{"id":5121,"date":"2013-03-26T11:35:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T18:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/?p=5121"},"modified":"2013-04-23T10:04:01","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T17:04:01","slug":"pacific-grove-illegal-pension-signatures-turned-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/pacific-grove-illegal-pension-signatures-turned-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Grove Illegal-Pension-Gift Signatures Turned In"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pacific<\/a>

Pacific Grove City Clerk receiving the signed petitions with 1,303 signatures<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

This morning a group of dedicated Pacific Grove citizens turned in more than 1,300 signatures of registered Pacific Grove voters to put on the ballot whether to void an illegal pension increase gift to city employees in 2002.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed that the city government chose to ignore the need for rescinding this generous \u201c3 at 50\u201d pension and refused to consider it in the negotiations. So we have been left with no alternative but to file our petition.\u201d – Frances Grate<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update April 22, 2013: The County Elections Department certified that sufficient valid signatures have been turned in. While only 950 were needed, apparently some 1,995 were gathered and turned in.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After the 2002 illegal approval was discovered in 2009 a group of citizens including former Councilman Dan Davis has given the City Council every opportunity to rescind the illegal gift now costing the city some $45 million in extra pensions. While the Council has even admitted the gift of public money to city employees was illegal, they have refused to rescind it or do anything about it themselves – claiming they are worried they could get sued. <\/p>\n

Commentary: That’s an empty excuse that is hostile to the resident’s and voter’s repeatedly strongly shown desires. The potential gain for the city and taxpayers from overturning the illegal 2002 Pension gifts is tens of millions of dollars possibly as much as 75 or 90 million. On the other hand the potential loss from a lawsuit – win or lose, is a few million dollars.<\/p>\n

Next steps:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. The Pacific Grove City Clerk gives the petitions to the County Elections Dept. who will verify whether sufficient valid signatures were turned in.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Then the City Council has two options:<\/strong><\/p>\n

a. Put the measure on the next public vote ballot, or<\/strong><\/p>\n

b. The City Council can adopt it themselves thus rescinding the 2002 gift. This would save Pacific Grove taxpayers some $43,000 for ballot expenses.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Commentary:
\nOverturning the illegal pensions could reduce up to $45 million dollars in blindly approved City Debt, but losing a lawsuit would at most only cost a small fraction of that.<\/p>\n

Assuming sufficient valid signatures were turned in, this vote will be a key test of who each Council person supports: Residents or city employees. <\/p>\n

Remembering how City voters have recently overwhelmingly approved two city measures to limit pensions, it appears that any Councilperson refusing to adopt this measure directly is voting against public interests.<\/p>\n

Further reading:
\nPacific Grove Council Begins Unwinding Pension Gifts Granted Illegally in 2002<\/a> <\/strong>(That effort evaporated with the newly seated Council led by Bill Kampe)<\/p>\n

How City Bankruptcy Benefits Pacific Grove Residents
\nby John M. Moore for Pacific Grove Taxpayers Association<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning a group of dedicated Pacific Grove citizens turned in more than 1,300 signatures of registered Pacific Grove voters to put on the ballot whether to void an illegal pension increase gift to city employees in 2002. \u201cI\u2019m disappointed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":9,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5121"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5123,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions\/5123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}