Free Republic

An ever-mounting debt Vallejo has built up by not setting aside enough money for retired city employee pension benefits would take more than $16 million a year for three decades to pay off. Paying such a large annual sum of cash, however, would mean a smaller debt in the long-term, city officials said Tuesday at a Vallejo City Council special budget session looking at the 2010-2011 fiscal year. City finance staff recommended paying only 80 percent of that debt, owed to the state retirement agency. That move would leave the city with millions in debt at the end of 30...

Two years after Vallejo, California, filed for bankruptcy protection, officials in nearby Antioch are also tossing around the 'B' word. Antioch's leaders earlier this month said bankruptcy could be an option for the cash-strapped city of roughly 100,000 on the eastern fringe of the San Francisco Bay area. Antioch's fiscal woes are standard issue for local governments in California: weak revenue from retail sales and property taxes is forcing spending cuts, layoffs and furloughs. Orange County Treasurer Chriss Street would not be surprised if more local governments across the Golden State sound a similar alarm. Street expects more talk of...

Two years after going broke, the California city still isn't free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares to emerge from Chapter 9, officials in Los Angeles, San Diego and other cities across the state are looking to see if Vallejo has blazed a trail for them to get out from under their own crushing pension costs. What they're finding is that even bankruptcy may not be enough...

The Solano County Sheriff's Office is trying to figure out how a handcuffed, 57-year-old probationer was somehow misplaced in the Vallejo courthouse two weeks ago and then forgotten as court employees left for a long weekend. Fortunately, an alert janitor found the man before the building was completely deserted for the long holiday. According to Sheriff's Lt. Gary Faulkner, Solano County Superior Court Commissioner Raymond Wieser had ordered Calvin Jones of Vallejo jailed on a probation violation about 9:10 a.m. on Feb. 11, the day before the court's four-day Lincoln's birthday-Presidents Day holiday was to begin. A courtroom bailiff apparently...

Reeling from a string of high-profile crimes that included the mob beating of a city worker, bankrupt Vallejo is studying whether it could save money by disbanding its police force and bringing in the Solano County Sheriff's Office, according a report by the Vallejo Times-Herald. Sheriff Gary Stanton told the newspaper he's not interested in taking over but would run the numbers.

Fearful Vallejo residents thinking about arming themselves after a rash of violent crime may be jumping the gun, police said. Police Department spokesman Abel Tenorio said he has read online comments from people saying they're alarmed and may arm themselves -- something police don't recommend. "The Constitution allows citizens who are not otherwise prohibited from having a gun to have a firearm in their home," Vallejo Police Department Support Services Manager Bill Powell said. "But we don't want any kind of tragedy to occur because someone got a gun and they're not familiar with it." Unless you're licensed to carry...

Times are tough in Vallejo these days, a city with more street violence than nearby Richmond, and a rapidly shrinking police department. In the last week alone, the city has witnessed two homicides, a knife attack that injured three people, the shooting of an ice-cream vendor and a mob assault on a city employee - an incident captured on video at a local gas station. One of the homicide victims was Matthew Allen Hicks, the father of one of two teens suspected in the attack near the gas station. Hicks was found shot in the head early Monday. "It has...

When Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis told the New York Times in a recent interview that gay people don't get to heaven, he broke not one, but two cardinal rules of politics in a single sentence. With a simple phrase, Davis breached the separation between church and state and grabbed the electrified "third-rail" in Bay Area politics with both hands. He told the reporter that gays are "committing sins and those sins will keep them out of heaven." After the Nov. 20 article, the mayor claimed his words were taken out of context. The Times responded by providing an audio link...

On the night Campbell elected the youngest openly gay mayor in America, hundreds rallied in Vallejo to protest their mayor following his remarks about gays and heaven. Demonstrators bearing rainbow flags and signs outside Vallejo City Hall Tuesday night directed their ire at Osby Davis for his comments in a New York Times' article about the growing political clout of Evangelicals. Davis, who narrowly (and we mean narrowly) defeated gay rival Gary Cloutier in 2007, told Scott James that those pearly, beatific gates would remain shut for gays. "... they are in fact committing sin and that sin will keep...

Protesters Chastise Vallejo Mayor Over Gay Remarks The Associated Press Dec. 2, 2009 VALLEJO, Calif. -- Vallejo's mayor is under fire from demonstrators who gathered on the steps of City Hall to protest his remarks that gays will not go to heaven. Dozens of protesters waved rainbow flags and held signs demanding separation of church and state before Tuesday's city council meeting. Some called for Mayor Osby Davis' resignation. The evangelical mayor told The New York Times last month that gays are "committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven." He later apologized, saying his remarks were...

Dozens of people crowded the steps of Vallejo City Hall on Tuesday to protest a recent quoted remark by Mayor Osby Davis that gay people would not go to heaven. The protesters waved rainbow flags, held signs demanding the separation of church and state and some called for Davis' resignation. And then there was a roar. From inside City Hall came the sounds of more than 100 people clapping and cheering, praising God. "Lord, we're not against anybody. We're for our children," prayed New Hope Church Community Senior Pastor Terrence Nichols. "No matter what outside forces may stir up the...

Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis said Tuesday he seeks to represent all his city, and not just a faction -- despite a controversial Bay Area newspaper column quoting him on his beliefs about homosexuality. The New York Times column in its Bay Area section raised concerns over evangelical influence on Vallejo's politics. "They're committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven," Davis was quoted as saying about gays. "But you don't hate the person. You hate the sin they commit." In a prepared statement Tuesday, Davis apologized to anyone whom he had offended and said his words "were...

Taxing text messages? Some Vallejo voters are saying OMG. The North Bay city, with its ever-shrinking revenue stream, is asking voters Tuesday to expand its utility tax to include text messages, private phone networks, pagers and voice-over-Internet services. It's an idea that's spreading around California, as more than 40 cities have similarly expanded their utility taxes at the ballot box as a way to raise money. "We don't use our cell phones a lot, but we think this gives the city a blank check," said retired Mare Island shipyard worker John Kocourek of Vallejo, who's been working against the measure....

VALLEJO - The creation of a USS Iowa memorial and museum in Vallejo has moved a giant step closer to reality with the Navy's declaration that Mare Island is the mothballed battleship's only practical option, it was learned Thursday. "The Navy has deemed our organization the only viable candidate, so the other parties are out of the running," said Merylin Wong of the Vallejo-based, nonprofit Historic Ships Memorial at Pacific Square. "We're very excited. We've survived the competitive bidding process." The historic ship fought in World War II and the Korean War and has been in the Suisun Bay's mothball...

VALLEJO -- After almost a year of legal wrangling, Vallejo's labor unions have dropped their appeal of the city's bankruptcy filing, removing one of the final obstacles to the North Bay city's financial restructuring. The city's fire and electrical workers' unions withdrew their appeal to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco late Thursday. The unions had challenged the city's accounting, saying that money was shifted from the general fund into other accounts to give a false appearance of financial ruin and as a means to scrap its labor contracts. Union officials did not return phone calls...

A lesbian student's complaint that teachers harassed her over her sexual orientation has led to a Vallejo school district agreement to pay her $25,000 and revamp anti-discrimination policies, it was announced Monday. The agreement between the Vallejo City Unified School District and the American Civil Liberties Union was reached without litigation, said ACLU attorney Elizabeth Gill. In agreeing to the settlement, the district is not admitting liability, Gill and district Superintendent Mary Bull said. The student, Rochelle Hamilton, now 16, was a sophomore at Jesse Bethel High School in the fall of 2007, when teachers allegedly verbally harassed her and...

The federal judge overseeing Vallejo's bankruptcy petition has ordered city and employee labor negotiators to meet with a mediator in an effort to break a stubborn stalemate that's lasted nearly a year. The decision comes at the same time as details on a severance package for Vallejo City Manager Joe Tanner — a chief labor negotiator for the city — are finalized, city officials said. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michael McManus' Monday ruling named Oregon bankruptcy court judge Elizabeth L. Perris as a referee to help negotiators for the city and two employee unions discuss whether employee contracts should be...

In a First, Bankruptcy Judge Rules Calif. City Can Void Union Contracts Pamela A. MacLean The National Law Journal March 17, 2009 In the first ruling of its kind, a bankruptcy judge held the city of Vallejo, Calif. has the authority to void its existing union contracts in its effort to reorganize, holding public workers do not enjoy the same protections Congress gave union workers at private companies. Municipal bankruptcy is so rare that no judge had yet ruled on whether Congressional reforms in the 1990s that required companies to provide worker protections before attempting to dissolve union contracts also...

The former managers of the Vallejo Empire Buffet were sentenced Thursday on federal charges for housing and putting illegal aliens to work in their restaurant. Rui Yang Lin, 48, and Bi Xia Ni, 46, were each placed on 36 months' probation and fined $36,000 after pleading guilty in October to hiring 12 illegal workers between March and September last year. The sentencing and fines were on top of an earlier $36,000 penalty each paid before Thursday. Though the listed Empire Buffet owner was Lin's daughter, prosecutors said he and his wife ran most of the day-to-day restaurant operations. The undocumented...

VALLEJO -- Vallejo's city council gave preliminary approval Tuesday night on a wide-ranging package of cuts to bridge a $2.5 million funding gap in the city's budget. The cuts include a 10 percent salary reduction for City Manager Joe Tanner, who earns $361,000 a year, and staffing cuts in the police and fire departments. In addition, all city employees except sworn police and fire fighters will take two unpaid days off before the fiscal year ends June 30. The council, which voted unanimously in favor of the cuts, is scheduled to give final approval at its next meeting Nov. 6....