Posted on 07/24/2006 8:20:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO – An attorney for the city's largest employee union is demanding that the City Council levy a new tax on San Diego property owners to help pay municipal pension obligations.
In a letter sent to Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council, SDMEA attorney Ann Smith stated that “adding such a 'pension' tax to the city's annual tax levy is not a matter of discretion, but rather a matter of duty, and therefore, enforceable by the courts.”
The mayor could not be immediately reached for comment on the letter, which was sent Friday and made public Monday.
But Council President Scott Peters said he does not support a pension tax.
“I don't think it's a good idea,” Peters said. “We are already embarked on a disciplined plan to address this challenge.”
San Diego's pension system has a $1.43 billion deficit.
Because of the city's “revenue-challenged status,” San Diego is unable to meet its pension obligations, Smith argued. Because of that, she said the city charter mandates that the council impose the pension tax.
“By this correspondence, MEA renews its request that the city fulfill its mandatory duty under the charter to add such a pension tax to its annual levy, and that the city do so no later than the last day in August 2006 as required by the City Charter,” Smith's letter concludes.
Because an annual levy “to meet the requirement of the pension funds” is not a “special tax” it does not require voter approval and instead can be imposed by the City Council, the attorney said.
But City Attorney Michael Aguirre said there is “no legal authority” to impose a tax on residents without a public vote.
“It is not legal to increase taxes on the people of San Diego, the property owners of the city of San Diego, without a vote to pay for these illegal benefits,” he said.
Aguirre said he will issue a formal legal opinion in the next two weeks.
Aguirre maintains that agreements forged in 1996 and 2002 that granted increased retirement benefits in exchange for a reduced contributions by the city into the pension system were illegal.
A judge recently ruled against Aguirre in a lawsuit to throw out the so-called “illegal” pension benefits. If a pending appeal is unsuccessful, the case will go to trail in October.
The pension tax SDMEA wants levied on taxpayers could cost households in the city of San Diego up to $1,000 each, Aguirre said.
Aguirre said he anticipates that SDMEA will file a lawsuit in an effort to force the city to levy the tax, and urged the council to “renounce and reject” any plan to impose taxes on the people of San Diego.”
The public employees are only here to HELP us.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
An attorney in the employ of a public union and a Superior Court judge appointed by a California governor.
Grab your wallets and flee to Mexico. When you sneak back in they will not require you to pay federal, state or local taxes
Ann Smith should read her history. There was a little tussle about 230 years ago having to do with taxation without representation (i.e., taxes on us though no vote for/by us). Of course, that preceded the Dimocratz of which Ann Smith certainly considers herself a proud member.
Shoot 'em all.
First of many. The young are going to get tired of paying for the old to stay retired.
Coming soon to a municipality near you, whether you like it or not....
Politicians just don't have the stones to say no, and the bill for 4 decades of Liberalism is now DUE IN FULL......
This country is in it's twilight, 20 years max if the politicans don't kill us first by setting us up the bomb.
In an honest world the entire San Diego pension system would be restructured downward. Stupid Republicans have been giving away the store to the public employee unions there for decades. Signing on the dotted line and taxpayers are SADDLED WITH ABSURD OBLIGATIONS IN PERPETUITY
By successive Republican administrations. We can't blame Democrats here. There had to be some major kickbacks here. But what do I know .... I live on the East Coast
Read up a bit here. Do you really think the union officials under criminal investigation were Republicans? The two mayors that preceded Murphy were Democrats. The city council is dominated by Democrats and liberal lesbians. When I returned to San Diego in the late 60s, the current scandal was aimed at Democrat mayor Frank Curran and the Yellow Cab company. There is a long tradition of corruption in city government.
Please name some names and cite the Republicans you are smearing with a broad brush in San Diego. I lived there for over 35 years. I didn't see Republicans handing over the store to the unions. Most of the corruption was traceable to the strong city manager and unelected bureaucrats.
I only know about SD from a distance. Forbes magazine had articles about how Republicans were giving away the store there. To the insanely generous pension and benefit plans of their public employees
What are the credentials of the authors of those articles? Any possibility they were Democrats? The last decent Republican elected mayor of San Diego was Roger Hedgecock. He was driven from office by false accusations leveled by Democrat Maureen O'Connor who replaced him in office. Roger was acquitted and found a far more powerful position as the "Radio Mayor" of San Diego on KSDO and later KOGO.
Pete Wilson was also a Republican mayor (1971-1982). He also served as governor and U.S. Senator.
Most of the criminal damage occurred under the administrators of Maureen O'Connor and Susan Golding. Murphy was a weak-kneed Republican judge who ran against a whacky lefty Peter Navarro. He was the lesser of two evils. He arrived in office after the deals with the sports teams. Mike Aguirre has really been the gutsy hero in ferretting out the corrupt players. It's so bad that it will take years to deal with the criminal stench from city hall. Golding was labeled a Republican. She was clearly owned by the real estate developers in town.
There is some interesting commentary and history at this site.
LOL, the government parasites grow more and more shameless.
Then will come a property tax to feed the poor,a property tax to pave the streets,a larger property tax for schools and before you know it,homeowners will be bailing EVERY ONE out!!!!!![after all,they are rich,they own property]
No Hope for the Failed
LEE MOORE, SAN DIEGO
November 2, 2005
Pat Flannery would like to pin pension plan problems on Republicans. I suggest that underfunding pensions, borrowing from pensions, granting gold-plated benefits fall to both parties. The problem is the power of the public employee unions. Look at the benefits Grey Davis handed out to his union benefactors, extraordinary when compared to private sector pensions. (Don't rely on the old line that public employees make less, it's not true). Many of our large cities in California are controlled by Democrats as is our state legislature. It's not one party at fault, and it will take both parties to resolve the issue; unfortunately nobody wants to work together.
Political gain, staying in office and campaign contributions take precedent over the public good. We have seen our beautiful city muddied up by two Republican mayors giving extraordinary benefits to unions and some enhanced (and possibly illegal benefits) to union leaders. We need public officials who can live within their means, not politicians counting on a never-ending bull market. Our city and state leaders need to learn to say no, just as we tell our kids to say no to drugs -- the drug for politicians is money and potential voters. This is a sickness that transcends party lines. It should not even come up in city politics, but to most of these folks, city jobs are only stepping stones to future higher office.
I would hope that none of the current council (Mr. Young excluded, as he is new and there is hope for him) would ever get a single vote for another office. They have all failed the test.
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:6v-pfsIwLtsJ:www.voiceofsandiego.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp%3Fc%3DeuLTJbMUKvH%26b%3D699883%26rsCount%3D450%26recordcount%3D25%26page%3D3+forbes+pensions+%22san+diego%22+republican&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=16
The city's public-employee pension funds are running a billion-dollar deficit, and the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether city officials, including Mayor Murphy and the City Council, acted illegally three years ago in awarding generous new benefits to retirees while severely underfinancing the pension accounts. The authorities are also investigating whether the city misrepresented its financial condition in bond offerings.
Because of the large pension deficits and the investigations, the city's credit rating is near bottom, and officials have had to consider declaring municipal bankruptcy.
The new city attorney, Michael Aguirre, has publicly accused Mayor Murphy and the City Council of breaking the law in the pension matter and last week called on the mayor to resign. Other opponents of the mayor had discussed a recall campaign.
The resignation adds to a sense of municipal chaos in San Diego, which once enjoyed a reputation as one of the best-run big cities in the country.
__________________________
Six past and current members of the San Diego municipal pension board faced criminal charges yesterday in connection with a vote that paved the way for rich pension benefits for city workers, which they themselves would receive.
The vote by the six, to let the city's contributions to the pension fund lapse, enabled the city to increase the promised benefits to a level that has crippled the city's finances.
"People in fiduciary positions may not serve two masters at the same time," the San Diego district attorney, Bonnie M. Dumanis, said in a news conference. As a result of their vote, she said, the six members were projected to receive pensions of $4,017 a month to $10,862 a month, significantly more than they would have otherwise earned.
Ms. Dumanis charged each of the board members with three felony counts of violating a state law that requires officials to recuse themselves or take other protective measures when voting on public business in which they have a personal stake. The charges carry a maximum sentence of three years in state prison.
Arrest warrants made public yesterday said the six officials overruled the advice of the pension plan's actuary and voted to let the city postpone contributions to the fund. The vote in July of 2002 saved the city $25 million to $100 million in contributions. Coinciding with labor negotiations, it allowed the city to improve employees' pensions by hundreds of millions of dollars without having to pay for them for many years.
Three of the officials charged were Ronald L. Saathoff, president of the San Diego firefighters' union at the time of the vote, and John A. Torres and Sharon K. Wilkinson, who represented the public employees' union. All three are now retired and collecting their pensions.
The other three board members charged were representing the city on the pension board: Cathy Lexin, Teresa A. Webster and Mary Vattimo, who was removed from the pension board in February.
On Monday, the city announced the resignations of Ms. Lexin, the human resources director; Ms. Vattimo, who had been reassigned recently to a lower-profile purchasing job; and a third official linked to the scandal, Patricia Frazier, the deputy city manager for development services.
Of the six board members, Mr. Saathoff achieved the largest monthly pension gain, $2,530, to $9,704, according to the district attorney.
Mr. Saathoff's lawyer, Jerry Coughlan, said last night, "I was extremely disappointed in the district attorney's office filing these charges. I fully expect to win because there were no violations of the conflict of interest law." The monthly benefits of the five other defendants increased by amounts of $386 to $1,074, Ms. Dumanis said. Other officials who were serving on the 13-member pension board at the time of the crucial vote were not charged.
The city told the unions they could have pay and benefit raises as long as the pension board was willing to delay its contributions and allow the fund to fall below the accepted level of solvency. After negotiating in private, the board approved the plan in a public session.
"It resulted in the addition of hundreds of millions of dollars of new pension benefits that were illegal, and were concealed not only from the taxpayers but also the investment community," the city attorney, Michael Aguirre, said yesterday in a news confer
The city of Los Angeles wants to raise property taxes to to provide housing for "low-income residents and enable others to become first-time homeowners." I'll be voting against it if it makes the ballot.
$1-Billion Affordable Housing Bond Measure May Go to Voters in L.A.
July 13, 2006
A $1-billion bond measure that would help provide housing for thousands of low-income residents and enable others to become first-time homeowners is likely to appear on the Los Angeles ballot in November.
The proposed bond measure, which could contribute financing for about 1,000 new affordable housing units annually over the next decade, was endorsed unanimously Wednesday by the City Council.
snip
The money would be raised through property tax increases ... The measure would add about $75 a year to the property tax bill of a home worth $500,000. The increase would be in place for 20 years.
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