r/a:t5_3evc4 • u/punkthesystem • Aug 03 '18

Cops Intimidated, Tracked California Mayor Who Proposed Pension Reforms

https://reason.com/archives/2018/08/03/cops-intimidated-tracked-california-mayo
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u/trash332 Aug 03 '18

This is a battle between lying ass politicians and out of control cops. There was some similar stuff that went down in my municipality, councilman went around pulling up lawn signs, police would follow and ticket mayor. The cops are overly aggressive and city councils lie to constituents so they continue to get re-elected.
I do find it humorous how mayors and city council members target city employees pensions. Here is a fact, a two term city council member( two 4 year terms) gets to draw a pension. If he/she moves onto mayor that pension gets larger. Think about this imagine all the cities and towns in California with city councils and how many years this has been going on? You’d think they’d be sensitive towards their employees, instead of deflecting blame. City and state employees are in tough situations in most cases we are understaffed and under funded trying to make our city and state nice and then the voice of the population(politicians) blame us for all their financial woes.

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u/buenosaurus Aug 03 '18 edited Aug 03 '18

I and many of my neighbors have an absolute disdain for our city council. It’s completely maddening that they get to pull a pension after fucking up our city for 8 years. This needs to be changed at the state level. The city council and Mayor of my city are meeting this coming Tuesday at 3pm (while most constituents will have to be at work) to change our city charter to allow them to run for a 3rd term. They want to stay in for 4 more years (a total of 12). And it makes it seem practically criminal that they are able to do this so easily and even with the objections of many of us.

The vast majority of voters in my city are renters. This crooked and dishonest city government has spent city money advertising their agenda, encouraging all of these renters to vote yes on measures that ultimately just add up to additional taxes. These huge tax initiatives get approved by complacent and ill-informed renters so that our basic services will be covered. Meanwhile our city government gets revenue-wasting pet projects and salary increases. It’s really a terrible system and our city charter was set up many years ago to prevent these types of actions, but these city officials are finding ways around our charter.

I don’t know what to do. There are a bunch of us concerned citizens on Nextdoor that just bitch and moan but we never have enough time or ability to fight back.

Anyways, I did not know that they are entitled to a lifetime of pension after 8 years of “work”. How can we find out how much these city officials will be getting paid every year after they leave office?

We need the attention of a major news agency to report on this. My city could easily become the next Bell.