It’s always interesting to follow the newspaper endorsements for political candidates. There is mixed opinion on newspaper endorsements, especially if you don’t get them. If you get the nod you cheer, and if not, it turns ugly like a family reunion gone bad.
The SF Chronicle and the SF Bay Guardian(!) have endorsed Lt Governor John Garamendi for CD-10 in the upcoming Special Election, September 1.
Closer to home, Solano County’s Daily Republic, as endorsed Democrat Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (AD-15) and Republican Chris Bunch.
Meanwhile, the Contra Costa Times also recommended Garamendi, as it took aim at State Senator Mark DeSaulnier, when it wrote:
DeSaulnier also has a long political career, including service on the Concord City Council, Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and a short time in the state Legislature. However, we have serious questions about his commitment to the public interest independent of acceding to the wishes of organized labor, particularly public employee unions.
Many of the financial problems that afflict Contra Costa County today stem directly from decisions DeSaulnier championed while he was supervisor. Most notably, in 2002, at a time when the county faced a $31.5 million shortfall, was already laying off workers and was already experiencing increased public employee pension costs, DeSaulnier supported unsustainable pension increases that hiked benefits for public safety workers by as much as 50 percent.
The plan allowed public safety workers to retire at age 50 with a pension worth 3 percent of their salary for each year served.
Such excessive public employee union benefits have strained some local jurisdictions to the brink of bankruptcy. Indeed, bankruptcy, which would allow the rewriting of unaffordable employee contracts, might be the only way out for some jurisdictions. But Democratic legislators, DeSaulnier and Buchanan among them, have backed an effort to remove the use of local government bankruptcy. They are pushing Assembly Bill 155, which would require state approval of such bankruptcies, severely diminishing local control of fiscal policy.
This? After years of establishment support for DeSaulnier and his gang still busy bankrupting Contra Costa and California? Where are the divorce papers? Who gets the kids? What about the Summer cottage in Martinez overlooking the refineries?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
To the Editor:
Incompetence with money is characteristic of government.
If the public sector, which is already too large, could be privatized, then there would be none of this excessive compensation (unless there were a monopoly).
Private firms have owners (often stockholders). Management is accountable to these owners.
If employee compensation becomes too large, then the owners can adjust the cost of labor and other costs.
With government running things, adjustment of labor pay is next to impossible because politics, in which labor unions and other special interests are heavily involved, always trumps economics.
What government should have done years ago is hire private companies to run such public operations as police and fire services. BART is another entity that should be privatized.
Citizens have a right to be upset when the Moraga-Orinda fire chief gets a pension of $241,000 a year.
Richard S. Colman
Orinda, CA
Aug. 27, 2009
It should be noted that across the state the change of police to 3% and 50 as a pension rule was being done in the 2000-2002 area led by the State not the cities or counties. (I believe that the CHP was the first to get the 3% and 50) That the CC Board agreed to such a thing is not a sudden bolt out of no where but a product of the policies at the time. Further where was the CCT and other papers when this was happening? I do not seem to recall them running articles to screw the cops and firemen so we could have 64 year old patrolmen and fire-engine drivers or did I miss those editorials? Yes it costs too much money, but in fairness none of the candidates at the time were calling for a cut in the benefits to the police and fire department. So now we have to deal with it and I assure you it is not something that gets unwound as simply as it was wound up.