Something interesting has happened over the past day in our comments section. A new and pseudonymous commenter to this site (and no, I don’t know who it is) writes:
I have some advice for my fellow Democrats who support the recall — GET OUT AND VOTE JUNE 5! Go on Fullerton’s website and watch the video from the May 1 Council meeting, especially the public comments. First, Ron Thomas tried to distance himself from the Bushala camp — he knows where Tony’s interests lie. Second, watch the behavior and demeanor of the other speakers — and who they sit with when the cameras pan the audience.
Tony’s candidates Sebourn and Levinson attract an interesting crowd. I just wonder how committed they’ll be to associating with them if they win the election. This isn’t about public unions or water rates. Its about ideology and the need for one faction (fringe group?) to impose its will on 136,000 people.
Tony Bushala, founder and funder of the Fullerton recall, replies:
Incorrect. For decades a comparatively small faction has imposed its cretinous candidates on Fullerton. Party affiliation only mattered to each group during election time and after that they chained themselves together.
The result has been 30 years of Redevelopment boondoggles, illegal taxes, successful (and unsuccessful) attempts to spike public employee pensions, and finally a police force whose only mission seems to be to prove themselves bigger goons than the nightly drunken “guests” City policy has invited downtown.
The City is a mess. The recall is not about ideology, it’s about accountability. Accountability is only deemed ideological by those who are trying real hard to avoid it.
That’s about as clear a manifesto as I’ve seen from Tony and I’m happy to give it more prominence to readers who don’t frequent the website he runs. It nicely distills his public rationales for the recall. He does us all a service by laying it out clearly. This is a radical diagnosis that would presumably lead to radical treatment. We need a public debate over this, rather than an echo chamber at FFFF. So rather than reply to Tony in a comment, I’ve decided to present my response as an open letter to him in a separate post.
Tony: putting aside your assertions about chained-together cretins, I’m pretty much with you on four out of five major policy-related points you make, although I think that you oversimplify.
(1) I agree, though not happily, with the Governor on ending redevelopment. Unlike you, I think that it can be a useful policy tool in theory — but when some politicians start to use it to shunt money to contributors on boondoggles like sports stadiums, it needs to be set aside and retooled if possible.
(2) No one comes to a meeting and says “hey, let’s impose an illegal tax.” What is illegal, though, is often not as clear as a proponent thinks. You’re arguing one side of a case regarding the historical and current water tax; I don’t expect you to be even-handed. But presuming that a long-standing tax on which a good chunk of a city budget has depended should be chucked out immediately on the say-so of you and a “shrink government to where we can drown it in the bathtub” group like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association is just bizarre — unless one’s intention is to bankrupt the city. (So far, you’ve avoided comment on that.)
(3) Pension spiking, at least where the promise of the ability to do so was not a specific inducement of hiring and is instead just a way to suck money out of the system, is a serious problem. The people who are able to engage in pension spiking, though, are a small minority of those who would be harmed by all but carefully crafted reforms that go after $300,000/year employees rather than $30,000/year employees.
(4) Few people — I won’t say “none” — want to have a thuggish police force. If you look around, though, this is a problem that to various degrees affects every city or other police force. Giving someone a gun, a taser, pepper spray, a club, and a group of similarly equipped people to run with is inviting trouble. On the other hand, not having a properly equipped police force is also asking for a different kind of trouble. (Does this really need to be explained?) Hiring lots of cops who have been rejected by other departments for being overly aggressive and capricious is an obvious mistake — and those involved with any such decisions deserve the criticism they get. But pretending that a large-scale purge of anyone who doesn’t agree that the city should err so strongly on the side of preventing police brutality that it can’t actually police itself is childishly unrealistic. Wow, guess what — effective policing is a tough problem, who knew? Policymakers can and do often screw it up. That’s why people who can perform this public service honestly and effectively might deserve a lot of money as well as (inevitably) a lot of heat.
Those were your four complaints; where I disagree is with your assertion: “The recall is not about ideology.”
In part you’re right — but if you were more right than wrong, you’d have a good answer to this question: what happens after all your efforts to shrink the city’s revenue go into effect? Unless you do want city government to drown in the bathtub, what are you really going to do about it — beyond electing people that you, with a charming sort of innocence, seem to think are above reproach?
You’ve helped to gut redevelopment. You’re gutting the water tax. You can’t touch existing public pensions without showing clear corruption. Even then, your best shot might be in municipal bankruptcy before a sympathetic judge — which is a tool your crew discusses longingly but you deflect rather than admit favoring, probably because it’s drastic medicine with huge side effects. You don’t seem to want public debate on any solutions other than easy and simplistic ones like “don’t waste,” “don’t be corrupt,” and “don’t do injustice” — as if your candidates had a magic wand and could solve the problems of governance just by being “good guys.”
You don’t invite choking off the city’s income without having a serious plan — a publicly debated before Election Day — for what to do when the city’s service providers do become “small enough to drown in a bathtub,” as anti-tax jihadist Grover Norquist puts it. Fullerton will continue to exist if and when a FFFF-friendly Council majority is installed. Fullerton will still need policing; it will still need public services; it will still depend to some degree on amenities like libraries and attractive streets to attract residents and businesses.
The intensive attempt NOT to deal with the reality that getting your way might impose on the majority of residents and visitors who can’t afford to hire private security forces instead of police is what makes the recall — or at least the support of replacement candidates who support the FFFF-style “consequence-free” razing of government — ideological. Where’s the accountability of those making the proposals? We’re talking mass-layoffs if you get your way, right? Can’t you say that out loud? Does the whole FFFF-affiliated campaign depend on voters not connecting the dots?
An actual discussion on this topic of post-shrinked-government Fullerton could be a great public service, which is why I have made it a separate post. But, if a smart-aleckly dismissal is all that we will get from you, then let’s get on with it and have that.
“Pension spiking, at least where the promise of the ability to do so was not a specific inducement of hiring and is instead just a way to suck money out of the system, is a serious problem. The people who are able to engage in pension spiking, though, are a small minority of those who would be harmed by all but carefully crafted reforms that go after $300,000/year employees rather than $30,000/year employees.”
Retroactive pension spiking of defined benefits for the cops and firemen (3@50) and general government paper pushers (such as the County’s 2.7@55) have created billions in unfunded liabilities that have to be borne by the taxpayers. This is a massive debt passed on to the citizenry. Your attempt to dismiss this by talking about “$300,000/year employees” is either ignorant or disingenuous.
There’s a lot more to address there when you get around to it, Tony. I tried to make sure that you didn’t miss it by putting it in bold, but here it is again:
I even put in a picture for you to attract your attention!
As for what you wrote: first, I’m not “dismissing” it by mentioning $300,000 salaries; you put in the salary of those who you think can enact plans to manipulate their own pensions and we can talk about that. I think that you identify a real problem and I am opposed to abuse of the system — which is different from being opposed to the system, period.
If someone gets natural and customary raises over the course of their career and took the job understanding that their ultimate pension will be based on their ending salary — and even that the custom is to raise people one grade (or whatever) in their final year of employment — that doesn’t seem like a scandal to me. It’s part of how one attracts good employees. (Unfortunately, as with some of the more reckless police hires, it does not guarantee that one’s employees will all be good.)
Second, pension liabilities are generally “unfunded” ahead of time, so that shouldn’t be a shocker, just as that they’d be paid by the taxpayer (to the extent they go beyond one’s own contributions) is no surprise. (As you know, it’s called “deferred compensation.”) Defined-benefit private pensions also depend on the prospect of growth and investment. It sounds to me like you just flat out don’t like pensions, period, but maybe you can clarify. (Most of the FFFF people who show up at Fullerton City Council meetings don’t look wealthy; do they too hate pensions?)
Can we agree that Fullerton can’t touch existing pensions — at least without municipal bankruptcy, which I oppose and you don’t explicitly favor? That would be a good start at fostering discussion of solutions — because it limits the sorts of solutions that your boys on the Council could impose.
You mention “retroactive” pension spiking. To be clear to our readers, “pension spiking” generally refers to artificially inflating the salary of an employee so that their pension will be determined on the basis of this (often dramatically) higher salary. Except in some cases where the expectation of being able to spike a pension is a material part of the package inducing someone to work (or continue work) for an employer, I don’t like it. I’m open to argument in specific cases, but I don’t like it.
That sort of pension spiking strikes me as being “prospective,” Now, you’re obsessed with pensions far more than I am, so please educate me on this: when you talk about “retrospective” spiking, do you mean something different? If so, then it sounds like something I’d oppose — unless you’re using the term to mean something other than “normal” spiking. (An across the board retroactive increase in pension benefits, for example, regardless of whether I’d support it, is not what I’d call “spiking.” Agreed?)
As far as massive debts passed onto the citizenry: yes, it is. So is Social Security, Medicare, most foreign wars, veteran’s benefits, interest on these, etc. But so also are debts passed on by lack of government and government action: the cost of asbestos, of health care costs due to (lied about) smoking, of Superfund cleanups, of the Gulf Oil Spill, of atmospheric energizing (my preferred term for “global warming), of deregulated Wall Street — I could go on. So what all are you opposed to here?
Remind me again about how the recall is “not about ideology,” huh?
Your assumptions about pensions being unfunded is a publicly known fact is terribly disingenuous. Most people don’t have a clue about retirement systems for public or private employment.
You also mention natural and customary raises. Raises are not natural or customary. If you EARN your raise and if your employer can AFFORD to give it to you, you might get it.
When I seek employment I do not worry about the basis for the retirement compensation (last year vs last 3 years). I worry about the solvency of the firm and the potential for profit sharing, partnering, and personal/professional growth. As one nears retirement age 65+, it is reasonable to understand the mechanisms for your retirement and the compensation you will receive before you give notice to your employer.
Fullerton’s non-safety employees earn less than $60,000 and are on a 2%@65 formula, or at least that is what I was told. If that is true, then clearly the non-safety employees are not the big financial burden that the police and fire are. Let me ask you…why are police and fire treated BETTER than the clerical staff at city hall? Are they lesser people?
It seems you are also a wee bit guilty of painting with a broad brush. Isn’t there some middle ground?
With respect to your thoughts on passing along massive debts to the taxpayers – including the cost of environmental clean up – , it is never too late to do the right thing.
Thanks for the comment. Paragraph by paragraph:
We have different impressions of what the public knows and I don’t think either of us knows which of us is more right.
“Natural and customary” is not a term of art; I mean the sort of thing that isn’t surprising, something other than artificial, working the system.
OK, that’s you. I’m saying that if you make a promise to an employee, you should keep it. Of course, you shouldn’t make stupid promises.
We agree — and I don’t have a good answer to the question of why less well-compensated clerical people should be less well-treated re pensions. (At a minimum, if the argument is that we need this to attract appropriate public safety talent, it should be really clear that it’s working that way!) If the FFFF crowd wanted to specify that they would not mess with the pensions of non-safety employees who are on the 2%@65 formula, I think that that alone would be a major advance in the public discussion. They haven’t, though. I’ll try to remember to ask them about it.
I hope that there’s middle ground. Your comment furthers the discussion, for which I thank you.
Well, if the argument is to eliminate Social Security and Medicare (realizing that that’s at the federal level), let’s have it. I think that it’s a false economy unless maybe one actually does want people to die off sooner, as proponents of eliminating them usually deny. The bigger concern is that the people who want to lower public debt often say that they want to cut government programs (including regulation), when in fact it’s often the lack of regulation that ends up passing on the most debt and private costs to future generations.
Again, I appreciate the quality of your comment. I think that the best and most thoughtful comments we get here about policy are better than those in any other OC political blog; I appreciate your readership.
What a moron you are Bushala. If you want to buy the Fullerton City Council, just go to Priceline and name your price. How accountable are your stooges going to be to the public? Not at all. They will do everything you tell them to. Don’t forget to carry someone’s urine with you in case the cops pull you over.
… and then we have some other comments that show that people here can keep up with the usual sort of pseudonymous head-bashing that pervades FFFF. Like Vern says: a mosh pit.
(Note: I almost changed the word “pervades,” but I decided not to: it’s just the right word. If any particular reader doesn’t know what it means, you can look it up — go to Google and type in “define pervade.” SO EASY!)
Bully must not have gotten the memo: Fullerton’s not for sale.
Funny how some make the broad assumption that if you think one way, you must be a “puppet” of a group or person that supports you. The turds being recalled (and their mayor) are not union puppets, they are union members. They stand to financially benefit from their decisions as council members by way of their pensions. You should ask the candidates if they will sign up for the council’s pension if elected? What about health care? Should council members also be “entitled” to receive full medical coverage for part-time service?
Greg, we need to weed out and make a distinction between “employees” and “public employee unions”. Employees want to do their job. Unions want to enrich the employees whom they serve. The unions enrich employees because FAILED LEADERSHIP makes promises it cannot keep.
*Ya gotta love Tony B……he is dedicated and right a whole bunch.
I do love Tony B. But I wish he’d answer more of Diamond’s questions and points. Just picking, like, the easiest one, and leaving everything else, is something I’ve always seen Jerbal do.
I picked the one I figured we disagreed on. I never blow the sale by continuing to talk.
Then… it’s fair to say you agree with Greg on all the rest of his points, or most?
Perhaps the most considerate comment on this blog this year!
Heh-heh. Now that’s quotable!
In his reply, Mr.Bushala talks about accountability. First, his comments are clearly meant to be incendiary, rather than logical. He calls all non-safety public employees “paper pushers”. Hmm….so a County public health nurse is a paper-pusher? Or the guy laying asphalt in the middle of August is a paper-pusher? Phrases like that may make good copy but they add nothing to the argument.
I happen to agree, partially, with Tony. The two worst things that have happened to pensions are 1) the 3% at 50 formula for public safety–its expensive and pushed a lot of experienced cops and firefighters out the door before they can pass their corporate knowledge on (don’t get excited Tony, I’m being general here, not referringn to the Fullerton PD specifically). 2) making enhanced pensions retroactive. If employees bargain for a better retirement, the enhancements should take effect when the contract is signed, and not go all the way back to the employee’s beginning of employment. But neither of these are unique to Fullerton, nor even Orange County.
It is ideology rather than “accountability” when you pick a few hot-button issues, exploit them the create a sense of crisis, and then try to impose your sense of what “should be” on a community.
What intrigues me the most about the “accountability” issue is that Tony seems willing to pick and choose the arguments he wants rather than addressing all of the issues. And his answers seem long on blame and short on solutions. Name calling and dismantling goverment aren’t solutions. By taking the lead on the recall and fielding three candiates, Mr. Bushala has put himself in a leadership role. If that’s where he chooses to be, he should be willing to be accountable to those of us with some substantive questions.
Argue with the budget, not with me.
Wait, wait — let me try this one out:
You don’t understand — he will “never blow the sale by continuing to talk.”
*Tony can bring up whatever he wants. That shows good sense in our book.