San Fran Leaders Push 'City Family' Plan

The San Francisco establishment is seriously worried about a new pension reform plan by Public Defender Jeff Adachi, a progressive Democrat and mayoral candidate who has been on the cutting edge of pension reform in the city. He makes the progressive case for reform -- without it, other services are going to be cut. To counteract Adachi's Prop. D, Interim Mayor Ed Lee and other union allies came up with Prop. C, which they call the "City Family" pension reform plan. It's a half-measure that is designed mainly to take votes from Adachi's real measure. Lee even cut a deal with police and fire -- who earn average pay packages in the 150K range -- to exempt them from Prop. D if it passes. And the city controller, who is an ally of Lee, rigged the analysis to minimize the savings in Prop. D.

This is from my San Francisco Examiner column Sunday:

"San Francisco voters should understand that pension reform that exempts the best-paid unions from many of the reforms is just window-dressing. San Francisco, like other cities throughout the country, has a large pension gap that must be closed. Without reasonable reforms, other services must be slashed. It's too bad that the establishment would rather play games than fix a serious problem."

By the way, the "City Family" moniker cracks me up. I love it when officials pretend that the people who work for a city are members of a family, who have deep financial commitments to each other. Of course, in real families when one bails out one's deadbeat uncle, the money comes from personal resources. If you happen to be a member of the San Francisco family, you have a right to a six-figure pension paid for by all those non-family members. SF voters can be a strange bunch, but maybe they are catching on to the scam.