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You cannot blame the Full-Time Lifeguards for their $154k a year average compensation package.
Nor can you blame that retired 51 year old Lifeguard from getting his $108k a year pension pay, for the rest of his life.
I mean, you can’t fault them for asking for it right? It’s up to the City Council to give, or not to give.
Just like if my 4 ½ year old daughter asks me to borrow my Harley. It’s up to me if I say yes or no right?
Well, the previous City Councils, who when asked if the Lifeguards could have the same pensions as the Police and Fire receive, would just laugh and would give them Sunglasses or Suntan lotion. And the Lifeguards would go away happy, as if they had just received bars of gold.
But this time was different. This time, former Councilman Tod Ridgeway was going to be gone, former Councilman Dick Nichols was up for re-election, and former Councilman Steve Bromberg had been off the dais for almost a year, all vehemently against any such Police/Fire-like pensions for the Lifeguards. The Lifeguards never had the votes to get a generous Pension approved.
No, this time when the Lifeguard’s contract was up in the summer for 2006 they knew what they possibly had on their hands and they waited. Waited for Tod Ridgeway to term out, waited for Dick Nichol’s re-election bid, and waited a Union/Pension friendly City Council.
So the Lifeguard Management Union, along with the Firefighter Union, spent $31,807.65 on their slate of candidates. The Lifeguards even walked precincts, knocked on doors trying to pitch their candidates…and guess what?
Every one of the Lifeguard/Fire Union endorsed candidates won (the Barbara Venezia/Leslie Daigle race was different because they endorsed BOTH).
So after the November 2006 City Council race was over, the negotiations restarted in earnest and surprise, surprise (in your best Gomer Pyle voice), on March 13, 2007, the new Newport Beach City Council, the new Union-loving City Council, voted 5-2 in favor of give the full-time Lifeguards the Retirement benefit of 3%@50.
And they made it retroactive to July 2006.
Talk about a gift of public funds, all in exchange for what…walking precincts? But this is where it gets a bit weird…
A very connected, and EXTREMELY reliable source told me, when he asked then-newly elected Councilman Mike Henn, why would he do such a thing? How could he possibly vote in favor of giving Newport Beach’s Lifeguards such juicy benefits and pensions that EVERYONE knew could not be sustained.
Now-Mayor Mike Henn responded, how could he not? After all, they had walked precincts for him, they donated money to him, and they helped him get elected. He felt like he owed it to them to give them this juicy pension.
Let me repeat.
Now-Mayor Mike Henn felt like he owed giving the Full-Time Lifeguards the 3%@50 pension for helping him get elected.
The Lifeguards essentially bought his vote.
And if that 51 year old recently retired lifeguard lives until the age of 80 years old, his thank you present will be around $3,132,000.00.
So here is where I apologize for some (not all) of the…um…not-nice things I have written about Councilmembers Steve Rosansky and Leslie Daigle in the past because they were to two no votes, back in 2007, who knew that this type of gift of public funds would be unsustainable. Now keep in mind that in the 2006 election, Steve Rosansky was not up for re-election and Leslie Daigle had been victim of that dreaded “Dual Endorsement” for her re-election bid.
So from the March 13, 2007 City Council minutes, Leslie Daigle said that she “expressed concern that the pension benefits will have a fiscal impact beyond this budget year…that she does not support the policy change.”
At the time Mayor, Steve Rosansky then followed that “he will vote against the contract because of the 3%@50...and that it was given to safety personnel at a time when the stock market was rising and the cost of funding these plans was very low, but conditions have changed. The tide is turning in the State as far as providing enhanced pension benefits, and this is not the appropriate time to move against that trend.”
Of course, completely ignoring the common sense and fiscal prudence coming from Daigle and Rosansky, permanent City Employee Don Webb, of the “all the City Employees deserve their pensions” fame, moved to approve…and the rest is history, viral, and whatever else you want to call the Local/State/National/International news that the Newport Beach Full Time Lifeguards have…um…”enjoyed.”
So…let that be a lesson for all you amateur Politicos. If you want to get $3 million dollars for not working (assuming you live to 80 years old), wait for that perfect storm and do what the full time Lifeguards did.
Walk some precincts, knock on some doors, spend some big dough, and WHAMO! You’ll get that friendly City Council who will vote for your gift of public funds…just because they owe it to ya.
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