Message in Editorial Wasn’t Mixed, Just Plain Misleading
Message in Editorial Wasn’t Mixed, Just Plain Misleading
Editor,
In reference to the Free Lance’s editorial “Effective Recipe for a Mixed Message” of June 14, some clarifications are needed. The editorial implies that the City Council recently took action to increase pensions for firefighters. It also implies that the reason the Council took that action was “because, well, the city did it for the police last year – so fair is fair…”
Let’s be clear – the recent action taken by the Council was to amend the City contract with PERS in order to provide for pension increases which were, in fact, approved by the previous City Council. The current Council did not take action to approve the increases. Those pension increases are mandated by Memorandums of Understanding (which are legal employee contracts) that were approved by action of the previous City Council.
It should also be noted that when this Council began it’s term in January 2005, we were faced with an operating deficit of $3 million dollars and we were faced with funding the pension increases mandated by the previous Council. We now, with staff leadership, have reduced the operating deficit (including the mandated pension cost increases) to about $2 million dollars. It should also be noted that each employee group has agreed to a zero percent salary increase in order to reduce the deficit.
It is interesting that one member of the Free Lance’s editorial Board was a member of the previous City Council – the very one that approved the increases!
Doug Emerson
Hollister City Council
Call CMAP if Technical Difficulties Hit a Program
Editor,
This message is for those of you that watch CMAP, our community channels, and occasionally have a technical problem with the signal or sound. We sincerely appreciate it when you call and let us know when and on what channel you saw the problem. This helps us track down if the problem was a particular show, or another issue. We also appreciate it when you leave your contact information, or at least what town you live in. Again, it helps us narrow down if the problem was just in Gilroy, Hollister or San Juan Bautista.
I realize that technical problems can be frustrating. Believe me, they are for us too as we do not have the resources to staff the programming department here on the weekends. It’s pretty phenomenal that a station with our budget can have four channels running, 24 / 7, even when no one is on site. Thank you Charter cable subscribers and CMAP members for supporting us!
Suzanne St. John-Crane
Executive Director, CMAP
