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Newsom Sinks to New Low:
Gifts Public Treasury Favors to Police, Fire Unions

Written by Luke Thomas. Posted in News, Opinion, Politics

Published on July 13, 2010 with 8 Comments

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has maintained a quid pro quo relationship with fire and police unions. File photo by Luke Thomas.

By Luke Thomas

July 13, 2010

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has sunk to a new low in his bid for higher office, Fog City Journal can reveal.

In anticipation of passage of a pension reform measure, Mayor Newsom agreed to amendments to memorandums of understanding negotiated by the Department of Human Resources with police and fire unions, changes that will reverse previously agreed wage concessions.

Authored by Public Defender Jeff Adachi, “SF Smart Reform” aims to rein in unsustainable healthcare and pension costs projected to exceed $1 billion by 2016. Newsom and labor leaders are opposed to the measure.

“Incredibly, the Mayor’s office has gone back to the police and fire contracts and altered them so that in the event SF Smart Reform passes in November, police and fire ‘concessions’ would be reversed and police and fire employees would receive accelerated pay raises,” Public Defender Jeff Adachi said in a statement.

“This is an effort to negate costs savings generated by the SF Smart Reform charter amendment and circumvent the will of the 75,000 San Franciscans who signed the petition,” Adachi added. “Clause 188(b) of the proposed new Police Union contract reads: ‘In the event that a City Charter amendment or State Ballot measure or State legislation is implemented [before June 30, 2012], resulting in any reduction in represented employee wages or fringe benefits, the [new wage concessions] shall terminate.’ The Firefighter contract has similar language. These Clauses allow the police and fire to terminate their salary concessions in the event that any law passes that would reduce their salaries.”

No other unions have been granted generous concession reversals.

“Why was this provision included to protect police and fire from actions by voters or lawmakers?” Adachi asks. “There is no reason to give police and fire favored standing over other city employees.”

There’s a very simple answer to Adachi’s question: Newsom is pandering to police and fire unions in his bid for Lt. Governor. In essence, Newsom is using the public treasury to advance his political career at the expense of taxpayers, jobs and city services.

Responding, Newsom spokesperson Tony Winnicker said: “Jeff Adachi simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. These are provisions negotiated as part of the police and fire agreements weeks ago and ratified last month. There’s nothing new about them. Remember, police and fire already agreed to increase pension contributions to 9 percent as part of Prop B which voters approved last month.”

The legislative branch of San Francisco government will have an opportunity to weight in and expose Newsom’s latest maneuver during its weekly Board of Supervisor meeting today at 2 pm. The contract amendments can be voted down with 6 votes on the eleven-member board.

Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas is former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, has published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521.

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  • Jerry Jarvis

    As much as I don’t care for Newsoms political policy and republican like agenda, not all blame lies with him. There is a board majority.

  • http://sfgop.org Howard Epstein

    Anyone who thinks Newsom has a “republican like agenda” ( Note: Republican is correctly spelled with capital R) doesn’t know anything about Republican like agendas and policy.

  • Jerry Jarvis

    I watched the BOS meeting and can only say that I have a hard time with how things went. Made me hang my head and only singe. But Campos shined with his questioning of the Mayor’s Rep. (Looking Naked). But it wasn’t enough. Everything was sold out ahead of time.

  • http://www.jamiewhitaker.com jamiewhitaker

    When are we going to start electing leaders who are not beholden to special interests and political machines. The ones we’ve got just keep giving away the store so that our services get cut further and further and young, bright San Francisco workers get laid off … just like happened in Oakland today: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/13/BAV11EDUCC.DTL

    Very disappointing day – they could have rejected the MOUs – saying they approve of them because they’re too tired to wrangle over the budget was a cop out.

  • http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/author/hbrown/ Harold Brown

    ‘Blade runner’ approaches,

    Oakland laid off 80 cops yesterday and said they’ll no longer respond to things like burglary and theft and extortion. You can file your own police report online. Why? Cause the cops refused to pay 9% into their own pension funds.

    The SFFD answers 60% fewer calls than they did 30 years ago. The SFPD is overstaffed and has learned that the trick to keeping your crime rate down is to stop arresting people. More pay for less work in both cases.

    Businesses and the wealthy deal with the sloth of private unions like the POA and 798 by hiring their own neighborhood security and street cleaners.

    But, on the upside, the National League won the All-Star game and Brian Wilson threw a shutout inning.

    Go Gigantes!

    h.

  • seej

    …”Responding, Newsom spokesperson Tony Winnicker said: “Jeff Adachi simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. These are provisions negotiated as part of the police and fire agreements weeks ago and ratified last month. There’s nothing new about them. Remember, police and fire already agreed to increase pension contributions to 9 percent as part of Prop B which voters approved last month…”

    Talk about a whopper. Martin Gran (City HR) admitted in testimony before the Audit & Oversight Committee that the purpose of the language insert was specifically to protect police and fire from getting a “double hit” from Adachi’s amendment. It’s also “Prop D” and police and fire agreed to increase to 9.0% FOR NEW HIRES ONLY which means Prop D is insignificant…

  • Jerry Jarvis

    Oh Howard, let me tell you about the anti- tellie tubie agenda of the republican Party, and Palin family abstinence. It’s only a bush lie, and a republican war that we find our way in an American financial insolvency of corporate greed.
    Yes I will tell America how the Epstein’s of this great gun-toting country operate, just in case they missed it.

  • marc

    Legally, the process relies on the Mayor to negotiate the MOUs and to forward them as part of a balanced budget submission to the Board of Supervisors.

    Rejecting an MOU would result in an unbalanced budget which is a violation of charter. The City Attorney is not going to allow anything to go down that threatens the good thing of their hundred or so $100K club members.

    Newsom’s Republican agenda, to raise the salaries of the managerial class while consigning working folks to bonded peonage is proceeding apace. Wait a sec, that’s the Jeff Adachi’s Democrat Party agenda.

    The Board should at least make the vote close next week so that they can go to the voters against Adachi’s swipe at kids access to health care claiming to at least having gone through the motions of opposing Newsom’s give aways.

    -marc