Fireworks and air pollution

Wildfires causing Valley air pollution
Regulators alert citizens with respiratory problems
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Article Last Updated: 08/16/2007 02:36:07 AM PDT
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_6637383

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has issued a cautionary warning for much of the San Joaquin Valley due to two fires in southern California.

The fires — the Zaca fire in Santa Barbara County and the Tar Canyon fire in Fresno County — have spiked particulate levels to 55 micrograms per cubic meter in Bakersfield, or 20 micrograms above the federally accepted level, said Brenda Turner, a spokeswoman with the air district.

Though those closer to the fires have more to be worried about, residents in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties with respiratory problems, such as lung disease or asthma, or heart disease may want to stay indoors if they smell smoke, Turner said.

The immediate threat is small, but heavy winds could send smoke farther north.

To put particulate levels in perspective, fires in a fireplace also elevate the air to about 55 micrograms per cubic meter, Turner said. Fireworks raise the air to extremely high particulate levels. Modesto's fireworks boosted levels to 302 micrograms per cubic meter in July 2006.

However, particulate readings are averaged over a 24-hour period, and levels hit the 55 mark only once Wednesday.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Let the voters do what politician are too afraid to do

Once again the initiative system has to step in as pandering politicians wont do the heavy lifting. Why do we even bother with Sacramento? Lets just have initiatives all year long. Clearly they have lost the ability to govern and only do what the public employee unions want or threaten. Man are they going to get a wake up call when all these dumb ass taxpayers realize what lucrative pensions they are funding for these public employees (who retire at 50) while eeking out an existence on social security at 65 (their private job pension having been blown out years ago by mergers). WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Let people decide on public pensions
BY MARYLEE SHRIDER, contributing columnist | Friday, Aug 17 2007 7:05 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Aug 17 2007 9:51 PM

Public employee unions and the elected officials who cozy up to them have, for years, denied the growing crisis that is California's ponderous pension system.

It's a system that may yet break taxpayers' backs, but few in Sacramento are willing to stand up to union leaders who insist that plush pensions are their due.

So private citizens will have to do it for them.

One of those citizens was in Bakersfield last week with the good news that voting taxpayers may soon have the chance to take public pay matters into their own hands.

Keith Richman, a former 38th Districtassemblyman, R-Grenada Hills, who termed out last year, then helped form the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, said the foundation's sole purpose is to tackle the skyrocketing costs of public employee retirements.

During a speech before an appreciative lunchtime crowd at the Great Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, Richman said the foundation's pension reform measure, which he hopes to see on the ballot in 2008, promises to check the spiraling costs of retiree benefits.

"If we don't there may be some government entities that go bankrupt and those that don't are going to die from a thousand cuts in services," Richman said. "Because of the strength of the public employee unions as a special interest group in California, I don't have any confidence at all Sacramento will address this issue."

The controversy started to swell in the late 1990s, when pension funds were making big investment gains in a booming economy. When that bubble burst early this decade, critics began to sound the alarm that lawmakers would soon be scraping to find the billions necessary to cover government workers' pension benefits.

They're remarkably generous benefits that I, as the wife of a retired city police officer, am well and gratefully acquainted with. So, unlike union leaders who continue to clamor for more and better benefits while dismissing the state's pension problem as wildly overblown, I can affirm that state, county and city employees -- particularly police officers, firefighters and prison guards -- enjoy some of the most lucrative wage and retirement benefits in the country.

It's time, said Richman, to "stop digging the hole deeper" and create a fair retirement benefit for new employees who complete a full career's work. That plan, as spelled out in the initiative, includes raising the retirement age for police officers and firefighters to 55; to age 60 for other public safety employees and to Social Security retirement age, 65 to 67-- for all others.

That step alone will save billions, Richman said.

"The 10 more years they'll be paying in gives the capital 10 more years to accumulate," he said. "The estimates for the changes we propose in the initiative are that the savings would be about $500 billion over the next 30 years -- more than enough to pay for the unfunded liability we've already accrued."

City Councilman Zack Scrivner, who has been accused by some in the media and undoubtedly at local union meetings of "demonizing" the public pension problem, said the issue is no longer what public employees deserve, but what the taxpayer can afford.

"What Richman is doing is looking at political reality," Scrivner said. "I am perfectly willing to accept the challenge to make any necessary changes locally, but the fix ultimately needs to happen on a statewide level. Because elected officials are not willing to take that stand, this unfortunately is a problem that will have to be solved by a vote of the people."

Leave it to the people -- a good idea that's long overdue.

To read the text of the CFFR's Public Employees Benefits Reform Act visit http://californiapensionreform.com/initiative.htm.

Marylee Shrider's column appears on Saturdays. Reach her at 395-7474 or mshrider@bakersfield.com.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The Summer 2007 California budget fiasco

Bush is the worst thing to have happened to the republican party in 50 years. He cant control spending (what Republicans used to be known for), he has this little "war on terror" thing going in Iraq (and elsewhere) which has cost a few dollars and lives and then there are the scandals (too many to name) that go along with being the party in control of congress and the white house for years Then there is the Stem Cell ideology (and related far right propaganda) that turns off main stream Republicans. But at the state and local level we need fiscal conservatives, regardless of what you label them (Dems or Republicans, or Independents). Unfortunately when all is done in Nov. 08 the Dems will control the Whitehouse and the Congress, the tab will come due on Iraq, healthcare, pensions etc. and the Dems will kill anyone making more than 60k a year with taxes. Just remember one thing. The "Republicans" in the Ca legislature are the only ones holding their finger in the dyke holding back a flood of spending. Dont confuse them with "Bush's party". Read more on the budget fiasco (and "driveby media" lies) here

GOP holdouts are on our side

By: North County Times Opinion staff

Our view: Republican senators block budget for state's fiscal future, traffic relief

Despite what you may have heard, Republican state Senators aren't blocking the door to a budget deal out of petulance or to score petty political points. Nor are they needlessly and recklessly jeopardizing the fortunes, finances and fates of all those relying on reimbursement from the state. Nor, for that matter, are 13 GOP senators holding up a long-overdue budget compromise so they can gut California's environmental laws.

The baker's dozen holdouts -- including the local state senators, Mark Wyland, R-Carlsbad, and Dennis Hollingsworth, R-El Cajon, who visited our editorial board Wednesday
audio (listen here) -- are taking a principled, critical stand on behalf of a balanced budget and traffic relief North County desperately needs.

In fact, these recalcitrant Republicans may not be going far enough: The "balanced" budget they are holding out for won't be balanced by any standard acceptable anywhere outside of Sacramento, not without factoring in the massive unfunded liabilities hovering over California's fiscal future like a sword of Damocles.

For too long, enough Republican legislators have acquiesced to the Democrats and Gov. Schwarzenegger's bloated budget demands. This year, finally, every senate Republican save one has drawn a line in the sand against deficits that our state can no longer afford even to slough off on our grandchildren.

A quirk of our state constitution enables a minority party to block the budget, requiring a two-thirds vote for approval. Although Democrats enjoy a majority in both houses, they can't pass next year's budget without the votes of eight Republican Assembly members and two Republican senators.

Holding fast to a demand that $700 million be cut from the budget, Ackerman's 13 -- the holdout senate Republicans led by Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Tustin -- have succeeded in delaying a budget deal long past the July 1 deadline, and long after enough Assembly Republicans approved that chamber's budget deal for it to pass on July 20.

Ackerman's 13 have been accused of not taking "yes" for an answer, especially after Schwarzenegger vowed to use his blue-pencil power to trim $700 million from the Assembly-approved budget and balance next year's operating budget.

They may need to swallow hard and approve a budget under these less-than-ideal conditions. While the coming storm of unfunded health care and pension liabilities owed to state employees darkens California's fiscal horizons, we'd settle this year for a budget that at least begins to regain its balance.

But the senate GOP holdouts have also been accused of tying up the budget with ancillary issues, such as their demand that the state's still-fuzzy greenhouse-gas goals not delay the distribution of transportation funds. But the holdouts are right here, too: This isn't a trivial matter, and the billions of dollars we approved in bonds last November are part of this year's budget process.

Republicans argue that Attorney General Jerry Brown is threatening a speedy disbursement of transportation funding by insisting that California's counties account for greenhouse-gas emissions in their planning processes. Brown wants to use the California Environmental Quality Act to enforce last year's ambitious Assembly Bill 32, the "greenhouse gas bill" that aims to reduce such emissions 25 percent by 2020.

We support that goal, but we question Brown's strategy, and we're not alone. Even the head of the California Air Resources Board, the agency that is clearly mandated to implement the greenhouse gas law, has fretted that Brown's meddling could actually result in lax regulations.

Republicans are right to warn that Brown's grab for headlines and power will lead to lawsuits that delay long-overdue transportation projects. Those greenhouse-gas goals won't even be spelled out until 2012, far too long to wait for traffic relief. It's as if Brown wants to continue the crusade that he started as governor against the roads and highway improvements our growing state needs now more than ever.

Californians, especially North County commuters, must oppose this ill-considered effort, which would also hurt the environment Brown purports to defend. After all, traffic-caused smog is one of our greatest threats to human and environmental health.

Democrats could have approved stop-gap funding to pay state bills during the budget impasse. Instead, they went on a three-week vacation. When they return to their jobs, we hope they return to Republican lawmakers who continue to represent our interests, as unpopular and underappreciated as their stand may be.

Useful links:

Information about California's unfunded liabilities

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/ret_health_val/ret_health_val_050907.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/retireehealth/RetFAQ.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2007/general_govt/gen_22_anl07.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2007/general_govt/gen_12_1920_anl07.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/ret_health_val/ret_health_val_050907.aspx

http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/5012/

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The Public Employee Benefits Reform Act (2007)

1262. (07-0024) Reduces Public Pension and Retirement Health Care Benefits. Constitutional Amendment.

Summary Date: 8/13/07 Circulation Deadline: 1/10/08 Signatures Required: 694,354

Proponent: Keith Richman, John Moorlach, and Kris Hunt c/o Thomas W. Hiltachk (916) 442-7757

For peace officers, firefighters, public safety, and other public employees hired after July 1, 2009, this measure: reduces pension and retirement health care benefits; increases minimum retirement age; restricts early retirement; increases minimum age and years of employment needed to qualify for retirement health care benefits; and limits post-retirement pension increases. For all public employees this measure: prohibits retroactive increases in retirement benefits; requires public employers to make annual payments to fund future benefit costs; and allows public employers to adjust retirement contribution rates in future labor agreements. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Major reductions in annual pension contribution costs for employees hired on or after July 1, 2009, offset to an unknown extent by increases in costs for other forms of public employee compensation. Major short-term increase in annual governmental payments to prefund retiree health benefits, more than offset in the long run by annual reductions in these costs. (Initiative 07-0024.) click here to read full text of initiative

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The misconceptions continue....

Well the writer below has one thing right. The public sector pension are MUCH more lucrative than anything in the public sector but he is misguided an a number of other points:

1. Public employees are generally paid more than private sector employees even when pensions are not figured in;
2. in addition they generally work less hours per year (for similar pay) than privates sector employees (which raises their real dollar per hour wage)
3. they have much better healthcare and vacation accrual plans (and they really get to take the vacations)
4. they essentially cannot be fired or laid off either due to union or civil service rules of union rules or both;
5. Most public sector jobs are not very difficult. Most are just office jobs or low stress low danger jobs.
6. As far as firefighter and police jobs being dangerous Mr. Mysak better familiarize himself with our related story on that issue here.

California Draws Line on Public Employee Pensions: Joe Mysak

By Joe Mysak

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Roll back those pensions! Give back those sweeteners!

This may be the latest new idea in public finance to blow in from the West if Orange County, California, Supervisor John Moorlach has anything to say about it.

Tax-cap fever and the crazy-quilt creation of special tax assessment districts are just two of the modern-day contributions California has made to the world of public finance.

Next up: Nuclear war between those who get public pensions and those who don't.

Those are the words -- ``nuclear war'' -- used by Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, commenting on a plan by the county's supervisors to challenge a pension increase given to sheriff's deputies in 2001.

The plan to challenge the retroactive increase was approved by county supervisors on July 31. Supervisor Moorlach said the increase was unconstitutional because it created an unfunded liability without voter approval, and might bankrupt the county.

Moorlach knows something about municipal bankruptcy. He was the critic who warned that Orange County's investments in derivative securities were unwise. He ran for the office of treasurer and tax collector in 1994 and lost to popular incumbent Robert Citron. In December of that year, the county became the biggest municipal bankruptcy case ever after its investments tanked. Moorlach was appointed to fill out Citron's term in March 1995, and won re-election twice before being elected a supervisor last year.

Everyone's Watching

Everyone in California is going to be watching the county, and if it prevails in court, because so many state and local agencies did the same thing when it looked like pension funds were awash in cash.

What the county did in 2001 was to approve a plan to allow sheriff's deputies to retire at age 50 with 3 percent of their peak year of pay, multiplied by the number of years they served. This was a 50 percent raise above the previous plan, which allowed them to retire at 50 with 2 percent. The new plan took effect in 2002.

For example, a deputy retiring after 25 years at age 50 with a $143,955 salary would get a pension of $71,978 under the 2 percent plan, and $107,966 under the 3 percent plan, Moorlach pointed out in his presentation.

Moorlach says the increase is unconstitutional, because it created a new liability, one not approved by the voters and one that created an immediate shortfall because no money had been set aside to pay for it. He wants the increase to be rescinded, or for the deputies to chip in and help pay for it.

21st Century Problem

If the county prevails, and that's a big ``if,'' states and localities across the nation will probably start looking at how they, too, might roll back what are now being seen as overly generous pension benefits granted to government workers.

Public pensions are a 21st-century problem. Nobody really gave them much thought before now. Decades ago, few people begrudged police or firefighters, people who put their lives on the line every day, full pensions with benefits.

Even as the size of state and local government grew, few people felt envious of those civil servants who weren't in the line of fire, those with clerical jobs or those in the parks department or the department of sanitation, for example, who received similar retirement packages.

Everyone knew that in exchange for salaries that were somewhat lower than those on offer from private companies, people who worked for government got nice retirement benefits.

Nobody really thought about those benefits until recently, until about the time private companies started doing away with their own pension and benefit plans, replacing them with limited contributions and making most employees responsible for saving for their own retirements.

Union Battle

So now everybody is looking at public employees' pensions, and wondering if we, the taxpayers, can afford them.

We're looking at them because of envy. We're looking at them because our elected representatives seem to have juiced some of those plans up considerably while we weren't looking.

And we're looking at public-employee pensions because it looks like our elected representatives haven't put enough aside to pay for those liabilities, stinting on annual contributions and otherwise not planning ahead. The bill is coming due as surely as all those baby boomers reach retirement age.

And now, thanks to a new rule from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, we have something else to worry about -- not just pensions, but those so-called other post- employment benefits, chiefly health care, promised to public employees. States and localities are in the process of tallying those, and the final figure just for those benefits might be $1 trillion-plus.

Until now, those costs were usually paid for on a pay-as- you-go basis; GASB wants municipal governments to calculate about how much they promised, and include the figure in their financial statements. Surprise!

Welcome to the next union war.

To contact the writer of this column: Joe Mysak in New York at jmysakjr@bloomberg.net


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The charade continues...

Well the information is in. The Bureau of Labor statistics just released its most dangerous occupations list for 2006. And guess what (big surprise) firefighters and law enforcement are not even in the top 20 (have not been for years). So the next time a cop or fireman tells you their job is dangerous and that the big pay scale for only a High School diploma is justified and they need to retire at 50 (at 100% of their highest years pay) just give them this study published by their government pals over at the Bureau of Labor statistics.

Just look at a summary of the report above in the two charts below from the report (click on the charts to enlarge them):





Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Big mystery solved

We'll say it again: Cars parked on the street during weekly (hopefully) street sweeping prevents the sweeper from clearing out the nasty stuff in the gutter that contributes to bacteria in the summer time runoff. Long Beach is just now starting to figure this out. When will they figure out that Lakewood (and other cities) are polluting the water in the San Gabriel River due to lousy street sweeping practices? LAAG could have figured this out for free.

Making waves
Long Beach is getting to the bottom of polluted beaches.
Article Launched: 08/08/2007 09:34:37 PM PDT

Long Beach Assistant City Manager Christine Shippey and health and water experts met with the editorial board earlier this week and delivered cautiously optimistic news: The city and county may have pinpointed some of the major sources of bacteria polluting Alamitos Bay.

This is potentially promising information about some of the city's most-polluted waters. Alamitos Bay bacteria levels have routinely exceeded state standards, leading the National Resources Defense Council and Heal the Bay to label some city beaches among the worst in the region.

One of the key sources of bacteria is now believed to be the Alamitos Bay Pump Station, which has been sending untreated storm water into the bay near the Leeway Sailing Center. Another pump station near the Bay Shore Avenue bridge at Second Street was also believed to be feeding runoff into the bay.

Storm pumps are not designed to treat water, only divert it to prevent flooding, which is not usually an issue in summer. But urban runoff and other sources that were supposed to be diverted were building up in the pipes and causing the county-owned pumps to kick in and do their jobs.

The water, which largely came from Long Beach-area sources, was circulating
throughout the Bay and over to Mother's and Bay Shore beaches. City health officials said in a follow-up interview that the pipes normally contain high levels of bacteria, which could be an additional source along with runoff.

Working with the county sanitation district, Supervisor Don Knabe and 3rd District Councilman Gary DeLong, the city and county diverted the waters into the storm drain system. A test this week showed Alamitos Bay water within state standards, but health officials are not ready to proclaim victory because they want to see a pattern of improvement. Water, as per state standards and funding levels, is tested weekly, not daily.

Other potential sources of pollution have also been investigated. The city has sent divers to examine boats for leaky lines and also looked at beach restrooms, illegal dumping and other likely sources. Shippey likens the effort to detective work and said the sleuthing will continue.

When asked about the breakwater's role in pollution, Shippey said the city doesn't yet know its impact on water quality, but the City Council has funded what is believed to be the first in a series of tests that may lead to answers. Another city official said the breakwater would not likely impact bacteria levels - only one type of pollution - in Alamitos Bay, but could play a role on other city beaches.

One could assume that wave action would cleanse the entire area, but that is not always the case. Water quality in sections of Huntington Beach, Santa Monica and Malibu - all places with sizeable waves - has been abysmal at times. That said, we believe that studies of the breakwater should go forward.

Other big sources of Long Beach pollution are better known, particularly runoff from the Los Angeles River, which snakes through 50 miles of concrete before emptying pollutants into the Long Beach harbor. There are also drought-like conditions that allow pollutants to build up on streets and sidewalks, animal waste and people hosing - instead of sweeping - their driveways.

One thing is clear: There are multiple sources of pollution, and the city isn't ruling out anything. The council recently created a task force to study water quality and ways to solve the problems.

For now, it looks like one major leak has been plugged.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Way to go Costa Mesa....Deny the voters!

Apparently the Bush administration is rubbing off on the Costa Mesa city council who felt that it was their prerogative to deny the taxpayers their day at the polls. Kind of ironic when what were talking about is Independence Day and the Declaration of Independence

Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Costa Mesa fireworks ban smothered
City Council votes to keep a fireworks ban off of the November 2008 ballot.
By NIYAZ PIRANI
The Orange County Register

COSTA MESA A proposal to have Costa Mesa residents decide on the November 2008 ballot whether the sale of "safe and sane" fireworks should be allowed in the city was extinguished Tuesday in a 3-2 vote.

Councilwoman Linda Dixon put the item on the agenda after hearing residents complain about fireworks at numerous council meetings. She recommended that it was time to give the public a choice in the matter.

"Fireworks are not sane and are not safe," Eastside resident Judy Lindsay said. "I wonder what catastrophic event we're waiting for to realize that we need changes."

Dixon drafted a two-pronged approach that would have the public vote on the sale of fireworks and also place a 2 percent increase on the Costa Mesa transient occupancy tax – a fee charged to people who stay in the city's hotels – as a way of backfilling the income generated by firework sales.

Bill Pfeifer, a Northside resident and pit director for the Newport Harbor High School marching band, said fireworks help fund items including uniforms and instruments.

"Without that money, you can't go to tournaments, you can't compete," he said. "You don't have a band."

Councilwoman Wendy Leece said she wasn't ready to take funding away from youth sports, another beneficiary of the sales, without first finding an alternative means of generating revenue.

Councilman Eric Bever said he was also concerned that a higher tax could send visitors "down the street." He said he didn't want to make decisions regarding the occupancy tax if local businesses had not weighed in.

Leece, Bever and Mayor Allan Mansoor voted the proposal down.

Contact the writer: 714-445-6689 or npirani@ocregister.com

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Who in the private sector retires on 70 to $100,000 per year?

Really it does not matter if the liabilities are funded or not. (Long Beach claims they are) Quite frankly I dont trust the accounting shenanigans of most government entities, especially when we are looking at 40-50 years out from now on these pension liabilities. Lets keep this wave going and put taxpayers back in charge. Once they start seeing what public employees are getting and they aren't the sentiment will change, no matter if public employees are heroes or not.


Deflating big pensions
LB Press Telegram
http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_6545873
Article Launched: 08/04/2007 05:56:29 PM PDT

Orange County's challenge could help shrink deficits throughout California.

There has been a lot of angst but little action about costly government pensions, but that changed abruptly last week in Orange County. A local confrontation there could affect public employees throughout the state, and save taxpayers billions of dollars at the expense of public employees.

Orange County supervisors, at the instigation of one of them, John Moorlach, voted to test the constitutionality of big pension increases given in 2001 to county employees. If they prevail, the county would be off the hook for up to $550 million over the next 30 years in unfunded pension liabilities.

It also would mean that other cities, counties and the state would be in a similar position, of having passed out big pension benefits that amounted to illegal gifts of public funds.

The theory advanced by Moorlach, and supported by constitutional scholar John Eastman of Chapman University Law School, is that Orange County acted illegally when it granted a big pension increase effective retroactively, not in the sense that already-retired employees would get the increase (they didn't), but that employees would be getting an increase they hadn't
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earned for past service, as well as an increase for future service.

Moorlach also argued that the increase violated debt limits, since it was unfunded, and amounted to a gift of public funds, since it was unearned by past service. Although the pension increases had been made permissible by state legislation, the way they were implemented was wrong.

A wave of pension increases throughout California followed that legislation, and created pension liabilities of billions of dollars. In Orange County, as in Long Beach and most other cities and counties as well as state government, public-safety employees got pensions of "3 at 50," meaning that an employee could retire at age 50 with a pension of 3 percent of the highest salary for every year of service.

Many cities and counties, Long Beach among them, followed up with fat pension increases for non-public safety employees as well, some so overly generous an employee could actually retire with a pension bigger than his or her salary.

Most of these aren't backed with a plan to pay for them, although Long Beach's pension liabilities are well funded. Orange County's are not.

If the names of Moorlach and Eastman seem familiar, it's for good reason. In the 1990s, Moorlach was derided as a Chicken Little until the skies did fall in with the bankruptcy of Orange County because of risky investments. He went on to be appointed and elected county treasurer, then county supervisor (his license plate reads SKYFELL). Eastman has involved himself in land-condemnation issues in Long Beach.

Now Moorlach is warning that pensions in Orange County are so far out of line they again could bankrupt the county. Eastman, who is dean of the Chapman University law school, says he thoroughly agrees with Moorlach's points about the pensions' questionable legality.

Rescinding the public-safety pension increases in Orange County would mean a 30 percent cut for employees of the Sheriff's Department, where a retiree now gets an average of $70,000. Another way out of the problem would be for employees to pay for the pension enhancements.

If it turns out the pension increases are constitutional, Moorlach and others seem determined to do something about pension costs Orange County can't afford to pay.

Either way, Moorlach and his colleagues will have done a great service for taxpayers of his county, and, we hope, throughout the state.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Arnie the "democrat" vs the spendaholics

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-whalen5aug05,0,6174605.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
From the Los Angeles Times

GOP vs. the governor
Schwarzenegger has let down Republicans, so we're back to the familiar show of legislators feuding with a governor from their own party.
By By Bill Whalen

August 5, 2007

Acalifornia governor at odds with legislators from his own party isn't breaking news. Rather, it's the same old soap opera -- not that anyone would dare mistake the politicos in Sacramento for "The Bold and the Beautiful."

Before Arnold Schwarzenegger's arrival in the Capitol, Gray Davis and legislative Democrats feuded about whose job it was to implement whose vision. Before him, Pete Wilson denounced uncooperative Republicans as "irrelevant" for saying "no" to a budget fix.

So the summertime rift between Schwarzenegger (who backs the Assembly-passed budget) and 14 GOP senators (who are holding out for $1 billion less in state spending) that has kept California without a spending plan past the July 1 deadline is history repeated. To pass the budget with the required two-thirds majority, at least one more Senate Republican must approve it.

Only there's a wrinkle. The spat is about more than whether or not another billion dollars gets spent; it highlights the Republican Party's struggle to find a direction and be a driving force in state politics. And it speaks volumes about Schwarzenegger's failure to control spending -- which has increased by nearly one-third in the last four years and shows no sign of slowing -- and to change Sacramento's way of doing business.

Give Schwarzenegger credit for trying to slow global warming, pushing stem cell research and favoring domestic partnerships for gays and lesbians -- all stands that many Republicans run from yet a majority of Californians support. Part of his legacy will be that of a governor who on some issues was years, if not a generation, ahead of his party.

But it has come at a price. As the fourth anniversary of the recall election approaches, the 14 holdout senators -- call them the "Benedict Arnolds" in the budget revolt -- have cast their lot with the Republican runner-up in that 2003 contest, state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks). He is a grim, by-the-book social and fiscal conservative -- an all-purpose scold to Schwarzenegger's upbeat glad-handing. He's also the anti-Arnold in another sense: McClintock has never won statewide office. In short, he represents the same set-in-stone conservatism that led to Republican defeats in the 1998 and 2002 gubernatorial races.

For die-hard conservatives, the GOP's Gang of 14 is the movie "300" come to life -- if you believe that defending the pass at Thermopylae and causing the budget impasse in Sacramento are one and the same. Yet the defense of fiscal conservatism doesn't come across as all that heroic.

That's because the messaging needs work.

Consider what happened after the GOP caucus, in late July, proposed $300 million in welfare cuts to help balance the state's books. On paper, the idea was to limit grants for noncompliant recipients, fleeing felons and noncitizens. But on the nightly news, the face was that of a welfare recipient who didn't look felonious, just plain scared. You decide who wins that PR exercise.

To gain the upper hand in next year's budget deliberations, Republicans need to do a better -- and earlier -- job of educating the public on the sillier aspects of Sacramento budgeting. For example, the Assembly-approved budget funds thousands of state jobs that the Legislature has already eliminated. By spotlighting such foolishness, the GOP would be in a stronger position to drive the budget conversation.

But state Republicans need to do more than improve their tactics. They must devise a winning strategy for the much larger war of ideas.

In the national GOP contest to succeed President Bush, "compassionate conservative" isn't part of the dialogue. Instead, the Republican hopefuls are trying their best to channel Ronald Reagan. The problem is that none of the leading candidates represents an ideological movement, as did Reagan.

State Republicans will face a similar situation when they choose their next gubernatorial nominee. In the conservative-dominated primary in 2010, no GOP candidate will embrace Schwarzenegger's idea of "post-partisanship." But there is no winning alternative philosophy in a Democratic-leaning state, other than being the party of "no" on the budget and most matters that look even vaguely progressive.

This is not to suggest that divorce proceedings are underway between the governor and his conservative Republican "friends" in the Legislature. A reconciliation of sorts will occur once Schwarzenegger starts issuing vetoes that anger Democrats, such as his refusal to go along with same-sex marriage. And perhaps the healing will extend into next year, especially if Schwarzenegger revisits public employee pension reform and takes on the teachers union over merit pay as part of education reform.

But there would probably be no spat between the governor and his party -- nor a budget impasse, for that matter -- if Schwarzenegger had delivered on his promise not to spend more than the state takes in. That, and his other promises to change Sacramento's ways: legislation written without any hearing, state budgets chock full of fuzzy math and phony economic assumptions and a Capitol still hostage to gridlock and partisan preening.

It's an irony hard to overlook: The star of "Hercules in New York" most likely will leave office in January 2011 having failed to clean out Sacramento's Augean stables of underperformance, waste and shady political practices.

No wonder Republicans complain about having seen this movie.

Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, was chief speechwriter for former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

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