The following letter to the editor was published in the Beach Reporter newspaper (TBRnews.com) on Thursday, March 29, 2012 in the Letters section. The Beach Reporter has a strict 250-word limit.
Vote for independence
The newly-released city documents and e-mails tell all. The firefighter and police unions were behind this push to extort $10 million per year in new taxes from Chevron, to pay for their astronomical and unsustainable salaries and benefits that have averaged $211,000 ($342,000 maximum) per individual per year for firefighters and $178,000 ($304,000 maximum) for police.
These self-serving safety unions are supporting Scott Houston (who took a police union endorsement, large campaign contribution, and other support in 2010), Marie Fellhauer (a police union member herself), and Cindee Topar (former City Council campaign manager for a firefighter union member and a militant union official herself) for City Council.
That is also why they are smearing Chevron and the three most honest and independent City Council candidates – Carl Jacobson, David Atkinson, and Dave Burns, who want to restore fiscal responsibility, transparency, and control by residents and taxpayers rather than by self-serving safety unions.
City Council minutes and videos show Scott Houston strongly urging City Council to raise two taxes during the recession – the UUT and TOT taxes – at the August 3, 2010, Council meeting. He urged Council to put them on the ballot for the legally-required voter approval. But at the February 15, 2011, Council meeting, Houston urged Council to enact Measure P directly into law without letting voters vote on it. Clearly, Houston believes voters should only be allowed to vote when it advances the agendas of the self-serving fire and police unions that support him.
Illeen Joscha
El Segundo
El Segundo Police Officers' Association (ESPOA) Exposed