Inland Empire Progressive

Another Blog Post, another bash on Public Safety Unions. Why you may ask, do I hold such animosity toward these folks? Is it because I hate Unions. No, being a Progressive I believe in economic equality and Public Safety does hard work. However, public safety has been quite Conservative and even votes against their own economic interest which is odd to me. I hold such animosity for one reason: Political Power. Political Power It is no secret that the Public Safety Unions hold considerable sway over San Bernardino. We are a poor community with our median income at approximately $36K. Some of the members of the Public Safety Union make roughly 2-3 times that much, with the Union taking a bi-weekly or monthly cut of that. That is a considerable amount of cash at the end of the year. Combine that with the fact that they are the most organized force and we hold off year elections (non-gubernatorial or presidential), their power has just been multiplied exponentially. You can tell t...

Bonds are a complicated feature of public finance, even after reading some books on finance and studying public budgets it can be hard to account for how much a bond release costs. But it would seem to me that if interest payments are equal to the principal then you walk away from the deal. These are not even standard bonds, these are Capital Appreciation Bonds; the same bonds that have been in the news and caused problems at Poway Unified School District where the school district owes $1 Billion Dollars on a $100 Million Dollar bond loan. From the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports of 2011 : In October 2005, the City issued City of San Bernardino Taxable Pension Obligation Bonds, 2005 SeriesA, consisting of $36,050,000 principal amount of Taxable Pension Obligation Bonds, Series A-1 (standard bonds) and $14,351,583 principal amount of Taxable Pension Obligation Bonds, 2005 Series A-2 (capital appreciation bonds). The City issued the bonds in order to prepay its unfund...

I screen-shot this from the San Bernardino City Police Crime Mapper. I chose to do the homicide rate because it is more accurate than other forms of crime. As, you most homicides are clustered around Waterman Ave. and Baseline St. We have to develop a comprehensive plan that involves churches, non-profits, large/small businesses, and government. These resources should be leveraged to let those residents know that we have a presence in that part of the community. This will help reduce crime and increase trust between the residents and the San Bernardino Police Department by helping them develop resources.

I was ambivalent about this at first, but after looking at  this  website, I became convinced that we as residents, occupants, and citizens of San Bernardino need to do something to reform to alter this situation. When a Fire Chief makes almost as much as the President of the United States (salary $400,000) then something needs to be done to alter the way we do business in San Bernardino.  These unelected  folks make more than any elected official currently in office including the mayor and city attorney. These highly paid folks say they got our back, but I ask you this: Are you better off than you were a year ago? 3 years ago? 5 years ago? It seems that no matter how many highly paid public safety officials we have, we still have a bad reputation of high crime, poverty, and low educational mobility. Our elected officials seem to not give a damn about the concerns of the people of San Bernardino, public safety owns them, while our streets lie in ruins an...

San Bernardino needs  a super majority (60%+) police force that actually live in the city. The current police force, like 70% or more live outside the city. The number 70% is arbitrary because I can only estimate how many live outside our city and the City Attorney Jim Penman won’t tell me. It could be more or it could be less. But you can see when a police force is made up of a bunch of outsiders because they only care about the money. The police make up 42% of the budget, which is the biggest portion of the budget. Second is the Fire Department with 24%.  The majority of our tax dollars go to folks who live outside our city. With a budget deficit of $4 Million dollars, we need to ask all of our city employees to sacrifice so that our city can balance its budget. It is harder to do this when many of San Bernardino city employees live outside the city. In addition, our allocations to police are growing (because they have the majority of the city council now) while San Ber...

San Bernardino Budget Lodge As we, the citizens of San Bernardino, attempt to rebuild our reputational status as an All-American City, this news comes as a painful body blow to that effort. During the November 2011 San Bernardino election cycle, the Police Union distributed a flyer to 3rd Ward residents about Sex Offender packing at a motel at the edge of the city. Why the Police Union waited until election season to release details about this is unknown. But this goes to show that council members in their respective wards must keep a vigilant eye about what goes inside them.