Vallejo, CA - Declares Bankruptcy

[artbyjody]

Ain't this the kicker:

San Francisco Suburb to File Bankruptcy - AOL Money & Finance

[sailingdog]

Not all that surprising... they're probably only the second city to do so since the Great Depression.... Chelsea, Massachusetts was the first IIRC.

[tdw]

This could be fun.

High wages caused the problem.

Unions.

Of course a pack of mongrel bastards.

But it was the wages of the Police and Firefighters.

Who are heroes of course.

Interesting conundrum.

[sailaway21]

I read about this some time back.

Vallejo is a city of about 117,000 people. The city manager makes $371,000, about 70G more than SF's mayor does!

21 of it's firefighters topped $200,000 last year in base pay and OT. It's not much different for the police department.

A closer look at Vallejo's woes

After reading the article, check out the embedded link on city employees making in excess of $100K. It's a long list, in all departments.

[artbyjody]

And notice that a majority of it comes from Union related effects. This is a prime example where competitive bidding and the ability to adjust wages due to market should be applied in government, and that Unions themselves should have to also be in a competitive marketplace. I am sure many other factors came into play as well, but if one was too tackle only the salary aspect.

[poopdeckpappy]

The entire state is on the verge of BK,we went from a 14.5 Billion dollar debt under Davis, to a 20 billion dollar debt under Arnold Stiffulater,who was elected with a promise to fix the problem.

He reminds me of McCain in hindsight, a liberial trojan horse.............and I voted for the tool

[ianhlnd]

I don't know about the unions or labor contracts with the city, but I do know that the city suffered severe fiscal problems when Mare Island was de-commissioned. As I understand it, it was the only US Navy repair facility on the west coast. Moved to Baltimore or someplace else in the original 13. Again, the politicians nudging in to get their share of the public tit. The 4 states around Maryland (8 senators) outvoted the 2 senators of California, as if those senators cared anyway.

[blt2ski]

Ian,

There are a couple of repair facilities in the puget sound region too. Someone on the senate over rode the brass as far as having one repair place thru out the US, and made sure there was one per coast. I believe the ones here in Wa (Bremerton?)won out over the Ca one(s). At least that is what is ringing a bell in my pea brain from when the pentagon went thru a closing list about 5-10 yrs ago.

Also, did not orange county or city have some issues with the electric fiasco a few yrs back, and do a BK too?

Personally, the BK's with the economy the way it is, will probably rise before it falls, in ALL sectors.

Marty

[chucklesR]

Here's a thought: don't spend more than you make - cut services to meet the budget, just start firing people; and I don't mean staff administrators or secretaries.
Start at anyone making over 100k, make a alphabetical list of names and fire every third one. Ask the ones that are left if they want to renegotiate, if they say no, do another round of firing and ask again. Sillyness on one side forgives sillyness on the other.

I want to know, when the talking head union rep says firefighters are working 96 hours straight exactly what he means by 'working'. I learned a long time ago that working means being awake at least. I don't want to hear about being away from home and therefore it's work. I spent YEARS away from home in the Navy in chunks of time as long as 2 years. I vaguely recall that despite 20 hour days I was allowed to sleep occasionally. We called that off time. Imagine if I'd gotten overtime for rack time.

A friend of mine is a airline pilot. He just flew to san fran - where he has a 48 hour layover because his next days flight was switched. He gets paid for the 6 hours he was supposed to fly, even tho he's laying in a airline provided hotel eating on an expense account,. After two days of layover he. He gets paid for the hours he's in the cockpit, not the total time from home. Unions have, are and will ruin anything they get their hands on. They had their place and time and like all political institutions they have latched on to money and power and become corrupt and wasteful.
I'm sure I'll get some negative rep for that one, but then life sucks when you have a brain and aren't afraid to use it.

[sailaway21]

Only the market can determine what a man's labor is worth. It sounds like Vallejo at least lost sight of what the market looked like elsewhere. When I hire a union to represent me I hire them to get me the most they can. It's up to management to know beyond which they cannot pay more. By the same token, I'd like to think that my union leadership is capable of reading a balance sheet and is not willing to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Play that card wrong and everybody loses.

The navy shipyard debate was inherently political with the last concern being the actual needs of the Navy. In an environment where commercial shipyards have struggled to survive for years, Navy contracts are their bread and butter. Most military work has gone to commercial yards over the last few decades. Odd thing that. The Navy getting rid of a bunch of underutilized shipyards full of salaried union employees with no work to do in favor of dynamic commercial yards who hire and lay-off employees as needed. If you act for a moment like it was your money being spent which yard would you like to use?