Dear Editor In reading the headline that we have
”
Bad choices
”
to balance our city budget, it is pretty clear that it is the
public employee unions that are killing us.
Public employee unions are killing our city, state and country
Dear Editor
In reading the headline that we have “Bad choices” to balance our city budget, it is pretty clear that it is the public employee unions that are killing us. I am sure it was easy to provide rich retirement benefits to these unions during negotiations because our negotiators are giving away the “future,” when some other elected official will have to deal with it, but we can no longer afford them. I know these unions are very strong, maybe too strong for Morgan Hill to beat, but we have to try
I suggest that we provide something similar to competitive private sector matching retirement funds that many corporations provide in the form of matching 401(k) offers.
But once the employee leaves, or retires, the former employees are on their own and we stop the burden on our city.
If we can’t beat them during a recession, we never will and this city, state and country will continue to feel this burden.
This is only going to get worse as more and more pubic employee union members retire. Soon, if not already, we are going to be paying out more in retirement benefits than to employees actually working for us in Morgan Hill.
This is going to drive this city into bankruptcy, but it does not seem that the unions care.
Dan Russo, Morgan Hill
Thanks to all for the great job with the downtown planter boxes
Dear Editor,
I just want to extend a special note of gratitude to the Adopt-a-Planter program led by Irene Mort, Susan Houghton and the Les Fleurs Garden Club.
The downtown flowers are especially glorious,thanks to the generous donation for the past 12 years by Dave Vincent and his Cal Color business.
The blooming bulbs were secured by Tony Eulo, environmental programs administrator for the city, from Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification program. Thanks for making us all proud of our beautiful downtown!
Margaret Johnston, Morgan Hill
Letter in support of MHAT doesn’t hold water
Dear Editor,
Brad Jones – who just opened a used bookstore in Gilroy that could in theory compete with the local used bookstore run by the Friends of the Library that supports the local library – wants to keep every bit of the city’s public access resources money and services local, no matter what the cost in terms of quality of service to Morgan Hill residents. He used the local newspaper as an example, but unfortunately for him, that example doesn’t support his case.
The local newspaper chain serves three local communities – Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and Hollister – and pools its resources to give all the communities better coverage than they could achieve on their own. They only need one expensive press and one administrative team, all of which happens to be located in Gilroy, to print papers for all three communities, yet each newspaper also has a local presence in each community it serves. That sounds a lot like the CMAP model that I endorsed in my column.
Lisa Pampuch, Morgan Hill
