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This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
JW, Vlad's conclusion is interesting, but only half correct. He says that: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Public employees are not responsible for this new fiscal reality. Elected city officials and their constituents cheered on the pension system's foray into the stock market, and during the good years, diverted the system's "surplus earnings" to pay for popular city initiatives, such as the ballpark, the convention center expansion, and for the cost of hosting the 1996 Republican national convention. Now, at a time of "surplus declines," the city is on the hook to make up for the losses. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< The problem is that, in violation of their fiduciary duty, the employee union leadership was in collusion with the city and followed this risky path in return for sweetened pension benefits. Public employees, as represented by their union leaders, were in fact partially responsible. I fully understand that (whether SP gets it or not) current employees are getting squeezed. That doesn't change the fact that some of the deals need to be undone and/or rolled back (at least going forward).— August 2, 2010 10:16 p.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
Response to #61: "We need you to demand REFORM before REVENUE." That is exactly what they are calling the current measure, to co-opt that phrase from Demaio. Now when DeMaio issues a statement like that, he could just as well be SUPPORTING the ballot prop! Its nice how politicians never play games with semantics to fleece the public.— August 2, 2010 5:15 p.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
Response to #58: "Response to post #46: I talked to Aguirre earlier this morning and he didn't mention that. Best, Don Bauder" ============================================================= Don, it was in a comment to an article at the Voice of SD. It was attributed to Michael Aguirre and sounded like it was from him, and the Voice is pretty good about not allowing anonymous handles to comment. Maybe you can verify whether the post is authentic. http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/government/article… "The Council-Mayor tax increase will be vigorously debated. The proposal will not help solve our financial problem because it does not address the growth of pension benefits to $7.2 billion, or the loss of pension assets in bad investments, $956 million last year. The proposal passed by the Council will make matters worse because it gives the appearance of reform but not the reality. The union leaders told the council today they had given as much as they intend to give and now its time for more for their union members. San Diego needs leadership that will honestly tell the voters the dimension of the pension problem and who offer proposals that are big enough to solve the problem. Remember ever person involved in the vote today has a big stake in the pension benefits. I for one intend to vigorously campaign for a NO vote. Mike Aguirre"— August 2, 2010 4:06 p.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
SP said: "Indian tribes are not part of CA., they are their own Sovereign nation." ============================================================= Not exactly sovereign in any real sense of the word. California reservation indians are residents of California and can vote in state elections. The federal government has authority over reservations and requires them to enter into a gaming compact with the state. Edited to add: In addition, California is a Public Law 280 state, which means some criminal legal authority on a reservation is transferred from the federal government to California. Useless trivia of the day: Twelve indian reservations are larger than Rhode Island and nine are larger than Delaware (and yet we are stuck with Biden). The Navajo Nation is larger than 10 states, larger than West Virginia but slightly smaller than South Carolina. =========================================================== End of diversion and back to the matter at hand: Aguirre came out and said he would aggressively campaign against the ballot prop as passed by the city council.— August 2, 2010 2:48 p.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
Surfpup said: "there is an "edit" tab at the bottom of the posts" Thanks. I asked the administrator for that feature a long time ago, but I never noticed that they had added it. I wonder how long it has been there (probably a long time)?— August 2, 2010 11:55 a.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
SurfPup said: "betting is illegal in CA." Someone better tell that to Del Mar so they can shut down their para-mutual betting, the various indian tribes so they can close down the casinos, the California lottery, all the card clubs, the church bingo nights and all the raffles held by just about every organization imaginable.— August 2, 2010 11:52 a.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
Oops, there was supposed to be a "not" before exactly! (SDReader, please allow us to edit posts just like virtually every other forum in existence!)— August 2, 2010 9:48 a.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
SurfPup said: "If it even were to get on the ballot it would NEVER, EVER, EVEN IN A MILLION YEARS, EVER pass." Surfpup followed up by saying: "Im giving 2-1 odds the sales tax does not pass." ================================================================= You are exactly clear on how Vegas sets betting odds, are you? ;)— August 2, 2010 9:47 a.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
The latest SD City Beat has an article on this that says: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-7966-t… "Won't it be hilarious if Donna Frye saves the day?" ... "Wouldn’t it be poetic if she—after years of being shunned by those in power and dodging constant insults from a San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board that until recently refused to see Frye as the true taxpayer advocate that she is—were the one to slay the snarling beast?" They also spoke of Sanders: "Sadly, our leader won’t go out on a limb unless it’s only six inches off the ground. Pathetic."— August 1, 2010 12:19 a.m.
This Crisis Is New? The City Confessed Six Years Ago
SurfPup said: "the sales tax is DOA." ====================================== You also said "Nope, no sales tax on ballot.", so pardon me if I don't take that to the bank.— August 1, 2010 12:13 a.m.