Comments on: Bay Area Council commits $2 million to reform initiatives

By: Bay Area Council Embarks on Fool’s Errand | FlashReport

Bay Area Council Embarks on Fool’s Errand | FlashReport — Thu, 26 May 2011 18:43:17 +0000

[...] even going to waste a lot of time on this blog post. Lisa V. over at the Contra Costa Times Blog reports that earlier today it was announced that the Bay Area Council is going to dump $2 million into [...]

By: EdiBirsan

EdiBirsan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:35:50 +0000

As not all counties are of equal population I wonder how they would be apportioned?

By: Common Tater

Common Tater — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:06:56 +0000

I don’t have a problem with the county BOS’s selecting a portion of the delegates. After all, every California city is in a California county and I really don’t foresee that county BOS’s will totally ignore the selection of representatives from cities. To do so would be folly.

By: Ralph Hoffmann, Guest Columnist

Ralph Hoffmann, Guest Columnist — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:39:12 +0000

I agree that the 408 Cities, not the 58 County Boards of Supervisors, should be appointing delegates.
By the way, Lisa, do you happen to know any County Sheriffs, or County DA’s who are retiring, who have double dipped and spiked their pensions thanks to their BOS?

By: Don McCormack

Don McCormack — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:04:51 +0000

Dear Lisa:
A few quibbles about your article on Double Dip, Oct. 14.
While I don’t agree with all the Times writes, the pension problem is legitimate and changes are needed.
Concerns:
• Article a little murky about what constitutes double dipping. Like their private counterparts, many public employees retire, then work per diem, usually part time. In many, perhaps almost all, cases this pay does not add to their pensions.
• CC County and Vallejo “declared their intent to seek cuts.” Don’t know about Vallejo but county government has cut benefits for future employees.
• “Reforms.” It is an opinion term, fine for the editorial page, inappropriate for news articles. Even with good intentions, many “reforms” turn out the opposite. Better word: changes.
• Balance. This has nothing to do with your article but with the Times campaign to change public pensions. Again legitimate — there are abuses — but the Times ignores or by comparison infrequently mentions abuses in the private sector, especially the Bush tax cuts, executive pay, the failings of the SEC, the manipulations of lenders, Realtors and banks, and so on. Many of these abuses benefitted the people at the top.
Lacking balance, the Times campaign skirts close to ranting against the public sector and, uncritically, glorifying the private. Ironically, the better the job the paper does on pension abuses, the more slanted or hobby horsey it sometimes appears. The solution is not to back off on the pension problems but to address the other problems.

Cordially, Don McCormack

By: Lisa Vorderbrueggen

Lisa Vorderbrueggen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:14:06 +0000

Thanks for catching my error, 4Antioch. (I was thinking congressional districts.)

Hill told the audience that they settled on the boards of supervisors as a manageable method of obtaining a representative delegation. They definitely did not want to have the members appointed by legislators.

By: 4Antioch

4Antioch — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:09:42 +0000

So the 58 (not 53) county board of supervisors would be selecting delegates, but what about the 480 cities which are independent from the counties?

From the sounds of it, the 480 cities would be effectively left out of the process. I could not support a ConCon without the cities at the table.