subject: Tough Circles Of San Diego Politics [print this page] Although there are hundreds of odd things that can be pointed out about San Diego politics (and politics of anywhere in general), it seems that one recurring theme is the fact that politicians do a really good job of making the same mistakes and taking the same paths over and over again! Although no one could ever tell why this seems to happen more often in this city than in other cities, what is for sure is that there is never a lack of San Diego politics to chat about.
One of the hottest topics that seems to not really ever go away is the city and its pension fund board talking about ways to deal with San Diegos city finance problems. There are oodles of similarities between the years 2002 and 2009, and people seem to really revel in the fact that the same things happen over and over.....and over. Back in 2002, the city was facing a fiscal fallout of Wall Street and the backlash of the dot.com bubble burst, not to mention the whole economic terror caused by 9/11. In 2009, the city is facing the same type of fallout from a burst mortgage bubble and the obvious economic meltdown that is running thick all over the country.
Also back in 2002, the pension board, city council and the mayor seem to have short changed the fund that pays out the retirement benefits to former city employees in order to cover their short term budget shortfalls. Of course the long term pension obligations really got out of control during the time. In 2009, all three of the same parties consider conniving to underfund the pension again with higher long term payment costs to the city...again.
In 2002, the city attorney apparently sat by and gave the go ahead for all of this without the slightest public protest. And, what do you know, in 2009 the city attorney once again sat by without any qualms while the underfunding continued to be more and more of a problem as time went on. San Diego politics continue to follow a strangely interesting pattern. In 2002, residents were worried about diminishing 401k plans and were distracted by terror and war while city leaders mortgaged their municipal financial futures. And you guessed it, in 2009, residents are once again distracted by war and terror and vanishing retirement funds, and yes, there it is again, city leaders allegedly are still cutting, mortgaging, stripping and repeating.
Of course there are tons of other stories about San Diego politics that are topics of interest all over the Internet and on news programs, so if you are bored go ahead and revel in anything you can find about the leaders that are elected...for our benefit.
