A reader wrote us after hearing about the Claremont City Council's decision to award City Manager Jeff Parker a raise of 3% of his annual salary as well as a 4% performance bonus. The two awards together are worth over $15,000. Parker has volunteered to place a 90-day hold on his pay raise, but he says he is taking that performance bonus money now.
The reader recalled a post we had written about the possibility that the city would withhold an already agreed upon contracted raise to Claremont police officers, along with other promised benefits. The reader seemed to know what message the City Council and City Manager were sending to the police department:
DATE: Friday, January 16, 2009 8:37 PMThe reader's memory is correct. Back on January 8th, we posted a note we received with someone who'd been talking to some in the Claremont PD, and that person said, "The city talked to the Claremont Police Officer's Association and told them that their negotiated contract raise (4%), their education pay, and their physical fitness reimbursement would not be honored this year due to their money problems."
SUBJECT: f**k the police
TO: Claremont Buzz
I can't find it, but I seem to remember a recent Claremont Insider post that said the city was warning the cops not to expect raises that they'd already negotiated (and to expect to lose some old cash benefits, like a fitness allowance). If I'm remembering correctly, that post be connected to the newer post about the city manager getting a raise and bonus. No cash for cops, plenty of extra money for management. I bet the cops have noticed, at least. My apologies if my memory of the earlier post is wrong.
On top of that, the city may have to look to staff layoffs and other cuts in services if the state's financial situation is not resolved quickly.
Perhaps you might now agree that it is an criminal extravagance to spend $1.2 million on a downtown trolley that at the most carries one or two people as it circumnavigates a few short blocks in the Claremont Village on its lonely sojourn.
Or to continue on with the $2.4 million the City has committed to building Padua Ave. Park (minus the $850,000 in state grant money that has been pulled because California is unable to sell its bonds at a reasonable rate).
Tony Krickl in the Claremont Courier reports today on the Padua Ave. Park news. According to Krickl's article, the park construction will begin in two weeks, without any state money, which means that the park will not have the landscaping the state grant was supposed to pay for.
These are the decisions we make when money gets tight, as it will be for at least the next year or two: spend on staff and on the benefits we have promised them in order to maintain the level of service we have committed to, or take that money and put it into projects.
The City and the Claremont 400 have made a clear decision. They will jettison staff rather than pulling the plug on the trolley and putting off construction of Padua Park until the economy and the city's own finances improve. For all the Claremonsters' talk about protecting what they're constantly calling a wonderful city staff, their actions show their priorities.
As the Great Recession continues on into 2009, we'll see decisions like these resonate as they tie the City's hands in future spending choices. To once again quote our friend out there in the real, analog community, "That's sick!"
(Refrain, please: "That's Claremont!")
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