The following letter to the editor was published in the El Segundo Herald newspaper (HeraldPublications.com) on Thursday, September 29, 2011 in the Letters section on page 3. The El Segundo Herald has a strict 250-word limit, including the title.
El Segundo, We Have a Problem
The City Council has been negotiating new contracts with the City employee unions in secret for months now, but will only allow the citizens 24 hours to see these long, complex contracts before final approval. Mayor Busch has set a phony deadline of October 1, start of the new fiscal year, to approve the contracts. There is no legal or other requirement to do so.
Mayor Busch scheduled final contract approval for Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 5:30 PM. This non-standard day and early meeting time reduces public oversight even further. If Mayor Busch and the city employee unions were acting in good faith, they would provide the citizens sixty days, or thirty days as a minimum, to review and debate the union contracts they will be forced to pay.
Mayor Busch and the new city manager may be using smoke and mirrors to “balance” the budget, including unjustifiably optimistic current revenue projections and creating huge new debts for city taxpayers. They plan to issue up to $18 million in bonds to borrow money to pay for capital improvements that have traditionally been paid out of General Fund revenues (Sept. 26 CIPAC meeting agenda at ElSegundo.org).
Borrowing $18 million will allow them to minimize city employee burden-sharing and roll-backs of huge raises given during the recession, and to continue paying millions of dollars in excess and unsustainable compensation to fire and police union members and managers. Mayor Bush and his Council majority must stop spending money we don’t have.
Michael D. Robbins
El Segundo Police Officers' Association (ESPOA) Exposed