Posted on 04/05/2010 9:37:48 AM PDT by george76
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn't free of its crushing pension obligations.
In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy.
Now, as it prepares to emerge from Chapter 9, officials in Los Angeles, San Diego and other cities across the state are looking to see if Vallejo has blazed a trail for them to get out from under their own crushing pension costs. What they're finding is that even bankruptcy may not be enough to break the grip unions have on the public purse.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Laughs.
Laughs.
Laughs.
What you thought “Hope and Change” would be cheap?
Police and fire officials can retire at age 50 with a pension that pays them 90% of their final year's salary every year for life and the lives of their spouses.
Let’s see if I have this right. The city enters into agreements with its employees and then wants to use the bankruptcy system to get out of those obligations.
I understand you are addressing the current situation and you may have the right answer. Still, ultimately it is the lack of attention and effort by the citizens of Vallejo that is largly to blame for the problems there. They should all be forced to stay in Vallejo and work out the problem they helped create.
phoney baloney....unionist put extreme pressure on the politicos with big bucks and threats....
If the politicians accept the big bucks, the threats decrease.
Guess what they will do.
You could say the same about Americans.
And in response to those activities (that went on through many election cycles) what action did the voters take to replace those in office that were making those deals.
Voters have a responsibility to pay attention. You seem to be saying otherwise.
Are you one of those too lazy to attend your local council meetings, read up on the agendas, dig out additional information on those agenda items, make public information requests when needed and generally do your part to be a good and informed citizen?
Or do you prefer to bang out protests on your keyboard after the results of your inaction have produced consequences you don't like?
I know it is not easy. The challenge at the local level is often to (1) find out what is going on and (2) to find out about it in time to be able to do something about it. It is a lot of work. It also takes help and organization, others to join with you as citizen watchdogs. You don't get paid for it and to do the job effectively you need to meet often with your group to plan your course of attack.
What say you?
“The challenge at the local level is often to (1) find out what is going on and (2) to find out about it in time to be able to do something about it. It is a lot of work. It also takes help and organization, others to join with you as citizen watchdogs. You don’t get paid for it and to do the job effectively you need to meet often with your group to plan your course of attack.”
I worked in local government for 10 years, and conservatives rarely showed up for local meetings. Always too busy. Well, not showing up has brought you king thug obuma. Being involved in local government would have checked all the voter fraud, laid waste to ACORN and thrown liberal politicians out of local government.
And conservatives still don’t get it. All the conservative ammo is being fired at DC. You need to clean out local governments first. That’s how the Founders did it. Read about it sometime.
I think you misunderstood my post. I am saying the same thing your are except that you raise a couple of good additonal points, especially about conservatives not getting it, not understanding how much work is involved in changing government. And your point about what our Founders weent through it right on.
Your post is on target. Conservatives need to clean out their local governments by:
1) running for a local council or county seat
2) volunteering for planning commissions to protect property rights.
3) starting up a local strike force to run liberals out of office by using their state’s open meeetings law.
People interested in power are rarely ever involved in it for the common good.
Why in the name of Ned would anyone want to live in Vallejo?
That place is the total pits.
I lived there..once.
Left wing union thugs never negotiate. They will bankrupt a company, state, county or city before they really negotiate.
...and (4) Supporting conservatives who are already in office.
Let’s get this right - that’s what the bankruptcy system is for, idiot.
I also will never again use the financial advisor who talked me into those bonds. He should have warned me to get out of it. Instead, I had to do it on my own.
“I didn’t really look into them when we bought the funds”
But it was your financial advisers fault? LOL
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