles inside the gates. They were easily visible last week when a reporter and photographer from The Post walked around the site.

"The NYPD flexed its muscle, letting the PA know who was boss in New York," the source added.

"It's a turf war," another source said.

A third source said that the clash may be more about "ego, but in the end, it will mean there will be better security for the site."

A spokesman for the PA said its police department "works closely with the NYPD and other local state and federal agencies."

An NYPD spokesman declined to comment.

It is not the first time the NYPD and the PA have clashed over Ground Zero. In fact, it was the NYPD that raised the security concerns about the proposed Freedom Tower that forced the state to scuttle the initial plan and redesign it."