Your City Council Report

 For May 25, 2010

By Katy--ADQ--Miessner

May 26, 2010--(Happy Birthday Pac-Man--30 years old))

The evening started out on a high note; in a lovely display of Vallejo’s diverse cultures, two proclamations were offered; one declaring the month of June as the Philippine Cultural Month and one declaring June as Gay Pride month. Of course, Pastor Danny Jefferson and some of his devotees could not bear to stay away and brought their hateful words (hint: not towards Filipinos….).

Note: The Pista Sa Nayan festival is coming up on June 5 on the Vallejo Waterfront and the Gay “Pride Picnic and Potluck” celebration will be hosted by the Vallejo Gay Network in City Park on June 13.

Prior to the resolution offered by BETTER VALLEJO, (Chair Fred Barrett, and members Father Lou Bordisso, and Dan and Rose Marie Glaze) portions of Reverend Dr. Amos Brown’s address last Friday at BETTER VALLEJO’s MILK screening were aired; moving and inspiring words.

It was recognized in the proclamation how much Vallejo’s growing Gay community has and is contributing to our revitalization.

It’s a real shame that Jefferson—who must not have heard a word Reverend Dr. Brown said, or Bordisso’s acceptance of the proclamation (signed by Mayor Davis?) to help heal Vallejo’s wounds—had to follow with words of Hate, shrouded in an argument that government shouldn’t have to be “tolerant of the beliefs of others”. I guess this shows there is more work ahead for (and to) BETTER VALLEJO. Hopefully Jefferson and the few who felt the need to “rain on Vallejo's parade” will become stranded on a proverbial island of Hate sparsely populated with those who refuse to BETTER VALLEJO, or maybe they will join? One can only hope. As Barrett, who also noted BETTER VALLEJO respects the contribution of all Vallejoans, said when he quoted Harvey Milk, “You gotta give ‘em HOPE.”

There was also a proclamation given in honor of Thelma Ames Norman Brown, who passed away recently. Wife of the noted Attorney and former councilmember Lewis Brown, a tireless advocate for Vallejo’s underserved and underprivileged.

Rob Stout stood in as Techie during the airing of Dr. Brown’s comments – uh, oh, has it gotten that bad that the Finance Director also moonlights as the City’s AV geek?

Well, speaking of bad—the 2010-11 budget was presented. The evening ended early because it was “hot off the presses” and Council and the Community didn’t have time to review it. (The meeting ended early for two reasons; there was also no hour long and long-winded conversation over items pulled off consent, a first in a long, long time).

To say next year’s budget paints a bleak picture for this town is an understatement as big as the Pacific Ocean is wide. Vallejo is in deep, deep, deep doo-doo.

Our situation reminds me of the recent tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Every day, it just worsens. Now scientist are saying that there must be a second leak because the video-cam tracking what they thought was the leak could never have leaked the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf.

Much as BP executives covered up the true tragedy in the early days, our council majority—for years and years—has applied band-aids, not acknowledging the truth, even though many Vallejoans, some for two decades or longer, were projecting the situation we are now in. Will the Louisianan wetland ever recover? Will Vallejo?

What’s really ironic is even with the passing of a sales tax measure, the City is depending on the Vallejo PD agreeing to not accept the 7% raise the council majority (Bartee, Davis, Hannigan, Sunga, Wilson) promised the VPOA 1 ½ years ago, amid criticism even then that the City wouldn’t be able to afford it. Vallejo suffers from so much Déjà vu, the town has vertigo: thanks council majority for pushing the problem forward yet again. Bartee paid the price with a losing bid for a second term (maybe he’s glad he’s gone). Wilson opposes measure A, but he hasn’t offered anything to truly address the system in which the city’s fiscal problems were created. He merely nit-pics at the budget. And now he plans on scurrying off to the State Assembly, leaving the city in a worse disaster thanks in part to his actions on Council? I hope voters see through it.

Here are the details – big, big kudos to Rob Stout, Susan Mayer and the finance staff. Gone are the days of Martinez and Wright and their sloppy “Mutt and Jeff” budget presentations. And Stout and Mayer are under incredible pressure with the City’s situation.

The overarching philosophy Council has adopted upon the recommendation of Stout are these rules from “Governing Magazine”.

1. Live within your means

2. Look to your future

3. Stop deferring expenses

4. Fund retirement obligations

5. Dedicate your surplus

Stout reminded staff of their March 2010 unanimous vote to “live within our means”. With these rules and what many believe to be a worsening economy as an overlay, there will be some tough times ahead.

So what is in store for Vallejo?

• Many Vallejo homes are still under water. As these are foreclosed on or, if owners are lucky, mortgages adjusted down to what their values are, Vallejo will continue to see plummeting property tax. Stout noted this, along with the shaky stock market—Greece, Portugal and Spain are in the same boat as Vallejo and California and the European stock market plunge is affecting the US. Some are saying there are estimates of a slow but recovering economy—recovery seems like fantasy to me.

• The County Assessor reassessed downward an astonishing 50%, or 57,000 of the 115,000 residential properties in Solano County. This is the dark side of the crazy housing boom and the dependence on one-time permit fees for ongoing costs. I still recall Councilmember Schivley warning us from the dais back in the early 2000s. We depended on one-time fees, dependent on inflated housing values and the resulting property taxes, and used those to make huge promises to public safety that we could never hope to afford in the future. Ever.

• Staff estimates we could lose 10 to 17 more police officers. And these are regardless if Measure A passes or fails so don’t listen to the “No’s” when they say a “no vote will make us safer”. More fantasy.

• An ominous pension liability is projected; when you look at the pensions we pay it isn’t surprising. Next year’s projection for Police and Fire is an astounding 42%. Meaning for every 1 dollar in employee salaries, almost 42 cents must be paid to CALPERS. Police contribute 9 cents (leaving the city with 33 cents). Fire agreed to pay more, at about 14 cents (leaving the city with 28 cents).

What’s worrisome is that due to terrible losses experienced by CALPERS (California Public Employee Retirement System) (and this week’s European meltdown doesn’t help I’m sure) and a change by GASB in the way they require governments to account for pension liabilities, Stout projected that the contribution to PERS could go up to 80 cents on every dollar. The city will bear 100% of that increase, unless they can convince employees to take on some in a future contract. Not likely to happen if we can't get rid of Binding Arbitration.

Think of it this way: Last year the average Vallejo officer earned $127,000 (thank you astute VIB reader, who provided this link to the Contra Costa Times searchable database of California Public Employee salaries). My average includes regular pay, “other pay” and overtime but not “separation”.

If the CALPERS contribution goes up to 80%, and if we have 89 officers predicted in the budgeted worst-case scenario, Vallejo’s cost per officer to PERS will increase by $48,200. For the 89 officers, it would total an astounding $4,289,500 per year in the City’s PERS contributions alone. This won’t leave money to repair streets, or fund senior centers & libraries. Vallejoans will never experience the benefits of this $4.3 million dollars. And this is half of the projected sales tax revenue from the hoped for increase—if it passes!

The $4.3 million will all service enormously burdensome pension promises, and the skyrocketing salaries pensions are based on. “3 at 50%” we can blame on California Democrats (and all of us, not paying attention). Vallejo is accountable for the salaries. In honor of the thirtieth anniversary of PAC MAN, we have Public Safety Unions and their pensions eating up all the pac-dots, and the ghost monsters Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. Yum !!

On top of this bad news, CALPERS projects another 1.5 to 2% increase because their studies indicate retirees are living longer (I guess that’s good news for them).

Other “highlights” (lowlights?)

Based on the rules the council adopted, Stout asserted—and reflected this in the budget—the City should stop deferring expenses:

• Vehicles are in lousy shape, and the city needs to buy new ones by contributing to the vehicle replacement fund.

• Vallejo’s roads, median strips and alleys are deteriorating (try driving on Santa Clara between Tennessee and Florida). Stout projected it will cost $7.5 to maintain roads in their current deteriorated conditions (Vallejo’s roads are rated 51, lowest in Bay Area).

• Vallejo should pay CALPERS more than they are asking for in order to bring down the unfunded pension and retiree health liability.

• Vallejo should set aside $2 million for the Bankruptcy claims (mostly employee “lost wages” and retiree separation payments) and even that could be eaten up by future litigation (IBEW is still fighting in court and sadly they will likely get the shortest end of the stick as they always seem to whether or not they hang on the proverbial PSU shooting star).

• Much of the presentation was dedicated to how the “new” sales tax revenue would be spent. This goes completely against the rules “live within your means” and “look to your future”. Lots of “hint-hint, know what I mean” directed towards “Those Who May Not Vote for a Fiscal Emergency in order to get a sales tax increase on the ballot”. Coercion, bullying and brow-beating doesn’t work for “those”, and everyone should have learned this by now. And, regardless, there are two hurdles to get a general sales tax measure passed. A unanimous vote by council to declare a “fiscal emergency” and then it must pass the voters by 50% plus 1. A “super-majority” of the council (I think that would be 5-2?) could approve a dedicated sales tax (i.e. the 1% sales tax that is dedicated towards public safety) but not sure that super-majority is even do-able, and a poll of potential voters indicated a tax dedicated to public safety wouldn’t pass.

• Admin items D and E were to pass a resolution to communicate with PERS regarding the new employee contributions rates towards health care, a decision approved in March that would reduce the City’s annual costs, and the liability by quite a bit. This vote was a formality.

There could be a problem with this benefit change. Councilmember Schivley mentioned a May 6 letter from CALPERS which she understood as saying what we have proposed doing, can’t be done. Human Resources Director Deborah Boutte indicated CALPERS has a problem with the process but not the employee benefit. This letter may be connected to something I heard and it will be interesting to see if this plays out. Remember you heard it here first.

In the past the city has negotiated with Police and Fire as one entity—that is, what they gave IAFF they gave to VPOA and vice versa. Their benefits used to mirror each other. The two new contracts were negotiated separately and have resulting different benefits. Note in the report above the difference between what Police and what Fire has to contribute towards their PERS contribution.

Apparently PERS has told the city that VPOA/IAFF members must receive the same benefit because of the precedent treating them the same in the past. They can’t have separate tiers of benefits.

If this is true, what is the result? IAFF current and retired employees would be all brought back up to match what the City offered VPOA. Sounds like the approval of the VPOA contract could have even more devastating consequences. Another disaster?

During community forum Ruscal Cayangyang questioned the effectiveness of Ms. Sandy Salerno, consultant who’s been negotiating contracts with our bargaining units. If this PERS situation comes to pass, I hope the Council finally questions Ms. Salerno’s effectiveness as well.

Stout ended with the hope (you gotta give ‘em hope!) that there could be new money to spend in fiscal year 2011-2012 which if so would be “really fun”.

Comments

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Anon   |May.27.2010 If you think laying off 17 police officers so you can give the rest a 7% raise is a good move, vote No on A. If you think Vallejo City Council should be able to reduce wages to keep officers (or hire new ones to replace malcontents) and hire more, Yes on A.

Captain   |May.27.2010 Good report, ADQ Regarding the Calpers letter/problem, I have a thought on that issue. The current & retired employees have received the same Pension benefit so that shouldn't be an issue, and I don't believe the medical benefits are what Calpers is concerned with. Vallejo has two classifications of pension benefits: miscellaneous employees (IBEW & CAMP), and safety employees (VPOA & IAFF). Calpers requires that members of either of those plans have the same benefit (i.e. IBEW & CAMP receive the same benefits; currently 2.7@55 for both). I don't think there is a requirement to provide the same contribution rate, so VPOA (9%) & IAFF (soon to be 13%) shouldn't be a problem either. I think the issue is there will be (July 1) different pension benefits for new hires in the Safety Plan. New hires in the VPD receive 3@50, and new hires in the VFD receive 2@50. I think that's the issue with Calpers. If I'm correct, the same issue will rear its head with the miscellaneous employee pension plan. The budget for 2010-11 shows a second tier for IBEW members that reduces their pension for new hires (from 2.7@55 to 2.5@55). CAMP is a part of this plan also, so I think CAMP will also need to create a second tier pension plan (to 2.5@55). Don't have time to finish my thoughts but I think this link will explain the issue a bit better. Santa Rosa has been dealing with this same Calpers issue: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100524/ARTICLES/100529707/1350?p=1&tc=pg

Firebug   |May.27.2010 Thanks ADQ, the information Mr. Stout provided in this meeting is probably one of the most profound since March of 2008. The only saving grace if there is one is we will be in a State of perpetual bankruptcy, and at some point the great and omnipotent Ozz, Sunga, Willson, and Hannigan will need to renogiate these contracts.

Someone Else   |May.27.2010 So Dream Breaker, how many of those 7,000 people are actual registered Vallejo voters? How many are friends and family of Police and Fire? At the end of the day, registered Vallejo voters are all that matters. In Vallejo elections, you vote for more than one council candidate. You can't add up the number of votes for each person without double or triple counting individual voters.

Anonymous   |May.27.2010 Sam AKA Dream (or is it nightmare?) go away, you're such a bore.

CRRAAAZY   |May.27.2010 Jefferson is a prime example of the corruption, greed and ignorance of the church. Tryin to look like a pimp while "spreading the word of God". What a joke. A disgrace to all religions. How can anyone actually give their time or money to a crook like this?

Anonymous   |May.27.2010 Notice that this so-called "Reverend" NEVER even quoted the Bible or Scripture during this ranting. How could he - the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, Jesus Christ, Moses, Prophets, and Apostles totally condemn LGBTQ lifestyle. Another false minister.

Someone Else   |May.27.2010 It is in the state constitution that we have to protect pensions. The effort to form a constitution convention failed due to lack of interest. None of the major sponsers required to fund a ballot initiative where willing to fund it.

Common Sense   |May.27.2010 This notion that these pensions are guaranteed even if the city and state are going bankrupt is stupid. Time to tell these 50 year olds planning for retirement that you have 15 more years of work, and your pension is reduced to 45% of base pay. These pensions can not be guaranteed and they were never funded!!!!!

momster   |May.27.2010 Wow, this "Reverand" is flaaaaaaashy with his suits, fur coat, and standing next to Rolls Royce. This isn't very "Christ Like" to me. The Jesus I know isn't this greedy and self-absorbed. Shhhhsh, I thought it was a sin to live above your means. I guess I'll stick to my Ganga Ji teachings--it's more down to earth. Please note: Before I'm accused of being un-Christian, I've been on Christian pilgrimages throughout the world.

Anonymous   |May.26.2010 It was almost like a "show and tell" moment, with Rev. Jefferson displaying the very thing that Rev. Brown was talking about! Jefferson looked like a small, mean, close-minded bigot. How sad.

Oberver   |May.26.2010 It was very depressing after the positive efforts made by "Better Vallejo" to engineer a new era of inclusiveness in Vallejo, to move beyond the damaging remarks made by Mayor Davis about a segment of the Vallejo community, to have Danny Jefferson jerk us back to where we started. I can't help but "hope" that the Mayor was embarrassed by Danny's remarks. I assume that if someone addresses the city council next February to protest declaring African American History Month in Vallejo because of a racist belief that "black people" are the son's of Cain (mud races) that he, Danny Jefferson, will understand. I doubt that Danny is capable of understanding that there's a correlation between racism toward blacks and homophobia. Great job Katy as usual.

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