The suit arose after 44th Assembly representative Anthony Portantino’s staff was furloughed, the result of California Assembly leader Perez’s abrupt cut-off of funds to that office. Perez has now announced a “task force” to address the matter. Why is any “task force” needed? What is being scrubbed before it is dragged into the light of day?

Today’s LA Times op-ed, Shaming California, gets to the heart of the matter:

… it has brought necessary public and media attention to the fact that California’s elected representatives receive unequal resources to perform their duties, and that the allocations, controlled by a small group of Capitol party bosses, are often based on a system of whims, grudges and rewards. A member who unquestioningly follows marching orders may end up with a larger staff and therefore be better positioned to represent the needs of his district. Another member who is less reliably deferential may be required to serve her constituents with fewer tools at her disposal. The result is unequal representation for Californians in their state government, based on the obedience quotient of the legislator elected in the community they happen to inhabit.

More questions:

How is it that Portantino’s suggestion that his vote was punished by withholding of funds wasn’t immediately met with absolute transparency and disclosure of how all those funds are allocated?

How can our elected state representatives truly serve their constituents if they can’t vote their conscience because it may effect their administrative budgets?

Every single scrap of paper related to assembly members’ administrative budgets should be released now, and the rules explained, so constituents know their representation isn’t being compromised.

Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Boy Scout Headquarters, 1325 Grandview Ave.
Website, with agenda

GLENDALE PARENTS & TEACHERS SUPPORTING PUBLIC EDUCATION posted this Facebook page flyer on the meeting.

The earlier meeting, hosted by GUSD board members Greg Krikorian and Christine Walters, was very informative for all sides (short summary here).

The Glendale and Burbank school districts will be adopting budgets tomorrow.

For information, call (818) 480-1327 or email gkrikorian@gusd.net.

43rd Assembly District candidates Mike Gatto and Sunder Ramani both emphasized at the homeowners’ meeting that there is no quick fix for decades of poor decisions in Sacramento. Association president Peter Fuad had likened past interactions with Glendale’s Planning Department to “peeling an onion.” Ramani expanded the analogy to California’s legislative and budgeting mess, calling them layers of peeling paint that can’t be covered and are difficult to remove.

Ramani’s business approach to the California budget problem: identify priorities and decide how much the state can actually afford. Gatto’s collegial approach: re-establish bipartisan cooperation to tackle problems such as education funding. Both candidates stressed that their sympathies are with local governments, whose redevelopment coffers are being raided by the state.

LA DWP Interim General Manager and Los Angeles’ First Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner, interviewed Thursday, called the DWP’s governance arrangement “odd” and discussed the challenge of changing LA’s bureaucracy, where “people work very hard but the culture is focused on how to say NO.” Beutner said DWP has been around for 108 years, and won’t dramatically change direction in 108 weeks or 108 days. He also stressed local difficulties with state policies, such as $10 billion in potential costs in Southern California as a result of state environmental legislation: “As a city, we have little ability to fight for ourselves.”

With respect to the DWP, Beutner said that the agency must do a better job of communicating what new infrastructure investments will be and how they will impact rates. The data is all there, but “I’ve never before seen a 500-page budget summary!”

The FREE evening lecture was part of the Library’s full schedule of author programs (to support these programs, join the Friends of the Glendale Public Library!).

Former Glendale mayor and current council member Frank Quintero presented Hayden with a city commendation. Quintero mentioned that he and Hayden have had a long acquaintance as their sons attended school together. City council member Laura Friedman and city clerk Ardashes Kassakhian were also in the audience.

Highlights/quotes from Hayden’s talk:

“Most of my life has been about domestic reform.” – The cost of international crises and wars are causing the U.S. to miss opportunities for domestic reform.

The wars we are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are unfunded, “long wars…This is the most expensive project ever undertaken by the U.S.military with the possible exception of World War II…It is unsustainable.”

Skewed media attention, smaller casualty numbers (than Vietnam or WWII), the fact that the war isn’t budgeted, and the absence of a draft are all reasons why youth are largely uninvolved in debate and protest over the war(s).

“Lack of leadership from institutions is what gives rise to social movements.” When those movements become mainstream, politicians look to co-opt them in order to get re-elected.

Political battles are “fought out in memory – I don’t have to tell my Armenian friends the importance of memory.” Hayden stressed that some pivotal events of the 60s have been almost erased from historical consciousness. (In response to a question from Ardashes Kassakhian about Wounded Knee, Hayden deplored the fact that the incident isn’t mentioned in most books on the 1960s – For most Americans, “Native American struggles exist as a reservation in our mind.”

“Its all about location – do you see what other people see, or do you see through it?”

Antonovich’s office responds that he has made no proposal, but instead has asked the county CEO to determine whether privatization would result in cost savings for the county while preserving access to care.

The Supervisor requested the analysis over two months ago, and his office is still waiting for information that would guide discussion. “At this point, it is merely a question and a study,” said staff member Tony Bell.

Meanwhile, opponents have produced this video, now on the SIEU local website of clients, doctors, Glendale Mayor Frank Quintero, and LA Council member Paul Krekorian speaking against the idea. They have also organized a community forum scheduled for

Saturday, February 20, 2010
10:00am to 11:30am
United Community Church
401 E. Colorado Street
Glendale

The district is asking for community input at three upcoming meetings:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Glendale High School auditorium

Monday, March 1, 2010 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Crescenta Valley High School auditorium

Thursday, March 4, 2010 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Hoover High School auditorium

Help Glendale preserve quality instruction and opportunities for students – pass along this GUSD announcement to those you know in the community, attend one of the meetings, and bring ideas.

The Glendale News-Press weekend editorial, A Tale of Two Districts, contrasts recent Glendale Community College staff concessions with the Glendale Teachers Association’s refusal to accept reduced benefits. I heard the GTA president speak last week, and was struck by the union’s lack of awareness. Almost everyone else these days is making do with fewer health benefits and paying more for health insurance.

Class War: How public servants became our masters shows (with most examples in California) that benefits and pensions allocated to public employee unions are more generous than private-sector packages, often politically motivated, and clearly unsustainable.

Public Employee Unions Are Sinking California, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reports the following data to back its claim -

Approximately 85% of the state’s 235,000 employees (not including higher education employees) are unionized. As the governor noted during his $83 billion budget roll-out, over the past decade pension costs for public employees increased 2,000%. State revenues increased only 24% over the same period. A Schwarzenegger adviser wrote in the San Jose Mercury News in the past few days that, “This year alone, $3 billion was diverted to pension costs from other programs.” There are now more than 15,000 government retirees statewide who receive pensions that exceed $100,000 a year, according to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

Meanwhile, the LA Times reported this past week that CalSTRS is facing a $43 billion shortfall; the Orange County Register Watchdog blog continues its series on retired educators receiving more than $100,000/year in CalSTRS payments; California Pension Reform maintains a list of “top ten” CalSTRS recipients (number one gets $285,460.92 yearly); and CalPERS held a one-day forum on “ensuring future retirement security”, attended by public pension managers, union representatives, and government officials (one pension reform advocate was invited).

So many articles have been published just in the past week on this subject that they won’t all fit under the Sunroom Desk Paperweight. Pension Tsumani’s sidebar, with an extensive daily archive, is a good source for more reading on the subject.

The Glendale School Board member and Cal State LA professor has signed on to the race against Democrats Andrew Westall and Mike Gatto and Republican Sundar Ramani.

Glendale has managed its education budget conservatively, avoiding layoffs to date, although further budget cuts are straining negotiations with teachers over benefits and exposing pitfalls of other mandates. “Weighing whether to cut counselors or increase class sizes; these are the kinds of difficult decision I’ve had to make locally and balance the budget. We need someone at the state level who has the experience of balancing budgets. I’ve done that in Glendale,” Nahabedian said.

Nayiri Nahabedian at Thursday's press conference

How will she approach reforming California’s education system, a goal that has eluded our state legislators? “We need to shift the debate to focus on the business of the people of California, on jobs and families,” Nahabedian answered. Difficult to do, in a state where special interests and advocacy groups quickly mobilize to fight proposed cuts in any area, and where the education bureaucracy’s work is increasingly distant from local concerns.

What about the state’s almost total control over local budgets and program implementation? As we discussed the CLAD requirement, recently a hot topic in Glendale, Nahabedian said the lesson is that state policies must be designed with input from those who are primarily affected by them.

She added, “I believe we need to send to Sacramento a representative who knows how local governments work — someone who knows exactly the repercussions of Sacramento’s policies right here at home. The way Sacramento is running now isn’t working. We can do better!”

Governor’s plans spark excitement, says the Glendale News Press today, starting with a quote from State Senator Carol Liu (“the devil’s in the details”), who supported Schwarzenegger’s and the legislature’s 2008 budget propositions soundly defeated by voters.

Reducing the amount the state spends on prisons and increasing the amount on higher education is an idea no one can disagree with in theory. But the focus on these two areas reminded me of Liu’s town meeting early last year to push the state budget propositions. She fretted simultaneously over the fact that dental programs for state prisoners might have to be cut, and that she’d gone up to Sacramento with the goal of improving education.

I wondered if she considered prisoners her constituents. It appears that legislators simply cannot fight the entitlement mindsets that mobilize against cuts for any group – prisoners, home health care workers, public employee pension recipients, etc. In theory, law-abiding taxpayers and future citizens (students) should have absolute priority in government spending decisions. In practice, our laws appear hopelessly confused.

Consider the governor’s gasoline tax switch proposal – lambasted today on Streetsblog LA – an end run around transit agencies’ valiant attempts to keep the state from confiscating their funding. What, beyond absolute desperation, could be the logic in raiding transit funds when more people are using public transit, and transportation infrastructure projects could create jobs?

More soon on state education reform, as the next post covers Nayiri Nahabedian’s entry in the 43rd District Assembly Race.