In Mayor's Race, Jan Perry Vows to Speak Truth To Union Power

By Gene Maddaus Thu., Nov. 8 2012 at 1:09 PM

Jan Perry

Now that the election is over, it's finally time to focus on the race for L.A. mayor.

What? Too soon? Well, tell that to Councilwoman Jan Perry, who kicked off her campaign with a speech in which she vowed to speak truth to the powerful public employee unions at City Hall.

"The truth is that we cannot afford to continue to pay the city workforce at current salary and benefit levels," Perry said.

Perry also argued that her top two opponents, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel, are too closely aligned with labor to extract tough concessions.

"They will both have obligations they will have to meet," Perry said.

Each of the major candidates has now laid out a broad-brush approach to dealing with deficits at City Hall -- projected to be $216 million next year.

Garcetti, a three-term councilman, has spoken out against further cuts and tax increases, instead vowing to solve the city's budget woes by growing the economy. Greuel, the city controller, has vowed to eliminate waste.

Perry, at least, has vowed to tackle a major driver of the city's deficits over which City Hall has some control: union agreements. In her speech, Perry said that city employees should pay more for their health coverage and pensions. She also went after the Department of Water and Power employees -- represented by the powerful IBEW Local 18 -- saying that they are paid too much, and should be brought into line with the salaries of other city workers.

She also faulted a 2007 agreement with the city's civilian employees -- which she voted for, but has since said she regrets -- which calls for an 11% raise over the next two years. Perry said that she would not agree to more pay increases until the city's books are balanced.

"As mayor I will not allow for negotiated pay increases until our pension obligations are sustainable and we have closed our long-term structural deficit," she said. "These proposals are much less dramatic than what a judge would dictate if the city of Los Angeles is insolvent."

Perry has long represented the pro-business wing of the city council, so her forthright comments on labor matters are not new. During the budget crisis of 2010, Perry even invoked Malcolm X, calling for the elimination of 4000 positions "by any means necessary."

But to establish herself as the tough-on-labor candidate, she will have to compete with ex-radio host Kevin James, who has made such points more clearly and forcefully in the mayoral debates.

Garcetti and Greuel, meanwhile, are seeking to appeal both to labor and to the business community by establishing themselves as honest brokers between the two sides.

Garcetti's campaign strategist, Bill Carrick, said that Garcetti has already shown that he can enact pension reform by negotiating eye-to-eye with city unions.

"That's the only way we're going to get pension reform done," Carrick said. "You can give a speech about it, but Eric's actually done something about it."

Tags:

budget deficits, Eric Garcetti, IBEW, Jan Perry, Kevin James, labor agreements, mayor, SEIU, unions, Wendy Greuel

We Recommend

bs4852

I would like to believe that there is a specific committment on union wages, benefits and pensions. Earlier it was just a "deferral"; is Jan Perry going to negotiate another "deferral"?

There should also be a means of addressing retiree health care benefits. Increases in pensions and retiree benefits are negotiated by the union, why can't reductions be negotiated by the union.

I am sick and tired of reading in the Daily News that a city truck driver with a high school education makes $60+ thousand a year (plus benefits and pension), or that ladwp workers make exhorbitant wages vs. their out of town counterparts.

I would like Jan Perry to endorse Mayor Riordan's ballot proposal, for starters.

As a taxpayer, and a liberal democrat, I am still tired of the union abuse (and probably vendor abuse too), that goes on.

AND I DO NOT WANT A FOOTBALL STADIUM. IT'S A BOONDOGGLE.

Brian

ArtShareLA

I was involved as an advocate in a charity abuse case downtown that involved a NPO lowincome artist community - Art Share LA. Jan Perry served on the advisory board. What started as a habitability landlord complaint turned into a charity fraud abuse investigation. Some of the tenants were disabled; some were children. $2 Million in government funds were missing, only $2,000 of improvements had gone towards the facility. Tenants were forced to live on a construction site. Children of the after school charity were asked to “clean up” the nails, debris, etc by their after-school monitors.

In 2009, a complaint was eventually filed with IRS. One month later, the FBI arrested the charity’s founders in Florida. Two years later, the Advisory Board and the Board of Directors all stepped down. Three years later, Councilwoman Jan Perry announced her candidacy for Mayor. She received numerous complaints (50+) and communications as a Councilwoman and a Board member. She did not reply once, not to me, not to her constituents, specifically the artists community residents, some who were disabled, some who were children. Ms. Perry also siphoned $1 Million dollars in funds set aside for the homeless on Skid Row and gave it to Gensler Architecture firm to interior decorate their building in an attempt to convince them to relocate to Downtown Los Angeles. This woman is a fraud.

michael1398

Jan Perry has obviously latched onto Kevin James' platform as a way to distinguish herself from Garcetti and Greuel and because, quite frankly, it will become quickly clear that Kevin James is right. You can't just mouth another candidate's platform, you have to lead. Being "me too" is not leadership.

odysseusbostick

As grand a vision as anyone may put forth, it will never materialize for the people of LA unless we change our pension systems. We have $10 billion in debt to the pension system already and city hall's big answer is to cover the deficit by taxing us more. the problem is that this deficit is structural and increasing. 77% of the general fund today goes to salaries and pensions. In 5 years, it will reach 100%. If we keep electing servants to LA's current political cliques, we will never have leaders to tackle this problem at its root cause. Instead, we'll just have the same old people taxing us more to provide the same aggregiously low level of services. That's why I'm running for council in district 11 - so my family has elected officials who put our community first, political bank rollers second. Pension reform or bankruptcy.

cynic

Waiting for Wendy`s plan to save the City from bankruptcy. And corrupt Wendy`s claims of finding corruption in City Hall now, having served herself in the Budget Committe for many years, wont fools us.