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Breaking City News

Toilet-to-tap Mayoral Veto. 11/14/07

102 City Employees received $8 million "excess" pension benefits. 11/13/07

Police must "don & doff" on their own time. 11/0907

"Donning & doffing" Judgment. 11/0907

Mt. Soledad Cross case dismissed 11/08/07

Construction continues on Mount Soledad. 11/08/07

One more negative result of pension giveaways - no brush management. 12/31/07

The story the U-T does not want you to read - Dumanis and Chula Vista. 12/29/07

The DROP program is an illegal gift of public funds. 12/23/07

How pension liabilities continue to threaten the City's financial health.
12/20/07

The pension DROP program is a financial wildfire. It is out of control. 12/19/07

Sunroad gets compensated - it doesn't need to move the substation. 12/18/07

AG Report on City SLAs may prompt tighter Internal Controls. 12/17/07

Mayor forced to do an "about-face" on pension disclosures. 12/14/07

The snake in the garden - "surplus earnings". 12/12/07

Maybe it's time for another epiphany by Sanders. 12/12/07

SEC accuses San Diego's former auditor of fraud.
12/11/07

Snake oil vs. the truth in the "excess benefits" pension issue. 12/10/07

Scott Peters "star chamber" antics were in vain. Dr. Pollack lost. 12/05/07

The privatization of Transient Occupancy Tax. What's next?12/04/07

Why this site is "more than a blog".
12/02/07

Poway should go on red alert. "Findings" Manis is coming. 11/29/07

The citizens of this city still hold the purse strings. 11/28/07

What do the Chargers really want?
11/27/07

Why the San Diego Pension System is like a Ponzi Scheme. 11/24/07

Lest we forget - Our politicians lied to us. 11/21/07

The 2008 Eminent Domain Initiative is "something else". 11/21/07

Push-pull in politics is healthy, just as in business. 11/20/07

Excess Benefits - we need answers, not more questions. 11/19/07

"Yet another rip-off of San Diego taxpayers" - purchase of service credits. 11/15/07

The 102 retirees who got $8,160,027 in "excess" pension benefits. 11/13/07

City Council picks and chooses among City Attorney's legal opinions. 11/10/07

The 30-foot coastal height limit was given away.
11/08/07

A General Plan: of the developers, by the developers, for the developers. 11/08/07

D-Day for Tony Young. Who does he represent? 11/06/07

Four reasons why Tuesday's proposed Density Bonus Law is BAD.
11/04/07

Two political hacks have to go: Ruben Grijalva and Tracy Jarmen. 11/03/07

Mike Aguirre's Report  "sparks" a discussion on the wildfires. 11/02/07

Density Bonus - "In and of itself" is being avoided like the plague. 11/02/07

Shame on you Tony Perry. I used to think you were a good reporter. 10/30/07

Let's not kid ourselves, we just got lucky. 10/30/07

There's your answer Mr. Aguirre.
10/29/07

Who is Ruben Grijalva? A political hack. 10/28/07

There were only 3 ways out. And Mexico. Whew!
10/25/07

Mission accomplished. Evacuate the evacuees. 10/25/07

T-Mobile offers free HotSpot service for hot spot San Diego. 10/24/07

Aguirre needs to be perfected "Just like Ann Coulter". 10/24/07

The cowboys and environmentalists must be friends. 10/23/07

Dumanis email DA or  private individual?
 10/21/07

The $146 million pension rip-off was not legitimate union bargaining. 10/21/07

Sanders is now "running with the unions".
10/20/07

Hell hath no fury like an attorney defamed. 10/19/07

Does a developer always have a right to an "economic benefit"? 10/19/07

Did Nancy Graham's attorney, Sabrina Teller, go too far in covering up? 10/17/07

Nancy Graham's "deny, deceive and delay". 10/16/07

Scott Peters' "Star Chamber". 10/16/07

Is Sanders up to Dick Murphy's old tricks, lying to the markets? 10/15/07

Did Fred Sainz commit a felony in
 "IP-gate"? 10/14/07

John Kern should quit while he is ahead. 10/14/07

Who will go first, the Union-Tribune or Bob Kittle?
10/12/07

How stupid was it for Sanders to lie about Mount Soledad? 10/12/07

Sanders fixes it for Manchester. 10/12/07

Speaking of Charter Sections. 10/11/07

Speaking of deals.
10/08/07

Let's make a deal.
10/06/07

Sanders is in deeper trouble than we thought. 10/05/07

Who is going to pay for the La Jolla landslide? 10/04/07

The La Jolla landslide: community meeting
at 6:00 P.M. 
10/03/07

Here is high quality data on Charter Review progress. 10/03/07

Mayor Sanders: reinstate Rick Reynolds and Lance Wade.
10/02/07

Meanwhile the misuse of public money goes on. 09/30/07

America's Nastiest Blog  - Chris Reed in the U-T.   09/30/07

The unions are still running the Mayor's office - they always have.
09/29/07

Are we witnessing a Mayoral meltdown? 09/27/07

The wastewater issue is far from being "An Inconvenient Waste of Time". 09/27/07

Mayor's end-of-year Budget Report raises political fairness issues. 09/26/07

Law to obey the Law: Aguirre's two Pension Ordinances. 09/25/07

Illegal pension benefits - still "the elephant in the living room".
 09/24/07

Facing up to gay marriage may change how we think of politics. 07/21/07

Is Bob Kittle always on the side of the crooks? 09/18/07

The Pension Board is in gross violation of its fiduciary duty.
 09/17/07

Managed Competition -  the left and the right - Aguirre and Francis? 09/13/07

Maybe Jerry Sanders was right in 2004 - Prop. F was NOT a good idea.
09/10/07

The immense challenge facing the next Mayor and City Council. 09/08/07

Carl DeMaio needs to rethink his "helping Jerry Sanders" slogan. 09/06/07

Sanders' Sunroad II - the Regents Road Bridge. 09/06/07

Atkins is treading water, hoping to stay out of jail after she leaves office.
09/02/07

Mr. Sanders, pull Item 334 off Tuesday's Agenda. It's political madness. 09/02/07

Will the Rose Canyon Bridge be Patti Boekamp's Sunroad? 08/31/07

The real problem: politics.
08/28/07

Do City employees have a Royal Prerogative? 08/27/07

In the interest of balance: Sanders and Aguirre's political contributions. 08/26/07

This shocker right in the middle of the fire season! 08/25/07

Patti Boekamp, just another "campaign contribution list" bride?
08/24/07

Sanders today created a powerful
enemy - Marcella Escobar-Eck.
08/23/07

Sunroad abruptly withdraws second permit application today.
08/21/07

The Mayor's Charter Committee is a power grab, pure and simple. 08/19/07

The San Diego legal establishment is stacked against Mike Aguirre. 08/18/07

Who will replace Jim Waring? 08/15/07

Goldstone may be Sanders' last best chance. 08/15/07

Sanders, Waring and Escobar-Eck risked their careers for this guy.
08/14/07

Sanders still has a lot of explaining to do. Firing Waring is only the beginning. 08/14/07

"Boy, did I get a wrong number" - Jim Waring. 08/13/07

The Mayor is still lying to us about Sunroad. Why?
08/13/07

Council Candidate April Boling got a free ride at the Realtors today.
 08/09/07

Atkins storms out of Audit Committee meeting. 08/08/07

The Mayor's dirty little budget secret - an inevitable pension tax?08/07/07

Who's going to be King? Business or Communities? 08/02/07

Citizens can act as Attorney General to stop the corruption. 08/01/07

Mr. Mayor, your credit card has just been declined. 07/31/07

Is Sanders backing away from Grubb & Ellis?
07/28/07

Aguirre sues live-in boyfriend of top Sanders' staffer Janice Weinrick. 07/25/07

CCDC served its client, Doug Manchester, well today. But it may not be over. 07/25/07

Nancy Graham DID coach Perry Dealy in writing that letter. 07/25/07

Manchester's insider letter to CCDC avoids a Coastal Permit.
07/23/07

Madigan and City College President, Terence Burgess, are neighbors. 07/22/07

Jim Waring was involved with Sunroad as early as April 2006.
07/21/07

Where is our civic pride? 07/21/07

The Sunroad Report is out. But the zoning breach remains unexplained. 07/19/07

This recently acquired SEDC property needs careful watching. 07/18/07

SEDC needs a thorough investigation. 07/16/07

The final blow to Sunroad.
It's over.
07/14/07

Frye, Sunroad, Gaylord and "capricious characters". 07/12/07

Was the Community College District involved in "insider" deals? 07/10/07

Who is the Mayor's real real estate broker? 07/09/07

City College were offered the property for $750,000! 07/07/07

About that Madigan-City College deal .. 07/07/07

Community Plans vs. Stakeholder's Plans.
07/04/07

Manchester sues the California Coastal Commission. 07/03/07

Did a Redevelopment Agency official make a quick $1/2 million secret profit?
07/03/07

One more negative result of pension giveaways - no brush management. 12/31/07

City Pension System

City Finances

Tourist Marketing District

Pacific Coast Building

Sunroad

California State Law

California State Constitution

Find a California Law

California
Brown Act

California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)

San Diego's Shannon "SisterCity"

The "City"

Introduction

Aftermath

"Money that could have been spent since the Cedar Fires in 2003 on brush management to prevent the 2007 wild fires was diverted to fund the City’s illegal pension debt."

Between 60% and 70% of the City's Budget is payroll. The unions are calling due a rash 2005 City promise to raise $500 million before July 2008 by borrowing against or selling City properties. Will Sanders tell the people about that little upcoming fiscal problem in his State of the City address on January 10th? Probably not. Good news only for Jerry.

Sanders is hiding the fact that our city has become one giant employee welfare system.

KPBS did an excellent series of TV Specials on  June 12, 2007,  June 15, 2007,  July 5, 2007 and July 6, 2007 clearly documenting why "we’re setting ourselves up for a massive fire storm", as Gloria Penner so prophetically put it.

In pushing for better brush management in June 2007, Donna Frye told KPBS that we need: "To do everything we can possibly do to prevent tragedy from occurring in anyone's community. We've all seen what happened with the Cedar Fire, we all went through that. We saw the tragedy of people losing their home and efforts to rebuild. Those are lessons. Those are sad memories that no one should forget, ever." She published this Memo in May 2007.

Sanders on the other hand told KPBS that "We think we've got a program that works". His timing was off a little, that's all, is how the U-T appears to see it. On Sunday they allowed him to brush away his no brush management policy with: "If you don't have a fire for 15 years, people probably don't see it as money well spent." In other words Sanders gambled on the 2003 fires not being repeated for at least another 15 years.

The U-T again: "In his ongoing search for budget cuts, Sanders this year suggested eliminating one of the three fire inspectors responsible for identifying brush violations" ..... "in 1986 the City had 11 such fire inspectors" ....."A deputy city manager told the City Council it would cost at least $4.4 million a year to adequately tackle the brush problem". 

Good information, but shouldn't Sanders' inability (or unwillingness) to find that $4.4 million have been the real story? Instead, the U-T reader is left with the impression that homeowners, environmentalists and gnatcatchers are the problem.

As background the U-T explains: "This story is based on more than two dozen interviews with elected officials, city administrators, deputy fire marshals and residents who live near San Diego's canyons and wild lands. The reporting, writing, mapping, editing and production of the story took two months."

It shouldn't have taken them two months to discover that Sanders had other priorities. Sanders' "plan that worked" was to cut the number of fire inspectors and deprive City workers of the money they needed to clear brush on City-owned land.

Sanders' commitment to protecting the pensions of former and current City colleagues means that City services must be sacrificed on the alter of "pension rights".

Towards the end of his long career with the police department, Sanders was one of the main beneficiaries of retroactivity. He received a huge "benefit" in the form of an increased pension "multiplier" for previous years of service. These retroactive benefits cost the City $451 million, nearly 40% of the current pension deficit. Yes, he owes them.

The runaway DROP program (retiree nest eggs with a guaranteed 8% interest compounding quarterly), the $146 million "air time" and the $451 million retroactive benefits are the real reasons why Sanders could not afford a brush management program. Yet, down at the U-T, he can do no wrong, while Aguirre, a so-called "liberal", who is tackling this fiscal problem, can do no right. Very strange behavior for a "conservative" newspaper.

If this is modern "conservatism" then something very strange has happened since the days of Ronald Reagan. The welfare reformers of yesteryear have become the welfare queens of today. While "liberal" Aguirre defends the taxpayer by fighting the over-benefiting of City employees, the "conservative" U-T helps a "conservative" Mayor preserve illegal "benefits" as the spoils of office. Ronald Reagan would turn in his grave.
 

The story the U-T does not want you to read - Dumanis and Chula Vista. 12/29/07

                                                     by Pat Flannery                                        top^

Here is a video of a letter being presented to the Chula Vista City Council on December 18, 2007.

" ... conduct an investigation to determine if there are conflicts of interests, abuses of power and prosecutorial misconduct involving John Moot, Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox and the local District Attorney’s office. For the reasons listed below, we are not confident that the District Attorney’s office or the City’s Board of Ethics can perform a fair and impartial investigation into these matters.

We further request that you investigate a potential conspiracy involving former Chula Vista City Councilmember John Moot, the office of District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, local land developer Jim Pieri and Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox to deprive Chula Vista voters of good government by abusing their positions and power to improperly influence and intimidate elected officials and community groups on behalf of the proposed condominium high rise."

It makes interesting reading, especially the parts about Bonnie Dumanis and Pat O'Toole. The civic group suspects that Dumanis and O'Toole may have filed bogus charges against Chula Vista City Councilmember Steve Castaneda, at the behest of a well-connected Chula Vista developer named Jim Pieri, who apparently wanted "someone more likely to approve his projects" on the City Council. A natural reaction for an ambitious developer.

The group reports that Pieri contributed $15,050 to the Lincoln Club of San Diego County during Cox's campaign who in turn contributed $51,000 to Cox. Yep, that's how it works.

I was also informed that the U-T refused to run the story, despite the fact that the "Chula Vista Better Government Association" did all the work. It compiled these 334 pages of back up material and obviously did its research. This story should be the kind of juicy political yarn any red-blooded newspaper would love to run. And it is all documented.

Pieri is now leasing office space to the DA in Chula Vista at $71,328 per month. That's a pretty nice lease. Here it is. Interesting how Dumanis ended up renting from Pieri.

I have a feeling we have not heard the last of this story. I wonder why the U-T did not want you to read it. Are they protecting Dumanis? Well, here it is anyway, all 334 pages of it.
 

The DROP program is an illegal gift of public funds. 12/23/07

                                                     by Pat Flannery                                        top^

"DROP is intended to be cost neutral."  So says the Municipal Code. As I explained in my December 19, 2007 blog, each individual DROP participant's account is credited with an 8% "actuarially assumed rate of return", and compounded quarterly.

Unfortunately that "actuarially assumed rate of return" of 8% is not being achieved by SDCERS in the real world. Over a 7 year period from 1999 to 2005, years for which I was able to obtain figures, actuarial losses exceeded gains by $334 million or 1.51% less than the assumed  8%.

	Year	$	%
	1999	-18	- 0.71
	2000	110	3.66
	2001	- 264	- 8.84
	2002	- 297	-10.74
	2003	-114	- 3.86
	2004	242	6.60
	2005	8	- 0.18
	Total	- 334	- 1.51

To verify those figures please check my two source documents: SDCERS published "Net Assets" and SDCERS published "Investment Income" for those years. Where SDCERS alters the figures for a previous year in a subsequent year, as it frequently does, I used the subsequent year's figure. I found no note or explanation as to why they made those alterations.

Here are the same numbers in more detail and in table form.
 

Year	Net Assets	Investment Income	Actuarially  Assumed   Income at 8%	Actuarial     Gains/Losses	%
1999	2,476,445,621	$180,463,938	198,115,650	(17,651,712)	-0.71%
2000	2,999,010,145