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Costa Mesa Councilman Jim Righeimer, driving force behing the city's anti-worker policies and propaganda.
Have you heard this whopper before? “Public sector pay, especially retirement benefits, is driving cities into bankruptcy.” That’s the mantra coming from politicians, right wing think tanks, so-called anti-tax crusaders, Libertarians and other less-than-honest demagogues from across the nation. Stop and think about it – where has a bankruptcy actually occurred? The only instance I am aware of is the ill-advised and bungled bankruptcy filing of the City of Vallejo that did not result in the Holy Grail these demagogues sought – a court ordered dissolution of labor contracts and retirement plans. The federal bankruptcy court did not buy it.
The latest salvo of this political hysteria is our own City of Costa Mesa. A new council majority has implemented a slash and burn philosophy of cutting back – including issuing layoff notices to nearly half the city staff, while stating that the dire financial situation of the city makes such action necessary. Others, however, say this action is nothing but a takeover of the city by a far-right political philosophy and the so-called financial crisis is a myth – that what is working here is a combination of anti-government philosophy and greed that seeks to create opportunities for political hacks to profit from a restructuring of city services.
A telling development in Costa Mesa is the sudden resignation of Police Chief Steve Staveley on Monday. In a memo to his staff announcing his departure he lays out two core reasons for his decision to leave. One is his strong belief that the City Council has purposely created budget gaps to create the appearance of a fiscal crisis where one does not really exist. Bingo – looks like at least one high level city official has decided to spill the beans.
Meanwhile, in city, county and state governments around the nation where better management is found among electeds, pay and benefit reductions to deal with the financial stresses being felt are being implemented with little fanfare. For instance, the State of Nevada Legislature (a part time legislature that meets only once every two years, by the way) has just approved a budget that suspends merit raises, implements furlough days, restructures health insurance for its employees and retirees, and increases employee and retiree deductibles and health insurance premiums. Yes, there is some gnashing of teeth over the changes that mean significantly less take home pay for Nevada employees, but the need to reduce costs was laid out without any smoke-and-mirror misrepresentations, and that need is being managed without massive layoffs or political upheaval.
So, when you hear people and organizations known to have an anti-government agenda saying the sky is falling and drastic action is needed, be skeptical. In all probability what is working here is an anti-government philosophy coupled in some cases with an agenda of helping friends and political supporters pick the pocket of the taxpayers.
And good old OBNO hits another one out of the park!
You don’t mind me illustrating your post with Riggy, do you, old man? He is the face of this crusade.
“Others, however, say this action is nothing but a takeover of the city by a far-right political philosophy and the so-called financial crisis is a myth” – read, union hacks. So the slew of reports and studies about the unfunded liability facing municipalities and states – all hooey – if you say so OBNO.
And what a great argument to cite the coward Staveley and the “he said it so it must be true defense.” As I understand it, there wasn’t a single fact in his resignation letter to back up his spurious allegations, but why let that stop a good fairy tale.
And I’m confused, if the unfunded liabilities are a myth, why does Nevada (or any other state or local government for that matter) even need to cut or freeze benefits?
At least I agree with your idea of making the California legislature part time. That way, the Democrats who have destroyed our great state will have to wait longer to send us further down the drain.
Oh. You want that. Independent audit coming up pronto. With enough facts and figures in it to curl your hair.
Bravo to the Costa Mesa City Council for demonstrating the gumption to stand up to public unions. With a single public union throwing around eight times more money in California come election time (according to the California Fair Poltical Practices Commission), it is difficult for most local politicians to stand up and say ENOUGH! Snaking money out of their members pay checks without permission, these public unions have become fat and bloated feasting on tax payer dollars. Unlike private unions where the company they work for must stay profitable for union members to keep their jobs (if the union gets too greedy and the company goes out of business because of it the union loses all of those jobs), there is no equivalent counter-pressure for public unions which view feeding at the public tax trough as their birthright.
A private company puts away 5 cents of every dollar of salary for pensions whereas the average on the public side today is 20 times that amount or one dollar of benefits for every dollar of public salary.
What unions? I thought we were talking about Costa Mesa, and their Police Association.
Are you saying that you don’t think that the Costa Mesa police officers are not part of a union? Really?
I need to get back to you on the exact details unless someone else does first… but I think a lot of the things you describe about the dread public unions in general do not apply to CM’s Police Association. For example, the forced contributions, the size of the contributions, I forget… come on, someone out there help me… I’m gonna be on the road for a bit.
Vern but the OCEA is surely heavily involved in Costa Mesa’s business……Or er I mean “Repair Costa Mesa” lol.
Hi Lysa. The topic of this post was the resignation of Chief Shaveley. So it’s not about unions. The police have an association which has a lot of differences from the unions Geoff and his friends have nightmares about.
Actually this is the topic of this post Vern “Cities like Costa Mesa going bankrupt due to public employees? What a load of Hooey!”…..and I was responding to you 😉
Oh. Right. Too many posts going on around here.
Vern – Willis appears to be one of those demagogues mentioned in the post.
Take this statement for instance – “A private company puts away 5 cents of every dollar of salary for pensions whereas the average on the public side today is 20 times that amount or one dollar of benefits for every dollar of public salary.” Show me the data that backs up this statement – I doubt he can – unless it is one of those biased studies from the anti-government camp.
And, what about all the years that many units of government took a contribution holiday by contributing nothing for retirement, instead relying on retirement fund investment returns and employee contributions? Looks like another case of broad-brush politics by someone with an anti government agenda who spouts the scripted rhetoric.
Demagogue is a cool world that simultaneously insults me by calling me a liar and insults the audience by calling them naive dupes. You hold everyone is such high esteem anonymous “Tell it like it really is.’
You also use one of the key tricks of the “politically correct” by saying that I have no basis for supporting my allegations, but that if I do you “pre-reject it” as biased. Nice tactic for trying to dispose of any ideas that can be raised against your contentions in advance. I do have a study that completely supports my contention and I almost attached the link to my comment, but see no reason to do so not since you have already rejected any study that I would use in advance.
Your double speak about “contribution holidays” is disconnected from reality and irrelevant in that we are talking about trying to limit forward looking rights BEFORE they become vested, and not about already vested rights that are beyond the reach of the public at this point.
Ooo – you’re not gonna link to your study because TILIRI called you a name and pre-rejected the study?
Well, what if some of the rest of us want to see it?
Vern – you are the editior, choice of illustration is up to you.
Newbie – there is an unfunded liability in most public sector retirement funds – it is an estimate of promised retirement costs based upon many assumptions of what will happen in the economy, work force and investment world over a 30 year period going forward. The anti-government demagogues apply assumptions that make the unfunded liability much larger than the estimates of actuaries and others in the long term investment business in order to paint a sky is falling picture.
Cutbacks in government budgets are primarily a result of the recession depressing state, city, county, special district revenues. In addition, well-managed cities and other government entities are scaling back employee benefits, including retirement promises, through labor negotiation and budget processes.(Nevada is but one example). In quite a few cases the public unions are agreeing to take reductions because of the revenue reality and the growing consensus that seems to have developed that economic recovery is sluggish at best.
What makes the sudden financial situation current Costa Mesa leaders claim they are in very suspect is the fact that a major source of city revenue is sales tax, and Costa Mesa has a lot of that thanks to South Coast Plaza and the hotels and restaurants that surround it, not to mention the Performing Arts Center ticket and merchandise sales. The sluggish economy may have negatively impacted that sales tax revenue for the city, but until the city’s books are opened up for all to see suspicions about where the money has been going and the true financial health of the city will continue.
As you might suspect at this point, it is a complex subject best approached by sound analysis and the rhetoric on both sides should be discounted. Let’s hope that kind of analysis gets done in the City of Costa Mesa so we can all see the truth. Until then, don’t believe the hype.
So what you’re saying is that we should wait until either the unfunded liabilities become a reality and do crush the state and local governments, or they don’t. That’s what projections and studies are for – so we don’t wait until it’s too late. I’ll err on the side of caution.
What’s your position on global warming, because I seriously doubt an advocate would agree with that logic?
OOOOPs…..looks like somebody opened the books……..and look what they found…
“However, during his audit he found more than $26 million that COULD be used to help balance the municipal budget and preclude the draconian measures currently being proposed by the majority on the City Council. ”
http://abubblingcauldron.blogspot.com/2011/06/ocea-auditor-no-financial-crisis.html#links
http://www.theliberaloc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/CM-Audit062011.Ltr_.Released.pdf
Newbie, I really have not developed a position on global warming. My sense from several decades of living in So. Cal. is that the weather has changed on the warmer and more humid side around here over the years. Plus, I believe last fall we hit a record high temp of 113 degees here. Yet we had a very wet winter with the heaviest snowpack on record throughout the mountains in the West. I feel something is going on, but whether it is a long term trend or a cycle that occurs over the centuries I do not know. As one studies world history, one finds out that weather has dramatically impacted mankind. For instance, the Little Ice Age that devastated Europe in the 1500-1700 era wiped out the abilty to grow grain crops and later potatos (i.e. -the great potato famine) in much of Europe and caused massive starvation and was one of the forces driving Europeans to migrate to the colonies (later the U.S.). Was that global warming or cooling? What caused it? Maybe stuff just happens – not sure. You have a strong belief you wish to share on this topic?.
Politicians love to blast easy targets. It seems far easier to decry unions of all types than to deal with aggravated abuses during election cycles. These folk that are slamming Unions….will turn tail and run when election time pops up. Suddenly, a spirt of great moderation in all things becomes the call of the day.
What cracks us up…..is when an ethical or moral issue comes up for electeds and the folks all just say: “Hey, that won’t affect his job performance!” So, they stole or misappropriated government funds, ran up junkets like crazy or were the moral equivalent of a faceless child molester.
What do they say: Equal Protection and Equal Application of the Law for everyone, regardless of position or rank.
Councilman Chicken Little seems to have wanted to take the bankruptcy route at first. However, once revenues shot up, he seems to have dropped that idea and is now just sticking with outsourcing everything. Not to save the city of Costa Mesa money, but to give himself 100s of times more power than he would otherwise have. If a contractor wants to do business with the city of Costa Mesa, they will have to get to know The Rigster real well.
I wonder if Mansoor supporters will appreciate all of the illegal immigrants that will be hired once park maintenance is contracted out? The contractor will get rich but none of it will be passed along to the worker. So much for the middle class and so much for quality work.
Well, well, well the communists at their best.
I guess we must wait until the money dry out as it does in all socialist and communist run societies.
At least we are scoring, the communists at Sacramento are not getting payed.
Lets starve these SOBs to death.
*Harry Lime….you are no Trotskyite….you are a solid Stalinist……
You wouldn’t know a Romanian from an Albanian if you had a carload!
We are quite sure that you were the Ghost Writer for the “Motorcycle Diaries”?
I read the resignation letter from your chief. What a loose cannon he is. Hope they took away his gun. Hilarious rebuttal of the letter on Republic of Costa Mesa blog. OCEA audit looks like they “found” money all right. In designated funds for other areas including gutting the self insurance fund. I guess if you have no vision you could spend the last of your cash to pay employees for awhile, have nothing left, and then let the employees go. Sort of like spending your grocery money designated funds on your hired gardener or maid instead of cutting back on those services. Then when you die of hunger the gardener and maid will be out of work but at least you kept those nice people employed for a couple more months. Can’t wait to see the tape of the last council meeting and see what Genis had to say. Probably stood up for the jerk of a police chief who left who, of course, had to right on in his comments since he is a policeman, or at least WAS one. If not that then she probably defended the union audit as fiscally sound. Probably nothing stated about $$ and pensions, just more name calling and the homeless guy singing?
Staveley a loose cannon? ROTFL!!!!
The only loose cannons are sitting on the dais.
It’s so rare you actually find someone in politics with a brain!
The fact that he can actually read and evaluate accounts that the UNION worker is way too expensive and needs to be eliminated is to me, incredibly good for not only Costa Mesa, but for California. The unions are nothing but a mafia and their members were more than willing to go along for the ride! Will the ride has ended and its about time.
Now Costa Mesa can find people in the private sector who want to work, work well and not rip off the tax payer!
This is going to snow ball throughout California. State union workers are going to get laid off, illegal Aliens will go home, and California will start to recover from the drain that is the Parasitic element of California Society. And of course hopefully more conservatives will take their places in Sacramento and California might have a chance.