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Excessive Labor Costs Force Vallejo to Vote for Bankruptcy
Don and Johnny can sit here all day and type themselves silly about how much firefighters and cops should make as compared to the council. How exactly does city council pay relate to police officer or firefighter pay? Answer -- it doesn't. There are citizens of this city walking and talking because of my actions. No price can be put on that. Can the council claim that? I do suppose that they could be compared to the board of a 'Fortune 600' (sic) company. Johnny whines about the FD and PD requiring only a HS education. Besides the fact that he's wrong, what's the educational requirement for council? Yep... less than ours. Now let's look at public perception. One city council candidate recently did some independent polling before asking for our endorsement. Smart move. The polls found that we have a 90+% approval rating in San Diego. A Harris poll (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/inde…) showed firefighting topped the "most prestigious" jobs in America. Incidentally, lawyers and journalists were near the bottom -- right above union leaders. Take that for what it's worth. As it turns out, we're not asking for the world. All we've ever asked for is to be at the median of the ten largest cities in CA. Not the ten top paid, the ten largest. That's not outrageous, considering how short staffed we are and the incredible fires we face down here. We gave back 6% four years ago. This year we got back most of that. But we're still behind where we were four years ago, especially if you count the reduction in benefits. If you factor in the CPI, we should have gotten 13% in increases in that time, plus the 6% back. Yet we're not whining -- we passed the contract by something like 190 to 10. Still, we've done our share. It's time for others to help out.— May 9, 2008 9:38 p.m.
Excessive Labor Costs Force Vallejo to Vote for Bankruptcy
DavidGUrban, Don't believe Johnny when he claims that city workers are the only ones calling for tax increases. http://onlinecpi.org/downloads/THE%20BOTTOM%20LIN… San Diego has the lowest tax rate of the largest cities in CA. SD collects about $38 per person per month. The AVERAGE of the ten largest cities in CA is $59. Is that too low? Well, it's really the choice of the citizens. City employee pay is already lower than other cities. You can't cut much more there. So what's left? Services....— May 9, 2008 4:02 p.m.
Excessive Labor Costs Force Vallejo to Vote for Bankruptcy
Don, The "other" was one time pension payouts, etc. Cashout of accumulated annual leave, etc. Should employees be allowed to accumulate that much leave? Well, I don't know what the Vallejo policy is. The city of SD pays off 50 cents on the dollar for cashed in leave upon retirement. Meanwhile, they pay time and a half for someone to replace the person on leave. Makes sense to cash it out. Before you start screaming, Johnny, I've looked at the Vallejo pay scale. It's much, much higher than here in SD. We'd have to give a 20-30% raise to get there.— May 9, 2008 3:58 p.m.
Union-Tribune Lays Off Three Who Spearheaded Electronic News, Radio Efforts
Anon, I don't disagree with your comments about politicians not funding Bowman's recommendations. However, your bit about "enabling the 2003 and 2007 wildfires to get out of control" for political is absolute bull. There simply was no way to safely engage the Cedar Fire at it's start and no way to catch the other fires. I know... I was there.— May 9, 2008 3:51 p.m.
Why You Don't Get Accurate Information on San Diego from U-T Editorial Page
Justice, Don't forget that you simply don't want public safety officers working until 65. That's why we (and you) pay more into the system each month, than you would into SS. So that we can retire earlier. I'm not going to look for it now, but I did see an article a while back talking about how DROP programs are starting to catch on with private employers. Again, if it costs so much money, it should be no problem for the city to prove it. Yet time and time again, they refuse to. Why? Why not prove once and for all how bad it is?— April 30, 2008 1:05 p.m.
Why You Don't Get Accurate Information on San Diego from U-T Editorial Page
Here's an interesting bit on salary negotiations. The firefighter's union offered to take no increase. With a caveat, of course. We offered to the city that they could bring in an independent auditor to analyze DROP. If DROP cost the city money we would take no raise this year. If DROP made the city money, we'd get all of that money in the form of a raise. Since "everyone knows" DROP costs the city so much you'd think the city would jump at that offer, wouldn't you? But they didn't. Hmmmm... I wonder why? Maybe we should have offered to take just half the money.— April 29, 2008 9:52 p.m.
Why You Don't Get Accurate Information on San Diego from U-T Editorial Page
Don, I'm not exactly a huge defender of the U-T. However, I think you're a little off base here. Here's a quote from the actual article you reference, "Yet on the very morning last week when the City Council was preparing to vote on the bond sale, Aguirre issued a memo calling it illegal and claiming that such borrowing required approval by two-thirds of San Diego's voters." Isn't that the truth of the matter that you claim they left out? But then the article goes on to say, "Aguirre now declares he will not sign off on the initiative, thereby threatening to derail it altogether." Did Aguirre say this? Would that act effectively kill the proposal? Remember that this is an editorial, not a news report. Is it possible that you're letting your dislike of the U-T color your reporting?— April 27, 2008 7:42 p.m.
Sanders Official Who Was Fired for Challenging Unethical Practices Files Wrongful Termination Suit
Don, TOS means Terms of Service. Basically, it's the rules for posting on a particular site. It entered the language back in the 90's, when people were complaining about being TOS'd from AOL. Johnny, I was speaking fully tongue in cheek with my bit about "welfare queen" being trademarked. You claim it's your trademark, yet Reagan first used it, and used it often. Misusing a trademark is yet another TOS violation. Get it now?— April 23, 2008 6:22 a.m.
Sanders Official Who Was Fired for Challenging Unethical Practices Files Wrongful Termination Suit
Ah... well, there ya have it. Your "registered trademark 'welfare queen'" was actually first used by Ronald Reagan. Another TOS violation. If you really think Chris Reed has a personal bone to pick with you, perhaps you should reconsider. I've proven a lot of their writers wrong about what they've written about the retirement system. I'm still there. Again, the UT has a policy of being anti city worker and anti union. Why would they ban you for agreeing? And yes, several other posters do agree with you. That's what a democracy is about. But a lot of others have simply posted, "Thank you firefighters, you deserve a raise". They don't give a hoot about all of your rants. I would certainly be interested in seeing all of these blogs have a counter on the page to track web views -- especially if it only counted distinct IP addresses. How about it, Don?— April 22, 2008 7:37 p.m.
Sanders Official Who Was Fired for Challenging Unethical Practices Files Wrongful Termination Suit
Johnny, PS, no I didn't report you to the U-T.— April 22, 2008 1:16 p.m.