Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Fred, Don't you think Aguirre would've gone after McGrory and Moores if he possibly could have? I'd love to see McGrory in jail, but it's not going to happen. What purpose would it serve to go after him? The past is done. Now we have to fix it. You say that the union has to make sweeping changes. You mean like figuring out how to fund retiree health care to eliminate the liability to the city? Yes, the local is working hard on that. Alas, most of the money saving ideas and grants that we've brought to the city have not been noticed by the public. It's been millions of dollars....— February 12, 2009 10:08 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Fred, There is a whole list of city agencies wanting volunteers at: http://www.sandiego.gov/volunteer-program/opportu… Most city agencies are looking for help. Johnny, they're looking for folks in the Attorney's Office and Family Justice Center. I assume that you're going to volunteer to save the city the cost of paying someone. Kind of hard to whine about someone else making money if you're not willing to step up to replace them, isn't it?— February 12, 2009 10 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
And 800— February 11, 2009 8:46 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Fred, Apparently you missed our press conference yesterday. We offered to work with DeMaio and develop solutions. The thing is he doesn't want to talk with us. He simply wants to bad mouth us and try to break the union. That's not going to work. Speaking of political capital, we can count to five. Carl isn't one of them.— February 11, 2009 8:45 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Johnny, As I've said before, I don't think the contracts afforded the Vallejo firefighters are warranted. Further, I think they've hired an idiot as an attorney. Oh, and there's someone posting in the Vallejo Time-Herald using your "trademark" and exact phraseology. But that couldn't be you... they claim to be from Beaumont.— February 11, 2009 8:42 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Just Wondering brought up the use of volunteers. Meanwhile, a good chunk of the OT in the FD is used paying firefighters to do the job that admin staff used to do. It's cheaper to pay a firefighter $40K in OT than pay staff $40K + benefits. Nonetheless, that's $40K that could be saved if volunteers did the work. Oddly enough, that volunteer opportunity is listed on the city web site and no one has volunteered. Any takers here? Anyone with moderate computer skills? Fred? It doesn't bode particularly well for the future of volunteer firefighters in SD when we can't even get someone to volunteer a few hours to do office work.— February 11, 2009 8:17 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Q: How do you clean up spilled panty waste? A: Cover it with clitty litter.— February 11, 2009 8:08 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Since Johnny is so big on quoting from the Vallejo Independent Bulletin, how about this: "Here is a Vallejo vs. Chico comparison. Vallejo CAFR 2007 Property taxes 23,812,446 Sales taxes ...12,517,648 Other taxes ...6,686,545 Utility taxes 12,746,862 Tot Tax Revenue 55,763,501 Fire service .. 25,238,098 Police service 38,050,873 City Manager 405,000 Safety Services cost 63,288,971 Total General Fund expenses.. 83,178,534 Vallejo Demographics 2005 Median income.. 50,030 Population..... 117,483 Violent Crime.. 1,206 Land Area sq mi 30.20 Vallejo Ratios Vallejo General Fund Public Safety 76% Vallejo tax per resident $474 Vallejo Violent crime per 100 residents 1.02 Vallejo Manager wage per tax rev.(*100) .73 .................................. Chico CAFR 2007 Property taxes 37,062,036 Taxes ........ 27,165,852 Tot Tax Revenue 64,227,888 Safety Services cost 34,653,773 City Manager 89,000 Total General (minus Chicos GVRD) Fund expenses.. 87,055,547 ChicoDemographics 2006 Median income.. 29,359 Population..... 71,427 Violent Crime.. 337 Land Area sq mi 22.4 Chico Ratios Chico General Fund Public Safety 40% Chico tax per resident $899 Chico Violent crime per 100 residents .47 Chico Manager wage per tax rev.(*100) .14" See the problem with Vallejo? Taxes per capita are just under twice as much in Chico. Yet the Vallejo city manager makes 405,000 and the Chico city manager makes 89,000. The same goes for other city employees, I'm sure -- just not to that extent. San Diego is not Vallejo...— February 10, 2009 7:49 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
This seems to be city policy, and when a fire needs to be put out the crew is instead helping with a heart attack. ============================== Fire engines only respond to about 2/3 of the calls for medical assistance in this city. Other cities in the county send an engine on ALL medical calls. We're already ahead of the 'savings curve'. I would suggest that it is not "folly" to send a paramedic (at least one) and three EMT's to the scene of a dire medical emergency. As has been mentioned before, San Diego has an award winning dispatch center which is very good at separating out the calls that don't require an engine. Alas, many in the community have learned the "key words" that they use to trigger a full engine and ambulance response. I can't tell you how many "chest pain" calls turn out to be something minor. They know if they tell the dispatcher that they have a stubbed toe, they'll have to wait longer for an ambulance. Don't blame us for that; blame your community members. Time is of the essence in many medical calls, just as it is for fires. That's why we go. Don't blame a slow fire response on the FD going to too many medical calls. That's a red herring. The true issue is not enough fire engines.— February 10, 2009 7:22 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Any and all suggestions are welcome. ====================== The absolutely cheapest solution to increasing fire protection seasonally is to buy (relatively) inexpensive pick-up based fire trucks and staff those on an as needed basis. Sell one of the PD's four brand new helicopters to pay for them. There's absolutely no need for them to have four ships. Of course, DeMaio would have a cow because of the OT. Let's see... the post office hires temporary workers during the holidays, we pay OT during high fire season. Makes sense, no? I have to wonder if CCDC or SEDC could pay for the fire and police protection in their respective areas. They seem to be able to pay dozens of security guards to ride Segways around downtown. Why not fire protection? That would free up money to staff stations elsewhere. Have smaller cities such as IB, Coronado, National City, La Mesa, Del Mar, Solana Beach and perhaps even Chula Vista contract with the SDFD for services. That would eliminate tons of overhead for them and provide profit for the city to staff new stations within the city. The People's Ordinance requires trash pick up once a week. It doesn't say where. Provide neighborhood dumpsters rather than individual house trash pickup. A ton of savings there. All that and not a tax or fee increase...— February 10, 2009 8:53 a.m.