Hans Blix Continues Frantic Search For WSBs
In his first State of the City speech, Mayor Chuck Reed invoked City Council Resolution 678 that authorizes force against cost overruns. He vowed to “hunt down those responsible for the cowardly expenses,” and declared war on the budget gap by raising a citizen militia made up of several municipal groups trained in the art of expense reports.
The Force Reconnaissance Bookkeepers, as they are being dubbed, are commanded by Jerry Silva under the aegis of the Team San Jose Expeditionary Brigade.
“I have put together this coalition of the willing,” explained an emphatic Mayor Reed, “to convince every neighborhood in every council district that they have a decision to make: either you are with us, or you are with the spenders.”
City Manager Les White defended the mayor’s actions by stating that Hans Blix had indeed uncovered massive amounts of WSBs, or Worker’s Salary and Benefits overruns, buried deep within the city’s balance sheet.
But even in the face of the damning evidence, some longtime critics of fiscal conservatism aren’t ready to announce “mission accomplished.”
“Were going to war with three groups: the American Musical Theater administration, the Mexican Heritage Plaza board and McCormick and Schmick employees,” said Phaedra Ellis-Lampkin, the South Bay Labor Council czaress. “That’s not a grand coalition; that’s the Vichy French.”
Brigadier General Silva replied by saying, “Well, actually, she forgot Poland, er, the San Jose Grand Prix.”
Murky News reported that municipal salaries & benefits have increased 45% since 2000. Guess I shoulda gone to work in the City Attorney’s office.
But what have we received for that increase? Third World Roads, closed swimming pools, weed overgrown parks, and large consultant bills. Jweez, they make all this extra dough and have to send everything else to cosultants. Time to clean house.
You forgot the jihad declard by the San Jose State Urban Planning Department on free parking in downtown.
I see James (#2) is back with his “clever” posts about parking. Rather than actually being able to articulate (James, “articulate” means, “To express in coherent verbal form; give words to”) why people who spend time studying parking issues and who are beginning to question the value of free parking are wrong in their beliefs that free parking is detrimental to downtown, he would instead just mock them w/o context, reasoning or explanation.
There was an excellent op-ed piece in the Chronicle a couple of years ago by Donald Shoup, author of “The High Cost of Free Parking”. from the article:
“What can cities do to reduce the high cost of free parking? Here are two recommendations:
—First, cities should charge the right price for curb parking, so that about 15 percent of spaces are vacant. That way, drivers will always be able to find one or two open curb spaces per block, and no one will cruise. We can call this the Goldilocks price. If no curb spaces are vacant, the price is too low, and if many spaces are vacant, the price is too high. If about 15 percent of the spaces are vacant, the price is just right. Parking is like gasoline: Cars use it, so drivers should pay for it.
—Second, cities should return all the increased meter revenue to the metered districts. The parking revenues can pay to clean and repair the sidewalks, light the streets, remove graffiti, plant trees, provide security and put utility wires underground in the metered districts. These public improvements will attract even more customers, some of whom will walk from the surrounding neighborhoods.”
The entire article is online here: http://tinyurl.com/37s4a4
I think the suggestions and concerns planners have about free parking are worth further discussion by our planning commission and council—despite the efforts of some to dismiss them out of hand.
This war will prove to be a big mistake. Tribal loyalties, long suppressed by the iron-fisted rule of the now-deposed despot, will rise and once again divide Labor’ites into traditional factions, united only by their simmering resentment and ancient hatred of the Sunni Managers. It is reported that the Carpal Tunnel Brigades, entrenched in their cubicles at City Hall, are already threatening to shutdown the government unless their retirement benefits are improved. This demand could bring chaos to the streets, as the majority of the police force owe their allegiance to the Al-Askformore Shias, a group whose ties to the former dictator have traditionally sent the lion’s share of employee benefits their way.
Speculation is that the Sunni Managers would welcome this in-fighting, which might explain their thus far observed sit-back-and-do-nothing response. This analysis, it should be noted, has been contradicted by long time observers of the group, who argue that when faced with a serious problem, the Managers always sit-back-and-do-nothing.
Sorry, smelly Dave, and you should try to take a shower, I am not anyone other than a resident at the big complex on San Fernando and Third. Isn’t that wacko in Santa Clara?
Whereas, you are still living in that phone booth near Gish Street, and still eating that free breakfast by the airport.
Really, smelly Dave, just because you are dating one of the planning students at SJSU, doesn’t mean you always have to back them up.
How does she abide those messy sneakers?
Dear San Jose:
Someone I know who works for the city told me that the budget isn’t the problem, it’s how it is managed. There’s enough money to go around, it’s just not being spent properly.
I think that there’s a lot of truth to that.
The city has too many of its workers assigned to planning and promoting instead of managing and doing. For starters, let’s assign a two person truck and crew to each council district for three months. Have this two person crew serve as temporary “utility people” who could go around sprucing things up by patching a dozen pottholes every day, taking down illegal signs, picking up litter, and painting over graffitti. We’d see the difference!
NIKE used to have an ad campaign called, “JUST DO IT!” San Jose needs to adopt that theme.
Pete Campbell
While humor is Friday’s purpose, in fact the planning department is supporting one of the pillars of the budet deficit, and that is its continuing support for planning & zoning that permanently transfers employment lands to residential lands. The latter do not generate the taxes to pay for the services the city provides, so this kind of change merely enhances the budget deficit.
Consider that this week two proposals came out that will remove 20.75 acres on Vista Montana from employment lands to residential lands, and 66.4 acres of the flea market on Berryessa Road from employment lands to residential lands.
If the city council approves these two plans, they will simply have expanded the city’s structural financial problems.
Where should large numbers of new high density home developments and local retail be build?
Where there is transit and jobs in redevelopment areas like downtown and North San Jose which is good planning and increases San Jose’s property and sales taxes to pay for improvements like more trails, parks and traffic improvements but NIMBY’s in North San Jose don’t want future developments like many who bought next to jobs, light rail, highways and airports which is where they should be built not across city or county
Coyote Valley, Evergreen and large infill projects only makes traffic gridlock and pollution worst while city improvements come from general fund not redevelopment funds and decrease city wide services
You think the budget problems are bad now? Wait until our City folks get up the nerve to calculate and fully disclose the reserve account balances that will be necessary to pay future retirees’ pension and health benefits. We’re talking about a budget deficit that will raise your hair on end!
# 1 Are you kidding?? ” Time to clean house”
It is past time and how would you propose to do it?……Will senior management do it and jeopardiize their own comfortable wage and benefits package in the process?? Will Mayor Reed do it by sweeping dictates ??? Let’s see, maybe the Council will buck their main backing
at re-election time and aggressively tackle this
obstacle to our city’s greatness …..NOT !
I am afraid that it leaves only one option..and
it is us. ..and it is past time to confront this reality. The babies are running the nursery and need to be guided. But how to take back
control when only a few are paying attention is
the question..
A good example is the recently resolved D6
council race,where the winner vowed publicly that the City needs to be “free from the control
of unions” but yet received virtually total backing by them (exception was Police) but not a public support. Read Phaedra Ellis in the
post-election briefing when she said that Labor
was solidly behind Mr. Oliverio” not publicly
but would have jumped in to help if they were needed ! Some might call that bait-and-switch
Then, what about Mr. O’s emphatic mantra that
he would not take support from “unions,lobbys
or special interests” One is amazed looking at
his contibution disclosure—it is rife with all of the “likely suspects” of traditional special interests and his endorsements—read the code
for unions. Give us a break!
Only smart bloggers and such would know what belies his public protestations—and what
help would Mr O be in the’house cleaning’job?
We need to work better at educating voters in this side of electioneering-not just the candidates statements,but reading the support.
Many times, I heard that the challenger was beholden to Big-Business(what is that anyway)
and to “special interests” but at least we all knew who supported Mr T—it was publisized.
The “secrets” of the winner’s campaign is the REAL lesson here. Some known and some yet to be revealed… and how these perceptions of
him decided this election. When we get yet another “collaborator” when we were promised a new “Reed-Reformer”,the system
is broken.
We can say that we were “misled” but shame
on all of us.We need to be better informed and
ask more questions,overall be more active and present in this process…otherwise we will not solve these critical and complex problems that we face.
The information was there. D6 voters chose to ignore it and believe in a fantasy. Too bad we will all suffer from their poor choice.
Gosh I have a dog and he does nothing for Political reasons-he`s my best friend.
I attended the three Forums in the District six race and listened to Pierluigi Oliverio speak as if he were the Sales Manager of a large co, Wow. He consistantly quoted a great man, Abe Lincoln. He missed one quote though that he should give some thought to and maybe he might want to recite it over and over to Ellis Lamkins but not Papa cause he is proud of you.
Abe said:“You can fool some of the people all of the time…and all of the people some of the time…but you can not fool all the people all the time”.
Pier I have two single sons too, and I told them a George Elliot quote, “Falsehood is easy—truth is difficult”. and I`m sure your dad whom I understand is a very ethical man must have told you something similar when you were younger.
Let’s be real here. At this point we can only speculate as to whether Mr. “O” was schmoooz’n the voters for votes, or schmoooz’n labor and the Dem Machine for endorsements.
We really will now know until he starts casting his votes and speaking on the record.
Let’s give him a chance. It’s a new Mayor and a new year. Let’s stay engaged and see where it goes. It’s only fair.
Pete Campbell….
You wrote…
“Have this two person crew serve as temporary “utility people” who could go around sprucing things up by patching a dozen pottholes every day, taking down illegal signs, picking up litter, and painting over graffitti.”
Question…
How do you propose to have this two person utility crew comprised of one planner and one promoter drive truck, fix potholes, take down illegal signs, pick up litter and paint over graffitti without stepping on all those well entrenched city union work specialties?
I can see it now; you would have Phaedra Ellis-Lampkin, the South Bay Labor Council czaress rounding up every labor group, labor funded politico and Democratic Machine wingnut after you and the Mayor. Talk about Labor Unrest…
Before you know it they’d be picketing Starbucks and this town would be in the dumper so fast you’d wish you lived Battle Mountain, Nevada.
And besides Pete, it smacks of common sense; and that’s not allowed when messing with some people’s jobs… specially when they worked so hard for the folks that gave’m those jobs. It just ain’t fair.
I spent my time going to three Forums to listen to bothcandidates. I talked to Pierluigi at my home before Tedesco entered the race. He had a chance to be honest with me then, no reason to lie yet he did that day. I did my research on line, read the papers.“all of them, even the slanted ones, I went to the SCC Democratic site. I was a interested paticipating resident. After a lot of research I voted for Tedesco. I`m learning more about him now that upsets me even more.
Your correct he is our council member now, because many people didn`t do there home work. His campaign manager said it best the Absente voters put him in, they voted early before the debates really got going and the Mercury reversed there position for reasons we are now learning.
Do you live in district six? Wish us well.
RZ13: sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree—compare Gonzo’s ethics to his father’s.
C’mon # 16, Gavin was only fooling around with his friend’s wife to try to quell those persistent/pesky gay rumors. Just when he thought they were gone, along comes some Chinese wingnut to break into Gavin’s house for sex. Whew, SF politics!
Notice the meeting that Reed had with the Mayor Gavin “I cannot keep the zipper closed around campaign staff” and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums?
They pledged to block the 49er move.
Reed, who is pulling out the hair he has left over Armando Gomez’s blunders with the budget, is now declaring war on the budget that he made the motion to pass!!!
#1 I am a city employee and I can GUARENTEE you that my salary and benefits have NOT increased by 45% since 2000 or 1995 for that matter, but then again I’m not a “sworn” employee.
My salary has averaged a 1% increase per year since 2000.
Good point Johnmichael.Most San Francisco residents agree with you.
#20-what do you mean by “sworn” employee?
Is this code for Police and Fire or is there really a secret underground society we have been suspecting about city governance.
#21: Sworn employees is a term that’s used at the city to refer to Police Officers and Firefighters. It doesn’t include civilian employees that work in the Police and Fire departments.
Bob (#20)—
Please let us all know how you figure that you received only an average of a 1% increase since 2000. That can’t be correct considering the raises that city employees received during that time period. Perhaps your math skills are as good as your spelling. (Bob, it’s “guarantee” not “guarentee.”)
Let’s all hope you’re not reflective of the typical city employee….