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MAYORS, CITY COUNCILS AND UNIONS: THE REALITY FACES US ALL
After yesterday's city council meeting all of us were frustrated and mad as heck. As we stated yesterday, there are many complex parts to the issues at hand.
I may step on a few toes with this blog so bear with me for a moment.
While the City Council could have done a better job with the budget and cut more non-essential programs, their hands were tied where the real money could be found. The money that would have made a difference would be to cut salaries (like all of us in the private sector have done) and reduce some positions (as many in the private sector have done). They could not touch that because of the labor contracts they have in place.
The CATO Institute recently filed this report "State Needs More Flexibility to Deal with Unions" found at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12171. The report starts off with:
"If you were running a failing business, would you hand out 7 percent pay raises, a two-year "no layoff" guarantee, a pledge to close no branches, and then another round of pay hikes topping 8 percent?
No private-sector business facing bankruptcy would countenance this scenario. Private-sector unions would think twice about making such demands for fear of killing the golden goose. It's another story if you live in Government Land."
As I sat in the City Council Chambers I felt as if I was in Government Land and it was so very different than the real world all of us sit in every day.
We must educate ourselves on these matters and fully understand what we are asking for. This does not give the Mayor or the City Council a pass on this budget. There was a lot of pork still left in it and they know it. However, we will give them a pass on the biggest cuts they could have made.
With that said - We ask the Mayor, the Unions, the City Council and anyone else who has a stake in healing our city, state and country to put aside their personal agendas and get to work to fix this mess. Just because something sounded good a long time ago, doesn't mean we have to fulfill all commitments. If a commitment was bad, we should not keep doing "bad" just because of a contract. The contract will be null and void anyway at some point down the road when it will be impossible to fulfill. It's happening all over the world and to think it will not happen here is to be out of touch with reality.
We appreciate the firemen and the police unions and we LOVE them for sticking their neck for us. We do not want them punished for bad policies of the past and we ask that everyone be willing to have the real conversation about this issue.
There is a train coming and its coming fast. How can the entire citizen body of Jacksonville stand together and keep it from derailing? We are counting on the Mayor, the City Council and the Unions to do their part and keep the train on the tracks without killing the city.
God Save the USA and may the great City of Jacksonville become the Bold New City of the South again.
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Comment
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Comment by JSC on September 30, 2010 at 2:20pm
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YOU ARE CORRECT, and thank you. Tonight at 6:30-8:00, at the Golden Corral in Mandarin. There will be a guest speaker. Featured guest speaker: Manny Eranados
Come hear first hand testimony from a citizen who lost his country, Cuba.
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Comment by Joan C. Hall on September 30, 2010 at 1:58pm
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FELLOW TEA PARTY MEMBERS: I think we can all agree that Webb and the rest of his henchmen have to go. I'm not going to cut them any slack. We can complain till we're blue in the face. It's amazing how many of our neighbors are ignorant to what is going on. It's up to us to ban together and get the information out there to help them become aware that they truly do have the power to change things.
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As for the unions...........If I continue, I will say words my mother taught me not to say. A BUNCH OF THEM ALL IN ONE STRING.
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Yeah, they're record speaks for itself, and I am truly sorry for your loss of business. That effects our entire community, but was the repayment of unsold tickets actualluy built into into our taxes in the last city hall meeting?
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Comment by Daniel R. Carr on September 30, 2010 at 1:44pm
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Y'all want something to REALLY fire you up?
CC Pres. Jack Webb is now proposing an additional SALES TAX HIKE (he needs State approval) to fund the ravenous appetite of City government! How typical! Instead of doing ANY of the pork boondoggle cuts, like the $620,000.00+ Equestrian Center, etc. etc. ad nauseum, he only addresses REVENUE, not SPENDING, which is just opposite of what needs to be done.
Mr. Webb needs to one of those who needs to be fired in March!
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Comment by Kurt D Wullenweber on September 30, 2010 at 12:28pm
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Don't even get me started with the loser football team.
My original shop was less than three blocks from the stadium and there's no telling how much business we lost or what it truly cost us during contruction of the new stadium.
And how long are we taxpayers on the hook for paying for that stadium??
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Is it true that we are stuck paying the remainder of the unpurchased Jaguar tickets with our taxes? Someone PLEASE tell me this is not true !!!!!
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We keep allowing the media and a few others to hijack the debate into police and fire and even teachers, when the REAL issue here is ALL the things the government is involved in that are on no-one's list of government is for. We all expect to pay for police and fire portection and few of us would complain about the true costs of having the best of both, but how much of the city budget is consumed by the police and fire departments and the schools? How much of the city budget is spent on activities that are NONE OF THE CITY'S BUSINESS?
How much of the city's budget is spent on programs designeds to take care of those who never seem able to take care of themselves, at the ever more impossible to bare expense of those who always do what's right, always obey the laws and always pay for everything?
I've personnaly had it with the "You're your brother's keeper" mentality with ZERO discussion of "what about my kept brother's debt in return?" I am sick of supposed safety nets form the local to federal levels that are nothing but hammocks in the shade, being held at both ends by producers at government gun point.
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Comment by Robert Hutcherson on September 30, 2010 at 10:56am
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Absolutely! "We The People" includes all of us, including the people represented in a union. Everybody needs to come to the Table, especially in these times, in Good Faith and do what's Best for the Citizens of our City, State and Country from financially responsible perspective before our whole system goes bankrupt.
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Comment by Glenn Lord Sr. on September 30, 2010 at 10:52am
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Both the Council and the Mayor have term limits but what we have not had is this level of involvment by the people. Hats off to the First Coast for spearheading this issue. We have some good Council Members like Clay Yarbourough and yes Glorius Johnson. Ms Johnson is often overlooked as being a conservative but she caught my attention with her no vote on the Human Rights issue and again with standing firm on the budget. We have to pay more attention to our people on the council and cull the ones not listening.
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