Public Defender Jeff Adachi. File photo by Luke Thomas.
By Luke Thomas
January 13, 2011
Public Defender Jeff Adachi has not given up his quest to rein in unsustainable health and pension care costs, Fog City Journal can confirm.
During an interview Tuesday, Adachi was asked if there was any truth to a recent rumor suggesting he was considering placing a modified version of Prop B on the ballot this year.
“You know me, I’m not one to give up easily,” Adachi responded. “We learned a lot in that (Prop B) campaign. Obviously I would revise it. Labor has said they’re going to solve this problem. We’ll see, but this is still the biggest problem facing the city that no one’s talking about. It’s like the huge elephant in City Hall.”
“Just today,” Adachi continued, “the pension liability to the city went up one percent – more than what was estimated a month ago – that’s another $30 million. Thank you, thank you, opponents of Prop B.”
Labor groups and virtually the entire political establishment opposed Prop B on the grounds that it was inequitable, that it unfairly doubled city employees’ dependent healthcare insurance contributions. The November measure lost with 56 percent of voters opposed, 43 percent in favor.
Responding to criticism that Prop B was regressive and inequitable, Adachi said the new measure would be revised.
“People were concerned with their health care costs,” he said. “We have definitely addressed that. We would come up with a revised measure,” adding, “I am determined to fix this problem.”
Adachi said he is already “preparing” a new measure, “but I want to see what comes out of the Board and Mayor’s office,” adding he has been told he cannot sit in on any closed door meetings regarding pension and healthcare reform “unless I agreed not to bring a charter amendment.”
“I’m not going to agree to that,” Adachi said.
Editor’s Note: We’re awaiting a response from San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson. We’ll add his comments when he responds.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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January 20, 2011 at 9:30 am
Salaries can be dealt with by a charter amendment which would take effect when contracts are renegotiated with a few years.
Pensions are more difficult because they were negotiated long ago and the City has those ongoing, longstanding obligations which are different than salaries.
That is why bankruptcy to get a handle on the megapensions appears the better option, because that cannot be solved by other means.
But again, this cannot be a right wing dream festival to go off attacking all city workers because of a hatred for unions. It needs to identify the cost drivers of salary and pension obligations, leaving health care alone, and go after those cost drivers while leaving the sustainable aspects alone.
I’d also add that it is not correct to assert that there is no inflation for pensioners. Inflation has been rigged to prevent the rise of Social Security obligations by not including the drivers of inflation–food and energy and housing–in the official figures.
This is not an argument for increasing pension pay outs when the system is precarious, just an effort to clarify that inflation exists in certain markets even though figures are manipulated for political and fiscal purposes to the contrary.
-marc
January 19, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Bankruptcy would enable the City to void all of its collective bargaining agreements. Start over, like GM. Restructure all salaries, H&W, pension benefits. Headcount reductions. Great Idea.
January 19, 2011 at 10:17 am
“That’s probably about $60,000 per SF household.”
This is over 30 years, right? That’s $2000 per household per year.
San Francisco’s revenue profile means that only some of that will come out of taxes on residents. The question is how much more per year will that amount to and be paid by residents than what was otherwise budgeted?
We’re being asked all the time to take on all sorts of risky corporate welfare to gin up tax revenues by nonresidents, right? Surely they can afford to subsidize the increment on these expenses.
-marc
January 19, 2011 at 8:07 am
Nothing can change until there has been a plumbing of what got us into this mess, an assignment of responsibility to the likes of Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom for appointing the overseers whose lack of fiduciary responsibility got us into this place.
If this is just going to be taking that irresponsibility out on the hides of the workers, then no deal. The City needs to chop pensions from the top down to $50K max, and it needs to be putting the fiduciary irresponsibles on the dock to hold them accountable for their wrongdoing.
$4.5 billion in health care over 30 years is not a problem.
-marc
January 18, 2011 at 9:51 pm
“My reading of Prop B was that it was not written elegantly enough to have anticipated and prevented that disbursement.”
Correct. I cited it as an example of how horrifically the finances of this City are managed…
Bankruptcy is by far the best option. Unfunded health is $4.5 billion and unfunded pension is $8.7 billion according to a Northwestern University study that eliminates the bogus SFRB accounting. That’s probably about $60,000 per SF household.
January 18, 2011 at 8:55 pm
No Luke, because people are not corporations, corporations are not persons, corporations are not governments, and governments are not people.
Airlines and automakers have gone through prepackaged bankruptcies to reorganize their finances and come through able to issue investment grade corporate debt in short order.
So long as the City does not default on any of its marketed securities, those where it needs to go to the credit markets to finance bond sales, a prepackaged bankruptcy to shed all pensions obligations > $50K per retiree ONLY, would, if anything, raise the City’s credit rating because it would lower its credit risks moving forward.
It would be possible for the state to pass a statute that allowed municipalities to go this route. The only way to break an existing contract, Nat Ford’s five year vesting provision of his contract for instance, would be through the bankruptcy process.
The City has been more or less prudent in capping the amount of bonded indebtedness that it has taken on. Tax revenues will not get swamped borrowing at the current level. It should be possible for the City to keep its good name in bond and dispense with obligations that grow at a higher rate than revenues. That’s the whole point of bankruptcy.
-marc
January 18, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Bankruptcy? Are you serious, Marc?
What would happen to your credit rating if you declared personal bankruptcy? Surely the same will happen to the City’s credit rating resulting in higher interest rates on bond financing etc.
Am I missing something in your proposal?
January 18, 2011 at 6:11 pm
My reading of Prop B was that it was not written elegantly enough to have anticipated and prevented that disbursement.
D10 and D2 were potentially impacted by Prop B. It doesn’t matter what the intent of actions are, what matters are the consequences.
City Employees have already agreed to contribute to THEIR retirement fund. What’s going on here is that current employees are being taken for a ride by Newsom’s appointees with their increased contributions being shuffled off to current retirees.
It is time for the City to explore a prepackaged bankruptcy to be relieved of pension obligations in excess of $50K per retiree. That solves your problem and renders the health care matter moot without forcing current workers to disproportionately shoulder the burden for current retirees.
-marc
January 18, 2011 at 5:20 pm
I am reading a lot of shoot the messenger because you don’t like the message stuff. We need more facts, figures, analysis, not shoot from the hip hyperbole.
January 18, 2011 at 3:29 pm
If the diverted resources did in fact change election outcomes (would like to see someone fully explore this topic- it’s an interesting one. Maybe Reilly beats Farrell, for example), then I would see it as an unintended consequence and less nefarious.
The $170 million bonus has been covered in the SF Weekly and the Examiner today – “Retirement Fund Doles Out a Surprise:”
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/columnists/2011/01/recreation-and-park-complainer-swings-and-misses
January 18, 2011 at 1:50 pm
My animosity is that Jeff Adachi preferred to play the game of kick the hippie with the people who worked their asses off to elect him instead of fashioning a measure that diverted resources from important contests that changed the balance of power against those who worked their asses off to breathe political life into Jeff Adachi..
So long as progressives put into power candidates like David Chiu, like Jeff Adachi, like Matt Gonzalez, who turn around and play kick the hippie instead of exploring and expanding the isthmus of common ground between progressives and real moderates, progressives are going to have to be kicking the electeds when they resist feedback that they’re going the wrong way.
This post-ideological thing is working out quite well for Barack Obama, also don’t you think?
What do you mean “$170,000,000 bonus?”
-marc
January 18, 2011 at 1:07 pm
“What does not help is for Jeff Adachi to plotz all over an election with a self-serving and divisive ballot measure that very well might have cost progressives a supervisor race or two and by extension the redistricting commission and ten years of Scott Weiner and Mark Farrell designed districts.”
Never understand the animosity towards Adachi. Isn’t it redundant to call any politician “self-serving?” Yes, when you try to solve any very difficult problem that involves not enough money to go around – some will find it divisive. Supes had 10 weeks to put a competing measuer on the ballot and did not- very diffcult problem. Now we are reading of a $170,000,000 bonus paid out to retirees after the pension fund lost $4 billion in 2008 – anyone want to blame “Wall Street” for that…??
January 18, 2011 at 9:32 am
@Hope, as a member of a union household, I’ve been warning my friends in the labor movement of the unsustainability of the growing spread between organized public sector workers and the rest of us, not only because my partner had worked hard for his retirement and our health care, but because Americans need and demand retirement and health care security, and organized labor is the only entity capable of moving that agenda.
Their response in the last decade was to assume that I was anti labor. But they are coming around. However that turn around is not easy.
What does not help is for Jeff Adachi to plotz all over an election with a self-serving and divisive ballot measure that very well might have cost progressives a supervisor race or two and by extension the redistricting commission and ten years of Scott Weiner and Mark Farrell designed districts.
-marc
January 17, 2011 at 10:28 pm
If we have a plan to go after the actual cost drivers for the pension system, mega pensions and salaries > $100K that create them, instead of figuring out how to alienate everyone including the schmo who works 25 years to get his $23K pension, we’ll see supermajorities go along with enough money left over to cover health care.
The fact that Nat Ford works for 5 years and gets to take home some percentage of his $300K+ salary for the duration is the problem.
-marc
January 17, 2011 at 10:14 pm
It’s time for public sector union members to admit they turned a blind eye when the politicians who negotiated union benefits with them protected (and continue to protect) the wealthy from contributing their fair share to keep those benefits sustainable. The middle class has been bled dry of money and really has no more funds to give. The unions need to demand politicians take action to ensure the wealthy corporations with record breaking profits pay their fair share to sustain these benefits (hey, even Texas taxes the oil companies for taking resources from the state!!). Where is the union outcry over the recent extension of tax cuts for the wealthy? Where is the union outrage over CEOs making millions and millions while the skilled workers file bankruptcy as jobs are sent overseas without consequence? Where is the union outrage over the billions spent on undeclared wars and corporate bail outs and banks walking away from foreclosed homes in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, leaving the cities stuck with the costs? This is where the union pension money is going. Unions must use their political power more wisely now. Stop supporting the politicians who use the unions as a shield to hide their constant protection of the wealthiest Americans, speak out rather than negotiate more unsustainable contracts, or lose your benefits like everyone else.
January 17, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Correction:
“I am coming to the position that it might make sense for San Francisco to go bankrupt and to plead to the court to give pensions a haircut so that no pensioner receives more than $50K/yr while making good on all other ongoing obligations.”
Agree. I still haven’t heard a single person give any good reason why any public servant should receive a pension > $100,000. And yes, these pensions are going to blow up the system – deny the retirement and health care benefits to those < $100,000.
January 17, 2011 at 9:14 pm
“I am coming to the position that it might make sense for San Francisco to go bankrupt and to plead to the court to give pensions a haircut so that no pensioner receives more than $50K/yr while making good on all other ongoing obligations.”
Agree. I still haven’t heard a single person give any good reason why any public servant should receive a pension > $100,000. And yes, these pensions are going to blow up the system – deny the retirement and health care benefits to those $100,000 as one revenue generating measure.
January 17, 2011 at 6:47 pm
I am coming to the position that it might make sense for San Francisco to go bankrupt and to plead to the court to give pensions a haircut so that no pensioner receives more than $50K/yr while making good on all other ongoing obligations.
January 17, 2011 at 4:19 pm
It can be fun to question motivations but simply asserting why someone is doing something you do not like, doesn’t mean that is a correct answer.
City employee health and benefit costs have been and are rising. During the boom years this didn’t matter much because of the growth in the stock market and city revenues.
The challenge now is not to rerun the last campaign like generals like to do –as familiar as that could be –but to find a way to save SF’s general fund at least 1/3 of this year’s budget deficit, do it in a way that protects lower paid City workers, women and dependents. In exchange for such givebacks City employees deserve to know that City Hall wants to protect the existing level of services San Francisco has, and that their defined retirement benefits and healthcare that was part of the package they signed up for can still be there in the future provided everyone can accept some change.
Denying the scale of this financial challenge or just sending an invoice to Goldman Sachs will not make the problem go away.
Fixing the benefits equation is basic economic housekeeping. Taking steps now does not mean that growth in income inequality nationally isn’t a problem that needs to be addressed at the national, state and local level where possible. It’s also unfair for workers making six figures to hold onto a benefit structure that is not sustainable, especially when that means eliminating services and programs for San Francisco’s poorest residents. That exacerbates local social and economic inequalities.
SF city government definitely needs new revenue and it will be easier for an Ed Lee, Leland Yee, David Chiu or Mayor X to win that vote once the pension and healthcare debate has been resolved. Yes it’s naive but San Francisco has the capacity now to trade in a rigid take no prisoners interest group decisionmaking approach often built on myopic self-interest and/or greed and replace it with a more meaningful sense of community that relies upon shared, collective sacrifice.
January 17, 2011 at 9:26 am
DIVIDE & CONQUER.
@Eric, of course this is the root cause of all our problems. We are left fighting over the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich and powerful. We need to turn over their tables and throw them out of our houses. Encouraging Jane Kim to pursue ways of requiring ‘downtown’ to pay their fair/fare share to support MUNI, would be small step in the right direction.
January 16, 2011 at 7:03 pm
I can trust the principals on this as much as I can trust Bevan Dufty.
The City is allegedly underfunding its pensions. If employees are required to fund their pensions, then most likely fund investors will stash them in equities, probably with a risky Illinois “casino go for broke” investment strategy or maybe in annuities that invest in Wall Street. The goal of shifting money from people to Wall Street is met, and the funds will appreciate until culled by the Hedge funds.
“Wall Street” HAS come back, my retirement fund surely has rebounded from the losses that I did not take because I saw the crash coming. How has San Francisco’s pension fund fared in this morass? I’d bet that SF’s pension fund has fared worse than the market at large. Why should we trust them with more money?
If these prognosticators who sew the seeds of doom and gloom, the same ones who open the public treasury on a whim to subsidize corporate profits, can’t plan for an economic crisis who was visible to all who were not boosters or ignorant, then why on earth should we trust their assessment of the situation first, and their preferred solutions second.
This pension model has worked for decades. There are reasons why it suddenly failed over the past eight years. We need to nail down those reasons, figure out who was minding the store at the pension fund, what they did wrong, how they might do the same thing again, and how to hold them accountable, change that to prevent malfeasance and ensure fiduciary responsibility before we amend the charter to give them any employees’ dollars.
Looks like Willie set the table for the CALPERS and SF Retirement systems to be pillaged by his hedge fund buddies the same way he’s setting the table for SF’s east side to be raped again through sleazy land use entitlements.
-marc
January 16, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Marc, the Civil Grand Jury report was panned as being too alarmist when it was issued. As it turns out the numbers in the report was too conservative–this year’s employer contribution numbers are even worse than the report predicted.
Your statements are bunch of red herrings. Stating that the project to end defined benefit plans was motivated by a desire to shift money to Wall Street is silly. Defined benefit pension funds are already invested in Wall Street. It’s a false argument to suggest that they aren’t. Pension funds are some of the biggest players in the markets. People defending the pension funds actually blame Wall Street–claiming that but for investment losses in the broader markets, the funds would be fine. On the other hand, they claim that the funds will come back, because the stock market will come back. Which is it–do you hate Wall Street or depend on Wall Street?
Your posts indicate that you are pushing for some type of unrealistic re-working of economic and social policy at the macro level. (“Those who allow themselves to operate within the frame of the ruling financial elites are not progressives, they are opportunists.”) It might be more productive to focus on the micro (City) problem of our pension fund’s problems.
The reality is that employee contributions have to go way, way up to keep the fund from going insolvent. It’s already scheduled to run out of cash in 2032.
January 16, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Like I’m saying, the integrity of the Civil Grand Jury was called into question by these shady linkages between a Civil Grand Juror seated under a cloud of secrecy and the participation in a campaign.
Adachi refused to negotiate with the people who put him into office, seeing the move as one to bolster his right flank and he’d internalized the framing of Wall Street hedge fund managers and investment bankers and played the usual Democratic Party game of “kick the hippie,” Jeff discovered, as will David Chiu, that sometimes the hippie kicks back.
-marc
January 16, 2011 at 11:14 am
“Why won’t the Superior Court Judge release documents relating to the seating of the Civil Grand Jury, the foreperson of whom went on to participate in the Prop B campaign?”
Funny, you omitted that said foreperson went to said superior court judge ahead of time to screen for any of conflict of interest and the judge ruled there wasn’t one. That of course, didn’t keep labor lapdog Dennis Herrera from raising a fuss, Herrera who by the way, is now fundraising for his mayoral run on a platform of “pension reform.” Pension fund operating costs of $433,000,000 (figure was $0 seven years ago) per year but let’s all move along -just a made up problem here…
We’ve all read the “attack on labor” talking point ad nauseum- surprised you didn’t go with “demonizing” labor. It doesn’t undue the math. See Sean Elsbernd’s (Adachi’s mini-me) now talking up his own signature campaign…
CIty employees are hardly “homeless drunks”- guess we’ve cranked it up a notch from “working families.”
January 16, 2011 at 9:08 am
I say Jeff Adachi deserves kudos, not snarky remarks about his motives. Has anyone considered that he proposed Proposition B and reportedly is considering a new ballot measure because he believes pension reform is a must in San Francisco? No other politician is likely to challenge the public employee unions.
January 16, 2011 at 9:06 am
There are plenty of places in City government that offer up savings that dwarf the phony pension crisis.
Why won’t the Superior Court Judge release documents relating to the seating of the Civil Grand Jury, the foreperson of whom went on to participate in the Prop B campaign? Just like Willie Brown set progressives up for execution, it is quite likely that the supposedly objective Civil Grand Jury was tainted from the point of selection.
The fair deal that I want is negotiations between labor and Adachi on an equitable outcome that is rooted on progressive values.
What you are saying is that public employment is no longer sustainable so long as pensions are involved. That is the message put forth by Peter Peterson, founder of Blackstone hedge funds. The project to end defined benefit retirement plans that began in the late 1970s was to force retirement savings onto Wall Street where they are culled by the hedge funds that have immense market power every ten years or so.
Those who allow themselves to operate within the frame of the ruling financial elites are not progressives, they are opportunists. That is the low road, we need for folks to take the high road and to challenge the powerful vested interests that make organized labor look like the pathetic, dying institutions that they are in the grand scheme of things.
Picking on labor at this point in time is really like kicking a cat or a homeless drunk. Leveraging the insecurity and resentments of working folks who are being squeezed by the likes of Moritz and Peterson to attack labor is the progressive and liberal equivalent of a political capital crime.
-marc
January 16, 2011 at 8:33 am
@seej, and Greg: I too keep wondering why Jeff Adachi is doing this, rather than, e.g., questioning the legality of the Gascón appointment. That seems to have been legally questionable but no one seems to have the energy, (or legal budgets?) to take it on. That would be a more logical cause for a lawyer so well-known for social justice advocacy.
This can hardly be about his own political ambition because, whatever any of us think of it, it’s no doubt killed his chances of becoming mayor, which seemed pretty good before he made this his banner issue.
January 15, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Every discussion about pension reform devolves into hyperbole about social justice and what’s equitable. It ignores the math problem. There is not enough money to make the system sustainable unless you are all happy draining the general fund indefinitely. The general fund isn’t just for city workers.
Sorry Eric Brooks, but the chance of the City passing a billionaire’s tax or a corporations tax to shore up the pension system is unlikely. State law doesn’t even allow cities or counties to pass income taxes.
Sorry Tami, but Obama failed to deliver on single payer health. And the City and County of San Francisco can’t go after “Wall Street” to solve the problem. Where would it start–send a letter to Goldman Sachs saying “it’s your fault, send us money”? And while unions may have built the middle class, there aren’t many private sector unions left. Unions are largely a public employee issue now, and taxpayers have to foot the bill. (Though I agree with you that no one should retire with a six figure pension).
Marc, what is the fair deal you want? Even if Adachi’s measure passed, the pension fund would be underfunded. (The City is contributing 18.1% of payroll this year and it’s supposed to climb to over 26% within 3 years.) Do you really expect Labor to now come to the table and say they will contribute even more than what Prop B would have required?
January 15, 2011 at 4:24 pm
“My problem with Prop. B is that it dismisses the reality that there was no pension underfunding crisis until the Wall Street crisis.”
This statement is profoundly wrong. You should read up on SB 400 pased in 1999 I believe and cities like SF followed the states’s lead in pension promises that went unfunded. There is a reason that despite the DJIA’s recovery from the recent crash we still have a huge pension crisis.
“Public workers-not those in the six figures range- typically receive lower salaries in exchange for decent benefits.”
This was true ten years ago- it’s not true now. C’mon- we pay bus drivers $90,000 a year who by the way, don’t contribute a nickel for their pensions. This is kind of stuff that is bankrupting the City…
January 15, 2011 at 10:10 am
I agree with Eric Brooks’ comment!
The vast majority of retirees will retire on very modest pensions. As a state worker, I will be lucky to retire on $30k a year. Is that so extravagant? “Lifetime health care coverage,” is simply until Medicare kicks in, unless someone knows differently. I think there is no public servant job in state or local government that needs to make over $200k. And no one should retire with a pension of six figures.
My problem with Prop. B is that it dismisses the reality that there was no pension underfunding crisis until the Wall Street crisis. Now they’re back to making record profits. And if we had single-payer the exorbitant health insurance burden on both employee and employer would be resolved.
As someone who has passionately supported Jeff Adachi I am so disappointed that he does not put his talent and energy into single-payer, taxing the rich and reforming Wall Street so that this catastrophic loss does not occur again.
Union workers are what built the middle-class. Workers are consumers who pump money into the economy. Public workers-not those in the six figures range- typically receive lower salaries in exchange for decent benefits. Now we are to have the worst of all of it-low salaries and crummy benefits?
Why is the mentality a race to the bottom, predicated on taking away from us, rather than fighting for decent wages and benefits for everyone?
Finally, I think chopping from the top is viable-the argument that if we don’t highly compensate our department heads, etc. they will go to the private sector- then I say “good riddance.” I want a Mayor, DA, Chief of Police, PD, etc. that are in public service to serve not to exploit the tax payers. Look at Mayor Quan! She is truly interested in public service and not economic gain!
As for the private sector, there is a lack of job security that I think negates the argument that public sector must pay private sector wages to high ranking bureaucrats. Not when public sector jobs have job security that private sector does not offer.
January 15, 2011 at 8:09 am
Jeff should really cut his losses. He blew his chances for mayor. He should stop before it gets to the point where he blows his chances for re-election.
January 14, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Can someone tell me how we are getting foolishly tracked into a self destructive discussion of how to equitably cut the benefits of the working class, middle class, and upper middle class, instead of talking about taxing the billionaires and corporations in San Francisco who have hoarded so much wealth that this hoarding is bringing down our community?
January 14, 2011 at 1:34 am
Pension reform should be a top issue for San Francisco. Whatever your political preference – progressive, moderate, conservative.
This past November, San Jose voters overwhelmingly passed Measures W and V in the last election, despite heavy opposition from worker unions. Citizens knew their city faced an enormous $118 million dollar deficit, and many city employees, particularly firemen and policemen were receiving pensions up to 90% of their salary, after retirement at 52.
With many city employees losing their jobs over the deficit, with San Jose roads being ranked last in the country, and the education system failing due to lack of funds, voters reacted and chose reform.
In San Francisco, one out of every 6 tax dollars (nearly a billion dollars) are spent on city employee benefits. If San Franciscans learn what their city will lose without pension reform, they may wake up to this issue as well.
See SF Weekly: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/01/penson_san_francisco.php
— The predicted contribution rates in last year’s Civil Grand Jury report “Pension Tsunami,” criticized by labor and its backers as hysterical, actually turned out to be overly conservative. “It was very realistic,” says Craig Weber, that report’s primary author. “And here we are.”
This should not be viewed as an “attack” on city employees or unions. Many employees will lose their jobs without reforming rising pension costs, while citizens will lose greater access to services.
January 13, 2011 at 6:52 pm
It’s worse now,
Read Bay Citizen and Weekly today (online)? The pool of red ink is deep enough to swim in now. The voters are getting Jeff’s message (first brought to us by Sean Elsbernd – credit where due) … getting the message through any number of media sources (all saying they invented it).
Haaland’s SEIU and the cops and firefighters will drain every dime and 75% of them don’t even live in the City.
We need both Progressive mayoral and DA slates and Pension and Health Care reform will be big items on both platforms. The winners will be the reformers.
Go Giants!
h.
January 13, 2011 at 2:46 pm
No one has convinced me that the Grand Jury report, “Pensions Beyond Our Ability to Pay” got it wrong when it concluded that the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System is out-of-whack.. The Grand Jury report recognized: “The escalation of pension costs can be attributed to many factors not the least of which being the relationship of public officials and unions who have negotiated extraordinary pension and retirement benefits today, without consideration of the unfair financial burden placed on future generations.”
Does anyone really believe that Mayor Lee and/or the Board of Supervisors will take on the unions? Any change will have to come at the ballot. Hopefully, this time Jeff Adachi will craft a reform measure that will appeal to a majority of voters.
January 13, 2011 at 2:41 pm
It is easy to grandstand politically but takes guts to negotiate a fair deal.
-marc
January 13, 2011 at 1:26 pm
“So it is all about Jeff Adachi, not about collaborative problem solving…”
Ha. The only chance (and it’s probably a 1 in 5) there will actuallly be substantial reform (versus past fig-leaf reforms- see Prop D June 2010) is the threat of a Prop B II. Will be tougher to fool the voters second time- benefit crisis only getting worse.
Still trying to understand how Adachi (being the ONLY elected official with any guts) taking on EVERY elected official and the CIty unions is somehow good for his career…
January 13, 2011 at 11:30 am
“I’m not going to agree to that,” Adachi said.
So it is all about Jeff Adachi, not about collaborative problem solving.
-marc