http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-pension-recommendations-20101220,0,4746364.story

Interestingly they’re also proposing “cost-of-living adjustments for future retirees should be contingent upon investment returns for the pension trust fund meeting or exceeding the actuarial target.”

Even if it’s not defined contribution, it would at least b more accurate and resemble marketplace reality…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/business/23prichard.html?src=me&ref=business

“So the declining, little-known city of Prichard is now attracting the attention of bankruptcy lawyers, labor leaders, municipal credit analysts and local officials from across the country. They want to see if the situation in Prichard, like the continuing bankruptcy of Vallejo, Calif., ultimately creates a legal precedent on whether distressed cities can legally cut or reduce their pensions, and if so, how.”

“Prichard is the future,” said Michael Aguirre, the former San Diego city attorney, who has called for San Diego to declare bankruptcy and restructure its own outsize pension obligations. “We’re all on the same conveyor belt. Prichard is just a little further down the road.”

Aguirre is a very bright, civic minded attorney. Grad of Boalt Hall plus a degree from Harvard School of Government, he’s succeeded in a range of litigation from defending the UFW’s to very complex security litigation.

All of which is to say that when he says that the fight by cities to reduce pension obligations by using bankruptcy and other legal proceedings is only the beginning, he is not whistling in the dark.

At some point before Oakland faces bankruptcy, our unions will have to decide whether to put their trust in the state and contract law to make Oakland elminate basic services to pay for their full pensions and retiree health benefits as promised, or voluntarily renegotiate down.

-len raphael, temescal

look at how many people do things they’re told n reminded to do (mostly, purchase stuff) on tv or in newspapers. well, seems reasonable that more ppl went to vote for a president than Oak politicians. =)

“Okay, in the world of this gets us no where – why are people so fascinated with Oakland employees living in Oakland. Do you think living within the city makes you anymore knowledgeable about the city, its people, and its positives and areas for improvement. It may help a little but actually talking and listening to people helps a little more”

in best of all possible worlds id say require city staff to live IN the city, and listen to people.

locals… are invested in the community. woould put in longer hours.
if they live here, they wont leave in a disaster situation to make sure house in our mythical Danville is ok (and say hi to e-40 next door)
locals mesh better with locals (er, residents)
less co2 emissions from commuting
will see problems from OUR (ken and ralph’s) perspective more often as peers instead of as viceroys

there is pro/con to everything but i think the future is local, and so local control ought be in the hands of locals too.

main drawbacks wb cronyism (hiring family members) and corruption which is related. but i guess we already have some of that…

on other hand, outsiders can be less corrupt due to having less contact (cue mexico’s drug war and fed troops… of course the whole thing’s overblown by LATimes… their real probs are oil-revenue related)

bikes, bike parts
composted soil (foxfarm rocks!)
nonprofits (donations- these never exceed the standard deduction somehow)
books (political/social/env authors)
organic food 60% of the time (whole foods corporation, CA farmers, CSA)
ikea, target corporations/chinese factories (random house stuff)
local mom’n'pops – restaurants, alameda antique fair (random house stuff)
chevron corporation and all their/our pollution (partner’s car: yay climate change)
credit union – eat local bank local. i email my cu ceo every so often and usually get a response (try that with kenneth lewis, b of a!:)
public mass transit – bart
magazine/newsletter – two of those…
clothes – try to get organic shirts/underwear at am-apparel whenever possible
carbon offsets (carbonfund) and ‘climatesmart’ (pg&e corporation, still mostly non-renewable energy)
verizon & at&t corporations – communication, and philippines tech support
asus/taiwan- because apple doesn’t make a small netbook and ii dont want iphone
biggest chunk? a privately held largecap RE company with decent values
city of oakland-biz fees
big commercial banks/ibanks like gould-man sacks, house of jpmorgan-chase-manhattan… (you know, federal income taxes –> bailouts, tarp, ppip, talf, alpphabet soup of larding toxic ‘assets’ onto us taxpayers, now at 155k extra debt per american)

about people not voting… well our education system is designed to NOT educate people. it fails at that too, in that some people actually learn about the real world anyway. i think a subset of ppl who don’t vote are some of these ppl since they know the whole system is rigged n ponzi anyway.

our political system and just about any i wager, is set up to have a politician please his financial and plebian constituents. when there is an intractable problem, the system can’t cope. it seems to happen with regularity and maybe it’s plain amusing (sad?) to watch.

we could all watch KTOP in a seedy saloon on old school teevee, and hang out at the wet bar. sometimes it feels like the end result would be the same as if we actually were vocal to ‘TPTB.’

Heck, I care about me and for the most part just me, but I vote. and if those people who don’t vote get screwed over so be it. They had their chance.

Or maybe you are right and they just vote every four years and think its enough.

If things are going well, people don’t vote as much or care about politics. That’s sort of good, in a way. If people are voting in droves, that is a sign that things are not going well. I know, seems odd.

People mostly only care about themselves and what they’re gonna eat tonight (check out yelp.com if you don’t believe), and we’re always only going to have 10-20% of people thinking more long-term and community-wide.

Otherwise, most people wouldn’t be able to get on with life and actually do sh.t because they’d be reading blogs all the time and worrying about too many big depressing issues at once like v Smoothe…;)

I wouldn’t worry too much. We’ll adapt or die. A billion years from now do you seriously think humans will even exist? Facetious, you say? :p

On the other hand this brings up an interesting observation. People came out of the woodwork to vote for Barack, someone who now sits some 3000 miles away in a big white house far removed from our day to day concerns. Yet, when it comes to voting for council members, the people, who, except for Ed Jew, actually live in their district and can have a direct impact, the woodwork people stay in the woodwork. Hmmmm.

many a time the put down of the burbs comes up in the same discussion about some bad oakland problem, as if that’s the price oakland residents have to pay for the pure pleasure of living here compared to these leave it to beaver stereotypical burbs: eg. Jean K’s (roughly paraphrased): if you don’t live with oakland’s crime, move to orinda. the flip side, is the conversation with residents of the burbs who are convinced they’ll get jacked if they get off the freeway and stop at a traffic light at 51st and Shattuck.

-len

There are many neighborhoods in Oakland where a cop could live that aren’t in the “hills.” Also, I was under the impression that people in the hills were Oakland residents, and the “hills” were part of Oakland.

Cops could live in lower Rockridge, Temescal, Downtown, Lake Merritt, Jack London Square, Laurel, Dimond, Piedmont Ave, Maxwell Park, Idora Park, Haddon Hill, Ivy Hill, Fruitvale etc.

Even if Oakland cops lived in the hills they would still have a vested interest in this city. It’s outrageous that only 6% of Oakland cops live in the city. Oakland is good enough for its residents but not good enough for the cops who are suppose to keep them safe and improve the city? If Oakland isn’t safe enough for a cop and his family, then they’re telling us that they’ve failed miserably at their jobs and are not earning their inflated salaries . What about the rest of us poor schmucks who love Oakland and wouldn’t want to live in Danville or San Ramon? What happens to us? That line of thinking is arrogant and self-serving.

Oakland should file for bankruptcy and make those salaries blue collar salaries. Oakland cops shouldn’t be able to afford to live in Danville and San Ramon.