Grand Jury suggests fixes for San Diego's fiscal problems

UNION-TRIBUNE ^ | June 8, 2010 | Karen Kucher

[george76]

The county Grand Jury issued a report Tuesday reviewing the city’s troubled finances and recommending a slate of measures it says would avoid future fiscal crises.

The report, available on the Grand Jury's web site, reviews the series of city officials’ missteps in 1996, 2000 and 2002 that led to a massive underfunding of the city’s pension plan, and proposes strategies that the current city administration could take.

“The city leadership should acknowledge the financial crisis ...”

Among the recommendations:

Not allow any workers to join the deferred retirement option plan... The DROP plan has been decried as a source of double dipping for retirees.

Aggressively market long-term leases of city-owned properties such as parkland in Mission Bay, Balboa Park, Torrey Pines and the Qualcomm stadium area.

Consider outsourcing the city’s library system.

Convene a panel of bankruptcy experts to discuss the legal and financial ramifications of the city filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

[La Lydia]

I am not familiar with this, but it seems to me that it speaks volumes if a city’s elected government should be totally unable to deal with this situation — not enough money to cover everything it wants to spend money on — to the point of having to leave it up to an unelected grand jury to come up with solutions. Why, then, are these officials elected and paid if not to come up with solutions? Have they simply abrogated their own responsibilities?