UPDATE: 2:40 p.m. Friday – Statement from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, via the Libertarian Lass:
SDCTA Denounces Outrageous Otay Water District Proposal
Retirees and dependents receive free lifetime healthcare; customers get the bill
(San Diego) – At a time when their customers are paying double digit increases for water, the Otay Water District board of directors is considering approval of a deal at its board meeting this afternoon which would provide an extraordinary lifetime healthcare benefit for executives, managers, and supervisors, as well as their dependants.
The deal would give the qualified employees:
- A 7% salary increase between now and July 1, 2012
- Enhances lifetime retiree healthcare and dental benefits
- Newly added healthcare and dental benefits (at 88% coverage) for the retiree’s dependants
Otay Water District managers can retire as early as age 55 with 15 years of service to receive this benefit. Worse, the Board will also be asked to consider adopting this benefit for its represented employees next month.
“It seems we’re getting an early start on the Golden Fleece Awards for next year,” said Lani Lutar, SDCTA President and CEO. “It blows my mind trying to figure out how the District can possibly justify this proposal. This would be an egregious giveaway of ratepayer dollars.
“The District boasts that employees will be paying more toward their pensions as if it’s a huge sacrifice. Employees are finally being asked to pay their fair share of their pension costs, something they should have been doing all along, and it’s going to be offset by salary increases. This can hardly be considered any sort of sacrifice,” said Lutar.
Otay Water District rates have increased by over 40% since January 1, 2009 for the average homeowner.
SDCTA calls on Otay Water District customers to make their opinions known immediately to board members in an effort to stop this giveaway from being approved. Customers can call (619) 670-2222 to express their outrage. “It’s critically important that people send the District’s board members a strong message to stop this gravy train from ever leaving the station,” said Lutar.
CONTACT: Lani Lutar, 619-838-9065 or lani@sdcta.org
Gayle Lynn Falkenthal, APR, 619-997-2495 or gayle@falconvalleygroup.com
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From the San Diego Union Tribune’s Watchdog:
At a time when many public agencies are cutting back on retiree benefits, the Otay Water District is set to give lifetime health care to managers and their spouses.
Health care for life - Click image to download board packet - 11MB PDF, Page 248
The new benefit is proposed while raising rates 7.7 percent for the fiscal year that started this month.
The district says the cost of the lifetime benefits will be offset by increasing employee pension contributions from 1 percent of salary to 8 percent. The water district’s Board of Directors will vote on the plan today.
Read the entire story in the Union-Tribune by clicking here.
What could possibly go wrong?
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(DISCLAIMER: The opinions presented here are mine and not necessarily those of my employer, the North County Times).
Comments 16
Brad, I logged on to post this very item and I am delighted you beat me to it.
The San Diego County Taxpayers Association (DISCLAIMER: a client of my PR firm) has expressed its outrage over this giveaway. Meanwhile, Otay customers have been hit with a 40% rate increase since 2009.
The board will vote on this proposal at its meeting this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. Customers should get on the phone immediately and make their opposition known in the STRONGEST possible terms. The number is 619-670-2222.
A link to the SDCTA statement: http://bit.ly/pkRMiC
The word is that an ad hoc committee made up of two board members came up with the proposal. At least one board member was not told of the committee nor the recommendation until he saw the agenda yesterday. Another new member is David Gonzalez (brother of former Padre Adrian), a Republican touted by some for higher office, maybe Chula Vista City Council. Will he damage his chances by supporting this? We shall see.
Author
Gayle, great minds think alike!
Here are the board emails:
http://www.otaywater.gov/owd/pages/board/directors.aspx
The board voted 4-1 to provide the benefit, despite neither the board members nor the public seeing the actuarial study. The UT has the news…
http://signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jul/15/otay-water-board-gives-managers-lifetime-health-ca/
Part of the Twitter thread today…
From @sandiegorostra: If Gonzalez or others at Otay vote yes, it should mean GOP non-support
From @lanilutar: Otay board member David Gonzalez essentially says you can’t trust employees to save money for retirement
From @sandiegorostra: So govt has to do it?!
From @sandiegorostra: To @tonykrvaric: We hope you are tracking what the “GOP board” just did in Otay Water District
From @TonyKrvaric: Otay -“Hell hath no fury like a party chairman scorned.”
A blogger on this website was recently pushing for David Gonzalez for Chula Vista City Council and possibly even Assembly.
When I ran for the seat he was appointed to in a shady process last year I was fighting to stop the waste and lower the rates. Now we have hit a 40% increase. During the campaign I forecasted it will be 80% within the next two years. All while the GM makes over $300,000 a year (they unanimously gave him another raise right before the election; including Gonzalez; he also has a $100,000 travel budget), they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a lobbyist (contract just unanimously renewed; including Gonzalez), they ship our money accross the border for a desalination plant in Mexico that will never happen, use millions of dollars to settle employee discrimination and other lawsuits, and they continue to do things like described in this article.
I exposed all of this during the election by walking every precinct I possibly could even though David Gonzalez’s contributions from law firms, lobbyists, and insiders allowed him to raise and spend more then most people were spending for school board races that spanned multiple cities. In the end I still received around 40% of the vote in a 3 way race. I spent under $1 per vote while David Gonzalez spent over $10.
My reward was an ethics complaint filed against me by the Otay Water Board. They violated the Brown Act to file the complaint (reported to the District Attorney by the Board of Ethics Commissioners who has not persued it) and paid to have the water district’s attorney handle and argue the complaint. The GM was also paid by the district to attend the meeting (not the best way to spend ratepayer money?). This complaint was dismissed immediately because it lacked any merit. I was told that Jaime Bonilla used his time at the next Otay Water meeting to berate me again and pledge to continue coming after me. All because I tried to let people know the truth and give them an option to vote for someone who would be on their side for once.
I could go on and on about this subject but my point is that political party doesn’t matter to this board and they will continue the waste, abuse, and corruption until we all stand together and take action. Promoting any person for higher office because he or she can raise money and has a famous family without looking at the record and how that person will represent the people is reckless and dangerous. Touting the fact that David Gonzalez had endorsements from politicians from both political parties when I have proven he lied about his endorsements also shows a lack of due diligence.
Three of the board members are up for reelection next year and I hope we can all work together to do what is right for our communities and the ratepayers.
Chris (or ANYONE knowledgeable):
The issue has been raised as to who the Otay board members are, and their PARTY REGISTRATION. I’m told that at least three members of this board likely are Republicans.
Can someone provide that info here? Jim?
With these “below the radar” boards and cities, I find the Republican elected officials often (not always, but too often) are as bad as the Democrats. The Padre Dam board comes to mind — not to mention El Cajon and La Mesa.
Such embarrassing RINO’s deserve full credit for their giveaways. Incumbents are hard to remove, but we live in interesting times.
Here’s what we know…
Mark Robak is a Republican. He was the lone dissenter on yesterday’s vote.
Jaime Bonilla is likely still a Republican, as he has been endorsed in the past for reelection by the Republican Party, which at times happens when no one on the Central Committee raises an objection, usually out of a lack of knowledge about these local boards. It is clear now that Bonilla donated to others in the South Bay regardless of party, including to Bob Filner. Many say they don’t want to be on his bad side, or at least want to benefit from his donations. The GOP should seriously question any support to him.
David Gonzalez, brother of Adrian, was appointed to a vacancy last year, then won election in November. Some have touted him as a possible Republican contender for higher office, including Chula Vista City Council. Until we can confirm, we have to assume that those eyeing him know he is indeed a Republican. If so, he can count on yesteday’s vote ensuring the GOP will be highly suspect of anything he does.
Gary Croucher is likely a Republican, but this too will be confirmed. He is a firefighter for the San Miguel fire district. He follows the board majority, a go-along-get-along guy.
Jose Lopez. Party registration – unsure. He is married to Sweetwater school district Trustee Bertha Lopez. Like Croucher, he too is a firefighter.
We will confirm the registrations with the Registrar next week.
Some say the board is controlled by Bonilla and Lopez, with Gonzalez their hand picked appointee (subsequently elected), Croucher their follower, and Robak the persona non grata, since he wants to do the right thing and insists on transparency. As a result, Robak has been removed from any committees. Yesterday’s vote exemplified the board make up.
Should also be noted that the ad hoc committee which came up with the give-away was made up of Lopez and Croucher, both public employees.
That was a pretty good break down of the way the board works.
Bonilla- Republican, Robak- Republican, Croucher- Republican, Gonzalez- Republican, Lopez- Democrat.
Not that political party matters to the board, you might remember Larry Breitfelder was removed from every committee when he endorsed the Republican Party endorsed candidate instead of Democrat Jose Lopez a few years ago.
Bonilla and Lopez were on the ad hoc committee that recommended the appointment of Gonzalez. Bonilla did not recuse himself even though he is a family friend. They appointed Gonzalez over a Republican Naval Commander who was a few months away from retirement and would not have been able to run or endorse in the next election.
I would add that Gonzalez stepped in and took over the same role that Larry Breitfelder used to play (other then the minor endorsement issue). They made sure that Breitfelder resigned so the appointment could be made. Breitfelder always fell in line with Bonilla and Lopez and voted for every water rate increase seconding most of the motions.
Also the General Manager Mark Watton (Republican) was an 18 year board member. He resigned because he said he did not like the direction the board was taking the district. That is when Croucher was appointed. Watton was then strangely hired as the GM by the same board. He has owned a few failed recycling centers and only has a high school diploma. Because of his 18 years on the board he was grandfathered into Calpers at his GM payrate. It costs ratepayers over a million dollars just to hire him because of this. He is the highest paid water GM in Southern Caifornia making over $300,000 per year with a $100,000 travel budget (and now healthcare for life for him and his spouse).
Well, at least the gullible voters who voted these clowns into office are the ones who will get, uhhh, soaked.
But in truth, few voters knew or know these low level elected officials — let alone are aware their allegiances and agendas. This is the reason I think that public employee and elected officials’ pay and benefits increases should always be subject to a CITIZEN vote.
In essence, the only defense against the “Bell-Vernon-Otay” type rip-off is the proposition option. Electing “the right people” to office seldom works.
Chris Reed had a nice segment on this on KOGO. You’ll notice how he mentions that this board has a reputation for being corrupt. http://youtu.be/Vxq1bhnWhDI
We would expect a board to be corrupt who continues to elect a president who has been fined multiple times by the FCC for blatantly disregarding regulations and who has been banned for life from baseball in Mexico.
You all are failing to realize that the district has no control over what they are charged for “importing” water, they are held captive to the wholesalers, who are completely unrelated, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and the San Diego County Water Authority (CWA). See the following Grand Jury report: http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/grandjury/reports/2010-2011/WaterRatesFinalReport.pdf.
So are you all proposing that the employees pay all the increase by reductions in pay and benefits? Despite the fact that these are the guys that keep us supplied with clean, running water and operating pipes 24/7? Why should the employees pay the cost rather than the people using the water, us????
Also, the “facts” portrayed here is incorrect, had the writers bothered to check their facts, actually read the proposal, they would have read that, not only are the employees NOT GETTING a 7.7% raise, but they are being asked to forgo their cost of living increases (despite the rising cost of buying ANYTHING especially groceries and gas) for TWO YEARS, increase the amount paid into the pension (i.e. paying for their medical benefit up front) and give up paid federal holidays. Check your facts before you get the easily led, non-fact-checking public in an uproar over falsities. The rate-payers ARE NOT paying for these increases, the employees are.
People please do your research before jumping on the bandwagon: http://www.otaywater.gov/owd/pages/board/agenda.aspx
Smith, we didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. Most here are sophisticated enough to know that every water agency in San Diego is impacted by rates up the line, which we understand must often be passed along to the customers. Increases in benefits have NOTHING to do with the rates charged for water to the local agencies. We know that. Do you?