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Police and fire attack new budget task force

July 11, 2010

City Manager Katie Lichtig

San Luis Obispo Firefighters Association and the San Luis Obispo Police Association are withdrawing their support for a new behind-closed-doors budget task force recently assembled by City Manager Katie Lichtig because of allegations of elitism.

In an email sent out Sunday, Erik Baskin, president of the Firefighters Association, and Matt Blackstone, president of the Police Association, announced their decision to withdraw from the Financial Sustainability Task Force, citing numerous concerns about how the group was set up by Lichtig.

“When the concept of this task force was first proposed to us a few months back, it was presented to be made up, “a cross-section of the community”…These meetings were to be moderated to ensure discussions were frank, respectful, and productive,” Baskin and Blackstone write in their email.

“Initially, we supported the new City Manager in her efforts to bring a diverse segment of the community at large, along with city employees and employee representatives, and were optimistic that this would be a good opportunity for citizens to have a voice in city business. Unfortunately, when the selection process was completed and the task force was unveiled, the task force’s composition was far from the average citizens of San Luis Obispo, and was comprised largely of elite special interests and insiders within the County–the majority of which are Chamber of Commerce board members, business owners, CEO’s, and City department heads, unreflective of the community at large.”

Lichtig recently formed the Task Force to provide feedback in setting budget priorities and providing advice as San Luis Obispo wrestles with a multi-million dollar deficit.

The City Manager had already rebuffed attempts by New Times to have a reporter attend the meetings, arguing that closed sessions would yield better discussion and policy.

Baskin and Blackstone said they attended the first meeting and were immediately concerned by the priority placed on secrecy in the deliberating process.

“Our continued presence there would give this Task Force a sense of legitimacy it was unworthy of and did not sit right ethically with us, whether we agreed with its findings, or not.”

The two public safety officials are especially concerned that half of the Task Force members don’t even live in San Luis Obispo, a decision that is inconsistent with city policy, since, they argue, all other city committees require members to live in San Luis Obispo.


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Although I always enjoy the colorful content on this page, its somewhat disconcerting that the discussion on a very important topic has degenerated to personal vitriol.


The public safety salaries/overtime/pension issue is having a major impact on our quality of life here in SLO. Although Public safety is a major component to the quality of life of any community the salaries and benfits of public safety is completely unsustainable.


If the increases continue, our city will only have enough funds to support public safety and retirees . . . . and that’s it. Roads, parks, libraries, civic programs, all the things that make our community so special will be sacrificed for mainitaining these payrolls and pensions.


As far as the process – I feel all levels of government need to work on their transparency, but why not have the group meet for a couple of times and then release a report and have a press conference answering any questions the media might have. Does anyone really think there will be any frank and candid conversation addressing challenging issues if the press is there reporting on any exchange between participants?


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I can appreciate your sober input.


1) Please stop with the public safety issues. That isn’t what this is about. This is about transparency.


2) Your last paragraph, apart from your first sentence, is alarming. Take a close look at what your saying in that paragraph. Because you see, when it comes to gov, it isn’t always about a decision that they arrive at but ‘how that decision is arrived at’. The “gubmnt” has a record of first deciding what “they want” and then how to propagandize the effort and ‘sell it’ to the public.


Bring in the PRESS. Inquiring minds want to know, have a right to know and hopefully, WE THE PEOPLE, will demand to know.


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JJ, your attitude is SCARY. I believe that you are using the FD as an excuse. Many of us are aware that they have over inflated benefits and salaries. That should have nothing to do with any of these current concerns surrounding the budget process. You are utilizing your own style propaganda IMO to avoid the real issues.


The City Managers tactics should not be tolerated. Let the sunshine in, let in NOW. Bring in the PRESS.

What is she afraid of. Certainly the press isn’t going to cause a disruption. The press simply keeps the public informed. That is our right. We should not stand for anything less. I say we should cook the SLOCC’s goose (Litchig’s) , who cares what the turkey’s have to say.


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JJ, Oh my, now your really reaching. Yes, I told everyone where I got some info from and asked if the info might me confirmed. You think that’s scary?


BTW, it’s “scary” not “scarey”. Use your spell check, or take your own advice and educate yourself.


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The above post was responding to a post by JJ that has been deleted.


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that was some effective trolling I had to prune some of that out , sorry if it garbled anyone s meaning.


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My last comment to waste on JJ.

Sunday morning at 7 am my neighbor’s house caught fire, and no one was home. Fortunately other neighbors noticed the smoke and called it in. A number of fully equipped engines and bodies showed up within 15 minutes to save this house and the adjacent ones.

Anyone with even minimal intelligence knows we have many people on the payroll hanging around to handle any emergencies that may arise. If we cut firefighters, cops, medical personnel and others to just what is needed at the moment we will NOT have the sort of response we absolutely require when the situation occurs. I think many emergency people are often busy with ‘in house’ affairs when not on call. If they have nothing to do for their department and want to fiddle on the net then that is fine with me.

I’m not a union person, emergency worker, government employee or idiot-so have nothing in common with JJ.


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hotdog…I am not a firefighter, in a union, EMS worker or goverment employee either and I could not agree with you more. People like JJ are so ignorant and misinformed, it’s just sad.


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I’m a long time central coast resident, but new subscriber to Cal Coast, though I’ve been reading it for awhile. First, I want to say that you guys do a great job in uncovering the dirt that the leaders of this community try so hard to conceal. Keep up the good work!

I believe that Katie Lichtig is a disgrace to our great city. She is just another purely self-motivated politician occupying a position that she really has no business holding, like Deb Linden. She makes decisions to further her own career and to try to look good to the other decision-makers.

I am actually impressed with Baskin and Blackstone for taking a stand against another move on the city’s part to look good to the small group of people who the so-called leaders feel can positively influence their careers. Maybe Lichtig needs to try harder to seem like she cares about what the actual people of this community think, and stop just kissing up to the people with financial clout.


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“Janis” you wrote: we don’t need Gandhi or Mother Teresa or prayers – we need accountable bureaucrats too put their selfish me first attitudes away.


How can they be encouraged to be accountable and how can we hold them accountable for OUR CITY if half of them come from outside the city limits and when the meetings are held in secret?


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The City Manager needs to hold these firehouse bureaucrats accountable. What is the fire department doing all day on duty time? They aren’t putting out fires and their other emergency duties 24/7. They’ve got a lot of free time. Many in there want to skew all budget conversations to their point of view to remind the City how “important” they are and they need another “raise”. They are on the Internet taking these little surveys – trying to dumb down each issue – why should we care if they don’t want to come to the meetings? They don’t run the City. They need to stay off the Internet on city owned computers unless they are conducting official city business. Where’s the city’s code of ethics and standards of conduct? And if they bring in their own laptops to use on duty time they need to pay for their own air cards and not use city utilities to finance all their off duty interests, e.g. real estate investing, stock market, blogging. Also, was that their Fire Chief who just retired? Another double dipper? Maybe he’ll find another government job so he can be a triple dipper. Small business owners are the backbone of America and what will re-ignite our economy – not bureaucrats.


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JanisJoplin….what is your problem? How do you know what the fire department is doing all day long? Have you ever tried to educate yourself on what it is your fire department does for the city? You obviously have NO IDEA.


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So the unions looked at the composition of the board, decided it was not weighted toward their special interest enough, and withdrew their support.


I think it was quite Christian of Lichtig to offer them a seat at the table in the first place, since they have nothing whatsoever to do with the financial vitality of anyone except their union members.


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To say that public safety has nothing whatsoever to do with the financial vitality of a community is a very foolish statement. If consumers do not feel safe in the downtown area, they will not come. Take the Santa Maria mall which was once a very nice consumer venue until the police lost control to the gangs and the shoppers fled in droves. To properly develop a strategic financial plan, a wise leader would include representatives from all stake holders including service providers and consumers. The secrecy veil for such a meeting is offensive as well. Good call by the public safety guys.


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1) I agree with your point about the “veil of secrecy” being weird.


2) I disagree that the union honchos represent public safety in any way, shape, or form. If public safety and financial vitality are intertwined, then who needs to sit on this board is police/fire *management*, not union people.


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Fair enough. I appreciate and respect your well stated opinion. In an ideal setting, both management and the employees representatives would be at this community table. There is no compelling reason why this committee should not seek to be “ideal.” At this point, it appears to be far from it.


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Not true, never happened. The Santa Maria mall is/was not overrun by gangs. The mall, for one, is right across the street from the police station. Secondly, the reason that shoppers fled the mall in droves is because Santa Maria courted the big box stores who built on the southeast side of town, in particular Walmart. There is no downtown type area or anything to draw people to that location. This is not a huge mystery, it is a well established fact, and I am really quite surprised that anyone would actually attribute it to gangs.


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Well I left because of the gangs inside the mall and would no longer take my family there. The mall is across from the police department but the officers don’t set around the station waiting for a call so they can run across the street. They are busy everywhere in Santa Maria every single day. The mall died well before the big box stores.


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Wow, hurray for our firefighters and LE to take this wise and courageous stand. Though there may be another side to this story the secrecy was enough to discredit the process. And then stacking this ad hoc committed with special insiders reminds us all of Dick Cheney’s secret energy policy meetings in OUR white house, dealing out special favors to the corporations at our expense. Shameful in both cases.


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Wise and courageous? Ha! Ha! Ha! So shameful. No, whining bureaucrats are shameful. Try cooperating – oh, wait a minute – you’re union leaders – it’s your job to play hard ball at the expense of the taxpayers. Oh, that’s right.


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What difference does it make where the Task Force members live? They spend and invest their money in SLO don’t they – are they not SLO business owners? More whining by bureaucrats. Baskin and Blackstone are so busy feeding at the city’s trough when many city folks are unemployed and in foreclosure. I recommend that the new City manager not be held hostage by overpaid and spoiled cry babies. So they picked up their toys and went home. Start having some lay offs over there. They don’t want to help with the budget? Start cutting theirs.


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I’m sure the person who’s name you ripped off would be horrified by your attitude.


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You and your friends there in the firehouse with nothing to do but hang out on the internet and read about distressed properites that you can invest in with your over inflated salaries have a lot of nerve telling me that I would horrify Janis Joplin. You would horrify Janis Joplin. If you don’t like my attitude, who cares?


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hotdog, I agree that using the name of JanisJoplin as a handle is inappropriate. I also think there is a big problem with these secret budget meetings and their cadre’.


This isn’t about whether the FD or PD might be over paid in benefits. I’m pleased that they are bringing light on this problem. These meeting should be open to ‘at least’ the press, the public deserves information. We are the ones paying for these meetings.


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You sound much like one of the bureaucrats that you have been bashing. Where are the representative from Joe citizen that is struggling to keep their house out of foreclosure? Where is the soccer mom’s or the students who also spend in our community? Threatening to cut the pay of the firefighters and call them crybabies is probably just the attitude that pushed them away. Small businesses are important but a holistic approach to improving the financial issues facing the city is the only way to become effective, regardless what you think.


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Because someone has to speak up when some of the citizens of SLO hardest hit have had their computer access turned off because they can’t pay their phone bill, or the cable bill, etc. So, they can’t be on here – they are unemployed and out looking for a job. Their unemployment benefits have ceased in many instances, remember. Holistic – we don’t need Gandhi or Mother Teresa or prayers – we need accountable bureaucrats too put their selfish me first attitudes away. Simple. I sound like a bureaucrat? Wrong – I am sure you are one, though. Boring.


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I was wrong, you sound more like a dictator than a bureaucrat. We’ll tell the poor people what they need and they’l be happy about and they should be out looking for jobs. By the way, I don’t even work for the government so you are wrong on that count as well. Me boring, perhaps. You, jackass, definately.


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Per Saveslocounty, “You, jackass, definitely.”


X2


I agree, I can’t even believe I’m reading some of JJ’s comments. Where is the people’s representation? Certainly not through the likes of JJ.


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