POLICE UNION PREZ: DELONG BLAMING PENSIONS FOR COUNCIL’S DECISIONS
By LBReport.com
Long Beach Police Officers Association president Steve James is challenging an article written by City Council member Gary DeLong about city employee pensions, challenging portions as inaccurate, problematic and in some cases misleading. James tells LBReport.com he believes some at City Hall are trying to blame pensions for reduced police department staffing levels when those cuts are the result of budget decisions by the council.
To hear the extended Q & A with Lt. James, click here.
James indicated that he doubts City Hall will be hiring new police officers with a replenishment Police Academy “anytime soon.”
What about a more economical lateral hire police academy? “I do not think we will be hiring anybody,” said James, adding “that’s up to the Council to decide…regardless of whether or not we come forward with any sort of pension change. It’s not our fault that there’s less [police officers].”
Update: DeLong has listened to the audio comments by Lt. James linked above, says he stands by his original statements, and adds these, click here.
11 Comments
Long Beach Police Officers Association President Steve James is absolutely correct. The current police and fire pension issue is a DIRECT result of past city council decisions. In order for the union contract to be valid, City Council had to approve it.
Councilman DeLong was one of those on council who approved the last union contract signed with the police and fire department without challenging the unsustainable pension benefits. This despite numerous concerned individuals who met and express their pension concerns to him both publicly and privately prior to the union contract approval.
Where was DeLong and his grandstanding when the last union contract was signed? Oh, I forgot. He couldn’t bring up the pension issue because he needed the Fire Department endorsement for his election campaign.
Mr. Ruehle is not correct.
Councilmember DeLong was the sole dissenting voice and the only “no” vote when the Council ratified the POA’s latest contract by an 8/1 vote on September 15, 2009.
During the negotiations for that contract the POA made several significant concessions related *specifically* to pension reform and, perhaps most importantly, agreed to re-open discussions concerning pension reform at *any time* during the agreement with a specific re-opener on March 1st this year. During those same negotiations POA members agreed to forego *millions* of dollars in raises that the city had previously promised them. The people of Long Beach still got the work of course, but the officers who did that work did not get the compensation for it that they had orginally been promised.
During the 9/15/09 Council session Mr. DeLong specifically mentioned his concern that the POA contract did not go far enough to address pension reform and specifically stated that he did *not* believe it was the POA’s fault that this was the case.
*All* of this information is readily available on the City website, including video of the Council session that includes Mr. DeLong’s remarks.
I encourage anyone else who may be interested to follow this link and review the information for him or herself:
http://longbeach.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=488157&GUID=FB2DC56D-3950-433D-8646-596F283892D2&Options=ID|Text|&Search=POA
delong is a fatuous prick(as is the previous poster) regardless of his vote HIS CITY COUNCIL approved the current contract, he is not an independent player in this.
Still kicking at the ankles of the metaphorical grown ups, howardx? What a pity. You may well have much to offer and from which I might learn if you could only find a way to do so in a more constructive and less insulting and confrontational manner.
Greet is absolutely wrong again. Keep in mind he has always been a ball washer and lobbyist for DeLong, especially through all of the shady wetlands deals conducted by DeLong and his developer buddies.
DeLong was entirely silent on the pension issue through the months and months of union contract negotiations prior to approving the 2010 budget. If DeLong was opposed to unsustainable pensions, he failed to say anything until AFTER the FINAL closed session hearing when the Council met and voted to approve the union contract concessions offered by the police and fire in order to balance the budget. Following that meeting, DeLong claimed he had opposed the contract changes from the beginning. This enraged several of his fellow Councilmembers who claimed DeLong had not brought the issue up during previous meetings for discussion. Councilman O’Donnell specifically accused DeLong in the subsequent council meeting of “grandstanding” for a futue election platform.
When the union contract was negotiated the year before that, Councilman DeLong was one of those who voted FOR the 27% pay raise over 5-years and voted AGAINST Councilmember Gabelich’s motion to delay the vote for 30-days to allow city staff to provide a report on how the city would pay for those raises he now claims to have opposed. So why didn’t DeLong expressing his concerns his first four years as a Councilperson? After all, he has been the Chairman of the Budget Oversight Committee for the previous four years as he still is today. Shouldn’t he have asked how the original raise was going to be paid for before voting to approve it?
I think it is more likely DeLong is spinning this as his future political platform. There is probably also a bit of retaliation because the Police Officer Association (POA) opposed him during the recent election.
Lost in shuffle is the fact DeLong chose to ignore this issue until after the contract was signed and there was no way to change it until the next contract negotiations come up.
I witnessed Kathy Ryan and Tom Stout speak numerous times at city council about the unsustainable pension issue before the current union contract was approved. Each time, they quoted the statistics and asked how Council was going to pay for the pensions. EACH TIME, DeLong and the rest of Council ignored Kathy and Tom’s comments and questions. Several times, Mayor Foster was disrespectful or cut them off before their 3 minutes was up because he was opposed to dealing with the issue.
Kathy and Tom also tried to set up personal meetings with each of the Councilmembers to educate them on this issue. Mostly they were ignored. Other times, they were asked how they were going to replace the votes they would lose if the Councilperson supported their request to address the unsustainable pensions.
DeLong had a perfect opportunity to get on board as a Councilperson intent on doing something about the unsustainable pensions. Instead, DeLong chose to ignore their arguments when it mattered prior to approving the union contract. Now that the contract has been signed, DeLong claims to have seen the light on this issue, now that it is virtually impossible to do anything about it until the next round of contract negotiations. DeLong is all talk. Talk is cheap.
Mr. Ruehle’s previous comment that: “Councilman DeLong was one of those on council who approved the last union contract signed with the police and fire department without challenging the unsustainable pension benefits” was, and remains, *incorrect* and nothing he has said since changes that fact.
Mr. Ruehle can hypothesize all day long about what Mr. DeLong’s political motives may or may not be for his public comments and actions concerning this issue and I may even *agree* with him in some of his suspicions. However, Mr. Ruehle *cannot* expect to utter direct and blatant falsehoods such as that quoted above without being called on his having done so.
There is much mis- and dis-information out there about the city’s public employee pension issue and Mr. Ruehle seems to need to be at the forefront of facilitating the spread of it.
Here is another error Mr. Ruehle offered in his most recent comments: “…now that it is virtually impossible to do anything about (the unsustainable pension issue) until the next round of contract negotiations.”
This is also *not correct.* As I previously made clear: In September ’09, the city and the POA both agreed to re-open discussions concerning pension reform at *any time* during the term of the agreement with a specific re-opener on March 1st of this year.
Thus it is more than possible to re-commence productive and constructive discussions on the police officer pension issue at any time between now and the next round of contract negotiations, but most especially this March 1st, when the current contract describes that both parties specifically agreed to do so.
It is ok to be incorrect, Mr. Ruehle. We are all human and we sometimes get our facts wrong. Whenever I get my facts wrong, I willingly acknowledge it, try to learn something, and move on.
Try that approach just once in a great while, sir, and you might find that you and I are not really so far apart on many issues.
“There is much mis- and dis-information out there about the city’s public employee pension issue and Mr. Ruehle seems to need to be at the forefront of facilitating the spread of it.”
John… you do realize perhaps 10-20 people read what Mike posts. This is why the above notion might lead some to believe you are out of your mind.
By the way, simply saying “no it isn’t,” doesn’t really make for a good comeback line. Consider getting to the point, and posting half the words your instinct tells you, and you may have the readership Mike currently enjoys. As it stands, you wind me out by the third paragraph.
Jason, I am not really concerned about the number of Mr. Ruehle’s readership. I am concerned that he sometimes seems to intentionally misinform. When he does this, I plan to call him on it.
Is that concise enough for you?
According to an August 2010 Long Beach Business Journal article, 574 Long Beach City employees make over $100,000 per year with the Port Director making the highest at $300,000. In 2006, there were only 166 city employees making over $100,000 per year.
At least 1,085 city employees made over $90,000 per year in 2010. There are a total of 5,481 city employees.
http://www.lbbj.com/manage/uploads/lbbj_pdfs/Club_2010.pdf
Thanks for the info, Mr. Ruehle. What’s your point?