As a Mayoral candidate, I, personally, attended this grim State of the City speech, myself, last November. From Cassie MacDuff, Columnist for the Press-Enterprise: Every candidate for and incumbent of the San Bernardino City Council should have been at the mayor’s State of the City address last week. They needed to hear in plain language the scope of the city’s financial nightmare, which elected officials must now figure out how to fix. Unfortunately, a Chamber of Commerce forum the same evening kept most mayoral candidates away. Only two council members — Fred Shorett and Virginia Marquez — attended. In his valedictory, Mayor Pat Morris blamed the council for lavishly endowing employee salaries, benefits and pensions … and draining the general fund of money needed for vital services. The lame-duck mayor blamed public-safety unions for taking control of city politics with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funding, making elected officials beholden to them and corrupting labor negotiations. Overly generous salaries and benefits depleted the general fund and left streets, sidewalks, parks and public buildings neglected and in need of $183 million in repairs, Morris said. After plundering the general fund, councils voted to borrow from restricted funds, then issued $50.4 million in pension bonds, which will taxpayers cost $114 million to repay, Morris said. Ominously, in 10 years the city will have a $360 million deficit for salaries and pensions it’s already obligated to pay — even with 200 fewer employees than it had before filing for bankruptcy in August 2012.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 22:24:37 +0000
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