Let’s put something to rest right now: Anybody who says he’s pro-cop but opposes the contract with the police officer’s union is being disingenuous. At best.

(That contract was rejected at the Metro Fiscal Affairs meeting Monday.)

Why do we say that? Somebody told us at Various Things & Stuff a long time ago that a budget is a numerical representation of the priorities of an organization. You can say you love cops all you want, but if you’re against their contract, what you’re really saying is this: “Cops aren’t worth that much.”

Take the Review-Journal’s editorial today. (We picked them because — unlike some others who’ve weighed in on the question — at least the R-J is somewhat honest.)

“The controversy over the proposed $52 million Las Vegas police contract isn’t about whether one supports the cops or doesn’t,” the editorial begins. But that’s just it: It’s precisely about whether one supports cops or not. The three people who voted against the contract — Clark County Commissioners Rory Reid and Chip Maxfield and developer Peter Thomas — were really saying they don’t support police to the tune of the $52 million contract.

They didn’t say exactly that, of course. They never do. “I’d love to have been an advocate of Metro today, but my problem is I have to worry about Metro and a lot of other things,” Reid said, according to the R-J. Added Maxfield: “It’s not an issue of how much a police officer should be paid. … We have an entire criminal justice system that has many needs.”

Whatever.

No matter what they say, the message is clear: Cops aren’t worth that much. Otherwise, Reid and Maxfield would have joined Las Vegas Councilmen Gary Reese and Larry Brown in voting to approve the contract.

As we said, at least the R-J was honest. After the usual obligatory lines about “the vital role police play in establishing public safety” and “those who risk their lives to carry out that duty deserve just compensation,” the paper came to the heart of the matter:

“But that doesn’t mean the police merit a key tot he taxpayers safe-deposit box.”

See what we mean? Cops are good and all, but only to a point. And for the R-J, County Manager Thom Reilly, Reid, Maxfield and everybody on the commission except Commissioner Tom Collins, that value is somewhere south of $52 million.

Really, the county has nothing to lose. If the matter goes to arbitration, the county could shave some dollars off the pact. The worst that can happen is that cops get the same contract that officers have agreed to by a vote of 1,191 to 76, that Sheriff Bill Young has endorsed and that at least three members of the five-member Fiscal Affairs Committee support.

Wait, you say. The vote on Fiscal Affairs was 3-2 against the contract. How is it that we at Various Things & Stuff can say that three members supported the contract?

It seems that Thomas voted against it, even though he supported it, the very definition of cowardice. (You can tell that’s true because the R-J lauded him for courage, and the paper often asserts the opposite of the truth is true.)

According to the Las Vegas Sun’s story today, Thomas wasn’t opposed to the contract; he just felt wrong about voting for it because the county commission was against it.

“Had I voted to move this contract forward, it would have meant that voters in the county didn’t have a say in it. I probably would have felt different [sic] had it not been for six of seven commissioners against it. Where my sympathies lie and the way I vote don’t necessarily coincide,” Thomas said.

But voters in the county did have a say in it. They spoke through Maxfield and Reid, who they elected. (In fact, Reid wasn’t even on the committee until this week; commissioners yanked Collins off the panel because he, unlike Thomas, was planning to vote his conscience and approve the contract.) So instead of the legally mandated two votes, the county has acquired an extra-legal third vote because of Thomas’ lack of conviction. Why not just remove Thomas from the commission entirely, and appoint a third county commissioner? The county pays a larger share of Metro’s budget anyway; they probably deserve the direct representation. A matter for the 2007 Legislature perhaps?

Young hit the nail on the head when he said Thomas should have voted on the merits of the contract, not the wishes of the county commission. Because he didn’t, we’re looking at the possibility of a full year without a contract for cops.

Everybody loves police when they dial 9-1-1. But when it comes time to pay the bill, it seems nobody’s willing to reach for the check. To be sure, the county has found new and exciting ways to excuse itself to the restroom just as the tab arrives.

As for the mealy mouthed “support” that everybody from the county to the R-J to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce is talking about, well, all that “support” and $2 gets you a venti coffee at Starbucks.

Everybody knows David Letterman is the king of Top 10 lists, a regular staple of his show for years. And everybody knows that part of the charm of the list is that some items aren’t funny. But the key is, most are funny.

So why is the Las Vegas Sun going in the opposite direction, and publishing lists by some dude named Barry M. Horstman where the vast majority of items aren’t funny? (And by vast majority, we mean “they all pretty much blow.”)

Seriously, Sun. You’ve got eight precious pages per day, and this is how you want to use the space?

Then again, editors did get rid of Susan Snyder’s column, so they’ve deposited a few dollars in the anti-lameness bank. But each Horstman list is another big ATM withdrawl, and the paper’s going to be overdrawn, like, next week.