Perspective On Public Safety Pensions

 A PROBLEM WITHOUT A VISIBLE SOLUTION
Public Employee Pensions, and the unfunded liability involved, continues to resonate around Costa Mesa.  The past council majority did virtually nothing about it.  They appointed a committee to "oversee" the issue.  They met frequently but offered no viable solution.  That committee will now be blended with the Finance Advisory Committee and the joint group will have a new, as-yet undefined, charter.

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE
In the meantime, public employee pensions continue to be the topic of conversation nationwide.  I present to you this link, HERE, to an entry recently published by the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs that discusses recent events in San Jose and Dallas.

CONSEQUENCES
Tinkering with pensions previously promised has consequences.  We saw that in a smaller scale with the CMPD when it wasn't really the pension issue alone that cause more than 50 officers depart - either through earlier-than-anticipated retirements of off to greener pastures at other jurisdictions - an event that was compounded when Jim Righeimer and Steve Mensinger refused to let then-chief Tom Gazsi recruit to fill those vacancies for most of a year.  That placed us in a hole we are still trying to dig out of.  And our crime rate continues to climb...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
I offer no solution to the pension unfunded liability issue.  I do offer this article for you as perspective - food for thought. 

THANKS...
And, I offer my thanks to the men and women of the public safety organizations that serve our city - the Costa Mesa Police Department and the Costa Mesa Fire Department - for their unwavering service and dedication to the residents of this city.