The MWD doesn’t want you to contact board member Dan Griset about their pension spike…
“Some government officials are slow learners. As the economy has faltered, California public employee pension fund investments have dropped 25 percent or more, meaning that taxpayers could be forced to pick up the tab to pay for the large, guaranteed pensions that must be paid to retired government employees, a significant number of whom retire with close to full pay in their early 50s. Yet the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is about to spike pensions for its workers by 25 percent,” according to the O.C. Register.
Well this sucks. Water prices are going up and now the MWD wants to spike their public employee pensions even higher? No bueno!
Click here to see who is on the MWD board of directors. It is time to start emailing them and let them know you expect them to vote against this pension spike! One problem though, their Board of Directors info does NOT include any means to communicate with these directors! How do you like that?
So contact your Mayor and City Council. They are the ones who appoint folks to the MWD board. Here in Santa Ana, our representative is Dan Griset. Since we cannot easily reach him, be sure to email our City Council about this at this link.
UPDATE: Hold the press! I found a way to contact Griset. It turns out he has his own website. He appears to be some kind of consultant. Click here to send him a nastygram about the MWD pension spike!
Here’s an email address for Larry Dick: larry@larrydickforassembly.com. Dunno if it’s working.
Thanks Art for this post. What is the deal with our current city council that they vote to keep this political re-tred representing our city? Griset is a failed Insurance Salesman and political hanger-on who operates below the radar screen. This is one of the most powerful shadow government boards in California and our Santa Ana City Council can’t find anyone better to represent us than Griset? Does Griset even live in Santa Ana any more? Last I heard he was living in a shabby studio apartment in French Court neighborhood with a Russian woman he met on the internet. Who knows, maybe there is a photo somewhere like the one with Mike Carona and the Russian maiden that you can post! What do these guys get paid? I hear the place where they meet is a palace…and they eat meals off of fine china. I wonder how many water junket/fact finding missions Griset has taken? Why do we have a guy who we never voted for representing us and raising our taxes? It’s time we demand that the council chose someone to fill that seat with a background in water issues who is not a political hack! The Register keeps writing about this issue but never lists the MWD boardmembers or tells how they vote. Thanks Art for shining some light on this. Griset must go!!! I wish Sean Mill would tell us what he knows about Griset since Sean has been around a while and saw him in action on the council.
Why would an all Hispanic Council appoint a man like Grisit, who has never been friendly towards Latinos to represent Santa Ana in 2009? Some old timers may remember this article:
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-24/local/me-31250_1_lorin-griset
None of this should be surprising to those who remember Griset from his city council days. Dan never met a tax or fee increase he didn’t like. He was VERY involved with the National League of Cities and lived in the pocket of city employees.
Why would you appoint a guy who was fined $10,000 for political crimes?
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-15/local/me-1262_1_campaign-mailings
I wonder if Big Dan giving nearly $5,000 to Obama somehow helped him get his appointment? You have to wonder how much he gave in State and Local elections!
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=Santa+Ana&st=CA&last=GRISET&first=Daniel
Water shortages, rate increases, etc.
Why does the state of California have any water problems?
Look at the massive in number and cost of the management structure of the water system.
These government bureaucracy ‘s duplicate “Do Nothing Jobs” for well connected people who collect fat pay checks and benefits while the “service or product” has fallen to a secondary consideration.
Met wholesales water to thousands of folks who will pay more for their water to pay this pension spike. Oh the employees will say they gave something back but it is just a short term savings I bet. Plus many will not stick around to give something back, they will immediately retire with a fat pension. What gives with retirement at fifty years old anyway?
“What gives with retirement at fifty years old anyway?”
That’s when you go back to work as a consultant so you can double your income. It’s informally referred to as rape o’ the taxpayer.
Pensions are funded by employee contributions. Let’s cut there salaries and see if they still want to use there own money to contribut so much to the Pension. Also it’s outrageous that nearly 2% are able to retire at full salary. Riduclous ….they only have to contribut to PERS for somthing like 45 years for that.