Record Metro Columnist Michael Fitzgerald's Blog

The headline “Stockton Council’s secret budgeting begins” over this story  is unsettling, as is the close-quote from City Manager Bob Deis, “The ends will be vetted in public. The means to the end will be confidetial.”

The story is not about secrecy, though. It is about the complications AB 506 causes the city’s budget.

Not only does the 506 mediation process drives aspects of the budget into confidentiality,  it actually makes the budget unachievable. 

“As you know, “Deis wrote the council in a May 11 memo, “there are three basic options for balancing or budget before July 1, 2012. First, we can cut more staffing. Second we can achieve a negotiated financial restructuring via the AB 506 process that is in progress. Third, we can declare bankruptcy via a Chapter 9 filing and adopt a Pendency Plan.

“Since the AB 506 process is confidential per state law, we cannot provide details on this option until it ends. Your Council has also said that you prefer not to file Chapter 9., and to pursue a negotiated settlement instead. Thus the details for two of the budget balancing options are not available at this time (italics mine).”

So, thanks to AB 506, the city can’t budget based on any restructuring data evolving in mediation, or do a bankruptcy budget. The paramount issue is not secrecy, it’s hamstringing city government — its government secrets kept from government itself.  AB 506′s author, Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, should be held accountable for the contortions he’s forced the city into.

It may not be rising economically, but it’s profile is as high as its ever been. I predict it will get higher. Obviously if city officials emerge from 506 negotiations and announce failure, Stockton will leap again into international news as the city closes the distance to bankruptcy.

Another factor thrusting Stockton into the news is its competitive political races. Here’s the Independent Voter Network on the race for state Senate District 5.

“If, as expected, Galgiani and Berryhill are the candidates in the general election, then Obama’s presumed coattails and the slight edge in Democratic registration will help her. But, if it appears that her victory would insure a Democratic supermajority in the Senate, then outside players and money will flood into the district and the race could get national attention.”

We’re going to get tons of ink.

Here’s Mayor Ann Johnston’s letter to the state legislature in opposition to AB 1692, the bill to change what cities like Stockton have to do when nearing bankruptcy.

“If the intent of AB 506 was to reduce the liklihood of municipalities entering bankruptcy, the end results of the proposed changes in AB 1692 likely will have the opposite effect,” she writes.

The author of both bills, Assemblymember Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), was thwarted when AB 506 wet into committee and was amended. He’s trying again to make it hard for cities to seek bankruptcy protection because he’s pro-labor and labor doesn’t want to risk a federal haircut in bankruptcy court. A case of special interests seeking special privileges through the law.

Click here to read the letter.

Stockton churches offer “drive-thru prayer.”

This billboard on Country Club Boulevard is a two-fer: a campaign billboard for Jimmy Rishwain, and a plug for Jimmy’s Place, Rishwain’s nearby bar.

Assembly Bill 1692, a labor-backed bill making it harder for ailing cities to declare bankruptcy, is advancing throught the legislature.

The irony is twofold. As pointed out here, AB 506 hasn’t even been given a chance to work in Stockton. And unions don’t even know for sure that a federal bankruptcy judge legally can break contracts between cities and unions (somebody ought to figure that one out).

But they’re determined to keep bankruptcy out of bankruptcy court. Too impartial.

The law would allow the mediator to stop mediations’ 60-day clock indefinitely if a majority of participants said the city wasn’t coming clean with correct financial figures. It would allow the mediator to launch an investigation. This revision may flow right out of Stockton, where public employee unions have long beleived the city is hiding its true assets.

Cities would not know when mediation would end. They would get neither the cost savings of bankruptcy nor the surety neccesary to pass a balanced budget. And it is in the interests of public employees to sustain their compensation at higher levels as long as possible. And in the interests of attorneys to keep the case going. Both groups would have a motive to drag out the process, at great cost to the city.

Read this story, then tell me if America’s drug policy is working. And remember, the cartels have  beachhead in Stockton.

Stockton’s incumbent council has cut around $90 million from its budget over the past few years. It has squarely faced the time bomb of unsustainable benefits and stood up to labor to exact concessions and make structural reforms. If “structral reforms” is too abstract, then make it this: they axed the fat perks and benefits and policies that were breaking the city piggy bank.

They may not succeed in averting bankruptcy. But they have learned what brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy and they have opposed the gifts of public funds destroying the city.

Not only have they become one of the fiscally savviest councils around, but the entire community has become better schooled. I now get a constant stream of reader inquiries and suggestions about city finances. The public is engaged. That is the precondition for rooting out the special interests, or at least countervailing their influence. That is the precondition for reform at all levels. And it is happening to a large extent because this council rose to the occasion.

It’s said there’s not much building now, with the economy so depressed. But there is bulding. The council, aided by an able and resolute city manager, is building the city’s future. A future in which city government better serves all citizens, not just public employee unions, developers and pyramid-building pharoahs on city staff. The choice between the council and these groups is really no choice at all. 

“The economic pain being suffered by people on the west side results from decades of decisions by absentee landowners to maximize profits over sustainability.”

Bingo. Deirdre Des Jardins, a researcher with California Water Research Associates, and Jane Wagner-Tyack, a policy analyst with Restore the Delta, wrote that line in a SacBee guest editorial. The absentee landowners planted permanent crops because they pay more. They knew they’d have to further impair the Delta to stabilize a water lifeline to which they have no right. But they were greedy enough to do it anyway.

Adn they want more.

Straight arrows miss a lot of fun — drugs, adultery, running porn sites, and other edgy pleasures.

What you also miss: shootouts with prostitutes.