Put Vallejo Out of Business for Good

The city of Vallejo, Calif., has lavished such generous salaries and benefits on public employees that it has gone broke and filed for bankruptcy in federal court.

Even within the pricey San Francisco Bay region, the city's generous payments to public safety workers stand apart: $306,000 a year in pay and benefits for a police captain (six times what the average schoolteacher in Vallejo earns); $240,146 for a police lieutenant; $171,000 for the average firefighter. Public safety workers can get 90 percent of their top salary when they retire after age 50.

But to the mayor and the City Council, the problem goes beyond the fat promises made to its public safety unions: Vallejo's city manager earns nearly $317,000, more than Vice President Cheney. Because there's no ceiling on the amount of unused sick leave that Vallejo employees can cash in when they retire, some have left with checks as large as $400,000. After a mere five years, Vallejo workers can retire with permanent, lifetime health benefits.

When individuals or businesses file for bankruptcy, the debtor generally has to surrender non-exempt property to a bankruptcy trustee, who will then liquidate the property and distribute it among the debtor's creditors. In exchange, the debtor is usually relieved of some of his debt.

In the case of Vallejo, the city likewise should have to surrender its property to its creditors -- a.k.a. taxpayers -- which would in effect return this confiscated property to its rightful owners, who have been robbed by public officials in order to install and operate the municipality.

As would be the case for any private enterprise, the city of Vallejo should be forced to go out of business as a result of its frivolity and irresponsible management -- essentially resulting in a transfer of ownership from public to private hands and the creation of a stateless society within the state of California.

Of course, that's assuming justice would actually prevail here. In reality, Vallejo will most likely be bailed out by state and federal taxpayers so it can live on and continue that most noble of democratic exercises known as financing its racket at the point of a gun.

Comments

[mandr410]

Wow! Money doesn't grow on trees for all governments.

I don't see why they don't prosecute those employees for acceptence of stolen goods. If I bought a thousand dollar television from you for a hundred bucks, I would be accused of buying stolen goods, 'cuz everyone knows you can't get a sweet deal like that on the up-and-up. Well, those employees who were receiving salaries that were sometimes 6 times the average knew they were receiving stolen goods, too.

[Brady]

And they never caught the flippin Zodiac Killer either. Tack on negligence and incompetence along with their fiscal crimes.