Voice of OC had an interesting article posted on Friday about the “Pension Boot Camp” meeting the GOP Chairman Scott Baugh is touting as a “non-partisan” event. You see, you can do that if you want to, all you need are some good front groups with a names like California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, the California Independent Voter Network, Governing Magazine and the Pacific Research Institute.
From the Voice of OC article: Gearing Up for Pension Battle Royal
Orange County’s GOP Chairman Scott Baugh next week hopes to gear up an army of elected officials across the county that will battle organized labor at every level of local government over pension issues.
OC labor leaders are already fighting back, sending out letters today to every elected official in Orange County warning them that attending next week’s planned “Pension Boot Camp” for elected officials could be seen as confrontational.
It’s just another sign that this year’s annual budget negotiations across Orange County’s cities and special districts will be extra hot this year and feature significant political pressure to introduce 401K-type retirement plans in the public sector.
I’ll be writing more on this later, but in the mean time, as the story points out the Orange County Employees Association has delivered a letter to all Orange County elected officials ahead of the meeting suggesting that cooperation and negotiation, not rhetoric and battle is a more appropriate approaches.
Here is the link to the complete story on the Voice of OC: Gearing Up for Pension Battle Royal