The Santa Ana City Council voted unanimously tonight to support a potential move of the Chivas USA soccer team to the Willowick Golf Course (that’s right – Usual Suspects fave Carlos Bustamante voted for that too!), but my sources insist that this deal simply is not going to happen.
The real news is the budget report that our City Manager, Paul Walters, posted online today. In it he references a report prepared by a consultant, Management Partners, Inc. They took a long hard look at the City budget, which features a $30 million dollar deficit, and recommended several painful fixes, including:
- Negotiated Compensation Reductions – this means convincing the Fire and Police unions to stop ripping us off. The O.C. Register posted an article this past week that summarized the extent of the rip-off. Click here to read that article.
- Outsourcing – I like this part the best – and fully support outsourcing all of these departments:
Fire dispatch
Fleet maintenance and management
Library operations
Street sweeping
Animal services
Santa Ana Zoo
Workers’ compensation administration
Ambulance transport
Parking meter operations and enforcement
- Tax increases! No bueno. These could include: higher Utility User Taxes, higher Sales Taxes, a 911 Communications Fee, Fee Increases, a Utility Franchise Fee, a City Prison Enterprise Fund, higher Paramedic Subscription Fees, higher False Alarm Fees
In general we should oppose any fee or tax hikes. To do this to us during this awful recession would be salt in the wound. I would prefer to see the City go bankrupt so we can get out of our union contracts and renegotiate them at will. Just look at the graphic above and consider what we are paying for retirement costs – $25 million per year! That is one of the reasons why we have a huge budget deficit. We have been ripped off by our police and firemen!
Naturally the Usual Suspects are riled up about the Chivas and were out in full force at tonight’s City Council meeting – to also speak out in defense of Bustamante (although his vote for the Chivas deal will certainly cost him some of this support). But the real issue is our city budget deficit. Will our residents wake up in time to smell the coffee?
Has anyone figured out yet that the Willowick golf course property is owned by the City of Garden Grove?
The city of Santa Ana needs to lead the way to a future of a less costly local government bloat in Orange County.
There are too many local governments feeding massively on the resident taxpayers backs.
Santa Ana should wrap up business and dissolve.
This would allow for the county to take over the public safety and general management of the former city.
As other cities fail, such as Costa Mesa and the rest, the county can concentrate on creating new super cities in the county, maybe 4 like the US Census districts for Census 2010 in Orange County, or even one super city like the county of San Francisco and the city of San Francisco.
All of those excessive costs built into the city budget over the past 20 plus years? Those costs are owed by the city, a public corporation. And with the voluntary dissolution or an involuntary BK those costs are reduced to pennies on the dollar.
CAPERs is already reducing some of the pensions as being excessive and totally unearned.
Well if you appoint Paul Walters as a city manager, where the only purpose of it is for Walters spike his pension, that is all you will get out of such appointment and taxes will go up and city will go into a toilet.
That is what you folks want that is what you will get.
Just watched parts of council meeting online.
How funny was it to see Tim Rush wagging his finger at the mayor and calling him a “liar”?
Tim’s a convicted liar so I guess that makes him an expert on the subject.
“This would allow for the county to take over the public safety and general management of the former city”…… Hmmmmm
cook,
Are you aware that the county is planing their own BK?
I think that Santa Ana should become a province of China. Only China can clean up Santa Ana stile corruption.
In China you are find guilty of corruption in the afternoon and executed before the midnight of same day.
Talking about speedy trial?
“Outsourcing – I like this part the best – and fully support outsourcing all of these departments”
Bad idea, pie-in-the-sky Tea Party crapolla.
For the REAL FACTS on privatization;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/study-privatizing-government-doesnt-actually-save-money/2011/09/15/gIQA2rpZUK_blog.html
We are paying 25 million a year on pension benefits that we would not owe if we had privatized years ago.
Admin,
Wouldn’t it be more prudent to dismantle unions for whom we are paying any pension benefits?
Why don’t they tackle the big problem?
It appears that the pension costs are what is driving the city, and the other cities and counties and state to the poor house.
Calpers promised that their stock market gambling gains would pay for the pie in the sky benefits increases.
Now that they have lost billions, these blood suckers are back for more.
Its time to go back and dismantle the mistakes of the past.
Privatization of public service is the best way to insure:
-Loss of local control and oversight over public services that we all benefit from
-the reduction of middle class jobs from Santa Ana. (with the exception of police and fire, Santa Ana employees are not making alot of money, median salary is about $35,000 yearly. That’s barely enough to pay rent/mortgage and put food on the table according to cost of living figures for OC.)
-changing the goal of city offered services from being driven for profit instead of for the public good.
STOP MORE PRIVATIZATION IN SANTA ANA!!!
Loss of control? You can fire contractors – good luck trying to get rid of bad workers who are protected by public employee unions.
Why do you assume the contractors won’t hire locals?
Our city has a huge deficit. Why should we overpay for services?
If folks want higher incomes they should go back to school or start their own companies.
Lastly, these jobs were all private before, so this is just restoring sanity in local spending.