This article first appeared on ronkayela.com.
How did it come to pass that we, the people, wound up working for the
unions instead of the unions, the public employee unions, working for us?
We can’t blame them for the state of our city. We let it happen by doing
nothing while they organized and pursued what was good for them. They
joined forces with other special interests like developers, contractors,
lobbyists and started electing the people they wanted to into office,
people who serve their interests far better than the public interest.
Even when that became obvious years ago, we did nothing about. We didn’t
pay attention. We didn’t vote. We let them write their own contracts,
their own work rules, the laws they wanted.
The creeping control of our local government has reached the point of no
return. Not a single LA elected official has consistently shown the
courage to unequivocally state the obvious: City government costs too
much and delivers too little.
The infrastructure has been allowed to rot or become overburdened by
over-development. The cost of payroll and benefits have soared with
multiple raises every year to most employees on top of an expanding
series of regular and special bonuses. Poverty levels have soared, the
middle class shrunk and economic opportunity now amounts to a subsidized
"living wage."
The budget crisis now threatening the city with massive cuts in basic
services from libraries and parks to police and fire protection even as
spending on social welfare programs expands.
It never had to come to this. We allowed our city offiicals to be taken
hostage by city unions and to sell out the public interest to special
interests.
The housing market collapsed more than two years ago and the economy
began to decline sharply. But City Hall kept on spending as there was a
bottomless pit of money to squeeze out of the public in the form of
higher taxes, rates and fees. A year ago, the nation’s financial system
collapsed and for all their hand-wringing, city officials kept on
spending as if there were no tomorrow.
Today, there is no tomorrow.
The city is rapidly running out of cash and facing a $405 million
deficit — nearly 10 percent of the general fund, 80 percent of which
goes into salary and benefits — and spending $1 million a day more than
it takes in.
Yet, City Hall is paralyzed.
They offered a sweetened early retirement deal 22,000 workers on June 26
in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression with
revenue tumbling, a $4 billion debt to public employee unions. They tied
their own hands by guaranteeing no one would be furloughed or laid off.
They ignored what little financial advice they got, failed to get an
honest analysis of the costs and benefits of the deal.
All that mattered was the welfare of city workers, not the city.
Then, last Friday, even their bureaucratic advisers could no longer
shrink from the truth. The city will run out of cash by May, the deficit
will double next year and triple after that. The word that was used was
"unsustainable" — the early retirement deal and other efforts to reduce
city spending was insufficient.
They will not be able to pay their bills. The future of the city is
stake. And so inaction became paralysis. The unions and their members
cried foul, a deal is a deal. They talked of being part of a City Hall
family and their entitlements to the jobs. They threatened to sue and
personally retaliate against anyone who stood in their way.
One Council member after another swore their allegiance to the unions,
talk of their abhorrence for wage cuts, layoffs and furloughs.
Yet, day and night and finally round-the-clock negotiations on a new
deal have failed so far to produce a plan for LA to get through this
year and have any hope for the future. Deadline after deadline has
passed even as the deficit grows hour after hour.
You can be sure they will come up with a plan of some sort but it will
only be the end of this chapter in the decline and fall of LA.
A new one will start immediately as the plan falls short of solving the
deficit crisis and lawsuits move the drama into court and tensions rise
and troubles mount.
Only those who allowed this to happen can fix it and write a happy
ending to this story. At its heart, they did not fail us. Greed,
selfishness, corruption are natural occurrences when the people abdicate
their civic responsibilities.
Only a new political force, a new political organization. that grows out
of the grassroots and is joined by those with wealth and influence can
create the new civic culture that can turn the fortunes of LA around and
revive hope in our future.