The Vanguard was deeply disappointed last week when the Davis City Council pushed off the decision on fire staffing to coincide more with the public discussion of the budget. We believed at the time and continue to believe that the issue needs to be addressed within a budgetary framework, but the issues of staffing also need their own context.
At the same time, we think the council is rolling the dice in light of the ability of the firefighters to mobilize some in the community through fear and partial information.
While in general we agree with Davis Enterprise columnist Rich Rifkin’s take on the fire situation, we believe that some of the rhetorical devices are unnecessarily confrontational.
Mr. Rifkin’s latest column leads: “Stupidity. Corruption. Fear. Take your pick. One or more of those explains why the Davis City Council, when given the choice between a more expensive option that provides worse service and a less expensive structure that promises better outcomes, chose last week to stick with what we now have – the costlier, inferior model.”
Mr. Rifkin goes on to argue that “the interests of the people diverge from the interests of our elected officials.”
He writes, “The comments of members of our City Council at the fire staffing round-table session made it clear that more than one didn’t understand the performance benefit of the new staffing model advocated by our erstwhile interim fire chief, Scott Kenley.”
He goes on to note the current alignment of 12 firefighters on duty, three stations with four-person crews.
Mr. Rifkin writes, “The flaw with this model – why it provides inferior service – is that it leaves one-third of the city with no prompt coverage any time there are simultaneous calls.”
“If the council had adopted the Kenley plan, this hole in our service would have been eliminated,” Mr. Rifkin writes. “Chief Kenley suggested that each fire engine needs a crew of three – the model we had in Davis until 1999 and what most cities in California currently employ. The three fire engines would be augmented by two people on Rescue Truck 31.”
He adds, “Other than Mayor Joe Krovoza, who strongly favors the Kenley reform, I doubt the others on the council understood that the new model provides superior coverage.”
However, my take is that the council did understand that the current staffing model was flawed. The point that Brett Lee raised was that he found it difficult to believe that we could not create a 12-person shift that nevertheless incorporated the changes that Chief Kenley proposed, and it would be superior to the 11-person shift.
He argued this point to draw the distinction between the issue of budget and the issue of staffing. At the same time, he clearly expressed his belief that once this discussion is put into the broader budgetary discussion, it becomes clear that we need not only to make cuts, but probably deeper cuts than proposed.
In fact, while the council was not ready to make these cuts now, talking with most of the members of council after the fact, it becomes clear that, to a person, there will be changes in both staffing and compensation.
That is not to let the council off the hook here, but it places the discussion outside of the more simple heuristic device within which Mr. Rifkin places it.
Nevertheless, Mr. Kenley’s model is likely superior to what we have now. And, in the budgetary reality, if we can produce a model that will worker better than what we currently have, and for cheaper, then council needs to strongly consider it.
Mr. Rifkin back in January referenced corruption when discussing the influence of union money on past council actions. In his column he retreats somewhat, introducing the topic but seeming to discount it, or at least partially so.
He writes, “Corruption? I don’t believe that’s a problem with this council.”
“None of the five current members took campaign donations from the firefighters’ union, which naturally opposes the loss of one firefighter job,” he points out.
But then Rich Rifkin seemingly backtracks, to criticize Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk and Councilmember Lucas Frerichs.
He writes: “However, it is clear, when listening to Dan Wolk and Lucas Frerichs, both ambitious young Democrats, that they are willing to bend over backwards to not come across as anti-union. They know that label could imperil their futures in higher office.”
“Fear is a large factor in our council’s failure,” Rich Rifkin argues. “The Kenley model would save our city about $570,000 a year beginning in 2013-14 (reducing three firefighter positions out of 36). But that’s not enough to compensate the folks on the council who fear change. It’s not as if the pols get to pocket the savings.”
The figure that Mr. Rifkin cites is not accurate. It is not exactly clear where he gets the $570,000 figure from. Originally, he calculated the savings at over $700,000. But city manager Steve Pinkerton believed the fire audit figure of $360,000, which took into account overtime costs from backfilling fire fighters when they are on leave, training or vacation, was more accurate.
Mr. Rifkin reduced his savings figure, seemingly splitting the different between his original $739,000 and the city’s $360,000 to arrive at $570,000.
Fear certainly played a factor – as the public got up there, armed with half-truths and distortions fed to them by the firefighters union – to press the council to relent.
The public was fearful that firefighters would have to stand and watch as their homes burned, and would arrive more slowly to respond to medical calls.
Rich Rifkin correctly argues, “According to Chief Kenley, the new paradigm would never result in a slower response. Never.”
Furthermore, Chief Kenley argued that there would be a delayed entry in perhaps one percent of all fire calls (not overall calls as one public commenter mistakenly believed).
Writes Mr. Rifkin, “But in a single rare instance – Kenley found only one of these – having three firefighters on an engine could cause more property damage, because with no fourth person, two firefighters would not be able to safely bring their hose inside a burning building to attack the flames. They would have to fight the fire from outside, until a fourth person arrived.”
But Mr. Rifkin then ups the rhetoric.
“That is what scares the City Council,” he writes. “Some rich guy’s Mercedes in his Merced Drive garage catches fire, and the electeds fear they will catch hell when the first firefighters on scene douse the flames from his driveway. The union firefighters will tell this irate citizen, ‘Don’t blame us. Blame the politicians!’ “
He adds, “So as we lurch toward bankruptcy, and our roads are not repaired, and employees retire with gold-plated pension plans, our City Council has made its choice for us: a fire-staffing model that provides worse service at a higher cost.”
We shall see. The council has certainly lost the benefit of the doubt. As I have previously argued, I do not see bankruptcy as likely. More likely is that road conditions will continue to deteriorate and we will have to make tough choices to reduce services further unless we get our house in order.
The wisdom of the council’s move depends entirely on what happens in the next three months. The council has lost the benefit of the doubt on this issue, but I do not go nearly as far as Mr. Rifkin here.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I watched the CC that night and agree with Rich’s assessment that:
1. Only Joe seemed to ‘get’ the better service aspect and he tried several times to convince his colleagues; and 2. Dan and Lucas were pretty transparent in their support of the union when delivering their long on words, short on substance monologues. Brett disappointed me and the assessment of his actions above is an interesting one. I thought Rochelle was agreeing with Joe until the end…..to me it WAS about the service and the budget but that seemed to get lost. And the $300K savings or whatever it really is, is compounded down the line by medical, pension, etc.
[i]”We believed at the time and continue to believe that the issue needs to be addressed within a budgetary framework …”[/i]
At least two members of the Council last week attempted to argue (with straight faces, mind you) that fire-staffing changes need to be a part of the 2013-14 budget. For that reason they say they want to put off doing what should be done now.
Here is the fact: Last year, when this very same Council set its budget for 2012-13, it assumed labor savings for the 2012-13 budget of something like $1 million [b]more[/b] than this Council has achieved. So they would have us believe that delaying a good plan even longer is somehow financially responsible? Who the eff do they think they are fooling?
[i]”We believe that some of (Rifkin’s) rhetorical devices are unnecessarily confrontational.”[/i]
I used not rhetorical [u]devices[/u]. Further, I sent out an email to all members of the Council who voted the way they did and told them straight to their faces that what they did was stupid.
It’s not as if this was a difficult choice between a cheaper, inferior service and a more expensive, superior service. That kind of alternative is debatable. This one was not. On the one hand you had a superior, but cheaper plan: on the other hand you had an inferior, more expensive plan. And they stupidly chose the latter.
Let me add one more thing here: Thank god I am so PC that I think I have to fret about hurting the feelings of a public official by speaking the truth about their inabilities.
DG: [i]”My take is that the council did understand that the current staffing model was flawed.”[/i]
Three members of the council during the roundtable said (I am paraphrasing) that going to the Kenley model would “endanger the public safety.” That made it clear to me that they don’t understand reality. They don’t understand the flaw in our current staffing model, and they don’t understand how Kenley’s program would fix it. Either that, or they were lying. And my experience with them suggests that they are not liars.
[i]”The point that Brett Lee raised was that [b]he found it difficult to believe[/b] that we could not create a 12-person shift that nevertheless incorporated the changes that Chief Kenley proposed, and it would be superior to the 11-person shift.”[/i]
We could keep the 12-man staffing and employ Rescue Truck 31 as Kenley proposes. However, it would not only cost $570,000 more per year (2013-14 projected savings), but it would not improve public safety vis-a-vis the 3-3-3 + 2 model. Sadly, as much as I like Brett, he clearly did not understand Kenley either.
[i]”At the same time, he clearly expressed his belief that once this discussion is put into the broader budgetary discussion, it becomes clear that we need not only to make cuts, but probably deeper cuts than proposed.”[/i]
The longer we put off the Kenley plan, the longer public safety is endangered, and the more difficult the cuts we will have to make in the future. Arguing that it is better to find efficiencies later makes no sense.
[i]”In fact, while the council was not ready to make these cuts now, talking with most of the members of council after the fact, it becomes clear that, to a person, there will be changes in both staffing and compensation.”[/i]
If that is true, that they told you this in private, then the comments made last week in public were lies. I don’t know that they were lying. The emails I have received from members of the Council suggest to me that they were saying what they believed, and clearly, what they believed was stupid.
RR: [i]”However, it is clear, when listening to Dan Wolk and Lucas Frerichs, both ambitious young Democrats, that they are willing to bend over backwards to not come across as anti-union. They know that label could imperil their futures in higher office.”[/i]
I am not alone in that view. I have heard the same from friends and from readers of my column who I don’t know personally. And, FWIW, two members of this Council and one previous member of the Davis City Council told me after last week’s roundtable (paraphrasing) “Dan and Lucas kiss Bobby Weist’s tushy every chance they get.”
RR: [i]”The Kenley model would save our city about $570,000 a year beginning in 2013-14 (reducing three firefighter positions out of 36).”[/i]
DG: [i]”The figure that Mr. Rifkin cites is not accurate.”[/i]
You are wrong, David. It is accurate using 2013-14 projected costs.
DG: [i]”It is not exactly clear where he gets the $570,000 figure from.”[/i]
I will explain that in a momemt.
DG: [i]”Originally, he calculated the savings at over $700,000.”[/i]
I corrected this calculation and never published it. You only know that because it was the first number I came up with, and I emailed you and CM Steve Pinkerton for comment or correction. But you never commented or corrected it.
The error I made was to include in the savings a 1/12th savings in average total comp for all sworn fire department personnel. The reality is that (once attrition takes place) all of the savings will come from firefighters, none from captains or higher. Therefore, the correct method is to use average FF total comp as projected for 2013-14 as a basis.
DG:[i]”But city manager Steve Pinkerton believed the fire audit figure of $360,000, which took into account overtime costs from backfilling fire fighters when they are on leave, training or vacation, was more accurate.”[/i]
Actually, Steve Pinkerton didn’t quite believe that. The number he sent me was $370,000, not $360,000. The way he arrives at $370,000 is to take $925,000 in overtime costs and reduce that to $555,000 without reducing the number of firefighters or captains in the DFD. $925 – $555 = $370. The numbers he uses appear to be from the 2011-12 fiscal year.
That method, reducing overtime, is correct for past and present calculations. But it is incorrect for future calculations. It presumes, incorrectly, that after firefighters retire, we will replace them with new hires and therefore have (for the first time in the history of the DFD) super-minimal staffing levels. We will never do that. It’s terribly inefficient.
Instead, by way of attrition, we will reduce the force from 36 to 33, going from 27 FFs and 9 captains (36) to 24 FFs and 9 captains (33). The clear logic is based on math. We now need 36 people to staff 12 per shift. Once we go to 11 per shift we will need 33 people for minimal staffing. That is efficient management.
DG: [i]”Mr. Rifkin reduced his savings figure, seemingly splitting the different between his original $739,000 and the city’s $360,000 to arrive at $570,000.”[/i]
You’re wrong again, David. Moreover, you just made that sh!t up and falsely accused me of faulty logic and faulty math. You owe me an apology for that.
Here is how I arrived at the figure I published: $570,000 savings.
For 2011-12, the mean total comp* for a firefighter (not counting captains or anyone higher on the totem pole) was $170,000. With adjustments to the City’s expenses for base salary, pension, medical, retiree medical, etc., in 2012-13 (+ 5.66%) and adjustments for 2013-14 (5.82%), the mean total comp in 2013-14 projects to be $190,000. (Note: the slightly higher inflation in the second year is due to published increases in the pension funding by CalPERS.)
Because we will (with attrition) reduce staffing from 36 to 33, we can project a savings of 3 x $190,000 = $570,000 for 2013-14. We could not make that large of a projection earlier, because no one is going to be laid off. Instead, the staff total will be reduced by way of attrition.
*Total comp includes the City’s cash costs for base salary, overtime, PERS, cafeteria medical, life insurance, long-term disability, worker’s comp, survivor’s benefit, Medicare, uniforms, union hours bank and retiree medical.
Oops: ” Thank god I am so PC that I think I have to fret about hurting the feelings of a public official by speaking the truth about their inabilities.”
Correction. Thank god I am [b]not[/b] so PC that I think I have to fret about hurting the feelings of a public official by speaking the truth about their inabilities.
Rifs
I also do not feel that the council acted optimally, and wrote them each with my reasons. However, as I am sure you know better than I, word choice certainly does matter. ” Stupidity. Corruption. Fear. Take your pick.” does not leave much room for nuanced consideration.
Stupidity does not equal lack of comprehension desire to consider longer, or to consider in a different context,
none of which you even acknowledge as possibilities. Not everyone processes information as rapidly as you seem to. If you consider this an “inability” so be it. I would rather see a well considered decision even if it takes longer, than an ill considered judgement based on the perception of the need for rapid action.
And as for your quotes from friends, unnamed former council members, and unnamed letter writers, that should carry as much weight as Sue
Greenwalds unnamed “experts” or my pseudonymous comments here ; )
Rifkin reveals his own partisanship by pointing to the Dems Wolk and Freirichs while giving the Non-Dems Swanson and Lee a pass. It only takes three votes so his complaining about Democratic ties to labor unions fails the smell test. I get that he is unhappy and impatient for change but going after two members when four fail to act reeks of partisanship.For me its Rifkins partisanship that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Mr Toad wrote:
> Rifkin reveals his own partisanship by pointing
> to the Dems Wolk and Freirichs while giving the
> Non-Dems Swanson and Lee a pass
I’m not joking when I say this, have Swanson or Lee (or any other member of the Davis city council in the past 10 years) publicly declared that they are a member of a political party other than the Democrats?
I don’t think that Rich is “partisan” since it is a statement of fact that every Democrat in higher office in this state has had help from the unions (and not a single Democrat in higher office in this state is anti-union).
To be fair and show that I’m not “partisan” I’ll also point out that it is a statement of fact that every Republican in higher office in this state had had help from religious conservatives (and not a single Republican in higher office in this state will come out against all the “family values” stuff the religious nut jobs care so much about)…
Rich’s anonymous comments pass the “smell test” since Brett and Rochelle have “real” jobs while Dan and Lucas have “political” jobs that no one with their backgrounds would takes unless they wanted to stay in the game and run for higher office.
I appreciate Rich calling people out and only wish that more people will see that the unions (and others) have bought and paid for the Democrats and are ripping us off while Defense contractors (and others) have bought and paid for the Republicans and are ripping us off…
With that said ALL the union members are not ripping us off and some are even underpaid just like there are hardworking underpaid people working for defense contractors, but for the most part the taxpayers are paying far more than they should be paying for union services and are paying far more than they should for everything out military buys.
The reality is that Lucas Friechs has a long political career ahead of him and it would not further any future ambitions to be on record as having been a foe of public safety employees in his first foray into the real world of politics.
By the same token Dan Wolk is also young and appears to want to follow in his mother’s footsteps. He also knows that to be on record as opposing public safety employees best interests will do nothing for any future moves up the food chain.
The other 3 do not seem to have long term political ambitions so their vote is up for grabs.
My prediction is for much gnashing of CC teeth, lots of posturing on the dais on how dire our fiscal problems are and how difficult a decision this is, repeated statements on how we cannot put a price on the safety of our citizens and how we must do the right thing for the children. Then there will be some convoluted logic of how money was saved by not giving firefighters some potential benefit in the future such as they really asked for a 6% raise and we only gave them 2% so many dollars were saved. The end result will be retention of the status quo and a pitch for a very large roads parcel tax. A sales tax increase will not fly because it will be perceived as bad for business by our business community. All current bargaining unit savings have already bee earmarked for unfunded health and retiree liabilities so there are no other dollars to be squeezed from labor.
“I’m not joking when I say this, have Swanson or Lee (or any other member of the Davis city council in the past 10 years) publicly declared that they are a member of a political party other than the Democrats? “
I think the answer is that Swanson and Lee are not Dems.
“I don’t think that Rich is “partisan” since it is a statement of fact that every Democrat in higher office in this state has had help from the unions (and not a single Democrat in higher office in this state is anti-union).”
Maybe but he does have a tendency to make over the top ad hominem attacks against unions and Democrats. Just look at his rhetoric towards Yamada and now Wolk and Frierichs.
What is additionally disturbing in this attack is that nothing has yet been finalized and four members decided to wait to decide but he only goes after two while claiming that they are either stupid, corrupt or fearful. Instead we might take them at their word that they are still deliberating, something, it seems, four of them wanted to do. I know that both David and Rifkin are ready to go at a different pace than our elected officials on the fire department but why should it be surprising that elected officials are more cautious and deliberative than bloggers and columnists.
“Rich’s anonymous comments pass the “smell test” since Brett and Rochelle have “real” jobs while Dan and Lucas have “political” jobs that no one with their backgrounds would takes unless they wanted to stay in the game and run for higher office.”
What is a “real” job?
TOAD: [i]”Rifkin reveals his own partisanship …”[/i]
The problem here is that I am as non-partisan as they come. If I have one overriding passion in my political leanings it is to have good and clean government which is not corrupted by campaign donations. I believe strongly in publicly financing elections, something I have never heard anyone on the right espouse.
TOAD: [i]”… by pointing to the Dems Wolk and Freirichs while giving the Non-Dems Swanson and Lee a pass.”[/i]
This mischaracterizes my words. I hold accountable all four members of the Council–Joe Krovoza exempted–for the stupid decision they made, choosing the more expensive option which provides inferior emergency response for fires and medical calls compared with the less expensive fire staffing paradigm suggested by Chief Scott Kenley.
But as I wrote in my column, stupidity was not the only reason they made such a stupid choice. Part of the reason was fear. And I believe that Wolk and Frerichs, alone among the four due to their ambition to seek higher office, fear upsetting the fire union. I don’t believe their fear is corrupt. Niether of them took money from Local 3494. I believe their fear mostly comes from understanding the power of labor unions within the Democratic Party.
It’s fair to ask why I leave out Swanson and Lee from that calculation? I think the answer is plain: Neither one of them is likely to seek higher office within the Democratic Party, where public employee unions have very strong power to defeat anyone perceived as “anti-union.”
TOAD: [i]”It only takes three votes so his complaining about Democratic ties to labor unions fails the smell test.”[/i]
One important fact to understand is that anyone in Davis who is ambitious for higher office has to be a Democrat, and has to be in good standing with the Party and with its most important donors (especially the public employee unions).
I don’t recall in my entire lifetime in Davis there ever being a partisan race for elective office (that is, where the general election pits a Democrat as a Democrat against a Republican as a Republican) where more Davis voters selected the Republican over the Democrat. It’s true that we had a Republican representing us in the state senate and one in the US house in the last 15-20 years. But still, those individual Republicans lost the general election vote in Davis, and I think by large majorities.
The point here is that Davis is a Democratic town (and Yolo County is too is a Democratic county). As such, it does not matter to ambitious politicians in Davis if they take positions which offend those groups, companies, PACs, etc. whose business is to corrupt Republican votes the way public employees corrupt Democratic votes.
TOAD: [i]”I get that he is unhappy and impatient for change but going after two members when four fail to act reeks of partisanship.”[/i]
Again, I went after all four who made a stupid decision, not just Dan and Lucas. I stated in my column, however, that stupidity was not the only reason those two members of the Council did not want to be branded as “anti-union.” They have the intelligence to know that if they get that label–the way Christopher Cabaldon got in W. Sac–it is very hard to get elected to higher office, even if, as in Cabaldon’s case, you are smart, hard-working and have a great record of success.
TOAD: [i]”For me it’s Rifkin’s partisanship that doesn’t pass the smell test.”[/i]
If you regularly read my column, you know that I have been highly critical of Republican corruption, as well. I am appalled by the gun lobby, which spends the money of gun makers and gun sellers to corrupt the votes of Republicans (and some Democrats), so they will not ban civilians from owning guns and clips like the ones used in the Newtown massacre. I am equally anti-Republican when it comes to their (nearly universal) position against the scientific consensus on man-caused climate change. I think a good part of this has to do with the money they get from the coal and oil companies, who promote an anti-science agenda. I am equally against the Republicans (and Democrats) who take money from special interest corporations and give them unjustified tax advantages and so on.
Again, I am not a partisan. My motive is to have good and clean government free of the corruption of private campaign finance.
[i]”[b]Niether[/b] of them took money from Local 3494.”[/i]
Neither.
I wrote:
> have Swanson or Lee (or any other member of the
> Davis city council in the past 10 years) publicly
> declared that they are a member of a political
> party other than the Democrats? ”
Then Mr.Toad wrote:
> I think the answer is that Swanson and Lee are not Dems.
Have they publicly declared that they are members of another party (or does Toad just “THINK” they are not Dems?
> What is a “real” job?
A job that does not depend on making people in politics happy to keep it…
Why is working for the Solano County Counsel’s Office as an Attorney not a real job?
[i]Have they publicly declared that they are members of another party (or does Toad just “THINK” they are not Dems? [/i]
In each case, the information came out during their campaigns that they were not registered Democrats.
“The problem here is that I am as non-partisan as they come.”
Correct me if I’m mistaken Rich, didn’t you write that you once worked for an Oregon Senator, was it Bob Packwood? So I have assumed that was your leaning. Maybe you could clarify about leaving the GOP and why you parted ways to become non-partisan?
rich is anything but non-partisan. he’s extremely partisan on this issue – he’s anti-union and anti-democrat that takes support from unions, which is most of them.
David wrote:
> Why is working for the Solano County Counsel’s
> Office as an Attorney not a real job?
It is a “real” job, but few (if anyone) would take a job like that when they could earn much more many other places unless they were planning to run for higher office.
Can you name a single Stanford/Bolt Hall grad that has worked for a California county that didn’t get in to politic down the road?
[i]”Correct me if I’m mistaken Rich, didn’t you write that you once worked for an Oregon Senator, was it Bob Packwood?”[/i]
Yes, I was a summer intern. It was a college program. I had applied to work for Alan Cranston’s office, in part because [i]I was a Democrat.[/i] But I was assigned to Packwood’s office because there were about 10 times as many people applying for California’s 2 senators as applied for Oregon’s 2 senators. A friend of mine from UCSB applied at the same time to intern for Pete Wilson, because he was our Republican senator, then. But my friend was assigned to work for Jeff Bingaman, who was a Democrat from New Mexico.
The work we did was not political or partisan. It was mostly just filling out forms, answering phones, bringing messages from one person to another, etc. The most exciting thing about the job was getting to play basketball–note: I sucked at hoops–in a pick-up game with Bill Bradley. Al Gore also played in that game. (Gore was not bad, but Bradley was, of course, awesome.)
[i]”rich is anything but non-partisan. he’s extremely partisan on this issue – [b]he’s anti-union and anti-democrat that takes support from unions[/b], which is most of them.”[/i]
To put that in Davis terms: I am as opposed to the notion of a person running for or serving on the Davis City Council who would accept campaign money from real estate developers, because that has the effect of corrupting their votes on the public’s interest in zoning, as I am opposed to the notion of a person running for or serving on the Davis City Council who would accept campaign money from city employees, because that has the effect of corrupting their votes on labor contracts.
If you want to call me ‘anti-union,’ then at least have the decency to also call me ‘anti-real estate developer.’
my problem is i believe your comment rather significantly understates your anti-union bent.
“It is a “real” job, but few (if anyone) would take a job like that when they could earn much more many other places unless they were planning to run for higher office.”
Its actually a pretty good job for an attorney, especially if you have a young family and don’t want to spend your life chained to a desk, punching a button every six minutes and putting in twelve hour days. A county counsel doesn’t work twelve hour days like young associates at big law firms. A county counsel gets to go home at reasonable hours and play with his kids. He can also do some additional public service on the side giving back to his community since he has a sense of obligation to return something to a community that has given him so much. The pay isn’t bad either, believe it or not, it probably pays more than serving in the legislature. In fact, if a county counsel in California decided to run for the legislature he would end up taking a pay cut in order to serve his community and his state.
Rich your anti-union screeds far outnumber your anti-developer screeds. In fact I can’t remember a single one of your anti-developer screeds. When was the last one you wrote?
Well, you know, they’re called [i]deliberations[/i] for a reason…
I don’t think of myself as anti-union or anti-developer. I am against special interests like unions or developers or farmers or defense contractors or oil companies or pharmaceutical corporations or big box retailers giving money to politicians so that the politicians they fund will support legislation or contracts which serve to benefit those special interests at the expense of the public interest. I believe in clean money and clean politics.
The job of a union, as I see it, should be to organize and encourage workers to freely join a union, to negotiate on behalf of its members in contracts and to defend its members when they believe that one or more has been unfairly treated by his employer. To that extent I am pro-union. In most cases most workers are better off having union representation vis-a-vis their employers than they would be without that representation*.
As long as all people are free to join unions, or not join unions, and as long as all bidders for government contracts are free to compete for jobs without having to pay union scale, I believe unions are no problem.
The real problem comes when unions finance campaigns in order to corrupt politicians (as we’ve seen in Davis with the firefighters), who then don’t bargain with the unions, but instead repay the unions for the money the unions gave them. That equation harms the public interest**. If that makes me anti-union, so be it.
———————–
*The exception is an individual with unusual and highly transferable skills, who can, on his own, or with just his own lawyer, pit employers against each other such that their competition for his services will give him individually more than the union could get for him, because the union normally bargains for collective treatment, and that would not account for the special talents of a star.
**Another good example of this in Davis is with the state laws which prohibit price competition for public works projects. Poor and lower-middle income Davis residents are going to be very badly hurt by higher water bills for decades to come in order to fatten the wallets of highly paid, high-skilled pipefitters, plumbers, etc. (Notice they were the ones who paid for the Yes on I campaign.) But if the trades unions in our state had not corrupted our legislature, and it was legal for all companies to openly compete to build the new water project, and the workers could work without PLAs, the water project would cost much less, and as a result the poor and lower-middle income residents of Davis would be hurt much less by it.
[i] I am against special interests like unions or developers or farmers or defense contractors or oil companies or pharmaceutical corporations or big box retailers giving money to politicians…[/i]
But Mr. Toad has a point. The only one I can remember you ever commenting on specifically is unions. Perhaps I missed your columns and Vanguard comments about developers or farmers donating to local politicians — I know we have developers and farmers here, and I’m sure both have probably donated to local politicians. And I’ve don’t think I’ve ever seen you write about big box retailers giving money to politicians, or to political causes — perhaps I missed the columns or comments you wrote about Target funding the campaign on that issue a few years ago? You might have. But there is no question that you have fulminated copiously about unions and their links to local politicians, far more than any of the other categories of special interests.
Don wrote:
> I know we have developers and farmers here,
> and I’m sure both have probably donated to
> local politicians.
Sure they have, but not as much as the unions… This reminds me of when the SF paper was calling the cops racist because they arrested more black drug dealers in Hunters Point than white drug dealers in Pacific Heights.
We all know that there are white drug dealers (and other people paying off politicians) but there are more black drug dealers in Hunters Point than white ones in Pacific Heights (and the unions give more money to the politicians than anyone else).
In aggregate unions are the second highest donors in California behind corporations. This of course doesn’t include Karl Rove and the Koch’s who dropped $10,00,000 into the state to beat Prop 30 while trying to conceal where the money came from. Then you have people like Eli Broad who have Michelle Rhee and Christopher Cabaldon on the payroll and spent hundreds of millions promoting their own vision of education privatization. Cabaldon recently backing the worst candidate, for school board in West Sac, an endorsement that came as a surprise to anyone who doesn’t know which side butters his bread and who funds his day job.
Don, the very first column I ever wrote for The Enterprise — roughly 10 years ago — decried the subsidies (i.e., welfare) paid to grain farmers (which in our region is principally, though not exclusively, rice farmers). I pointed out that this payoff of billions of dollars was due to the corruption of the grain farmer lobby spending millions of dollars on candidates for Congress, including our own local members.
Another column I wrote mentioning the money influence of the farmers (at least the only one I recall) had to do with Congressman Mike Thompson’s funding (directly to his campaign war chest and indirectly into a PAC) from the vintners/grape growers. The topic of my column was about a free trade deal which I had discussed with Congressman Thompson when he was at The Enterprise.
I have also decried in my column the payoffs to local landowners (who often are themselves not even farmers) who, for their own personal benefit, are paid as much as a million dollars cash each to agree to not develop their remote farm lands into housing tracts, despite the fact that those lands in our region are all protected by their status as agricultural zoning (A1 or A2). The irony is that each time our elected officials write one of these million dollar checks out of public accounts to a rich landowner, they all hold hands, sing hallelujah, and praise the rich guy as an altruist who is not developing his remote property in order to make sure that crows and magpies will have cornfields to graze in for a century to come. … I think every one of us would be such altruists if Joe Politician gave us $1 million to be so kind to birds.
When I wrote a column in favor of public financing for campaigns, I specifically discussed how real estate developers and their sub-developers and others who stand to gain financially from developments create in Davis, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest by financing council members’ campaigns.
It’s true that I have focused much more on the corruption of the labor unions, because A) that has directly and negatively harmed the general interest in Davis, in Yolo County and in the state of California far more than any other form of corruption and B) because our school district, our city and our county spend most of our tax money on labor, so labor contracts are singly important.
We are a Democratic city, region and state. And the Democratic Party is philosophically pro-union and practically controlled by union money. A local politico (a Democrat, of course) told me not too long ago about the power of the CTA in Sacramento and how it is currently using that money and power in the legislature to stop moderate Democratic legislators who want to reform education (notably, to reward teachers who perform well and punish teachers who don’t).
I was just looking up old columns and found this one from April 30, 2008:
[i]Congress this week is negotiating its most important subsidy program: how many billions of dollars to give to wealthy and well-organized farmers, to ease their pain from record profits and record high food prices.
The most conservative Republicans will be joining hands with the most liberal Democrats in embracing this scam. Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is giddy to give $1.8 billion in handouts to racehorse breeders. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is championing the entire package, estimated to cost $610 billion over 10 years.
No matter that since 2005, global corn prices have climbed 138 percent and global food prices have risen 83 percent. America’s farmers and farm lobbyists want more.
They write checks every election to just about every incumbent politician and they expect to be paid off many times over. When the farm bill comes up every five years, the taxpayers are expected to pay the price. And, of course, we do.
That’s what privately financed elections are all about. Big-monied special interests write big checks to get back really big payoffs. It’s the same scam the Davis firefighters’ union is pulling on Davis voters, but on a much larger scale.[/i]
My column continues:
[i]From 1995 to 2006, we wrote checks to corn farmers totaling $56.1 billion. Over that same period, our handouts to wheat farmers were $22.1 billion; $21.3 billion for cotton; $14.2 billion for soybeans; and $11.0 billion for rice. The tobacco subsidies of $530.5 million seem like a pittance.
President Bush, who gleefully signed the 2003 farm bill into law, seems to have had a pang of conscience with the 2008 version. He has threatened to veto Pelosi’s handiwork over the issue of just how rich a farmer can be to qualify for this scam.
Bush’s spokesman said the president would accept $500,000 in adjusted gross income as the cut-off point for eligibility for crop subsidies. The limit now is $2.5 million unless at least 75 percent of a recipient’s income is from farming and ranching.
[b]Congress, fueled by checks from rich farm interests, is balking at the president’s modest proposal.[/b] Our representatives would prefer to have no income limitation for their donors, as long as the farmer ‘s income comes from agricultural sources. [/i]
Here is some more from the same piece:
[i]As things stand, farmers get around these subsidy limitation laws by having large families and dividing the checks among wives, daughters, sons, sons-in-law and so on.
It’s notable, for example, that our area’s largest recipient of farmer welfare, [b]the Dewits of El Macero, took in checks totaling $5.56 million between 1995 and 2006[/b], under eight different Dewit names, according to the Environmental Working Group.
When crop prices were lower a few years ago, apologists for this taxpayer rip-off claimed that without subsidies wealthy American farmers would lose their family farms. That argument was bogus then and even more bogus, now.
Corn futures closed Monday at $6.135 per bushel. Some traders at the Chicago Board of Trade expect the price to climb later this year to $8 per bushel.
Wealthy people won’t go hungry when bread climbs to $5 a loaf and a chicken costs $20. But in many countries, current prices are threatening starvation. There have recently been food riots in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. Poor people living on the edge are getting pushed over, and our ridiculous farm laws are in part to blame. [/i]
I continued late with this:
[i]In addition to rising global demand, one reason food prices are so high is because of our ethanol program. In 2007, 25 percent of the U.S. corn crop was diverted to produce ethanol. The USDA projects 30 to 35 percent will be diverted in 2008.
In California and many other states, drivers are forced to buy E10 gasoline, which includes 10 percent ethanol. The evidence that E10 is good for the environment is weak. Some academic studies have shown E10 produces more greenhouse gases than pure gasoline.
Worse, it barely reduces the consumption of petroleum. Driving 12,500 miles per year with E10 saves 35 gallons of gas. By contrast, changing from a car that averages 25 miles per gallon to one that averages 35 mpg saves 143 gallons per year.
One of the few good things in the current farm bill is the reduction of the subsidy to corn-based ethanol producers. They get 51 cents a gallon from taxpayers. That will be lowered to 45 cents. In other words, instead of owning four jets each, they may have to cut back to three.
[b]Virtually every law our Congress writes demonstrates how corrupt our system is. But no act ever proves the case better than with our farm bills.[/b] As Lincoln might have said at Gettysburg, our soldiers died to ensure that we shall forever have a government of the special interests, by the special interests and for the special interests. [/i]
Excellent. So I’m happy to acknowledge you as an equal-opportunity influence-peddler-opponent. I guess the union issues just come up more often.