Jean Pasco's LAT article yesterday on the Moorlach-Shawver races was a treasure chest of passages spotlighting why 2nd Supervisor District voters should confine Dave Shawver to Stanton.
He said Moorlach unnecessarily alienated the county's employee unions by blaming them for benefits approved by the board.
"How are you going to sit down with these folks and solve the problem when you've been beating them up?" Shawver asked.
Actually, a much better question is how could Dave Shawver "sit down with these folks" as the taxpayers' representative knowing he owed his place at the table to "these folks" with whom is negotiating?
But allowing police and firefighters to retire with guaranteed pay at 50 after ending dangerous careers is the right thing to do, Shawver said.
"Aren't we obligated to take care of them when they're older because of the service they provided?" he asked.
Shawver's argument is based on a faulty premise: namely that anything other than the current public safety retirement deal is tantamount to "not taking care" of retired police officers and firefighters. They have about as sweet a retirement deal as anyone outside of corporate executive levels -- and certainly much better than the average taxpayer can look forward.
I appreciate the potential and respective dangers of their professions. Police officers especially stand between us and the lawless. Both professions are proper functions of government. But if on-the-job danger is the measure of how generous a public pension should be, why do the retirement benefits of policemen and firemen far outstrip what is offered to members of the Armed Services?
Local government employees have well-organized unions with ample political warchests who focus on protecting their interests 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week. County taxpayers who pay the bills have to rely five elected representatives whose focus on protecting taxpayers' interests varies from supervisor to supervisor -- and we can ill-afford to reduce that number from five to four.