There is a saying goes something like, "Adversity Breeds Opportunity."
This came to mind as I was reading stories in the SDUT, on the website of the Voice of San Diego, as well as a great column from FR friend Vince Vasquez on the up and coming SDRostra website — stories all about the massive budget deficit facing the City of San Diego, and the proposal of Mayor Jerry Sanders to try and address the $190 million shortfall.
First and foremost, let me commend Mayor Sanders for putting forward a package that does not seek 
an increase in taxes. Sanders (pictured), a Republican, understands that in a recession, you simply cannot ask taxpayers to reach deeper into their pockets. While the recession has hit the city’s finances hard (Erik Bruvold, the president of the non-partisan National University System Institute for Policy Research estimates that half of the current deficit can be laid at the feet of the sour economy), it has also hit the pocketbooks of San Diego’s residents hard as well.
**There is more – click the link**
December 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
In one sense I think you have gone too far and in another sense I don’t think you have gone far enough.
Public employee unions are certainly about increasing salaries and benefits. They are certainly about increasing their union membership. But in addition, they are about worker safety. For example, some union work for firefighters who have to go into buildings that use exotic new chemicals is important and I support it.
However, most of the work of unions is an effort to extract money from taxpayers for very limited value. Using firefighters again, the rules regarding a 911 response is not designed to bring good value to the taxpayers, but good jobs to fire fighters.
I think that we should go back about 20 years and re-examine each and every union demand to see if it has brought the benefits to taxpayers that were sold to management. Look at pensions, wages, overtime rules, time off, minimum staffing requirements–look at everything. I’m guessing there are some ugly, costly giveaways in there.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Chris Reed (america’s finest blog)…
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/01/flashreport-boss-says-city-should-consider-bankrup/
FlashReport boss: City should mull bankruptcy
By Chris Reed
UNION-TRIBUNE Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 9:54 a.m.
FlashReport’s Jon Fleischman has a sharp, provocative column on San Diego’s fiscal woes on his site this morning. He notes that Mayor Sanders’ budget balances only due to one-time solutions — arguably, gimmicks — and says a bolder approach might have been better:
“… the Mayor’s own Fiscal Task Force (which has echoed my call for the need for structural reform rather than gimmicks to meet the city’s fiscal challenge) has also suggested bankruptcy protection as a legitimate option for the city. The idea of substantially modifying unsustainable public pension benefit commitments in bankruptcy court has yet to be tested, to my knowledge, providing current San Diego politicians with an opportunity to be true leaders in taxpayer protection.”
“… the current situation provides an unprecedented opportunity to show leadership. Leadership not only for the people of San Diego — but for the nation’s ninth largest city to show fiscally strapped municipalities across America that adversity does, in fact, breed opportunity.”
(back to Reed)… Some city or government agency needs to be the first. I’m not saying it should be San Diego. But at some point the bankruptcy option is going to be forced on a California government body — and a lot of important precedents will be set.