"I believe that the system can be changed in a way that addresses every legitimate criticism that has been levied against it with both the fire and police unions supporting those changes."

OK, what is your solution? Something really needs to be done if we are $1.6B short on the pension fund as the Oregonian states.

As you may recall, Steve, I posted an article here on BlueOregon entitled "Fire and Police Disability System Recommendations". I believe you commented at the time on that post.

In that piece, I made very specific recommendations on what changes I think should and could happen immediately to the Fire and Police Disability and Retirement System.

Any reduction in benefits will be fervently opposed by the unions. That's what they do. To suggest otherwise is naive or disingenuous.

I am reminded of Portland P.D. Captain Mike Garvey, who allegedly hired a male prostitute in 1996. Although the grand jury declined to indict him, the Police Department demoted him after he admitted the conduct, and suspended him for 18 days. Nevertheless, the police union staunchly defended Captain Garvey's right to solicit a prostitute. Garvey then had the audacity to sue the City of Portland, claiming discrimination based on his sexual orientation. As if they wouldn't fire a straight cop for soliciting a prostitute? The discrimination lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge. I believe Commander Garvey is now in charge of traffic enforcement.

Commissioner Leonard:

If the police union is going to defend a cop who admitted to soliciting a prostitute, what makes you think they will agree to any concessions on the pension and disability benefits?

Alice- In the 28 years I have been employed by the City of Portland I am struck with how the city has consistently snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory in resolving personnel issues.

The short version is this; People and organizations behave, generally speaking, exactly how they are treated.

If treated suspiciously and without trust, organizations and people generally live up to that expectation.

However, where organizations and people are treated with trust, respect and empowerment, my experience has been they live up to those expectations as well.

The handling of the disability and pension issue by defining firefighters and police officers as adversaries, as has been done in this case, will cause them to be exactly that.

Pulling them into a room that includes all interested parties with the clear expectation that a package come out that resolves the funding of the pension issue and the disparity in how workers are treated under workers compensation vs the city's fire and police disability system will produce, in my opinion, a package that will satisfy the public and our fire and police personnel.

John Wrongagain:

The ipso facto point is simple: don't expect the unions to act in the best interests of the people of Portland. The unions don't serve the people of Portland; the unions serve their union members.

If the police union won't support the suspension/demotion of a cop who hires a prostitute (of any gender), it is unlikely they would agree to disability and retirement concessions. Why? Blind loyalty to their membership instead of the public interest. It couldn't be more clear.

If a cop gets caught stealing cash from an evidence locker it's a crime, right? If a cop gets caught soliciting prostitution, that's a crime. If the police officer's union wanted to serve the community, they would demand the dirty cops (those who commit crimes) are terminated, rather than protecting the accused at all costs. Sadly, the union is more concerned with defending the 0.1 percent of dirty cops than they are with protecting the reputation of the 99.9% that are clean. Call it blind loyalty, brotherhood in blue, professional courtesy. Call it what you want: it's wrong. Ironically, it's self-defeating as well. But the 0.1 percent demand that blind loyalty, and a majority of the politically active 99.9% are willing to go along under the fear of "there but for the grace of god, go I" (or "maybe he didn't really do it?").

Commissioner Leonard: do you remember the joke about the scorpion who hitched a ride on the turtle across the river? Just before arriving at the opposite shore the scorpion stings the turle, and the turtle protests, "but you promised you wouldn't hurt me". The scorpion replies, "I can't help it; it's in my nature."

I'm not suggesting the union is as bad as a scorpion. That said, I am a pragmatist: I expect the unions to blindly serve the interests of their members. That's their job. If you can show them that your political compromise will protect their interests better than a Saltzman style Vote of the People; then you may achieve their support. If you expect them to accept anything less than the best possible outcome for their members, then you know something I don't.

Hey Randy,

Don't take anything Jack Bog says too seriously. He's made a blogging career of denigrating anything anyone on the City Council proposes - public ownership of PGE, public financing of elections, streetcars, urban renewal, and other issues ad infinitum.

Just consider yourself fortunate that you're not Erik Sten (Opie).

Mr. Leonard the link to your post doesn’t work, here the webaddress of your August Post for those who want to see what you propose. http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/08/fire_and_police.html

My problem with your recommendations are, first they fail to address anything to do with the unfunded pension liability of $1.6 BILLION. We need to address this problem now, we can’t continue to ignore this problem and burden our children and grandchildren with that debt and force our fire & police officer to bear that risk with their pensions.

Second, your recommendations fail to address the greatest problem with the disability system, the body that approves disability claims is controlled by those who receive the benefits (6 of the 11 voting members are either active members of the police & fire departments or are appointed by them). See the City Charter Section 5-201(a). In this current system I don’t believe there is a way to ensure a fair and impartial decision can be made about disability claims. I don’t think I need to remind you of the abuses this system already documented in the Oregonian.

If one has suspicions of unions or is adamant that 100% of all the changes they think need to occur must happen, nothing I say here will satisfy.

However, my experience has been that where two sides are earnestly attempting to resolve a dispute, it can and will be done.

I know that the fire and police unions earnestly want to resolve the funding and disability questions with their disability and retirement system.

I am not so convinced that the other sides true interest, however, is in resolving those same issues.

Mr. Leonard, I hope that nothing in my comment you constued as anti-union, nothing could be futher from the truth.

I do ask however that you address the two issues I brought up in my post. I apologize for not asking directly for an answer from you in my prior posts. But, I do not see how you propose to address the unfunded pension problem, as mentioned by myself and by Steve.

Also, how to do you propose to address the problems with the current structure of the disability decision oversight. One of the basic tenants this country is founded upon is a fair and impartial arbitrator or jury. How do you propose to ensure that this happens in the disability system?

Thank you kindly for a response.

Iola-

I fully support the recommendation to fund the system. In fact, that is one area that none of the parties are in any disagreement about.

Two, I will support whatever recommendation, including a completely different disability system or different oversight structure of the current system as long as that proposal is developed in conjunction with all of the interested parities at the table.

That includes citizens, the auditor and fire and police representatives.

It does no good to propose something that one side wants if the other screams foul and the electorate turns down the proposal.

That is, unfortunately, where this debate is headed now.

And thanks for the alert on my link...I have fixed it.

For a big dude Randy shows impressive flexibility. Plus, he has a very large head. It's amazing that there is room in his rectum for the whole thing. Makes you wonder what else frequents that space.

Be nice Sasha. Our elected officials may prefer to keep their positions to themselves if they wind up getting tarred and feathered everytime they put it out there.

I don't think his head is too big. Its just an optical illusion: all the light reflecting off the top makes it seem bigger (like the full moon on the horizon)...

Mr Leonard - On your solutions, it only addresses the disability side of things and not how to fund the pension liability which right now means raising property taxes to cover any shortfall (unless I am mistaken, this is the only program in the US like this.)

On disability, the other issue is having to accept a disability claim without challenge. So if someone says they are stressed out too much to work, they can live with 80% of original pay. Would you be open to at least having claimants pass inspection by outside parties instead of just their own expert? If I misinterpreted, please correct me.

Commissioner Leonard - The citizens want, and deserve reforms to this fund. I know you agree with that. However, I think they want it sooner rather than later. The City has an independent report in-hand that gives specific recommendations for improving the system. Is it too much to ask that the City and the unions sit down and hammer out a proposal for implementing those recommendations in time for a May ballot? I just don't get the impression that City Hall has a sense of urgency to solving what many see as a very urgent problem.

Frank Ray [email protected]

I agree, Frank, that the unions and city need to hammer out a proposal. However, the final language needs to be done next week to make it on the ballot in May. In my opinion, along with the Auditors and citizen representative on the Fire and Police pension board, in makes more sense to work through the details and get it on the November ballot.

And Steve, as I said in an earlier answer here, there is no disagreement by anyone on the plan to fund the system. We should use the plan the experts have told us makes the most sense to accomplish that.

I will also support whatever the joint agreement is between the fire and police representatives, citizens and the city that restructures the disability system as long as it dramatically reduces the number of people on disability and provides back to work opportunities for recovering firefighters and police officers.

The plan doesn't have to be perfected or agreed to by next week.

If a reform plan goes on the ballot without agreement of the unions as Councilor Saltzman proposes, Can't the unions and gov't officials chose to sit down, and in three months agree on a new plan and convince the public, together, that the plan is fixed and you can all vote no on this one and yes on a November measure.

Paul- I never said people who were against reform were anti union. I was responding directly to a comment that was made in the thread above only.

In commenting on the reactions that the fire and police unions will have to being treated as though the other sides feels it is "bending over" in considering their concerns, I was attempting to bring a dose of reality into the dynamics that actually do occur in real life negotiations.

I am sorry if that offends you.

I am simply trying to share what I believe the formula is for success. I understand that my suggestions aren’t as sexy as some of the sound bites currently being tossed around on this topic.

A better strategy, I have said repeatedly on this topic, is to bring all interested parties to the table...that of course, again as I have said many times before, includes members of the public at large.

I do not mean by that suggestion that anyone needs to "bend over". It does mean, however, that everyone should be willing to compromise more than they have been willing to do up until now...including the fire and police unions.

Relationships at any level are complicated. One does not, in my opinion, appropriately define an entire relationship by one set of circumstances. Do I think Dan is grand standing on this current issue? Yes, I do. That does not mean I no longer continue to agree with him on the other 97% of the issues he and I work on together.

I have long thought the pension system is a ticking time bomb and that Mr. Leonard is too defensive of it.

But if his opposition is best articulated by Sasha (above) and friends over on bojacks site, I can foresee voters rejecting Mr. Saltzman's efforts at reform.

In other words, grow up.

"there is no disagreement by anyone on the plan to fund the system. We should use the plan the experts have told us makes the most sense to accomplish that."

Right now the plan is contributions and to cover the shortfall (which is growing about 10% a year = $1.6B now) by raising property taxes.

If I understand the above correctly, I don't think experts set this up and there may be disagreement.

Randy -- "there is no disagreement by anyone on the plan to fund the system. We should use the plan the experts have told us makes the most sense to accomplish that."

Let those experts go out into the private financial community to find any entity that is willing, for a price, to guarantee that their rosy assumptions on returns become fact, at least from the perspective of the Portland citizens. I had made a more detailed letter, memorandum, on that very point and delivered it to the Auditor for the Portland Public School's. In it I demanded that the cost of any bonds must itself be paid from the returns on investments of the bond proceeds themselves. The net gain of returns in excess of the cost to borrow are perhaps only 2.5 percent (8 percent on returns versus 5.5 percent to borrow). This is a rather meager return considering that stocks and such could drop to one half or even one tenth their most recently traded price. The risk of loss is many orders of magnitude greater than the meager gain that would go to the City of Portland, with an upper limit of roughly 2.5 percent, with the balance of any higher gain going to someone other than the City of Portland.

Surely it would not be too much hassle to at least ask those experts to shop for a guarantor of the returns they say are good enough to justify issuing bonds.

I think the RICO statutes are designed to accommodate those experts to which you wish to defer. Get a guarantee, or at least put into the record, for your own sake, a demand to have the experts (or their personal lawyers) give you a price on the cost of obtaining such guarantees on returns. Be sure also to insist that the owners of the guarantor entity cannot escape personal liability through bankruptcy.

This is just a little free expert advice.

(The O's Trial Balloon, Multiple Tier Nightmare) The push for reforming police-fire system should be unanimous

(10:24 AM BlueOregon Time)