First Concord, with its proposed tax measure to fund a 2% employee kickback in exchange for furlough days(!), now the City of Pleasant Hill wants voters to bend over and give council permission to put a 1.5% Utility User Tax (UUT) on the November ballot.
And just like Concord, Pleasant Hill spins bogus surveys claiming wide satisfaction with city services, where in faery land, such a sucker punch survey is considered unquestioned justification for a tax increase in order to maintain sacred cow staff and programs like loans for Solar Panel installations!
Just once these weasels should offer an honest survey that gives taxpayers a choice between whether they want to pay 1.5% on all their utility use for the next decade or be satisfied with less service and no tax increase!
Instead of misrepresenting data to explain why voters should pay a new tax without serious budget cuts, why don’t Pleasant Hill leaders talk about the luxurious pensions it pays on the taxpayer’s dime? Apparently only voters get to sacrifice in this recession, not government.
Instead of misleading voters regarding how wonderful services are, as if that’s a slam-dunk reason not to cut back in hard times, why don’t these so-called leaders, who don’t have the gumption to face down employee unions, explain to voters why city government doesn’t need to cut back and live within its means like the rest of us do!
But no, they waste taxpayer dollars to scare the bejesus out of residents as if all hell will break loose and all of our daughters will be raped by gang bangers while your cars disappear in sink holes on Patterson if they don’t cough up a new tax designed only to fill gaps in operational budgets while never addressing structural deficits irregardless of tough times.
The Pleasant Hill Council meeting will take place 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, located at 100 Gregory Lane.
Bill Gram-Reefer is Editor & Publisher of Halfway To Concord, founded in 2004. Halfway To Concord is the leading online source for community-driven political news, events, and opinion for Contra Costa County and the San Francisco East Bay.
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P.H. should negotiate the changes with their employees BEFORE coming to the taxpayers for more money. Our motto “Act, then ask.”
Mike,
Unfortunately we cannot do anything to reduce payments to current retirees, so your question about how much someone contributed to their retirement program is irrelevant. The issue now is that the entire country (at least those who are are rational) is seeing that the public employee pension system is UNSUSTAINABLE. That means that either we change it or go broke. It will only change for current and future employees, not current retirees. This is what the pleasant Hill City Council needs to do to balance the budget, not root out brand new taxes in the middle of a depression.
Mike, Wendy is not receiving a pension. I asked.
The problem is that entities were promising pensions they could not afford! Currently, Contra Costa County has to pay 81 cents for benefits (41 cents of that is for pensions) for EVERY dollar of salary. The county cannot keep that up.
It is the officials who signed the contracts and continue to sign them that are the problem, not the employees.
Quote from Wendy:
“City employees enjoy lush retirement at age 50 pension plans and benefits chiefly paid by taxpayers not employees. Why don’t City employees pay for their own benefits or opt to trim them back to reasonable levels?” My question to Wendy – in your 23 years as HR Director at the City of Walnut Creek, how much did you contribute to your pension that you currently receive, paid for by taxpayers?
@MikeD — Argumentum ad hominem inre questioning Wendy’s pension does not address the issue but serves only to discredit the speaker. Your question and line of argument is not relevant
I think you have Wendy confused with someone else, possibly me. There has to be massive pension reform in the public sector since places like Contra Costa County cannot continue to spend 81 cents for benefits for each dollar in salary. Cannot happen. Simply does not compute.
Again, not all pensions are created equal.
Kris, you’re missing the point. Wendy is not only targetting higher salary pensions, I believe she is demanding universal pension reform for all employees. It’s a pity she didn’t start calling for this before she retired. Does the word hypocrisy come to mind for anyone?
Mike, not all pensions are created equal. Wendy Lack is not on Walnut Creek’s $100,000 pension club (if she is receiving one). That 14 member club, comprised of former employees receiving a pension of $100,000 or more per year, is headed by former police chief Tom Soberances with a pension of $182,987.
Given Wendy’s criticism of ‘generous’ government pensions, I’m wondering if she and her husband will be leading by example and donating some of THEIR government pensions to an appropriate charity
To all commenters-
I am trying to organize a group to oppose the proposed utility tax in Pleasant Hill. Please email me at nopleasanthilltax@yahoo.com if you would like to help me. I’m new at this, but have had enough and it’s time to act!
Not only do the Pleasant Hill employees NOT contribute a thing to their pension apparently they only pay $50 toward their health care monthly. These are benefits not found in the private sector.
C’mon, Pleasant Hill. If other cities can pare back employee pensions, so can YOU!
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/18/local/la-me-pensions-20100719
I agree with Kris Hunt. City employees need to make some serious concessions to reduce their excessive retirement benefts before going to the taxpayers for a bail out.
Also, in Concord – the idea of furlough days or extra unpaid time off rather than real pay and benefit cuts is a bad joke. In the private sector there are no furlough days. A few people (usually the least productive) get laid off and the rest work harder to make up the slack. Government employees need a reality check.
Edi – Shouldn’t you be asking why the city is raising taxes before they fix their problems? And since you are running for city council of Concord what is your position on cutting staff instead of giving them a week off for the next two years?
Putting aside the question of whether a tax is the right thing or not, what I find interesting is that where many cities are looking at a sales tax increase such as in Antioch and Concord, PH is looking at a utility tax. In the last poll on the Pulse of Concord (http://www.PulseOfConcord) when over 400 people responded on the two types, it was clear that the Utility Tax as a methodology was the least desired.
I wonder if there is not enough Sales Tax revenue in PH to bring in the amounts that they want and therefore they are looking to the Utility tax?
The City pays the full contribution to CalPERS for pensions AND all employees can retire at age 50. That pension deal is going to continue to be a drag on the city’s budget.
It has to go. The pension should be changed before taxpayers are asked to give more of their hard earned money.
Pension payments are indeed outrageous, and so are salaries. The City Manager earns about $300K in total compensation, for supervising 150 employees, about the same as the community college chancellor, who oversees 1,500 employees!
Exactly! That’s why Borenstein should run for President!
I note that the document from Pleasant Hill says they are “modestly” increasing the UUT from 1% on intrastate telephone to 1.5% on other forms of telecommunications as well as expanding it to other utilities.
That sounds major increase, particularly for businesses.
That could be a brutal hit to internet focused businesses – too high – too much – for too long
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