Sunroom Desk

Glendale Fire Department staffing levels and salaries have been attacked recently by city council candidates and local activitists trying to channel citizen anger over trillion dollar deficits and new spending programs at the national level, higher taxes and the threat of default at the state level, and high utility rates and growing city staff salaries at the local level.

Fire Chief Harold Scoggins did a good imitation of a controlled burn at yesterday’s city council meeting, when he defended his department’s salary and overtime compensation. His presentation can be seen on the video archive of the meeting -1 hour, 36 minutes into the meeting. Scoggins forcefully defended the department’s structure and compensation levels, and rebutted claims that Glendale crews are overstaffed and overpaid compared to LA County’s Fire Department. He also informed listeners that some overtime payments (which were reimbursed) went to Glendale crews who fought wildfires in other parts of California last year.

Scoggins voiced this defense before the council ratified Glendale firefighters’ voluntary offer to forgo $3 million in pay raises over the next two years, and after speakers Mike Mohill and Herbert Molano again criticized current salary levels. Today’s Glendale News Press reports that city council members “railed against Fire Department critics for what they said were unsubstantiated and malicious attacks.”

The battle over firefighters’ compensation, and activists’ focus on firefighters and other city staff receiving salaries over $100,000, is really a proxy war. The larger, unmanageable conflict is between private citizens and what they believe is bloated, irresponsible government at all levels. But how do citizens fight the state of California’s budget, or lack of effective oversight in the U.S. Congress?

At the state level, the populist answer is not to vote for the state budget propositions. But our representatives are warning us that dire consequences will ensue. State Senator Carol Liu said at her March 28 Town Hall meeting that their passage is crucial to ensuring that California doesn’t end up looking like a Third World nation. When asked about cutting waste from state government (”starving the beast”) instead, Liu didn’t directly address the point of her constituent’s question. She answered that without the new taxes, the DMV might not be open five days a week, and other services currently provided would have to be cut.

At the national level, here in Glendale we can only listen to House Financial Services Committee members (whom we can’t vote out of office) rage against the executives and companies they were supposed to be supervising all along. Just recently, they proposed retrospective legislation limiting “unreasonable and excessive compensation standards”. The Atlantic Business blog reviews the legislation and some of its critics. For those who might enjoy rants on the subject, this blogger wonders if we could apply the legislation to Committee chair Barney Frank, and this one suggests that we start with members of Congress.

Finally, today’s Wall Street Journal feeds the flames with its article about bonuses awarded in 2008 to U.S. Congressional staffers.