Ethicalego Opinion

Voters are responsible for City of Vallejo insolvency.

The light many Vallejo, California residents fantasized was opportunity approaching the city was instead the train of financial disaster rushing at them. Vallejo’s money problems should not surprise anybody who paid attention to how it conducted business. The nation’s economic downturn hastened this condition, but poor decisions by Vallejo voters made this result inevitable.  

Judging from their remarks, many Vallejo residents still do not understand what happened to their city and why it happened. They blame everybody from newly elected Mayor Davis to a union conspiracy.  

Vallejo residents need to understand, they are at fault for the city’s insolvency and possible bankruptcy. No matter how this crisis ends, Vallejo residents need to change their thinking about city government and about how they select council members. Otherwise, Vallejo will repeat its mistakes and slip back into this financial condition again in ten years.

Vallejo residents were concerned about fire and crime safety issues. Unfortunately, for city finances, most of them believed they had to choose between inflated public safety salaries and inadequate safety protection. There was a third choice to pay fair salaries suitable with the city’s capacity to pay and with the education and training requirements for the job.

Most Vallejo voters chose to pay the high salaries. They voted union approved candidates to the city council to guarantee votes favorable to union pay demands. When they did this, they violated the basic principle of checks and balances needed to sustain democracy and capitalism.  

Checks and balances prevent any branch of government or special interest group from one-sided control over government spending and lawmaking.  Employee unions are special interest groups with goals to promote high salaries and benefits for members. City council members should represent Vallejo residents’ interests by only approving contracts for those services at a fair, affordable price. However, Vallejo residents prevented this safeguard when they let union officials decide who should serve on the council.    

Vallejo City Council members claim that union endorsements and campaign support for them do not influence their decisions on the council. The results contradict this claim. Vallejo public safety employees’ pay ranks higher than the pay of employees in wealthier California cities.  

The council approved the higher pay for public safety workers although this increase limited how many police officers and firefighters Vallejo could hire. They approved pay raises when it left not enough general fund money for other city services like maintaining streets and parks in good condition, removing liter and weeds, supporting senior centers and fighting crime. It was as if most Vallejo voters and union backed council members did not see a connection between excessive pay for employees and those other conditions.

Many people still insist that council members caused this insolvency problem, because they did not bring new businesses and jobs to Vallejo. They claim high employee pay did not cause it. However, Vallejo could have remained solvent with slow business growth if the council continued policy that adjusted spending and pay raises to agree with city income. On the other hand, even rapid business growth could not save the city from insolvency unless the council regained control over spending from union officials.

In addition, businesses need reliable city services and safety protection like household do. Vallejo's ruinous employee contracts warn businesses to stay away, because those conditions create a high potential for insolvency, poor city services and fee increases.  

Local, state and the federal governments face financial ruin for the same reason. Elected officials overspend and spend money unwisely. Nevertheless, voters continue them in office, because they view them as people who gained permanent status as lawmakers and rulers and not as citizens in public service status.    

Americans make poor voting decisions because they do not know enough about how local, state, federal governments and capitalism work. Our schools fail their responsibility to teach this culture. Schools do teach and glorify ideas of rule by monarchs. American fairy tales, literature, and many theater and motion picture productions condition Americans to accept ideas of royal birth and subservience to a ruling class as something grand. Even our cultural expressions include terms like royal, king, queen, prince and princess that suggest an enviable high status.   

Probably this indoctrination will not cause Americans to replace their republic with a monarchy. It does condition them to surrender their representative control over government. Instead, they allow de facto rule by politicians, union leaders, and lobbyists as a normal and desired condition.

Americans need to read the Federalist papers, federal and state constitutions and their city charter to learn their role and responsibility to check and to control government. Otherwise, those de facto rulers will bounce them from one financial crisis to another.