Posted on 05/20/2005 5:56:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO (AP) - Mayor Dick Murphy pleaded Friday with trustees of the city's beleaguered pension fund to release documents requested by federal investigators.
Murphy, who is resigning July 15 amid a pension-fund scandal, appeared before trustees at their monthly meeting in the hopes of ending an impasse with the city's outside auditors, the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
"I think the only way to get this problem behind us is to turn over every document," Murphy told reporters outside the meeting room. "If there are problems tell us what they are."
The 13-member board took no immediate action. The board rejected a request last month to produce documents sought by the U.S. Attorney's office in San Diego, which is examining the pension fund.
The San Diego City Employees Retirement System deficit has swelled to $1.37 billion, largely a result of decisions in 1996 and 2002 that allowed San Diego to escape payments to the retirement fund and - at the same time - enhance pension benefits.
Trustee Peter Preovolos said he wanted federal investigators to narrow their request "rather than give somebody carte blanche to rifle through everything."
Earlier this week, the San Diego County District Attorney's office charged one current and five former trustees of the pension board with felony conflict-of-interest violations.
John Torres, the lone trustee on the board facing the criminal charges, attended the meeting and asked questions, prompting a rebuke from City Attorney Michael Aguirre.
Other elected officials urged the board to waive attorney-client privilege and hand over the documents.
"We are in a critical phase at this time and any delay puts the city at further risk," said Councilwoman Toni Atkins.
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On the Net:
San Diego City Employees Retirement System, www.sdcers.org
Sounding guiltier and guiltier.
Mayor Dick Murphy, taking a cue from Kofi Annan, pleaded and pleaded and pleaded for the ones holding his records to disclose all that is left after the fire.
Mayor Dick Murphy, taking a cue from Kofi Annan
As someone who lives in San Diego. You are trashing
the good guy and sticking up for the left wing and
unions.
Murphy only looks slightly better by comparison to the utterly corrupt slimeballs that have infested city government. Even so, he's up to his eyeballs in securities fraud and violations of conflict-of-interest laws, and I fully expect him to be indicted soon. It's too bad that a Republican allowed himself to get ensnared in all this, particularly since it's getting tougher and tougher to find Republicans in California government.
Murphy is not a bright guy.
These are people he helped appoint, f'Pete'sake! He even went so far as to ensure that the one trustee who wasn't going along with all the games (Diann Shipione) wasn't reappointed. Murphy may be a Republican, but that cuts no ice with me. He's done this to himself.
If I could vote in the city election, I'd make sure that someone like Jerry Sanders or Steve Francis got in there. Both those guys have demonstrated real leadership, a quality sorely lacking in SD city gov't right now.
Actually, "the trend is our friend", as they say in the stock market. If you leave aside LA, SF, and "The People's Republic of Marin County", etc., the GOP has steadily gained strength throughout CA over the last ten years. The Dems used to hold the majority of counties statewide, but that has steadily eroded. Take a look at the 2004 election map by county: CA has little islands of Blue surrounded a mess o' Red.
Now if you're looking for rock-ribbed conservatives to get elected to statewide office in the next few years, that's a bit more problematic, since we have to find a way to counter the Dem's numerical advantage in those urban locations I mentioned. Give it time, though: CA used to elect people like Reagan and Deukmejian and it could happen again, sooner than you might think.
Hmmm. Maybe I'm just feeling surrounded here in San Diego. Back in the olden days (when the phone book was about an inch thick, and that included the yellow pages) we used to elect almost nothing but Republicans. Now we're infested by the worst sort of Democrat nutballs, and the city is circling the bowl, financially speaking, half of city government is being investigated, under indictment, or on trial (only a slight exaggeration) and people keep reelecting the highbinders responsible.
It's hard to think of Murphy as "the good guy" in all of this. How did he let this go on for so long? I'm curious because I really don't understand how this all happened. Are you saying he had no knowledge of the pension debacle?
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