The following letter to the editor was published in the El Segundo Herald newspaper (HeraldPublications.com) on Thursday, December 1, 2011 in the Letters section on page 2. The El Segundo Herald has a strict 250-word limit, including the title.
$25 Million Claim Against City
The widow of Hawthorne police officer Andrew Garton filed a $25 million claim against El Segundo, as required before filing a lawsuit. Officer Garton was killed in the tragic accident where El Segundo Police Sergeant Rex Fowler collided with his motorcycle while both were escorting a funeral procession through Torrance for a Manhattan Beach police officer who died of cancer.
Despite my many warnings, Mayor Busch and Councilman Fisher enthusiastically voted to approve new three-year city union contracts guaranteeing raises and no layoffs, leaving the City dangerously vulnerable to large unbudgeted, uncontrollable expenses including lawsuit judgments and settlements.
I warned against new contracts lasting more than one year, and that give away their management authority over staffing decisions and layoffs. Long before they approved the new contracts, I recommended that “All employee union contracts should incorporate a burden-sharing mechanism that stabilizes the city budget during economic downturns.
It would implement automatic cost reductions when unbudgeted revenue shortfalls and/or unavoidable, unbudgeted expenses exceed specified thresholds. Optionally, this mechanism could also re-open union contract negotiations.”
I warned again that “The contracts also provide no protection against unbudgeted and uncontrolled spending increases (e.g., new unfunded state government mandates, large lawsuit judgments, infrastructure repair costs after a natural or man-made disaster, etc.).”
Instead, they rushed through contract approval, trying to give the public less than 24 hours to review the contracts they negotiated in secret with firefighter and police unions that provided them with thousands of dollars in campaign support—exactly as I predicted.
Michael D. Robbins
El Segundo Police Officers' Association (ESPOA) Exposed