(Picture courtesy of the O.C. Register’s Total Buzz Blog)
“Concerned about the skyrocketing cost of Orange County employee retirement benefits, Supervisor John M.W. Moorlach on Tuesday proposed requiring voter approval for any future increases to employee pensions,” according to the L.A. Times.
Is this really a good idea? I can see the mailers now…showing sheriff’s deputies and firemen and asking us not to screw the people who serve us. This could really backfire on Moorlach!
Is this an attempt by the Supervisors to remove their responsibility with regard to the pension increases? We are in the mess we are in today because Supervisors voted for a stupid pension increase. Of course the Supervisors don’t want to look stupid again.
And Moorlach is assuming that Orange County won’t turn blue one day. If so I think he is wrong. The way things are going this county could be blue in 10 years.
I just don’t like this idea. Readers? What say you?
[poll id=”29″]
It is a sad state of affairs when an elected advocates that the voters strip him of decision making authority because some times the heat is too hot in the kitchen. Talk about a cop – out. How about a ballot initiative to cut the six figure salaries of our Supervisors, say by 50%, and also eliminate their seperate and more generous retirement program? Sign me up.
*What do the citizens of Orange County pay their
elected officials to do again? We are confused!
If we want to vote on Toll Roads or items that really effect our lives…..”Oh no….electeds need to do that!” If we want to allocate more money to pot holes rather than bogus mass transit ideas…….”You can’t vote on that…we have commissions, boards and electeds…that do that!”
Now all of a sudden….have the people vote on whether Sheriff’s get their Pensions? Hmmm…what
about everyone else? No, we have the feeling that when it comes to anyone else….those Pensions including the ones OC Supervisor’s get…will not be items that the people get to vote on! Sorry John, the Sheriff’s are your employees….you make the call and stand by it..Yea or Nay! You probably have more information regarding the viability of the pecuniary responsibilities than those of us out here in the hinterland!
Sounds like ‘pass the buck’ to me, yet I seriously doubt the county will be blue in 10 years, unless Obama gets a second term and Congress gets back into two-digit approval numbers.
SMS