It’s dizzying sometimes trying to tell the smoke from the smokescreen in the burned-out world of LA politics and politicians.
The wildfire now raging out of control in the Angeles National Forest from La Canada to Acton, from Sunland-Tujunga to Pasadena is a case in point.
Two weeks ago, the mayor of LA was fuming about how Pat McOsker and his firefighters union had the audacity to send out a mailer that used the heroism of emergency crews in the Metrolink train crash to show how help might be a long time coming because fire stations were being left understaffed due to budget cuts.
Now we find a kid may have drowned because the short-staffed local firehouse was busy elsewhere and we see, not surprisingly, that fire crews are invaluable, especially in the heart of fire season.
It took the mayor five days after the Station Fire broke out to lift his furlough order for firefighters. By then, two firefighters were dead and 105,000 acres, 18 homes charred, smoked choked the LA Basin and there was no end in sight.
The public sector isn’t alone in letting us down when it counts.
TV stations, for the first time in memory, didn’t go live day and night with coverage of the fire in no small part because their news budgets have been slashed as revenue and market share have fallen sharply. The lack of non-stop video.coverage was in marked contrast
with the 24/7 coverage of the Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy deaths.
Instead of questioning whether the response in the early hours of the blaze was sufficient, County Supervisor Mike Antonovich got all fired up about how the TV stations had failed to meet their responsibilities.
“There were a large number of evacuations taking place, people and
animals were in danger, and people had no information of where to go,”
Antonovich told Greg Braxton in the Times.. “I’m upset. The media let people down
during a horrendous fire, one of the worst in the county’s history.”
You can feel for Antonovich. The fire is in his district and such events always afford local politicians the opportunity to don their emergency gear and pose before the TV cameras as they hold forth eloquently about their concern for the lives and property of their constituents and the public’s debt to the employees whose services they pay for.
Today, LACERS board members who oversee the LA civilian employees pension fund are hearing about how the sweetened early retirement deal the mayor and City Council cut with the unions is a financial disaster.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s office has lectured the board about its fiduciary responsibilities, warning them against any “direct or indirect” contact with city officials who might try to influence their
decision.
“A retirement board’s duty to its participants and
beneficiaries shall take precedence over any other duty,” an Assistant City Attorney wrote,
putting that sentence in italics for emphasis.
Sally Choi and her LACERS staff have refused to back down on their insistence the cost of letting 2,400 workers retire at full 75 percent pensions as young as age 50 must be repaid within five years. Allowing payback over 15 years as the unions and our elected officials want would be reckless and irresponsible, they said, especially since billions of dollars in benefits are already unfunded and the city’s financial position is so dire it may take many years to recover.
At the same times, the Metropolitan Water District, which just raised its charges by 20 percent — the main reason LA water rates are soaring — has cut a deal to increase pensions by 25 percent despite the half-billion-dollar unfunded liability it already faces. When the Orange County Register questioned the deal, the Met spent freely to bring in a public relations firm to obfuscate the issue.
It’s all so bizarre, a theater of the absurdity of politics today.
Is it just me or do you too sense that our government agencies are spinning out of control in the face of falling revenue, that our officials panicked and paralyzed by the end of the free-spending era when pandering to special interests could keep them in power and privilege indefinitely and the people too disengaged to notice they were being ripped off for their money even as policies were making the quality of their lives and their economic opportunities worse?
The Metropolitan Water District’s decision to raise the pensions of it employess is a shocker. There is a growing awareness that the public entity pension deals of the past are not sustainable over the long haul. Why would the MWD do this at at such a precarious time in the economy and how will they pay for it?
It’s outrageous that the MWD is voting to increase pensions at a time like this, and there’s plenty of incompetence to point to all around,
But blaming the death of that boy on cuts to the LAFD is just specious and pure political gamesmanship by the firefighters union. With this writer from the LA Times doing their PR work. Just like it was sensationalist for the firefighters union to send out those mailers showing dead bodies from the Chatsworth train tragedy. Pat McOsker is doing whatever he can to avoid furloughs or any cuts claiming dire consequences, but it’s the mayor’s jot to try to balance public safety with our budget crisis.
That 3-year-old boy’s drowning in the family’s pool was a horrible tragedy, but first question, why didn’t the parents or caretakers ensure that he wasn’t alone by the pool? Was it unscreened, or was he just not being watched carefully, or both? Then it’s reported that two fire trucks were dispatched at the same time, while the third and closest station was tied up elsewhere. Sounds like a lot of overlap. It’s just low gamesmanship to use this boy’s death to hold the city hostage over its fiduciary duty to negotiate with the firefighters like with any other union. To claim that fiduciary duty shows contempt for the JOB is just underhanded.
What about some outrage over a jury awarding Capt. Frank Lima of LAFD (who’s still negotiating on behalf of their union) and one other firefighter $8 million just two weeks ago for alleged discrimination? Those $8 million could keep a lot of these stations open, and keep their rank and file colleagues from suffering paycuts which could impact their lives. McOsker and his cronies just say “the city” shouldn’t have allowed certain situations to happen and these guys deserve what they were awarded fair and square. When the media falls for his double-speak they are doing us taxpayers a big disservice.
So the 3 year old died because of why? Thats a pretty irresponsible story. Where were the adults? No child should be left alone in a pool. To blame this on lack of firemen is ridiculous.
But glad to see that Ron is on the side on the Unions!
For once Ron, do not support your support of coddled Firemen who already are extremely well compensated for their hazardous work. We do lose some to wildfires, but to put things in perspective, compare them to the armed forces who lose their lives in the thousands and make miserable wages. As for the kid who drowned, hope the parents will be tried in court for their neglect and the County will take away any children still at home. Is this not what they do to poor families not living in BELAIRE.
I wonder how many people who comment on this site are either paid to do so or are themselves in city hall.
You made some good points there, I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.