Category Archives: El Segundo News

News about El Segundo you typically won’t read elsewhere, except perhaps in letters to the editor of the local newspapers.

El Segundo residential trash collection fee is resolved

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Mike

The El Segundo residential trash collection fee has been resolved with a 3-1 vote of the City Council to have the City continue collecting trash from residential properties with three or four units, in addition to those with one or two units. This decision departs from the current City practice of collecting trash at no fee from residential properties with one to four or more units if standard trash cans are used instead of a large rectangular trash bin. City Attorney Mark Hensley stated that it was not necessary to amend the City Municipal Code for the City to continue collecting trash for three and four unit properties. He said the City Municipal Code creates an exclusive franchise for the City to collect trash from residential properties with one or two units, all owners or tenants of those properties are required to use the City’s service, and no private trash haulers can provide this service. To amend the City municipal code to create an exclusive franchise for residential properties with three or four units is not necessary and is a five-year long process.

The affected residential properties with more than four units will have to contract with a private trash hauler and pay for the service Continue reading →

Posted in El Segundo News, El Segundo Tax and Fee Increases | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on El Segundo residential trash collection fee is resolved

El Segundo residential trash collection fee is not a dead issue

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Mike

The El Segundo residential trash collection fee is back on the City Council agenda for the February 1, 2011 meeting. At issue is whether the City will stop collecting trash from residential properties with three or four units on a lot. It has been a long-standing City practice and tradition, going back at least to the early 1990’s, for the City to collect trash without fee from single family homes, and residential properties with two to four units on a lot, as long as standard trash cans are used instead of the large rectangular trash bins. Existing taxes pay for this service.

However, there is an inconsistency between the existing practice and the El Segundo Municipal Code, which provides only for City trash collection for single family homes and residential properties with two units on a lot. The logical solution is simply to amend the city’s municipal code to be consistent with the long-standing actual practice.

Please contact the El Segundo City Council members and urge them to amend the city’s municipal code to continue the long-standing City practice of collecting trash from all residential properties with one to four units on a lot that use standard trash cans. Remind them that the residents can use a voter initiative to amend the El Segundo Municipal Code for them if they won’t do it. … Continue reading →

Posted in California, El Segundo, El Segundo News, El Segundo Tax and Fee Increases, Tax Policy and Issues | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on El Segundo residential trash collection fee is not a dead issue

A Victory for El Segundo Residents and Residential Property Owners (House or Two Units)

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Mike

by Michael D. Robbins
Director, Public Safety Project, PublicSafetyProject.org

January 19, 2011

Congratulations! We won again! Thank you for sending in your Proposition 218 Trash Fee Protest Ballots before the deadline. A total of 1,850 unverified protest ballots were sent to City Hall, and only a total of 1,439 verified protest ballots were needed to defeat the new residential trash collection fee. The City Council voted 3-2 at its January 18, 2011 meeting, to accept the unverified protest ballots as sufficient without having the City Clerk’s staff spend the time to open all the envelopes, verify that the ballots were properly completed and signed, and count the valid ones that are not duplicates from owners and tenants of the same property.

City Council member Don Brann made the motion to accept the unverified protest ballots as sufficient. Mayor Eric Busch tried to ignore the motion and said that the City Clerk would come back to the City Council with the results after the protest ballots were verified and counted. Council member Don Brann caught this apparent maneuver to avoid a vote and move on to the next agenda item, and he stated that he made a motion. Council member Carl Jacobson seconded the motion for discussion. After brief discussion, Council member Don Brann asked for a vote. Mayor Eric Busch and Mayor Pro Tem Bill Fisher voted “NO”, and Council members Don Brann, Carl Jacobson, and Suzanne Fuentes voted “Yes” on the motion.
This vote by mail election used a strange system where properties for which no Protest Ballot is completed, signed, and returned before the deadline COUNT AS YES VOTES, and Protest Ballots from both the owner and tenant(s) of the same property COUNT AS ONLY ONE NO VOTE.

The first year of the trash fee would have cost residents an estimated $560,700, which is less than the estimated $596,657 total compensation paid to former El Segundo Police Chief David Cummings in 2009 from all sources – including his city contract and pension income while working for the city after his retirement. This is an enormous amount of compensation for any city, but especially for the City of El Segundo, California, which has about 5.5 square miles and about 16,000 or 17,000 population. … Continue reading →

Posted in California, El Segundo, El Segundo Election Coverage, El Segundo News, El Segundo Tax and Fee Increases, Elections, Firefighter and Police Union Compensation and Pensions, Fraud Waste and Abuse, Government Employee Compensation and Pensions, News, Political Corruption, Politics, Tax Policy and Issues | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Victory for El Segundo Residents and Residential Property Owners (House or Two Units)

Everyone in El Segundo must defeat the greatest threat facing our city – the firefighters union initiative

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Mike

All El Segundo residents and business owners must work even harder to defeat the greatest threat facing our city and our safety – the firefighters union initiative. If their union initiative passes, we will permanently lose our Paramedic Transport Service, and depend on out-of-town ambulances with increased hospital transport times and fees. This is dangerous for everybody who lives, works, or does business in El Segundo, but it is especially dangerous for the elderly in our city. Almost all of the fire department calls are paramedic calls. El Segundo has few fire, and zero, one, or two major structure fires (with $100,000 in damage or more) per year.

The El Segundo City Council will decide at its February 15, 2011 meeting which election date the very dangerous firefighters union initiative will appear on the ballot for El Segundo voters. Continue reading →

Posted in California, El Segundo, El Segundo Election Coverage, El Segundo News, Elections, Firefighter and Police Union Compensation and Pensions, Firefighter Union Corruption, Government Employee Compensation and Pensions, Measure P - Firefighters Union Initiative, Political Corruption, Politics, Union Corruption | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Everyone in El Segundo must defeat the greatest threat facing our city – the firefighters union initiative

CALL TO ACTION: The citizens of El Segundo need your help

Posted on January 2, 2011 by Mike

by Michael D. Robbins
Director, Public Safety Project, PublicSafetyProject.org

January 2, 2011

This is an urgent Call to Action. The citizens of El Segundo need your help. They are about to lose their city fire department and paramedic transport service as a result of excessive and unsustainable labor union contracts – especially the fire and police union contracts.

Here is what you can do to help:

First, email this web page URL to everyone you know who may be interested and may want to help:

http://PublicSafetyProject.org/elsegundo/elsegundo_payroll.html

Second, if you want to help in other ways, send an email to the Public Safety Project using the following email address, and provide your name, contact information, and your offer to help. Put “WANT TO HELP” in the subject line. Thank you very much.

Third, if you live or work in El Segundo, and you want to save our fire department from a takeover by Los Angeles County, and loss of our Paramedic Transport service, then please send an email to the Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and each of the other City Council members.

Their email address appear below, followed by a sample email message. … Continue reading →

Posted in California, El Segundo, El Segundo Election Coverage, El Segundo News, Measure P - Firefighters Union Initiative | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on CALL TO ACTION: The citizens of El Segundo need your help

1970-1972 Firefighter and Police Union City Council Campaigns

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Mike

Former Mayors Reflect on Past Challenges

October 28, 2010

By Brian Simon

Mayor Gordon Stephens (1970-1972): Stephens sees a parallel between the current contentious labor talks between the City Council and local bargaining units and what he described as “difficulties negotiating with our safety employees” during his tenure. “They went door to door to gain sympathetic supporters,” he remembers, noting that attendance at the hearing was so large as to cause the meeting to move its location to the high school auditorium. “The council’s initial position was that after a survey of other cities’ pay and benefits, we offered the midpoint of the survey, realizing El Segundo did not have as much hazardous activity as any of the surveyed cities,” Stephens said. … Continue reading →

Posted in El Segundo News, Firefighter and Police Union Compensation and Pensions, Firefighter Union Corruption, Government Employee Compensation and Pensions, Historical News, Police Union Corruption | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 1970-1972 Firefighter and Police Union City Council Campaigns

Mayor Carl Jacobson provided leadership to resolve 1988 revenue crisis

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Mike

Former Mayors Reflect on Past Challenges

October 28, 2010

By Brian Simon

Mayor Carl Jacobson (1988-1996):

Though he is now back on the Council and dealing with the City’s current financial crisis, Jacobson also had a major budget dilemma to contend with when he became Mayor in 1988. Two-thirds of the City’s revenue base had previously come from use taxes collected from Chevron’s sale of fuel oil to Edison. But when the Public Utilities Commission ordered Edison to switch to the cleaner-burning natural gas, all that revenue went bye-bye.

To address the issue, Jacobson and the Council revamped the business license and utility user tax structure to provide replacement revenue streams. The tax increases were phased in over time. “It was an absolute necessity and done during a decent economy that was nothing like the condition we are in right now,” said Jacobson, who added that the Council even lowered the business license tax by the end of his tenure.

Jacobson also successfully lobbied to increase the City’s share of local property taxes from five percent to seven (since lowered by the State to 6.25). … Continue reading →

Posted in El Segundo News, El Segundo Tax and Fee Increases, Historical News | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Mayor Carl Jacobson provided leadership to resolve 1988 revenue crisis

A Stink in El Segundo Over Cadillac Salaries by Paul Teetor – LA Weekly

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Mike

A Stink in El Segundo Over Cadillac Salaries

Cops earn $175,000, firefighters $210,000, in a town with few criminals or fires

By Paul Teetor
published: October 14, 2010

The debate over skyrocketing government-worker salaries got nasty in El Segundo when a homeowner published the six-figure salaries flowing to the small town’s cops and firefighters on his Gundo Blogger website — only to have a police captain track him down by phone at his UCLA job and chew him out.

The uneasy homeowner, David Burns, tells L.A. Weekly that Capt. Robert Turnbull “called me from his office to complain about my blog. … He insisted on talking about it right now. I finally had to hang up on him.”

Burns then sent Turnbull an e-mail explaining his policy of separating his blog from his job as manager of emergency preparedness at UCLA.

In a response that would have unnerved many citizens, the high-ranking cop e-mailed Burns back: “I will continue to call you at work whenever I want, as you may do the same for me, since our numbers are publicly listed.”

Turnbull vehemently objected to Burns claiming on his blog that the captain’s total pay is $302,000, insisting it should be “only” $225,000 — the amount the city defines as Turnbull’s “total earnings.”

But as Burns explains, he included “the hidden costs. [Turnbull] was trying to exclude all the extra money and special benefits beyond his base salary, but that all comes from the taxpayer’s pocket.”

Either way, it’s a staggering sum to pay a police captain in a tiny city of 16,000 residents, with zero murders in 2009, according to FBI data — and only 36 violent crimes. By contrast, not counting benefits, the Los Angeles Police Department pays its captains an average of $168,000. … Continue reading →

Posted in El Segundo News, Firefighter and Police Union Compensation and Pensions, Government Employee Compensation and Pensions, Police Union Corruption | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Stink in El Segundo Over Cadillac Salaries by Paul Teetor – LA Weekly