{"id":335408,"date":"2010-02-18T10:49:43","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T15:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"tag:ronkayela.com,2010:\/\/1.938"},"modified":"2010-02-18T14:26:31","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T19:26:31","slug":"the-unspeakable-b-word-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/335408","title":{"rendered":"The Unspeakable B-Word — Bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written for the February edition of Wayne Adelstein’s North Valley Community Newspapers.<\/b><\/i> Here’s a link to a new Wall Street Journal article <\/a>on municipal bankruptcies across America.
<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Times are tough and there going to get tougher so it’s come down to this: We need to drop the country club membership, sell off the cars, hold a yard sale for everything but  basic essentials, get rid of the gardener, pool man and maid, borrow every cent we can whatever the interest rate – and pray for a miracle. <\/p>\n

A lot of people are in that spot these days and so are we all as the day of reckoning is at hand for Los Angeles and California after decades of living beyond our means <\/p>\n

The unspeakable B-word, bankruptcy, is now on the lips of everyone even the city’s politicians who have been living high in a fantasyland where they actually believed they could redistribute the wealth of the middle class to the rich and poor without consequences. <\/p>\n

The facts are these: Halfway through the fiscal year, the city has a $186 million deficit, and conservatively estimates next year’s at $400 million, $725 million the following year, $875 million the next, and more than $1 billion in 2013-14 – equal to roughly 25 percent of the operating budget. <\/p>\n

We, collectively, are in the same boat as a lot of individuals who mismanaged their financial affairs, ignored all the warning signs and sound advice and hit a streak of bad luck.
The result is there are only two alternatives: Bankruptcy or facing the truth ourselves and developing a plan of action to get us through this crisis. <\/p>\n

Finally, the mayor and City Council say they are ready to do that after a year in which the steps they took – sweetened pensions and payoffs to city workers who retire early and sweetheart long-term contracts for city workers who stay – have made the problems worse, not better. <\/p>\n

And now as the reality of what they have done strikes home, they are proposing this solution: <\/p>\n

Beg the unions to agree to layoffs and reopen contract talks, raises rates and fees wherever they can, find the courage to actually manage city operations and privatize golf courses, the zoo, convention center, parking structures and meters, information technology, property management and Van Nuys and Ontario airports. <\/p>\n

Can selling off the 1,300 acres of Chatsworth Reservoir, the DWP and LAX be far behind? You can be sure they would if they could.
<\/p>\n

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They thought about the Chatsworth Reservoir for years but public
\nopposition is too strong and they can’t afford to get rid of the DWP,
\nLAX or the harbor because they intend to loot them of every dollar they
\ncan to prop up the general fund. <\/p>\n

Already, they have stolen nearly
\nevery dollar in special funds earmarked for other purposes and put the
\nmoney in the general fund and borrowed heavily even as the city’s credit
\n rating was falling. The next step is to fill hundreds of vacant – and
\nunneeded – jobs in the Sanitation Department with other city workers
\nfacing layoffs, making a mockery of their promise to use the tripled
\ntrash fee to pay to hire more police officers. <\/p>\n

Our officials have
\nfailed us and must be held accountable. Every dollar must be accounted
\nfor with complete transparency, and the public must be empowered to be
\npart of the dialogue about how we go forward. <\/p>\n

That’s what a new
\ngroup of Neighborhood Council leaders who have built the website
\nBudgetLA.com intend to do.  <\/p>\n

No more back room deals. No more hidden
\nagendas. No more political pandering.  <\/p>\n

This is a real crisis that
\naffects all our futures, the value of our homes, our businesses and
\njobs, the quality of our lives. <\/p>\n

There’s no room sitting on the
\nsidelines, for apathy, defeatism or indifference. Your city needs you.
\nGet involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written for the February edition of Wayne Adelstein’s North Valley Community Newspapers. Here’s a link to a new Wall Street Journal article on municipal bankruptcies across America. Times are tough and there going to get tougher so it’s come down to this: We need to drop the country club membership, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}