Says Fritz, “Elected officials and the governor are powerless, and all term-out eventually. Administrators, such as those in near-bankrupt Vallejo, are giving up trying to balance budgets; overtaxed and underserved citizens can move to another state, and businesses can simply shut down or relocate. Unions endure.”

Fritz suggests that unions should recognize that municipalities and counties simply cannot afford promised contracts that feature early retirements and overly generous retiree lifetime health benefits. Instead, unions should promote labor, not leisure by increasing retirement age.

“On average, if each new member keeps working just five more years, pension costs will be cut in half. Retiree health benefit costs will almost disappear if more choose to work until they qualify for Medicare. Fewer positions will be cut or left vacant. Businesses will pay less for government services and can hire more workers to compete with out-of-state and foreign businesses…Employee pension contributions can be reduced or eliminated; this will increase their take-home pay to pump into local economies…Studies have shown people who keep working tend to live longer, healthier lives than those who retire sooner. Unions can and must lead the way.”

I agree. And I’m ready to do something about it.

Since Senator Torlakson’s endorsement of incumbent Supervisor Mary Piepho’s re-election bid, it has become clear that our Democratic representatives in Sacramento and the Board of Supervisors (BOS) in Martinez do not have the power or political will to solve the County’s $51-million budget shortfall. Appealing to Supervisor John Gioia, for instance, would be akin to negotiating with some crippled humpback with a lisp named Igor, instead of dealing direct with Dr. Frankenstein.

Therefore, it’s time the taxpayers of Contra Costa County go straight to the power source in Martinez. We need to humbly take our hat in hand, get ready to eat some serious crow, and go crawling to the boss, Mr. Big, Rollie Katz.

Rollie! What do you want? Fame? Fortune? How about a pat on the back and a job well done? How about a new suit and a car detail once a month on CoCo Tax or Contra Costa Council? This could all be yours only with a few minor gimmees that would demonstrate Local One’s willingness, once again, to stand in solidarity with the rest of the working families in Contra Costa. And we aren’t even talking increasing the age of retirement, although that looks like a damn good idea, wouldn’t you agree?

Anyways, longer lives and more job security in the long run for your union members aside, all we’d really need to do this fiscal year is a couple simple things. Two minutes. That’s all we need.

1) Let’s get retirees on Medicare, and 2) ask employees to save county services on the chopping block, by agreeing to pay a $10-15-25/month (single-couple-family) healthcare contribution with a co-pay capped at $20 or less per visit. This is what most working families in the county currently shell out and is just not that much to ask. OK, OK, maybe just take a look at subbing out a few of the no-show jobs from the health care budget like Dr. Walker suggested. I’m just sayin’…throw me a bone, OK?

Rollie. It’d break my heart to see all those critical services and public safety get cut just so county workers don’t have to contribute a pittance to their health benefits or pay a meager co-pay like the rest of us working schmucks. And the Times’ Borenstein says retirees would get better healthcare and the County could save almost $37-million a year if we got them on Medicare at 65.

These two items alone would go a long way toward solving the County budget crisis, Badabing!

Look. Just move an inch, OK? Otherwise it will be a PR nightmare when people realize the BOS is in fact protecting union members instead of representing all of the county’s working families while coddling public employees instead of ensuring delivery of critical services. It’s hard to argue with the truth, man. Help me out here, would ya?

Talk to me, Rollie. I’m serious, dawg. Have your peeps call my peeps and we can get the pencils out, sit down, take off our shoes, do the math, and make this thing happen. Then everyone’s happy, go have a drink, you know what I’m sayin’? Look, maybe we can even make it look like John Cullen, the BOS and the rest of the wannabes really made it happen, you know? Win-win, smiley photo-ops, the whole enchilada. You da man. Call me.

First we hear from Mary Piepho that Contra Costa County is leading the state if not the nation and the world in handling its retiree health benefit debt. Really? Contra Costa’s OPEB obligation is heading toward $3-billion and is larger than the OPEB debt of five larger California counties — Alameda, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento and San Diego — combined. In offering a mere 40-percent solution, the only leadership we see is in the BOS failure to not deal with the political and structural realities that got us so far in debt in the first place.

Meanwhile, Federal Glover offers voters Rollie Katz flavored Kool Aid when he avers that the County cannot solve the OPEB problem. Rather we need a solution at the state and national levels in the form of Universal Healthcare. As if this will eliminate the current debt and obligation to current employees. This is irresponsible gibberish.

Unfortunately, many of the challengers during these televised debates were not very forthcoming, either. Most hemmed and hawed around the question from the Times’ Lisa Vorderbrueggen when she asked how to increase funding for OPEB when there is already a $51-million budget shortfall on the table.

Clearly, no one wants to address the elephant in the kitchen called cutting obscene health care giveaways to current unionized public employees. Times columnist, Daniel Borenstein, in a recent editorial suggested that, “instead of offering the county-subsidized health benefits, the county (c)ould provide a stipend of $250 a month to cover the cost of Medigap insurance. By one estimate, that simple change would save the county $37 million a year.”

These and other common sense suggestions prove that the issue facing Contra Costa County is not about money. It’s never about the money. The issue is having the vision for sane and fair policies that work, and having the courage and community support needed to take on the public employees unions that are eating taxpayers alive. Instead, all we hear from incumbents is, “Oh my, it took us forty years to get into this jam, and by golly we don’t want to upset the apple cart cause it’s all about relationships.”

The only reason these political sock puppets of the public employee unions don’t represent California’s more agricultural communities is because farmers already know what a load of bullshit looks and smells like.

In the end, despite the childish and self-righteous temper tantrums of SEIU Local One union rep Rollie Katz, the County in fact ends up favoring special interests by coddling union employees instead of funding critical services including health care for the poor and public safety. Please tell us, Supervisor Gioia, what’s so Progressive about that? How does it help working families who really need county services when at the end of the day, the only people who are being served are the union bosses and the politicians they support.

In a report to the BOS last Tuesday—much to the dismay of Rollie Katz, Mr Big of Local One and head puppetmaster of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors (BOS)—Dr Walker concluded that:

a) Reducing the County Health Care services by $10 million is improbable given the mandatory staffing requirements and County employee sweet heart deals including pay and benefits.

b) Reducing the number of indigent may not be feasible or result in keeping significant resources from getting poured down the drain (see item “a” above).

c) To maintain existing services and meet budgetary “constraints,” an alternative approach ought to be considered.

Ergo: Close the CCRMC inpatient unit and issue RFPs to contract out some non-critical County services. Walker suggested the County hire a Community Based Organization to oversee fulfillment of contracts for non-critical service areas including: detention health, inpatient psychiatric, security, medical records, housekeeping, landscaping, facility maintenance, lab work, and collections.

Oh My. From what we saw from the peanut gallery, Mr Big looked like he had eaten a bad oyster, and several Supes were apoplectic, shaking their heads in disbelief before the presentation was even over!