By Jessica Van Sack / The Beat

It was back in September that Joe Biden publicly thanked a prominent local figure for finally endorsing his ticket.

"Tommy, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it," the vice president-elect said. "I take this personally as well as practically. You know, you and I . . . have been working together for 30 years."

Before you start scratching your head, let me explain: Tommy is Thomas Nee, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association. And he does go way back with the soon to be ex-senator from Delaware, who has long been a friend of police. Many believe Biden is about to come through for cops again - and also for his buddy Tommy, who helped Obama-Biden win the backing of the 287,000-member National Association of Police Organizations.

Not all Online Universities are Equal The Celebrity Secret for Thick, Lush Hair The Secret to Getting Highly Discounted Cruise Tickets It's a little-known fact for Beltway outsiders that Nee, 51, is president of that powerful national union, and in that role now has a pipeline to the White House.

So what does this mean? For one, it means if you're Tommy Nee, you're probably feeling a great sense of irony about now. It was earlier this month that Mayor Thomas M. Menino began imploring you to convince the cops to accept a wage freeze. It's not the request itself that was ironic, but what Nee was doing at the time: ferrying back and forth to Capitol Hill, trying to ensure that cuts to Boston police don't happen.

Nee's efforts have been paying off: the House last week released its version of a stimulus bill containing $4 billion for local law enforcement. A related bill filed Jan. 9 re-establishes many of the anti-crime measures under the 1994 Crime Bill that Biden wrote, notably the vaunted COPS program that President Bush eliminated.

"This is for equipment and assets we haven't had in eight years," Nee said by phone while driving to D.C. last night.

If passed, such proposals would begin to fulfill a promise Biden made directly and publicly to Nee when he pledged in September: "We are going to put another 50,000 cops on the street."

There's no way to know how many cops would come our way, but there has been talk of at least 200, and something tells me Biden will take care of the Hub. Which leads to this: If you're the mayor of Boston, and the president of your cops union is on a first-name basis with the vice president, why go to war with him?

It makes little sense to demand union leaders agree to a wage freeze so you can protect jobs - and then say layoffs are on the table either way. But if the feds deliver a new crime bill - and strong ranks of Hub cops are maintained - we know which Tommy to thank.