Private Pension Meetings

By Robert Davis, Pt. Loma

E-MAIL STORY

Thursday, April 30, 2009 | How does Mayor Sanders, who repeatedly promised transparency with his administration and City government, justify using a secret fact gathering process?

Why would he, or his top advisors, NOT want to keep a fact finding process open and honest? Especially one that influences pension funding, an issue, handled so poorly by past city administrators. While the group's final report will be made public, how will taxpayers know what information was used to prepare it. Secret backroom deals, information manipulation and omission of pertinent facts are just some of the reasons why San Diego earned the moniker of Enron by the Sea.

8 Comments so far on this story...

Rani Gupta ran an article titled "Disengenuous at best" link Which contains this quote form the mayor's spokeswoman, Rachel Laing, saying the committee has "no decision-making power and is not giving a recommendation to anyone with decision-making power on the issue" This just begs the question , why in the @##$% are we spending time and money on this committee?And to follow, what is the purpose of an ethics committee?

Posted by Gene | reply to this comment
April 30, 2009 1:07 pm

It's a committee to bury ethics violations. Kind of like the SEC was there to bury complaints against brokerages.In the immortal words of the who," Meet the new boss, he's the same as the old boss."

Posted by SteveM | reply to this comment
May 6, 2009 2:59 pm

Same Approach Needs Disinformation, Excesses Require Secrecy. S-A-N-D-E-R-S.

Posted by N. Dynamite | reply to this comment
April 30, 2009 3:55 pm

Use to be that when the powerful few were revealed to have brokered deals and manipulated the rules to benefit themselves--er, got caught, they were appropriately shame-faced and apologetic. Not now. They seem to do as they damn well please, blithely, without even a hint of remorse or embarrassment. It is a new style of governance. In addition to the "corridor" study for the pension fund, I would like to nominate the hijacking of Prop S bond funds by the SDUSD trustees, Jackson, Barrera and Evans as theft, plain and ugly. They and the unions are dealing our tax dollars away as you read this. Without any oversight or input from anyone. Which person at the District has ever negotiated a PLA? Government is rolling over us; we've reached a tipping point and are descending into free fall.

Posted by Linda Tegarden | reply to this comment
April 30, 2009 7:14 pm

Such behavior by the Mayor can only lead to no goo. As the noted English jurist, Sir John Cadwick, observed 20 years ago, "Secrecy (in public affairs) is the badge of fraud." The contrast between the Mayor's secret machinations and the Pension Board's transparency could not be more apparent.

Posted by William | reply to this comment
May 1, 2009 6:24 am

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It's the Pete Wilson gang still; the faces just change to protect the guilty.

Posted by GHJohn | reply to this comment
May 1, 2009 9:24 am

Simple answer to all this. The council needs to pass an ordinance prohibiting the expenditure of any city money or the use of staff time to organize such meetings unless conducted under Brown Act. Simple, easy, probably will set up a confrontation with the Mayor but so be it. Now the Mayor could probably STILL meet in fact finding mode with people who he/his staff seek out but it wouldn't have the "stamp of approval" of a this "taskforce".

Posted by CMR | reply to this comment
May 1, 2009 10:25 am

What does it matter? When people appear to behave as if they have so very much regard for themselves – having any regard for others is unlikely, no? Does this apply to even one of our elected /appointed officials in San Diego – who knows? They keep being elected, they were elected to represent us. So what is it, are the election fixed or are we just too lazy and/or unconcerned until after the fact - to vote in our own best interest?

Posted by gregory | reply to this comment
May 6, 2009 7:50 am

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