9.8% in times like these. Wow.
Association President Ami Losinger said police are willing to forgo the 9.8 percent raise authorized in their contract with the city — that expires in December 2010 — until January, a move that would save the city approximately $275,000 this year and next year.
In return, she said, the police association asked that its contract be extended through 2012 and that raises be paid in steps starting next year.
A person I admire once told me this fable – Pay someone $100 an hour to do a job, but every week you turn up (or down) the thermostat. After two years the workers would not work for any pay under those conditions. Some people would take jobs in their hometown that offer the same 401ks and pensions they have in the private sector just to not commute. Hey, P.G. may not offer the pay and benefits of Oakland, but at least it aint Oakland.
Dropping out of CalPERS also would make it hard to attract or keep employees, according to a report that will be presented Wednesday to the City Council.
Given current economic conditions, if the city opts out of the state retirement system when employee contracts expire on Jan. 1, 2011, it would have to pay the state $8 million to $25 million or more, said Jim Becklenberg, the city’s director of management and budget.
Those costs, he said, would be in addition to the cost of setting up a replacement defined-contribution retirement plan to supplant the current defined-benefit plan based on years of service and other factors.
After a shooting in East Salinas, at least two men are in custody after leading dozens of law enforcement officials on a high-speed car chase that ended with a fiery crash in a ditch on Thursday.
The (suspect’s) Lincoln ended up crashing down a steep culvert behind a motorcycle dealership where hundreds of Christian rock aficionados were spending a hot summer afternoon.
“Let’s praise the Lord for what he has just done,” the singer chanted to the audience.
A gay Pacific Grove police officer – who claims he was subjected to jokes and ridicule and was turned down for promotions because of his lifestyle – has filed a lawsuit in federal court.
In the April 3 lawsuit filed against the police department, former police chief Scott Miller and current chief Darius Engles, Sgt. Darrin Smolinski claims for about 10 years he was the target of harassment and discrimination, and that little was done by supervisors to stop it.
“Smolinski was told that there is disapproval of his lifestyle within the department” and colleagues “have made remarks relating to Smolinski’s anatomy in relation to his sexual orientation,” according to his suit.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, parallels a claim Smolinski filed with the city in August 2007, in which he said he endured a hostile work environment. The officer was hired by the department in 1997
The police pay increase — amounting to 24 percent over three years — drew criticism from council members Dan Davis and Susan Nilmeier, who voted against final passage of the pay raise late Wednesday.
Nilmeier said predictions of a “modest” recession and the low level of city cash reserves — about $800,000 — made her hesitant to approve a pay raise that was contained in an agreement made last year, before the economic downturn and when the city was banking on the passage of tax measures to increase revenues. The tax increases were rejected by voters in November.
“I don’t know how we can honor these commitments. I can’t vote yes on multi-year increases in a recession,” she said.
Davis, who argued against the raises at the April 16 meeting, said he was dissatisfied with the methodology arrived at by Colangelo and Becklenberg for computing pay raises to make police salaries competitive with surrounding cities, particularly trading health benefits for salary increases that boosted police retirement pay.
I agree with Davis. If the cops want to make more money – go to work in Monterey, Salinas or Oakland where you have to get out of the cruiser and chase a rapist or gang member with a gun. The work is not real tough in P.G.
(picture from morriefisher.com)
On Wednesday, the council voted 6-1 to grant an 8 percent raise to police, retroactive to Jan. 1.
Police were allowed to convert their health benefit payments from the city to salaries, which has the effect of boosting their Public Employee Retirement System benefit when they retire.
That part about taking $$ instead of health benefits is just wrong.
(picture from www.morriefisher.com)
I swear, it I didn’t know that that measure U is supported by the Police Officers Association I’d think that the organizers were all smoking some good ganga.
First they forgot the deadline to add arguments for the measure in the voter guide, then they put up a website with eye wrenching colors and misspellings.
(note, the spelling has since been corrected)
I’ve been wondering why all the police departments on the Peninsula (and the Monterey County Sheriffs) police cruisers have shed their unique color schemes and gone to LAPD style sinister black & white. Now the truth is out..
At the Jan. 16 Pacific Grove City Council meeting, council members approved studying whether the police department and all other city services could be run by the City of Monterey in an effort to make up a $2.9 million shortfall.
Police Chief Darius Engles said Monterey police are paid more than P.G. officers, leaving doubt whether the takeover would save money. And he also thinks the people of Pacific Grove will notice the difference.
“I personally don’t believe that they will be able to provide better service than we provide now,” Engles said.
Smolinski joined the department in 1997, and the claim states his troubles began in December 1999 when parking enforcement officer Rhonda Ramey filed a complaint against then-Police Chief Scott Miller, alleging that Miller failed to discipline a supervisor who had harassed her for being “bisexual” and having an “open marriage.”
Smolinski, in the claim that does not specify the damages he is seeking, says he sat in with Ramey – identified in the complaint only as “employee X” – in a meeting with Miller in January 2000, during which Miller allegedly said Ramey would regret bringing the complaint.
Ramey sent a letter to the Hear-Old but it was not published. She later posted it on an Internet message board. In the letter, she writes:
Watch the clip from KION website, when they report Scott Miller’s response to Darrin’s accusations of harassment and Scott Miller is quoted as saying – “Sounds like a fairy tale to me”
A gay Pacific Grove police officer has filed a claim with the city after enduring what he says has been nearly 10 years of “discrimination, harassment and retaliation” by fellow officers, a former police chief and others.
In a lurid six-page claim filed in August, Sgt. Darrin Smolinski, who began working at the department in 1997, alleges he was repeatedly turned down for several promotions, including the positions of detective and commander.
Although he doesn’t identify them by name, Smolinski also accuses his coworkers of harassing him. “Smolinski has been the subject of verbal comments on the size of his genitals,” the claim outlines, “asked about association with the Rainbow Coalition and sexual orientation relative to his male roommate during public meetings on the police department premises.”