Posted on 07/12/2012 4:24:11 PM PDT by BenLurkin
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The San Bernardino City Council decided to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, making it the second largest city in the nation to ever file for bankruptcy.
San Bernardino faces a $46 million budget shortfall and may not be able to pay all its employees over the next three months. Meanwhile, residents don't know what to expect.
Two weeks ago Stockton, in Northern California, became the largest city in the country to ever file for bankruptcy. And the tiny town of Mammoth Lakes voted for bankruptcy last week.
The city of Los Angeles has serious money problems. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says the city has cut a third of the general fund civilian workforce. But Villaraigosa says the city will never declare bankruptcy as long as he's mayor. Term limits force him out of office next summer.
"I can't guarantee that they won't happen under somebody else's watch, but I can tell you under mine, I will make the tough decisions," said Villaraigosa.
Those decisions, he said, include layoffs of more civilian employees if necessary to balance the budget and avoid bankruptcy.
"Which is why I've said, if necessary, I will lay off as many people as we need. But let's be clear, we're not there yet," he said.
Villaraigosa promises he will never layoff LAPD officers. However, LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck says his department has taken a $120 million budget reduction and can't pay officers overtime.
"I also laid off more civilian employees than any other city department in the last round of budgets," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
I’m thinking Baraq will come up with a way to allow federally guaranteed bonds for CA, IL, and NY.
I realize the fedgov is broke but it will buy those die hard Obama supporters a few more years.
I beat up on Detroit, mostly because I am so mad at it for getting so hopeless that it should be razed.
I am not going to do this anymore, since it’s become Greece West.
Government prints money legitimately to service those who earn money while paying taxes to pay for said government.
Any other "reason" allowing governments to print money is essentially evil.
Dude, the federal government is never broke as long as the Federal Reserve will print money to buy its debt. Now, we will be broke as a result, but the government ain't.
But Detroit is honest about what it is. Lots of other cities are fixin to burn and Detroit has something few other cities have, people with a right to defend themselves.
He wasn’t much of a Republican. Just my opinion.
Here’s a weird note. The largest, most profitable company in Los Angeles is Occidental Petroleum. Why? Because California is the only US state that DOES NOT TAX oil production!
The second largest company headquartered in Los Angeles is Reliance Steel & Aluminum, and yet 98.6% of their U.S. employees actually work in other states!
AECOM Technology, the third largest LA company just got a $360m contract from ICE and Homeland Security. I wonder if that is conditional on their staying in California?
Let's hope so, and soon.
LA will be nothing compared to Illinois declaring bankruptcy.
If Los Angeles is going to go bankrupt, hopefully it would do so around September. It would be a good reminder where socialism always leads.
My cup of schadenfreude runneth over.
Is that police chief retarded?
How many people still buy the fiction that "overtime" written into "public employee" contracts is not part of the scam?
It builds up the base salaries to unconscionable levels, and accumulates to create the outrageous "retirement" or "disability" checks and the 100% health insurance forever.
Anything greater than the level of salaries and benefits that the taxpayers, their employers, enjoy is pretty much legalized stealing.
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