[Hojczyk]

Articles...

http://blogs.reuters.com/muniland/2012/07/11/did-the-police-and-fire-departments-sink-stockton/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgUldNJ-sOg_dFNRcVVaUVJPa2NFOHNBNzh4SUVXd1E#gid=0

[Citizen Tom Paine]

It is my understanding that construction work is more dangerous that either police of firemen. Does anyone know if this statistic is still true. Yet we always hear about the dangerous work of police and firemen.

[RC2]

If Stockton, or any city, was rated as the safest place for people to live, it wouldn’t bother me if the police were the highest payed in the country. But Stockton? One of highest crime rates in the state. What are people getting for their money?

[Vaduz]

The city has had little-to-no success in getting the pay of its public safety workers under control.

The idiot safety workers demands will put them out of work or set a small pay day.
Hacks now feel the pain of alowing contracts for votes,you get what you allow.

[camle]

how much were they spending on welfare and ‘the arts’?

[blueunicorn6]

Nope. The citizens are to blame. We have a representative democracy. If those dipsticks in Stockton want to fix this, they need to quit electing free-spending Democrats.

Everybody likes the Democrat’s free pony rides until somebody has to pay for the feed and clean up the horse crap.

[cicero2k]

Plus, as I understand; Stockton floated a large bond issue to pay for waterfront improvements that were supposed to attract business.

Problem is, it's in California; who is doing everything it can to hurt businesses. Plus it's the Central Valley. Great weather, I lived there 21 years; but the CV does not attract outside wealth like Malibu or Sausilito

Now they have to pay the bond, and no cash flow to pay for it.

Watch who you vote for, I tell my liberal friends in CA.

[pallis]

Every public employee belongs to their public union, and they run the city, not the other way around. Who can afford it?

[Axenolith]

The economic relevance of "hazard" is zilch at their pay levels. Regardless of how dangerous it is, if it wasn't a closed market, there'd be a line 5000 people long to do the same work for half their existing pay, hell, probably for a quarter of it.

If you feel police of fire work is to dangerous to do for less than 100K, then you need to find another career because there are a whole lot of people who don't feel it is for a lot less, and the only reason they aren't doing the job at this point is because it's a tightly closed shop.

[Spartan79]

Dollars to donuts several megabuck Stocton firefighters live in Honolulu or Tucson or someplace like that. The Cleveland fire administration back in December was scrambling to wipe the egg off their faces when the Plain Dealer revealed that one of the city’s six-figure firefighters lived in San Diego:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/12/cleveland_threatens_to_discipl.html

[old school]

Competent police and fire protection is expensive, period! Pay and benefits are calculated based on the pay and benefits of surrounding municipalities (similarly situated).
Although, perhaps, the fatality rates are not immediately as apparent as those of fisherman; you can do without that Alaskan King Crab leg. Can you do without firemen, when your home is on fire? Instead of looking at fatality rates, perhaps, you ought to look at life expectancy after separation from the job. There are too many issues involved to reach summary conclusions about any of this. Nothing is ever as simple as it appears. Stockton, like so many other cities run by liberals, got drunk on spending; and when the housing bubble burst got caught in the lurch!