Candidate for
Council Member; City of Chula Vista; Seat 2

Making a Better Future for Chula Vista

Our city has made grave mistakes. In the early 1980`s we started underfunding necessary; spending for the repair and replacement of our infrastructure. Later we began building thousands of new houses without assuring a strong enough local economy to provide the tax base necessary to support all those homes. Instead of confronting these challenges during the recent good times, all too often our leadership opted for empty or hyper-negative political campaigns that only served to divide our community. Now our city is broke and infrastructure maintenance over $300 million in deficit - the evidence in our many potholes.

We look to the future from diverse points of view. Local business people, outside investors from San Diego, Neighborhood Advocates, dedicated Republicans and Democrats, Easterners and Westerners. We can choose to fight viscously among ourselves. Someone will always end up with more votes on election day. But will anyone really win?

We will never all agree about everything. And some of us may not particularly like others of us. But the truth is that to meet the challenges we face as a community - We need everyone. We must earn each others trust. We have to work together.

Earlier in 2009 our city hall tried the "tax our way out of our problems" approach. The public rejected a proposed sales tax increase by a 2:1 vote. Some have gloated and been dismissive of the Chula Vistans who advocated the tax as "the usual suspects". That view of people may be easy and enjoyable, but it is misguided and destructive.

Our neighbors who care about adequate parks for children and libraries for everyone are good people with important priorities. In many cases these people spend many hours a year volunteering in our community and/or spend money out of their own pockets to support civic organizations such as "The Friends of the Library". They are among the best of us and they should be honored.

The lesson of our experience is that we are not well served by "quick fixes". We need to apply ourselves to fundamental long term reforms that will leave our city better off 5, 10, or 20 years from now. There's not a lot of applause or flattering headlines for that approach, but responsible long term decision making is what we need and deserve.

To really set a new course for Chula Vista, we must focus on the really big "sacred cow" issues that always get swept aside. As President of the Chula Vista Taxpayers Association, I had the privilege of advocating reforms that were unprecedented at the time and have since been embraced by many. We have made progress, but there is a lot of work left to be done.

City Retirement Expenses) Currently the city of Chula Vista pays what is normally the employee contribution for pensions. This has proved an expensive act of generosity, by calculation of the San Diego Taxpayer Association, Chula Vista's pension costs have exploded by 4-600% since 2001. This is obviously unsustainable.

Pay and benefits must be based on practical planning and a conservative estimation of city revenue. Clearly, we must move toward having city employees pay their full fair share of their retirement expenses.

Overtime) About 75% of city spending goes to labor costs - employee pay and benefits. A significant contributor to that is over time. The best paid four employees for the City of Chula Vista do not include the City Manager or Mayor. They are four firefighters and reason their incomes are so large is overtime.

Please don't misunderstand, our police and firefighters are some of the most outstanding individuals you could ever hope to meet. But we have to look seriously at how our city spends its money. According to the Union Tribune, thanks to abundant overtime firefighters "are guaranteed $91,000 or more a year" It is not unheard of for a firefighter making $75,000 a year to make an additional $74,000 in overtime.

As expressed by the Chula Vista Taxpayers Association "This arrangement has been accepted by the city as a way to avoid the greater expense of hiring additional new firefighters. This policy may indeed provide a net savings to the public. However due diligence requires that this argument be verified by a hard nosed outside source.

The city should seek out a qualified outside individual with a track record for maximizing the efficient use of public safety and other city staff. This person should be empowered to take a critical look at our overtime and other personnel policies to see if the city is utilizing its employees and compensating them in a way that works in the best interest of taxpayers".

Speaking frankly about this probably won't result in me being endorsed by the powerful Police and Firefighter Associations, in fact they may invest in a few attack mail pieces against me before election day. But these are issues that have to be addressed.

In the end, every person who aspires to be elected must decide if when push comes to shove, he or she will represent you as part of the broad public interest or some collection of narrow interests such as these two powerful unions. They may prevent me from winning, but I chose you a long time ago.

Economic Development) Nothing is more important to Chula Vista's future than improving our local economy. Only an expanded tax base from a healthy local economy can provide the revenue necessary to maintain and enhance the quality of life in our neighborhoods.

Economic development should never be peddled as a quick fix substitute for tough choices. Improving our economy is a matter of investment that promises to be very rewarding, but in many cases will take years to bear fruit. For example, an effective effort to attract selected large companies with the well paying jobs they bring should be a high priority, but we cannot expect much movement until we are clearly recovering from the current recession.

To be prepared later, we need to start now. The South County Economic Development Commission has become a key player in economic analysis and planning. Their efforts will give us a much clearer idea about which industries are best suited to our strengths and needs as a region. They won't all be as sexy as biotech, but they will have the potential to strengthen us in critical ways.

We need to reach beyond government to recruit our most respected business leaders, provide them some city staff support, get them on an airplane and point them to the corporate headquarters of those companies we need to attract. We also need a no less rigorous but faster review and approval process so those tax paying employers don't give up on us after spending too much time trying to open up for business

Neighborhood advocates have been viewed as opponents, even enemies by some interested in investment in Chula Vista. This has been a mistake. With respect and consultation, these people can help us avoid mistakes and build a foundation of community support. We can accomplish much more working together as partners in improving our city than we ever could fighting among ourselves.

Fair and Open Competition for City Construction Projects) There are those who want Chula Vista to have "Project Labor Agreements" that limit bidding on public construction projects exclusively to union companies. This effectively produces a monopoly for a small number of construction companies.

Most of us recognize that monopolies lead to higher prices and lower quality of work. Bearing in mind that we one day hope to transform our bay front into a tax producing economic engine for all Chula Vista, this concern is very serious. Projects such as this can involve up to a billion dollars in investment. We don't want to waste millions of dollars of tax money catering to one outside interest group.

We also have a responsibility to be fair to our neighbors. The vast majority of construction workers who live in Chula Vista do not happen to belong to a union. How could we look them in the face if they are excluded from working on projects their tax dollars made possible?

Chula Vista should stand by law for open and fair competition on city projects. Getting the best value for the public from their tax dollars and being fair to our neighbors by allowing every qualified company to bid on city construction projects.

There's never enough time to convey everything you would like to say, but this is where I stand. We have our challenges, however I firmly believe that our best days as a city do not have to be behind us. With your help, I would like to do my part to help Chula Vista reach its full potential as a great place to live.

Sincerely,

Larry Breitfelder