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“It’s clear the way we’ve been doing business has not served us well,” said City Councilman Tom Bartee at Tuesday’s meeting. “We have to change that.”

I love how these clowns state The Obvious in order to appear fiscally conservative — when they could’ve acted to “change that” far prior to filing bankruptcy. Talk about stating the obvious.

In Erie County NY the public sector unions, the laborers, engineers, and every other union OWN the democrat party and their elected representatives, notice I said their’s not mine.

The unions supply the majority of the campaign cash, they supply the campaign workers, get signatures for petitions, put up signs, flood the audiences at debates with union hacks and they also run commercials.

Each and everyone of the elected vote for the unions and all their nasty, expensive contracts and overly priced jobs. They pass things like the Tribourough amendment and the Taylor law whereby they do not give up anything in order to get a new contract, the Law protects them.

When they get a new contract it is only because WE have given them more and more. They also pass things like the apprenticeship law where WE are required to train their apprentices and are required to have so many on every single job.

The unions in NY control everything by virtue of them controlling the elected representatives and every vote they take.

Vallejo one of few cities to use Chapter 9

By declaring bankruptcy, Vallejo has thrust itself into the national spotlight as a test case for thousands of floundering cities desperate to unload their extravagant public employee contracts.

“There’s a wave of this coming across the U.S.,” said Sajan George, an adviser to struggling public entities who worked on restructuring Orange County after it declared bankruptcy in 1994. “What happens in Vallejo could definitely set a precedent.”

Battered by the plummeting housing market and skyrocketing public employee contracts, Vallejo made dubious history Tuesday night by becoming the largest California city to declare bankruptcy. The North Bay city of 117,000 was on track to start the fiscal year July 1 with a $16 million deficit and no money in reserve.

By declaring Chapter 9 bankruptcy, the city hopes to freeze its debts and gain time to renegotiate its police and fire contracts, which comprise about 74 percent of its $80 million general fund budget. It also hopes a judge will void part or all of the contracts, allowing the city and unions to start from scratch.

“It’s clear the way we’ve been doing business has not served us well,” said City Councilman Tom Bartee at Tuesday’s meeting. “We have to change that.”

Because so few public entities have declared bankruptcy, no one’s sure how labor contracts will be affected. Vallejo’s public safety unions have vowed to fight the proceedings, arguing that the city has plenty of money stashed in hidden accounts and is using bankruptcy to avoid paying police and fire fighters what they’re owed.

The unions commissioned a report by Harvey Rose auditing firm in San Francisco that concluded the city has other ways to balance its budget besides slashing salaries, staffing and benefits, union leaders said. The report has not been made public because it’s part of ongoing labor negotiations.

Meanwhile, the unions would like an independent state audit of Vallejo’s books.

“We don’t believe they’re insolvent,” said Vallejo police Detective Mat Mustard, vice president of the police union. “But by declaring bankruptcy, they’ve taken a financial crisis and turned it into a catastrophe. It’s like using an elephant gun to shoot an ant.”

It’s very possible a judge will void Vallejo’s labor contracts, George said. When airlines began filing bankruptcy several years ago, judges allowed them to renegotiate their union contracts, making bankruptcy an attractive option across the airline industry, he said.

Even so, bankruptcy is an extreme measure for a public entity, he said. Thousands of cities across the United States are in the same boat as Vallejo, but nearly all of them find other ways to avoid Chapter 9. They cut and outsource services, share services with neighboring cities, sell property and raise taxes and fees.

“Chapter 9 is still relatively unknown,” he said. “It’s not common now, but depending what happens in Vallejo it may become more common.”

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