DISQUS

Bishop · 4 months ago

LB Resident is right. For the $23 million to work, all unions just need to skip their increases next year, not actually give anything back. But that includes the police officers too. While every city employee took a 2% pay cut this year including the managers and firefighters, the police officers held themselves as exceptional and too good to be bothered. Perhaps they were too focused on suing the city for even more back pay to get dressed and undressed. I will bet that the rest of the unions will play team again next year to help meet Miss Frick's $23 million savings... but will the police? Or will they just prove once again to be too good for everyone else. Ironically, it is the union that is getting budget busting raises year after year in staggering sums, even during this recession, that has shown the greatest resistence to helping this community balance the budget. I am disgusted but hardly surprised.

LBResident1 · 4 months ago

Bishop. Your are right on re LBPD. They are only here to Protect and Self Serve. They have no regard for the rest of the City and its fiscal problems. Their greed disgusts all tax payers.

Rick S heights Owner · 4 months ago

that was apparent last night on pine avenue. i congratulated about 7 officers for their lawsuits against the city.

anyone who was not on pine and shoreline last night and saw what my family and i did would be appalled. the trash is still there as i write.

i hate what lbpd has allowed to proliferate because they are too pussified to enforce the law against anyone looking "brown".

note: two of my friends were cited for sparklers in front of their homes last night while the bluffs burned. fuck you lbpd waste of space. cops in lbare fucking stupid and useless.

lbresident · 4 months ago

that is frustrating. not that this will make you feel any better but on the way to work this morning driving through huntington it was a disaster. people are just irresponsible. I would love to see the police go on a targeted ticketing campaign for littering.

howardx · 4 months ago

where was that? i was down at dog beach around 7:00 am sunday morn and it seemed pretty clean to me.

lbresident · 4 months ago

driving down pch from warner to 17th along the road wasn't pretty. probably picked up the trash on the beach by then but the roadside didn't look like it had been yet.

howardx · 4 months ago

i noticed a lot of stray clothing and lost flip flops but not much trash on the beach, dog beachers are a clean bunch;)

LBMA member · 4 months ago

It's really unfortunate how misinformed employees and the public remain on these issues. Executive management and those managers represented by LBMA are part of the solution and are being furloughed - no exemptions to the best of my knowledge. The current management salary reduction amounts to 2% for FY09 (thru 9/30/09). This is not a deferral but a net 2% reduction in my paycheck. If the proposed "every other Friday" furloughs are put in place for FY10 (10/1/09-9/30/10) then that will equate to a net 10% reduction in management paychecks (salaries) and all others furloughed.

LBResident1 · 4 months ago

Why not kill the DeLong/Dean landswap giveway and put the $5M cost of relocating the public service yard (the pubic was told it was only a $500,000 cost) towards reducting the deficit? Where is the leadership on the Council on this issue?

Wetlands Fairness · 4 months ago

The closer you study that deal, the more like it looks like a Buddy Bailout combined with a dose of political capital for a re-election or two.

The rumor is that during the last closed session, the City Attorneys were wise to raise concerns about the tens of Millions of soil contamination liability.

If this is not estimated, and factored in as a substantial discount, watch some action come forward.

The huge majority of people want the Wetlands restored correctly, not merely acquired partially.

Another huge problem is miles of roads and well pads all over the place. We want to know why we have to pay for acres of roads, and acres of well clearings, that Mr Dean retains exclusive use of? Why don't we carve all of those areas, which will not be restored, or replanted, out of the deal?

People also need to know that the State funding sources have told DeLong, O'Donnell, City Staff and others, that they cannot, and will not pay anything close to the inflated prices designed into this ruse of a deal, and that the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust, the legitimate experts, do not approve of this deal. That says a lot.

And Staff.....please refrain from saying..''How do we value Wetlands....they are Priceless''. Maybe with your money, but to us, try 30,000 an acre minus Contamination liabilty.

Thus the State, and Expert presumption...proveable in Court.....''If we have to remediate the soil....how much do you PAY US to take the land as is???

Until we estimate the Soil Remediation expense, many smell litigation and more.

It is nice to know that State and Federal Agencies are in the loop, on several levels, and that a range of filings stand ready to help craft a far fairer deal.

Every Million that we save, helps the Coastline a lot.

All of the Land, and all of the Oil is worth 25 to 28 Million. That first deal was an outright Gift of Public funds to an 'A" list friend. It was shameful as have been some of the games attempted so far.

Meeting the DA again soon.

lbresident · 4 months ago

the net is the police and fire need to come to the table.

by the way, I don't think the $23M is really a "pay cut" for employees. Rather, I think it represents forgoing raises.

we can't reform pensions fast enough...

lbresident · 4 months ago

I really don't like Arnold but darn if he (or his staff) didn't write a great piece in the LA Times today. The situation in Sacraemento is very similar to the one in our city (and probably many others). He talks about fruad and waste in calworks and other welfare programs but the part that really rings home:

"By simply taking another 60 seconds to return pension formulas for new hires to their pre-1999 rates, we would see a savings of nearly $95 billion in reduced pensions by 2040, with more billions to be saved beyond that."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/...

LBResident1 · 4 months ago

Maybe Mr. Swayze feels he is over paid for the position he holds or the dismal results the Economic Development Bureau has achieved. If he is responsible for the sad state of Pine Avenue, he should give back all his salary, not just 10%. Better yet, maybe the City should just eliminate the entire economic development bureau and use the savings to pay for the land swap.

lbresident · 4 months ago

Interesting data:

Currently, the total contribution for a miscellaneous employee making $100K a year is 20% of his/her payroll or $20,000/yr., of which the employee contributes $2,000 and the taxpayers contribute $18,000. For public safety employees making $100K a year, the total contribution is 25% of his/her payroll or $25,000/yr., of which the employee contributes $2,500/yr., and the taxpayers contribute $22,500/yr. Pensions now account for $80Million of the General Fund and will continue to compound yearly. These figures were for 2008; we don't know what they are for 2009 or will be for 2010. We only know they will be much higher.

Pension costs are the reason Long Beach continues to have a Structural Deficit. It took Scharzenegger too long to confront the issue with the California Legislature; we can only hope some common sense will jump start a discussion on pension reform in Long Beach.

Governor Scharzenegger threatens to hold back signature on any new legislation until the structural deficit is fixed in California, and that means reform, including pensions. If Mayor Foster is truly honest about his statement in his interview with Art Levine, telling Mr. Levine that the employees know the pensions are not sustainable; what is holding the Mayor back in doing anything meaningful to fix Long Beach's structural deficit by reforming pensions?

rino2 · 4 months ago

Think about it, a 43 million budget deficit for the city of Long Beach and an 80 million contribution to pensions in 2009. Now, if the people receiving this 80 million had helped to improve living conditions for the people they were serving, I think their pensions could be justified. But, how many jobs in Long Beach get any kind of pension today? What is the current reality?

sunshinelb · 3 months ago

Wasn't SantaAna used as a basis for the LBPD's median pay deal? SANTA ANA, A union that represents hundreds of city workers has refused to postpone pay raises or make other concessions – a move that will likely force more cuts to the city's already cash-strapped budget. The Orange County Register 7/20/09