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Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Support Municipal Union Greed? Then Vote "No" on B
by James Felton, published on October 30, 2010 at 9:37 PM
Storyline: Measure B
“Greed is good,” some say. If the adage is indeed true, then Sacramento’s municipal unions are doing good. It used to be rich capitalists who uttered these words in order to justify their wealth. But now it’s the city unions who, though they are not using that particular phraseology, are attempting to force the greed concept down your throat this Tuesday.
Take, for example, the campaign to defeat Measure B, the Utilities Rate Rollback Initiative. It’s almost entirely financed by city unions who want you to pay higher utilities rates so their union members in the city utilities department can pocket higher raises and more benefits. They are already overpaid now compared to comparable private sector workers and their benefits package is to die for. They have enjoyed pay and 10% benefit increases every year for the past five years while the rest of us got furloughed or saw our incomes drop due to the sluggish economy. A whole lot of us lost our jobs altogether.
The city unions are going to spend a boat load of money to defeat this streamlining measure. The Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447, headed up by shadowy local political kingpin Harry Rotz, has, according to the most recent campaign disclosure reports, kicked in $50,000 to the anti-B effort and has let it be known that there is plenty more to spend. And that’s just one city union. Other unions have, to date, thrown $80,000 against the ratepayers of the city.
The "Yes on B" campaign will be lucky to raise $35,000 from all sources for the post qualifying phase of the campaign. Some "Yes on B" contributors send in envelopes with just one or two dollars in them, saying that’s all they can afford. That’s why the "Yes on B" side expects to be outspent by the unions by a 5 to 1 ratio.
So what is it that the city unions are afraid of? Well, first of all it takes the ATM card away from the city council so they can’t raise utilities rates at will. The city unions have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting these pro-union council members elected and they fully expect the council to continue granting the city unions’ demands for more benefits and higher salaries. See how that works? It’s a cycle with no stop mechanism in place, except for the voters themselves.
Voting "Yes" on Measure B will force the city council to spend the department’s limited dollars on running the utilities department efficiently instead of treating ratepayers like the city unions’ ATM. If Measure B passes, the city union-dependent council members will have to come up with a good reason why voters should approve another jumbo rate increase. More union handouts won’t be one of those reasons, though. Trust me when I tell you: city unions do not want to put their fate in your, the voters, hands.
The other part that scares the unions is that, if Measure B passes, their members might have to work a little bit harder. Greg Hatfield, the vice-chair of the "Yes on B" campaign, has a series of photos taken from his kitchen window that shows six or seven utilities workers working on a pipe in front of his house that leaked. Of all the workers there, only four were doing any work. One of the ‘workers’ sat on the tailgate of his pick-up for four and one-half hours. The pictures were taken at half-hour intervals and this guy never moved for over four hours.
This incident occured not long after the utilities department manager appeared before the city council and swore that the department had squeezed every wasted nickel out of the budget and was now running a tight ship. City unions are afraid that the do-nothing worker, under a better managed system, will be told to go back to the shop and sweep the floors or something just to be useful. Oh, wait; sweeping floors is handled by another city union.
After spending only a few minutes studying the issue, it becomes really obvious that city unions don’t care if you and your family are struggling to survive financially this year, they don’t care if your retirement pension doesn’t go up as fast as your utilities bill does. They don’t care that unemployment is over 13% or that home foreclosures are at levels not seen since the Great Depression and that higher utilities bills add more pain to already difficult circumstances. They don’t care that, for some people, paying a bigger utilities bill means they will have to eat less. They want more money from you and how dare you ask for fairness or accountability.
Private-sector unions know that if they get too greedy, the price of the products they make will get too high and, instead of buying a Ford, you’ll buy a Honda. Ford management keeps a lid on wage and benefit hikes so the company can stay competitive. But where is the competitive balance with municipal unions like the Plumbing and Pipefitters union? Just what do you think the city would do if you told them that, in the future, you want to buy your garbage pick-up services from the City of Stockton? Sure, it’s less expensive there, but the Sacramento city utilities department is a monopoly which charges the highest garbage rates in the region. They won’t let someone from Stockton pick up your garbage. If you refuse to pay them, the city will charge you late fees of 240% (annualized). Who can afford that?
The point here is that your utilities rates are skyrocketing in cost because of city union greed. Not century-old drain pipes, not water meters; just greed, pure and simple. Labor costs represent close to 80% of the department’s budget, according to city managers. So, if you think union greed is good, then put one of those ‘BAD, No on B’ signs in your yard. Tell your neighbors that you love high rates and they’re going higher. Tell them to forget about the department spending money wisely or efficiently, ‘cause it ain’t gonna happen. Be sure to gloat about how much the rates have risen recently.
But if you think the utilities department should be accountable to ratepayers and not municipal unions, then vote "Yes" on Measure B on November 2nd. It’s the only way to get the city council to pay attention. And if you just happen to have an extra dollar or two in your wallet, put it in an envelope and send it in to the "Yes on Measure B" campaign. They really need it. I just hope there are about 50,000 more like you. (Actually, sending cash is a problem, so make it a check. Log onto www.rollbackutilitiesrates.com for the address.)
Let’s tell the plumbers' union and other municipal unions that their kind of greed is not good. Vote "Yes" on Measure B.
James Felton is a forty year Sacramento resident and local small business owner and a volunteer for the “Yes on Measure B” campaign.
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These two Rob Kerth's, an actual city resident of many generations, quotes from the SNR of 09/30 pretty much sum it up..
"Do we want to have first-rate infrastructure, or do we want to give that up?” asked Rob Kerth, who is executive director of the Midtown Business Association, as well as a board member for Sacramento Municipal Utility District. “I mean, just how Third World do we want our infrastructure to be?”
"But Kerth said he thinks voters will reject Measure B when they learn more about its impacts. “What I think we’re really witnessing here is good old-fashioned greed,” he said. “Some people don’t believe in shared burdens.”
The state legislature undid a Water Right's issue for this city made during the planning of Folsom Dam that is now requiring the metering of our water connections. That is going to cost money along with the aging infrastructure issues....
That would equate to a NO on B vote on my part....and maintaining a watchful oversight on DOU.
But...
Where's the estimated $3-400,000,000 going to come from to adhere to the terms of Sacramento being required to upgrade its supply infrastructure and metering installation? The rent that the King's will pay for the new arena ? And again where will it come from? a locked in CPI index? So how much does a special election cost to cover that kind of expense when the locked in rate doesn't match expense of the Capitol Improvement Project. 2025 is still a ways off...but it's still approaching. Are cost getting cheaper as we move forward?
Ya Know, a lot of those connections are going to require abandonment of back yard water line connections ...requiring new....in the street lines to be installed. Did you know that we had wooden water mains in part of the city originally and that some of the current water delivery pipes are up to 110 years old. Some pipes already have holes in them that could rupture as one died in 1995.....but then again probably not if you live in the county....or more to the point, why care it wasn't a county resident's problem.
Former City Auditor Marty Konklin actually took DOU to task....did he find everything No...but I wish he were still here.
Do I think Enterprise Funds need to be kept under a Gov. Auditing Standards (The Yellow Book) scrutiny..Yes......and lets be clear....that's not the type of freebie audit that was offered by the folks from New York or touted by your group of volunteers as being rejected by CC.
So James back to the original question...Do you live in the City of Sacramento or the County?
I do indeed live in Carmichael, but that is as irrelevant as your own residency within city limits or Rob Kirth’s opinions.
Rob Kirth wants to run for city council again and he knows he has to suck up to the unions to do it. I own no property in the city or county and pay no bills in the city. I also am a volunteer for the Yes on B campaign and do not benefit financially in any way if this measure passes. I have only have altruistic reasons for supporting Measure B. Rob Kirth has self-interest in mind in opposing it.
You seem to think that only city residents should participate in the effort to free your city of corrupt influences, when actually, you should welcome all that dare. But to soothe your xenophobic mind, I have lived many years in the city as well. Mid Town, East Sac, even Oak Park. About 10 years in all, including the year 1995.
I do applaud you, though, for recognizing the DOU has problems and needs to be held to strict accounting standards. We have encountered many in this city who believe you exist only to provide funding to the various levels of government and no accounting is required. The sad truth is that only the city council can demand that any accounting standards be followed and, since the members themselves are part of the problem, are totally unwilling to do so. That leaves the voters. That means passing Measure B. You will get zero accountability if it fails (a continuation of the current policy).
As to the city's ability to pay for infrastructure repairs, it is very difficult to tell how much money is being spent on utilities services and how much is being hidden and diverted out of the utilities budget. That is one of the principle reasons Measure B is here. We could never get straight answers from the city. We have found all kinds of budget gimmicks that make it appear that the ratepayers are being cheated out of millions of dollars, but with no transparency in the accounting and a run-around from the city staff, we can only assume these gimmicks are as we see them and you are being cheated. Why give more money to a department that keeps it's books secret? Bring some transparency to the process. Trust is not a gift, it is earned like a paycheck. There is now no trust.
I have always said the Sacramento voters are not stupid. If they see a clear need for a rate increase, they will vote for it. But right now, the city is playing Three-card Monte with the ratepayers as the victims. Let's figure out where we really stand today with the utilities budget, build some trust towards the department and then talk about more money.
Your By-line
"James Felton is a "forty year Sacramento resident" and local small business owner and a volunteer for the “Yes on Measure B” campaign."
Would that business happen to be Art of Hardwood?
The point is you aren't and haven't been a city resident for awhile. Perhaps if you truly want to have a say in our rate structure you could run for CC as soon as Carmichael becomes a council district or move into a CC district and become elected. Then you could actually share the burden of the policies you advocate for.
Here's a response for someone who through omission implies to be someone they are not.....actually an excerpt of an Article by Tim J. McGuire
Feb. 21, 2005 More than Work Column
"We often make ethics a lot harder than it needs to be. We’re awash in ethical consultants, advisors and reams of books and articles which purport to solve every ethical problem under the sun. Case studies, ethical theories and codes of conduct describe, prescribe and proscribe.
In 2003, when I taught a media ethics class at Davidson College in North Carolina I contended one simple sacrosanct philosophy would prevent most media ethical problems: Do Not Deceive.
That means do not lie, do not cheat, do not make things up, do not hide your actions to avoid consequences, do not trick, Do Not Purport to be Something You Are Not, do not falsify information, Do Not Misrepresent, do not keep two sets of books, and Do Not Mislead.
It means do not deceive."
In other words "ethically challenged".....and you will ultimately be unaffected by the outcome of city issues that you can't vote on.
I strongly suggest you edit your by-line to reflect your actual residency in all your articles...previous, current and future.
Now don't you have some pressing issues in your "own back yard" to attend to?
You can write all that about ethics and deception and still support the city's position that they need the money? You can't be serious.
It's the same thing here. Read the Grand Jury report from last January. It says the city is illegally diverting $5 million PER YEAR and has been doing so for five or six years. Some of the money has gone to illegal subsidies to developers, just as in Rohnert Park. Now the City needs to repay the utilities department AT LEAST $25 million. That alone will fund the department’s alleged need for more money for the entire year.
And did the No on B folks forget to tell you about the $22 million grand it received from the federal government? It was announced by the city about a month after they voted to increase the rates. They knew it was coming, but voted for the rate increase anyway. The $22 million grant alone will fund the department’s alleged need for more money for the entire year.
Labor costs for the utilities department this year will run over $150 million. The 9.2% increase in your utilities rates will increase the utilities budget by about $18 million (not $22 million). The city's refusal to cancel last years 5% pay hike and 10% benefits hike cost the department about $10 million more this year. The city did not demand labor concessions because most of the council member's re-election campaigns are financed by the city's unions. The city should have refused the wage and benefit increase last year and maintained a no raise policy this year. That alone would have funded the department’s alleged need for more money for the entire year.
When you add up what the city could have saved with a postponement of the salary increase, the illegal diversions, the federal grant, the high degree of waste and mismanagement, the utilities department is OVERFUNDED this year and can survive for several years without the need for rate increases and without the need to reduce the quality or volume of the services it now provides.
The city is being deceitful in telling you they need more money. The scary stories the tell are simply not true. Any budget increase will fuel the union’s demands for more benefits and higher salaries. That's what Measure B seeks to address.
The campaign disclosure records reveal that two unions, including Local 447, have contributed $99,800 to the No on Measure B campaign. Other unions contributed another $30,000. That represents about 80% of the anti-B funding. Those are the facts.
While it is a fact that no city funds can LEGALLY be used for any political purposes, the city has chosen to ignore that law this year. The city has posted on it’s website an analysis of the impact that passage of Measure B would have on the city’s finances. Believe me, this is not an impartial report. It is a campaign hit piece for the anti-B effort. It tells all kinds of scary stories about how the city will collapse in ruins once Measure B is voted in. Yes, there is a far-out, remote possibility that with very bad city management, one or more of these scary predictions might come true, but it would be along the same probability of the city hall being struck by a meteor. Notice the city has not insured itself against meteor strikes.
To make sure the message of impending doom gets out, the city manager sent one of his assistant managers, Patti Bisharat, out to repeat those scary stories to neighborhood associations and other groups ON CITY TIME. You, the taxpayer, have contributed about $10,000 to the No on B campaign as Ms. Bisharat bounced from group to group these last two months telling scary stories. At least she leaves out the part about the sky falling down. So much for the city not financing campaigns.
Your claim the workers captured on film were employees of a contractor is puzzling. They had city DOU trucks. They were clearly DOU workers. I have know idea how someone could come to the conclusion they were contract employees.
Are we paying attention? Yes we are. The city negotiated a contract with the DOU employees that did not allow for a pay or benefit increase THIS YEAR ONLY and only after Measure B qualified for the ballot. Since the city’s budget is completely independent from the DOU budget, the city being awash in red ink has zero impact on the utilities budget. The DOU is self funded and currently OVERFUNDED. Letting them keep the rate increase this year gives them more money to illegally siphon off to give to rich developers in ways that is hard to detect. By voting Yes on Measure B, you provide a strong incentive for the city council to stop doing that.
By the way, do you realize that there is no money in the drainpipe replacement fund? There used to be, but the city robbed the fund to buy land to develop for an auto mall. Claiming that the rate increase is needed so the pipes can be replaced is nothing short of a lie.
Your comment about e.coli infecting the water lines because the city did not install water meters fast enough is beyond irresponsible, and just stupid. The city has, very recently, upped the installation rate for water meters from 5,000 per year to over 20,000 per year. Besides, detection e.coli has nothing at all to do with whether or not a meter is present.
And I agree with you that the city should be held accountable and under close vigilance, but what continuing audits are you referring to? The only audit that was ever done on the utilities department got shut down by the city attorney before the final report could be issued. The audit was initiated by the department manager (soon to be ex manager) and as soon as the city attorney got wind of it, she gathered up the draft reports and destroyed them. Since then, the city refuses to audit the department. There is now a brand new city auditor, but he also refuses to audit the utilities department, even though the department is well known to be the worst managed department in the city and a logical starting point IF your goal is to clean up the corruption in the city.
Finally, if the city needs more money for the department, all it has to do is put to the voters. The voters of Sacramento are not as stupid as the anti-B forces think. They know the city is lying to them now and it would be foolish for the council to request a rate hike in the future with arguments that insult the intelligence of the voter. If a strong case can be made for a rate hike, it will pass.
The anti-B people are treating you as if you were fools. The gloom-and-doom scenarios are the exact same claims made by the City of Dixon in 2006 and by Rohnert Park in 2008. But the good citizens of those cities could tell the lies from the truth and passed the rollback measures. The horrifying predictions of catastrophic failure did not come true.
Sacresident515, your claims are based on nothing more than untruths. But it’s the only way your side can win.
Vote Yes on Measure B tomorrow.
Huh, what? I am looking at three "no on B" mailers that were mass-mailed from local firefighters and police unions. One mailer in particular attempts to scare voters by listing all of the community libraries senior centers, etc that will be closed if measure B passes. It appears that the city firefighter and polic unions have the same ignorance of prop 218 as does our city council and Dept of Utilities!
Nice try Sacresident515. Hopefully your gravy train will come to stop with today's election.
(1) The photos of workers sitting on their tails were of actual Dept. of Utilities employees, not contractors.
(2) Except for the rollback of the latest 9.2% rate hike and a one-year freeze in rates, Measure B does not place any limits on future rate hikes. It simply shifts the authority to approve major rate hikes from the rate hike-incontinent city council to the voters, the folks who actually pay the bills.
You have to ask yourself: whom do you trust more to make major rate hike decisions in the future: a city council shot full of conflicts of interests or Sacramento voters, who have the proper balance of interests in that they receive the benefit of the services while also paying for them? This is not anti-tax San Diego. Sacramento voters have a good track record of approving justified taxes and rejecting poorly conceived tax proposals (i.e. the arena tax).
(3) Given human nature and the nature of bureaucracies, the dysfunctional Dept. of Utilities is not about to reform itself without some externally imposed budget discipline. We all know the city council is too beholden to city unions and too dysfunctional itself to implement meaningful reforms at DOU. When the last DOU director tried to do the right thing and inform the council of the $21 million plus in illegal diversions of ratepayer funds, he was summarily fired. As reported by the grand jury, senior city manager covered up the diversions. When the grand jury blew the whistle in Jan., the council took no action to either fire or discipline the managers involved in the diversions and cover-up, and refused to appoint a special investigator.
(4) The Taxpayers League has identified five ways the DOU can reduce costs with no reduction in service levels (renegotiate Local 39's and the plumbers union's contracts to reclaim wage hikes and salary spikes that no other city employees received, stop the ongoing illegal diversions of ratepayer funds in violation of Prop 218, slow the pace of water meter installations in light of the quadrupling of meter installations this year, selectively contract out DOU functions that have been allowed to become far most costly than private sector alternatives, fund the short term bad debt problem through a one-time borrowing from the city's overfunded self-insurance fund, implement honest budgeting of actual capital improvement costs which are now running 50% below budget, with the excess funds hidden in phony reserve accounts).
(5) Why do you suppose city unions are funding a $250,000 campaign to try to frighten voters into opposing Measure B? It's certainly not out of concern for our infrastructure. Measure B slams the brakes on a gravy train that has been serving a small number of highly privileged city utility workers very well, while punishing Sacramento's seniors and low and moderate income residents and pummeling our businesses.
(6) By lowering the cost of doing business, Measure B will do more to attract new jobs and stop the further loss of existing jobs than any other action our city can take this year.
Vote "Yes" on Measure B and let's help jump start Sacramento's recovery.
Secondly, the defenders of the status quo simply refuse to admit the quite evident truth that the DOU is terribly mismanaged, unable to control costs, resists all efficiency audits, resists the appointment of an investigator to find out the true extent of illegal fund diversions, is a regular generator of scandals, and is poorly supervised by the city manager and the city council who refuse to fire or even discipline those DOU managers responsible for illegally diverting tens of millions of ratepayer dollars and then covering it up. These are not our allegations - these are Grand Jury findings. These are established facts.
In the past 2 years, every member of the city council has publicly characterized the DOU as dysfunctional. One council member publicly called the current DOU director a liar.
No one has fought harder for audits, investigations and exposure of DOU misconduct that we have. But at every single step a city council majority and DOU management have opposed these efforts.
The desperate scare tactics of the opponents of Measure B - city unions - aren't working. It is ludicrous and disingenuous for critics of Measure B to claim that the rollback of a rate hike that is only 120 days old will cripple city utilities - when the city has resisted every effort and every proposal to reduce costs and increase efficiencies, including the five proposals I listed in an earlier post. The voters will not be fooled by self-serving city unions who just want to keep the gravy train rolling along - at the expense of hard-pressed ratepayers and an improved business climate that will bring new jobs.
It is long past time that we reform city utilities. Vote "Yes" on Measure B.
Given the existing (Prop 218) provisions, procedures & protections of Article XIII D of the CA Constitution and the fact that Article XIII D Sec 6 of the Ca Constitution clearly defines procedures to be employed for fee increases...did or will your initiative...as written, pass constitutional review?
We already know that one of your attorney's listed on Sacramento County Taxpayers Assoc. website got his Boss Mayor Initiative tossed on constitutional grounds.
I am aware that jurisdictional service fees can be repealed via the initiative process, however can you further stipulate that a single jurisdiction be held to a cap and/or your special election process for further fees increases as they relate to the exception of sec 6(c)?
Over Reached?
Unconstitutional?
(c) Voter Approval for New or Increased Fees and Charges.
Except for fees or charges for sewer, water, and refuse collection services,
no property related fee or charge shall be imposed or increased
unless and until that fee or charge is submitted and approved by a
majority vote of the property owners of the property subject to the
fee or charge or, at the option of the agency, by a two-thirds vote
of the electorate residing in the affected area. The election shall
be conducted not less than 45 days after the public hearing. An
agency may adopt procedures similar to those for increases in
assessments in the conduct of elections under this subdivision.
I don't have the answer...only the wording as written in the State Constitution.
Measure B would have tied any change in utilities rates to the Consumer Price Index which measures the average change in prices of goods and services purchased by households. The CPI has almost no relationship to the cost of providing utilities services to Sacramento. Food and housing make up 60% of the CPI and it has no ability to account for costs such as what other entities charge for disposing of our garbage or the cost of state mandated water meters.