A few weeks ago, there seemed to be a greater sense of cooperation between the city and five public employee unions over pension reform. Agreements were made to extend negotiations and work together on ballot measures.
But last week, the city sent out its first draft of proposed measures. The ideas did not sit well with more than a few unions.
One complaint made in a letter from three unions—AEA, AMSP and CAMP—to the city said the proposed ballot measures “did not include any analysis and/or data. Specifically, it did not include any projected cost savings or actuarial analysis as agreed to in Section 6 of the Pledge.” The pledge referenced was a June 17 agreement both sides signed that set forth a framework for negotiations.
The three unions were also “disappointed that the first City proposal ever delivered to our bargaining units with regard to retirement reform contains so many illegal elements that fly in the face of the long standing vested rights legal doctrine.”
The unions state later in their letter that they reject the proposed ballot measures, closing with: “Let’s not put the cart before the horse.”
A letter from Christopher Platten, an attorney representing the police and firefighter unions, to the city also suggests critical information regarding cost savings are needed to discuss and potential ballot measures.
Platten writes that the firefighters union is “surprised and disappointed to receive from your offices a draft proposed ballot measure. This missive did not contain any projective cost savings or actuarial analysis as otherwise was the agreed upon process contained in the pledge of cooperation signed by Local 230, the SJPOA and the City. Nor does the missive comply with section 5 of the pledge that otherwise commits the parties to ‘work together to develop cost estimates.’ I am disappointed that the City would transmit a proposal that does not comply with pledge recently executed by the parties. It does not auger an auspicious start to our discussions.”
The Association of Legal Professionals (ALP) was also displeased with the ballot measures, saying that any future negotiations should not be viewed as “separate and apart” from negotiations completed in late May.
Surprisingly, the only union that appears to be moving forward with discussions over the proposed ballot measures was AFSCME, which represents more than half the city’s employees and has had one of the more contentious relationships with city officials. In a letter signed by president Yolanda Cruz and CEO LaVerne Washington, the union suggests the city arrange a time to meet and confer, which the city responded to by offering a time on Thursday.
Click here for a link to more documents detailing negotiations between unions and the city.
The city could care less what cuts the unions take. They are going for the blood, regardless how much the unions concede, this council wants to bust them all.
Why not just lay off all city employees, then rehire a skeleton staff at minimum wage with no retirement benefits.
It is time for the city to come forward and say what you want instead of threats to put everything on a ballot. Hopefully, sooner than later the voters will wake up and say enough of this BS.
I am disgusted with the majority of this council and Chuckie. Time to move on and I mean out of this city. You people are out of control, time to let my over taxed behind money to another city.
San Jose used to be a great place to live, now you cannot take your family downtown after dark and most public services are shutting down. San jose no longer has anything to offer than increased crime and a dwindling police department.
The office of Attorney General Kamala Harris said that the mayor’s plan for a ballot measure to rein in pension cost raises serious legal concerns. Harris’ senior counsel wrote a letter to lawmakers saying that “Financial problems faced by government must be resolved lawfully.” Reed the Arrogant has replied that the Attorney General ‘doesn’t have all the facts.” Chuck is so full of himself that he forgot that he wasn’t elected in a statewide election. That’s why the State Attorney General was -to rein in politicians who begin to act like dictatators instead of elected officils. How many cops could have been saved with the $3M Chuck has squirrelled away for his “special election” for an patently illegal ballot measure? Easily 20! Could all of this been avoided if he had not directed city negotiators to stonewall the unions on pension reform so he could look like a hero with his illegal ballot measure? Everyone knew they would have to make deep concessions at the table this year, but the mayor , drunk with power and listening to his puppetmasters like Ajlouny, had to kick those workers remaining in the guts. Brilliant move when you are going to ask a workforce of 5000 to do the work of 7000 and for less pay.
Most of all..Everyone seems to forget that the City of San Jose has a “AAA” bond rating which means you have over 1 billion in cash reserves. I often wonder why no one ever brings that up? The City is NOT in a fiscal emergency, just ask the State of California Attorney General that is why she is denying the City to do this! I say every Union should sue Chuck and hold him liable for sensless mismanagement and doesnt he have a responsibility to keep the citizens safe? What ever happened to that oath?
A group of Republicans have been backing Reed as well as efforts in Santa Clara and San Francisco. Their agenda is about as close to the Citizens Council in Mississippi a’s it can be. The guy in Santa Clara, Bsiley, and his friends Jay and Deb, are members if a birthed group. But getting back to Reed, Victor told him to go after pensions and layoffs. Reed is run for Omaha.
If, somewhere down the line it comes out or is proven that this whole thing was a big lie, employees need to start a class action lawsuit and get all back pay, with interest.
No the city absolutely is not in a fiscal emergency. Although its surprising the way they have wasted millions and millions on pet projects including the revitalization of downtown which every time seems to fail. Chuck is going to decimate the bond rating which in turn affects surrounding cities. Hence Assemblyman Paul Fong has thrown the bs flag and called Reed on his theatrics. The Attorney General is calling Reed on the carpet as well. Amen…. His tomfoolery is growing tiresome for a lot of smart people who know what time it is…. Unfortunately the majority sheep in sleepy San Jose are still drinking the Kool Aid from the trough!
“The Attorney General is calling Reed on the carpet as well.” The same attorney general bought and paid for the by the public employee unions, what a surprise……The structural budget deficit is real and lets hope that real reform can be made. I admire Reed for his steadfastness in addressing the real issue. Let’s hope the public employee unions come forward with real sugggestions for retirement reform, not the character assinations they always fall back on.
Quit drinking the mayors soft drink, the unions have gave everything he has asked for. Now he wants blood. Chuckie is out of control. You need to get reasonable and stop living in a dream world before San Jose loses everything.
I bet you live in a nice semi crime free part of San Jose but beware, it will come to your neighborhood soon.
Retired what is your yearly pay?
what was your exit comp?
What is your medical comp?
How long ago did you retire?
Put it in writing so we can all see.
Worked 29 + yrs
Now
65k a month
15k buyout for sick and vacation
I pay 270.00 a month for medical
Retired 3 yrs ago
Are you happy
I hope you mean 65K a year. 65K a month would be 780K a year!!!!!! That would have made you a City Manager, Police Chief, Fire Chief and Redeveolopment Director all in one.
“That’s why the State Attorney General was -to rein in politicians”
This is nothing more than the democrat machine carrying water for the unions and trying to strongarm the San Jose city officials – that we elected.
This is also the democrat machine telling you that unions come first, second, and third. The citizens of San Jose? Meh.
Expect robocalls from union-made union-owned Barak Obama before this is over.
The tide against public employee union special interests is rising all across the country and all to the benefit of good governance and fiscal responsibility.
It can happen here too.
Fiscal responsibility would be the city taking ownership for the deals that they made, the contracts that they signed, the agreements that the unions adhere to. The city and it’s ‘lame leaders’ were entrusted to lead and manage in an honest and ethical manner. The city has a fiduciary agreement with its employees … a contract that’s binding. Only a ‘bunch of chumps’ like who’s representing us presently could move in such a fraudulent way.
San Jose leaders should be either arrested or held accountable for their mismanagement of the present fiscal crisis. The leaders of any corporation are responsible for the ‘financial course’ of it’s existence.
Wake up San Jose. It starts at the top. This is a corrupt bunch of idiots that’s sending us’ down the rabbit hole.’
You are truly a novice. The tide is already against public employees in SJ. (Why that is inappropriate is another issue.) What Reed is doing is the issue here. This is about how Reed approaches the reforms. The unions have offered reforms. The firefighters agreed to discuss reforms when they took pay cuts. It was Reed who rejected those negotiations. Had he negotiated in good faith, the City could already have reforms in place.
Rather, Reed was hell bent on scaring the public, illegally declaring a fiscal emergency and demanding reform be done by ballot rather than compromise. He then learned that it was illegal to declare a fiscal emergency without first negotiating in good faith to avoid the fiscal emergency and such negotiations then failed.
Given the his opening salvo of such negotiations is a ballot measure that is illegal and contains no analysis to support it, flying directly in the face of the agreed upon parameters of the negotiations, it is obvious that he is simply going through the motions with no intention of truly negotiating. A good fatih negotiation would avoid ballot measures altogether, so opening with a ballot measure necessarily means he has no intention of acting in good faith. Second, a good faith negotiation would conform to the parameters of the negotiation agreement—i.e. providing legal solutions with support for the . Reed ignored that too.
The idea of negotiation is to see if a compromise can be reached. It would avoid wasting millions of dollars the City allegedly does not have on ballot measures. Yet, Reed seems resolute to secure reform by declaring a fiscal emergency (which is not true)and putting it on a ballot measure. This will have at least four very negative consequences for the City: 1)a ballot measure will cost the City millions of dollars; 2) it will cost even more in legal fees trying to defend what is known to be illegal; 3) declaring a fiscal emergency sends the wrong message to businesses who may otherwise start up or locate in San Jose—why would one do that in a City that is in such poor economic shape; and 4)it will delay reform which if implemented sooner would begin to ease the financial pressures earlier.
The Council is wasting tax payer money—not the unions. The public should be angry at Reed for the way he has handled this and discouraged business from coming to this City. The City cannot prosper on cost savings alone and that is all that Reed has focused on by stating he wants a fiscal emergency or bankruptcy.
and it is found to be untrue…someone should go to prison for fraud. Every single person involved should be held accountable and sent to prison for their part in it.
“If a fiscal emergency is declared
and it is found to be untrue…someone should go to prison for fraud. Every single person involved should be held accountable and sent to prison for their part in it.”
Honest services fraud?
Rest easy If-a-fiscal-emergency-is-declared.
“Union-backed legislation that would make it more difficult for local governments to file for bankruptcy protections sailed out of the Assembly Thursday despite opposition from local officials and business groups.”
“Unions, of course, want it to be as hard as possible for cities to declare bankruptcy, as the process often results in modifications to their contracts. Ignoring the fact that these contracts are often the primary cause of the bankruptcy.”
http://www.goldenstateliberty.com/2011/06/breaking-california-assembly-passes.html
The above malfeasance brought to you by the unholy alliance of the democrat machine and public employee unions.
If there were a law that required governments not to cry wolf and fake bankruptcy for political purposes wouldn’t it?
You know what’s going to be even more horrible?
The tumbleweeds blowing through the streets of Cali after businesses and taxpayers have all fled to non-union-owned states.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/06/companies-leaving-california-in-record.html
http://bit.ly/mIDKhp
Nowhere in your referenced blog are unions mentioned. Maybe you should utilize some adult education classes at one of the community centers to increase your reading comprehension. I’m sure that they will be spared as they are an “essential city service” per the draft proposed budget measure.
From Section 1: Findings “The following services are essential to the health, safety, quality of life and well-being of San Jose residents: police protection; fire protection; street maintenance; libraries; and community center (hereafter “Essential City Services)”
Let’s not worry about substandard buildings, clean water, sewer systems, street lights, traffic signals etc. We can all take refuge in the dark community centers and libraries with no working toilets.
I’m sure you will somehow be able to trace any short sightedness by council in this definition of “essential city services” to Obama and unions.
1) Labor elected Council and irresponsible out of state City Manager Del Borgsdorf encouraged by South Bay Labor’s Vice Mayor Chavez and all city unions increased city employees and management pay, benefits and public pensions to unsustainable levels while employee health and pension contribution rates were kept very low until recently
2) Council and City Manager budget deficits for 10 years have cut empty employee position, not replaced retiring employees, cut city services, spent city reserves, issued billion + in bond debt while Council publicly denied and City Manager hid budget problems from public
3) Mayor Reed and many of Council got elected after promising ethics, city budget and political reforms as budget and economy declined
4)Mayor Reed and Council delayed, talked, made excused , hoped it wasn’t true or recession would end ( it won’t for years ) and that state or federal government would bail out years of bad budget votes and hiding coming disaster from public and FINALLY after Reed was reelected faced political and budget reality
5) City employees and unions are crying the blues after years of helping to cause budget problems:
city payroll and union promoted city construction projects ( City Hall, airport Police station, fire stations, remodel Convention Center and libraries ) and Team San Jose while Council and City Manager did not sell as promised to voters old City Hall, community centers, Hayes Mansion, golf courses, theaters, Mexican Heritage, empty land etc while paying millions unnecessary bond interest
6) Voters want NO NEW TAXES or FEES, Reduce cost of doing business to attract new businesses, jobs and stores, budget spending cuts, stop out of control Council political spending, sell excess city building and land etc – i.e. RESPONSIBLE CITY BUDGET MANAGEMENT
Voters will remember at polls who caused budget problems and who fixes budget and city service problems
So far, city unions have been part of problem NOT part of solution in voters eyes
Voters might vote against Reed’s Ballot Measure, IF city employees stopped just talking, whining, making recall and other threats, daily predicting doomsday, and COME UP with workable budget solutions
Voters don’t believe union talk any more, time for action on solutions.
IF NOT, expect Reed’s Ballot Pension Reform Measure to PASS
Actually, the voters passed the bonds/taxes that paid (years in advance)for the building of the City Hall, police substation (vacant), libraries (employees cuts/reduced hours, fire stations (some closed) and parks (services cut).
The voters spoke on what they wanted… but our City leaders instead failed to plan for staffing, maintenance or ongoing costs for these buildings and services.
Blame the City Management (Reed/Figone) for their gross failure to budget and plan 10 years out for what was already bought and paid for. 10 years this defecit has been in the making, not due to employee costs but other projects. 10 years does not make a “fiscal emergency.”
That is now a given since people like you are so anti-union that you will suck up his rhetoric like a starving baby just handed a bottle. The city will spend tons of money putting ballot measures up, the unions will seek legal relief, Reed and his minions will get slapped down repeatedly in court, and in the end the only thing accomplished is the spending of millions of tax payers money.
Meanwhile crime continues to rise, city services decline rapidly and the standard of living in San Jose drops dramatically. Eventually San Jose goes from having a reputation of being a safe big city to just another Oakland or other crime infested city with only a handful of areas that are relatively safe. By the time the citizens wake up, if they manage to do so, it San Jose will have slipped so far down the toilet that recovery will be a decade or more away. That is Reed;s legacy and all of you Reed supporters are just as culpable as he is in the demise of San Jose. It is your city and you will get what you pay for.
“City employees and unions are crying the blues after years of helping to cause budget problems”
“So far, city unions have been part of problem NOT part of solution in voters eyes”
A lie oft repeated… A union exists for one reason only, to try and represent the interests of its members regarding pay and benefits. Unions are not responsible for making city management suggestions, individual city workers are as part of their jobs. The union leadership isn’t supposed to hold meetings and spend their time analyzing city policies and procedures so they can come up with better ways to do business, that is done by city leadership. That is what they are hired or elected to do.
And, I didn’t see anybody whining about contracts negotiated in good faith during the fat times. In fact, the unions simply negotiated to have some kind of parity with the private sector so they could keep up with their neighbors and private sector equivalents. The city grudgingly but willingly agreed to pay raises and benefit increases during those fat times.
Nobody in the private sector was having a hissy fit over these contracts so in reality, the voters are just as responsible as the unions for the contracts that were signed. Although I can’t blame them too much as the arguments for pay and benefit increases were well grounded at the time as recruiting was difficult and city workers were increasingly falling way behind the private sector. At the time, only the most self-centered and greedy citizen would have denied the city workers the opportunity to enjoy the same lifestyles that they were enjoying during the fat era.
If voters were too busy making bank during the boom times and didn’t express their displeasure at public sector workers trying to catch up to the private sector people, then shame on the voters, not the unions trying to gain equality. The bottom line is that the city recklessly spent money, not on pay and benefits, but on payback projects for various donors and special constituents (wink, wink) by going on a building frenzy and falling in love with every entitlement program that came along. Instead of saving for a rainy day they spent tons of money paying back their buddies. The city could easily have overfunded retirement funds and set aside monies knowing that the markets rise and fall as sure as the sun rises.
Are the union members happy about give backs? No they are not. Are they willing to negotiate some scaling back of pay and benefits for the city? Yes they are. But the reality is Reed has a hidden agenda of union busting the supersedes fiscal reforms. Plain and simple, he wants the unions to dissolve so he and his successors can run the city like dictators with no balance of power and little oversight. These ballot measures are not about saving money, that can be done right now with ease. The ballot measures are about putting the finger on a presently balanced scale and tipping it in favor of a tyrannical dictator form of city government.
Sadly, it is always the average citizen who suffers the most under this type of leadership. The middle class can certainly bank on the fact that they will not be on the receiving end of an omnipotent mayor and city council in a positive way. These types of governments result in a small percentage of people lining their pockets at the expense of average citizens and city workers.
Hello Reason??? Do you really think San Jose is in a budget shortfall? Lets talk money… Do you know Reed replaced all the monitors at the Convention Center for 127 Million,He wanted to upgrade them from Black and White to Color, Do you know Reed put 200 Million away for the A’s, are you aware that Reed has put away another 100 million for an illegal ballot iniative to curve the out of control pensions that he approved while on the counsil…Shall I go on? Maybe your not informed…He is Laying off Firefighters and Police Officers, do you not see the city going down the drain…Wake Up. Do you not see what is going on around you?? Look at all the crime, Look at the Fire Dept response time, slowest in any bay area city. Pay Attention!
thank you for the info, hope everyone reads it!
It would be good information if it was true. Too bad it is not. Read the budget documents.
The city is like a sinking boat and the employees are the ocean. City management has ripped a huge hole in the boat, and then runs around saying the water is sinking the boat. They want to change the water, make it lighter, make it less dense. They don’t want it to go away because it keeps the boat afloat, but they don’t want it coming in the big holes they ripped in the hull. All the time ignoring that their mismanagement destroyed the boat – not the employees.
And now they sit in liferafts ready to push off from the ship, and are telling residents to jump aboard. But there is no food or fresh water on these liferafts. But the city politicians say that’s ok, because they can just drink the seawater. In reality, they will all become deathly ill with this plan.
Don’t blame the employees for political mismanagement. And be keenly aware that a ballot measure (liferaft) full of illegal pension changes (drinking seawater) dooms the city as opposed to permanently fixing the political mismanagement (pension funding holidays, passing money to developers, subsidized low income housing, massive public real estate developments, redevelopment fiasco, etc.)
if you pass another BS ballot measure you might as well move, if you expect a depleted police and fire department to serve your needs.. Public safety will be a thing of the past. Oh, and try to get any city services in a timely manner. FORGET ABOUT IT!