LB residents need to undertand that LB would have a budget deficit even if the State and National economy was robust. It is only a convenient excuse for our leaders failed policies. We were broke last year, and the year before and frankly have been cutting maintenance and services for many years in order to "balance" our general fund. And it is only going to get worse unless voters wake up.

So true. During the peak great times 10 years ago, the council had a significant deficit on its hands which has simply been deferred for future councils to deal with. Proving that no matter who is in office, no councilperson seriously wants to make the tough choices for eliminating the deficit.

There's no reason to believe that trend won't continue.

Good point. Thanks for your work on Measure I.

The council is stymied because they have no idea how much LB money will be witheld by the county and state funds due to revenue shortfalls.

The LA County Assessor's office just released a report which says that Long Beach's property values have decreased 2.9%. County property rolls could drop 6% by 2011 at the same year LA County will face $100 million in added pension costs.

A group of the biggest US banks said they would stop accepting CA IOUs today.

CA plans on issuing more than $3 billion of IOU in July and will run out of cash at the end of this month. CA overestimated its sales tax revenue and in May was $3 billion behind in predicted tax. Auto related sales tax makes up about 20% of sales tax receipts.........

We need to reform pensions.

Currently, the total contribution for a miscellaneous employee making $100K a year is 20% of his/her payroll or $20,000/yr., of which the employee contributes $2,000 and the taxpayers contribute $18,000. For public safety employees making $100K a year, the total contribution is 25% of his/her payroll or $25,000/yr., of which the employee contributes $2,500/yr., and the taxpayers contribute $22,500/yr. Pensions now account for $80Million of the General Fund and will continue to compound yearly. These figures were for 2008; we don't know what they are for 2009 or will be for 2010. We only know they will be much higher.

Pension costs are the reason Long Beach continues to have a Structural Deficit. It took Scharzenegger too long to confront the issue with the California Legislature; we can only hope some common sense will jump start a discussion on pension reform in Long Beach.

Governor Scharzenegger threatens to hold back signing any new legislation until the structural deficit is fixed in California, and that means reform, including pensions. If Mayor Foster is truly honest about his statement in his interview with Art Levine, telling Mr. Levine that the employees know the pensions are not sustainable; what is holding the Mayor back in doing anything meaningful to fix Long Beach's structural deficit by reforming pensions?

http://longbeachtaxpayers.org/tools/blog.dwp?ta...

Why is this here? Doesn't he have his own site (which I visit regularly)?

Yes, Bill Pearl has his own site, but LBreport.com and TheDistrictWeekly.com often link to their most important stories.

Yeah, but this is an "editorial", which to me, is a POV that could be linked to, but not featured on another's site. I never saw Eric Sevareid's commmentaries broadcast on Huntley/Brinkley.

Anyhow, I'm splitting hairs and just revealed my age, so I'll shut up now. You all both do a great job for LB.

But one could listen to and view Sevareid's commentaries on the CBS
evening news-as well as other news casts of CBS.

To the best of my memory the only time he appeared on NBC was
a few occasions on NBC's Meet the Press-after his contract expired
with CBS

I remember Eric Sevareid and Huntly/Brinkley, too!

Those were the epitome of what the Fourth(and Fifth) Estate(s)
should be.Class acts all.

Mr. B. GOODhue what are the Fourth(and Fifthe) Estate(s)????

NOTE TO VALKYRIE:

The Fourth Estate refers to the press.The Fifth estate
is a nomenclature that began to first work its way into
lexicons among those of the Fourth Estate at the onset
the growth of television news broadcast circa late 60's
and 70's.It was an attempt distinguish electronic from
print media.

The "Fourth Estate" is the free press. The "Fifth Estate" generally refers to trade unions and the "poor" and is a term that was most often used by wingnuts like Mr. Goodhue in the past, but now many are calling bloggers "the fifth estate," so the meaning is completely ambiguous. . .

It appears Long Beach’s representative State Board of Equalization Vice Chairwoman Judy Chu is on her way to win the 32nd Congressional District seat. I wonder if the rumors are true that Mayor Foster will soon announce his plans to run for Ms. Chu’s spot on the BOE and leave Long Beach high and dry with a huge budget deficit created under his watch.

blob can't leave until dean et al are completely well taken care of.