PUBLIC FORUM : L.A.'S GOLDEN PARACHUTES DON'T FLY WITH READERS.For some strange reason we have allowed the politicians and civil service managers to tell us what they are worth. Where in the private sector can you work for five years, get fired, threaten to sue your employer and then be made eligible to be taken care of the rest of your natural life? The latest load of baloney comes from every level of our government: ``If we pay more, we will attract better people.'' If we have employees in the system who cannot do the job, they should be fired immediately, not given incentive raises to do a better job. These people are so arrogant that they believe we, the taxpayers, work for them. They act like the employer not the employee. If you don't believe me, just think how you were treated the last time you went to the IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. , the DMV DMV abbr. Department of Motor Vehicles , the DWP DWP Department of Work and Pensions (UK) DWP Drinking Water Program DWP Dynamic Weapon Pricing (gamin, Counter-Strike: Source) DWP Department of Water & Power DWP Drinking Water Protection , the Franchise Tax Board, the Planning Department or any other capital-lettered agency. Most of them make you feel as if they are doing you a favor by waiting on you. - Frank G. Carlisi Calabasas Regarding ``Parting is $weet,'' Daily News, May 18: I have a fantastic deal for the City Council, the mayor and the city payroll. All I need is $14,000. As soon as the money is deposited in my account, I will immediately go to the retirement board and start the process to leave. I have 10 years now, plus the eight years I buy back with the city's help. It is a great deal. I will go quietly and no one will miss me. - Donald E. Pleins Saugus I'm not as concerned about the golden parachutes being granted to outgoing public employees as I am about those who continue to draw very high salaries. In the Daily News inset of May 18, all 10 outgoing managers were receiving six-figure incomes. What's the average annual wage in this country - $30,000? How many people reading this paper make six figures? I know a few. They are highly trained professionals - doctors, lawyers, corporate executives. Their jobs require advanced degrees, years of experience and years of hard work. They are not administrators at the Community Redevelopment Agency or the city Planning city planning, process of planning for the improvement of urban centers in order to provide healthy and safe living conditions, efficient transport and communication, adequate public facilities, and aesthetic surroundings. Department. - Brady T. Wood Woodland Hills You'd be money ahead not playing the lottery, the odds are against you. You're better off getting a position with the city of Los Angeles
With the wimps sitting on the City Council, the city has now adopted a new precedent of buying you out with your promise not to sue. Incompetency The lack of ability, knowledge, legal qualification, or fitness to discharge a required duty or professional obligation. The term incompetency has several meanings in the law. will now get you a new job with the city, a new job title, an inflated consulting contract. You'll be making more money than you did before and doing a lot less work for the money. The mayor was right about his new city slogan, ``It's amazing a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. what grows in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. .'' It's bigger and better buyouts. - Benjamin R. Laufer Sherman Oaks As a taxpayer of the city of Los Angeles, I want to thank the council for using our tax dollars for real important things, like paying off managers when they leave their positions. Where else but Los Angeles can someone either resign or be eliminated from a position and receive a contract as a consultant for a year and a nice reward for doing so? Please, council members, do not do anything foolish, like buying film for the cameras of the Police Department for proof of domestic abuse. - M. Landolfi Chatsworth Golden parachutes for city employees do rub many of us the wrong way. We sometimes wish that there were holes in them when they bailed out of city employment.And yet, there are times when this is preferable to fighting it out. Take ex-Police Chief Willie L. Williams Willie L. Williams (born 1 October, 1943) was chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1992 to 1997, taking over after chief Daryl Gates' resignation following the 1992 Los Angeles riots. for example. If the city didn't buy out his contract, there would have been a trial by jury, in Los Angeles, with the distinct possibility that the race card would once more be played to a jury of intellectually challenged people. The chief could have walked away with half the city. Enough said. - Paul Waters Van Nuys Regarding the letter (Public Forum, May 19) from Steve Afriat, president of the Board of Animal Services Commissioners, on the payoff to the ``retiring'' animal services manager, Gary S. Olsen: If Olsen is so indispensable, why not keep him on the payroll - working until his replacement is found, helping his replacement for three months, and after that, simply leave and really ``retire?'' The answer to that question is money. By following this dishonest but legal practice, Olsen, gets his retirement pay plus consulting pay at the same time. Simple as that. For too long, government employees have conditioned themselves to this unethical but legal practice at the expense of the public. Can anyone imagine a private sector individual retiring before the age of 62 or 65, drawing Social Security benefits and $100,000 as a consultant from his former employer at the same time? - Michael A. Campos Campos (käm`p  s), city (1996 pop. 391,299), Rio de Janeiro state, SE Brazil, on the Paraíba River near its mouth. West Hills It's high time that all government agencies, including the city of Los Angeles, understood that there are some very different economic realities in the world today. Very few organizations in the private sector would allow employees to extort To compel or coerce, as in a confession or information, by any means serving to overcome the other's power of resistance, thus making the confession or admission involuntary. To gain by wrongful methods; to obtain in an unlawful manner, as in to compel payments by means of threats of money over the mere possibility of a threatened lawsuit. When your assignment is done, that is the end of the business relationship. You can ask any one of the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost and continue to lose their jobs what happens: 99.99 percent of the time there are no golden handshakes, no consulting contracts, no more money to change hands to change owners. to change sides, or change owners. See also: Change Hand . You are out of work, period. Golden parachutes in government will never end because our elected leaders seem to take care of themselves first, regardless of how they cry the blues about needing to raise taxes to take care of what taxpayers want and need. - Kenneth W. Keller Valencia I was ill after reading ``Parting is $weet.'' Five years of city service gets the police chief $375,000 and a consultant job so he can save face and play golf. Who said working for the city is tough? What is my 30 years as a policeman in comparison to Williams' service to the city? He gets $375,000 tax dollars and I get my pin commemorating my 30 years of service and my scroll in the city mail in a brown manila envelope. It is clear us lower nonpoliticians don't really count in the scheme of things when they don't even know your name. They sent my invitation to Peter when my name is Victor and put my father's name on my city scroll. The way things are going on in this department, I could not expect more. - Victor M. Farhood West Hills These people do not understand precedence and duty. Why else would they pay off a city employee threatening to cause trouble. If they have enacted such a tangled web of laws that a simple five-year contract cannot be enforced successfully, it is their duty to fix the laws not pay extortion. The only other reasonable explanation is that these payoffs are just hush money hush money n. Informal A bribe paid to keep something secret. hush money Noun Slang money given to a person to ensure that something is kept secret Noun 1. . - Steve Rice Canoga Park Testing the Burbank City Council for drugs (``Burbank council to be drug tested; officials vote to undergo process,'' Daily News, May 15) opens up other possibilities. Perhaps the Los Angeles City Council  The Los Angeles City Council is the governing body of the City of Los Angeles, California, United States. members who approved a $375,000 severance package A severance package is pay and benefits an employee receives when they leave employment at a company. In addition to the employee's remaining regular pay, it may include some of the following:
William James Williams, Jr. (November 9, 1956 – October 25, 2005) was a murderer executed by lethal injection in the U.S. state of Ohio. could be persuaded to submit to IQ testing. - Bob Danis Northridge In any business, when employees resign or are fired, they are entitled to severance pay Severance Pay Compensation that an employer gives to someone who is about to lose their job. Notes: Severance pay is not always paid to employees. It depends on the situation in which the employee is losing their job and whether legislation requires severance to be paid. . But those employees are never hired back as ``consultants'' to the very business they just left. The city's practice of buyoutsG and consulting contracts is reprehensible rep·re·hen·si·ble adj. Deserving rebuke or censure; blameworthy. See Synonyms at blameworthy. [Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin repreh . Why should city officials be given ``consulting contracts'' when they have left their positions, and why are those contracts in the six-figure range? The whole thing is a slap in the face to taxpayers. The City Council is effectively saying, ``As your elected representatives, we are going to use your money to pay off someone who's not working out so they can consult us on something they didn't work out in.'' Does this make sense to anyone? The City Council and the mayor should discontinue all payouts, buyouts, and consulting contracts immediately. Or, as their ``employer,'' I may be tempted to ``fire'' the lot of them in the next election. - Juan Ros Studio City The deal: We sign a contract with Mr. X “Mr. X” See Kennan, George F. Mr. X by definition, the identity of the greatest forger of all time. [Pop. Culture: Wallechinsky, 47] See : Forgery . The contract is for a specific term and at a specific amount of compensation for that term. At the end of the contract, it is determined that the service of Mr. X is no longer needed. The term of the contract is completed, and that is that. If there are no binding clauses that carry over or place requirements on either party at the end of the contract term, both parties walk away. We supposedly elect our city officials - at least partially - based upon their competence. We would hope these same officials would hire others who will serve the community based on their competence. What competent person would say, ``Even though we don't want you back, here is an extra $375,000. Have a nice day.'' I am sure that at least a couple of classrooms could be air-conditioned, and maybe even a signal installed to provide for the safety of our children, with the money being spent to fatten fat·ten v. fat·tened, fat·ten·ing, fat·tens v.tr. 1. To make plump or fat. 2. To fertilize (land). 3. the pockets of another already compensated ex-official. - Phil Stewart Canoga Park Rebuttal rebuttal n. evidence introduced to counter, disprove or contradict the opposition's evidence or a presumption, or responsive legal argument. on `Seinfeld' I am trying to figure out who has angered Maureen Dowd Maureen Dowd (born January 14, 1952) is a Washington D.C.-based columnist for The New York Times.[1][2] She has worked for the Times since 1983, when she joined as a metropolitan reporter. (`` `Seinfeld' cast mirrors bane BANE. This word was formerly used to signify a malefactor. Bract. 1. 2, t. 8, c. 1. of yuppiedom,'' Opinions, May 20). Is it the show ``Seinfeld''? Might it be the extremely talented writers for ``Seinfeld,'' the innovative actors oGn ``Seinfeld'' or the zany people the actors portray on ``Seinfeld''? Could it be President Reagan, President Clinton, all Democrats, all Republicans or a few select mail-order catalog companies that are the culprits? I sense an ulcer in the offing coming; arriving in the foreseeable future. visible but not nearby. See also: Offing Offing for Dowd. My prescription for the obviously sullen and disconsolate journalist is ``just say no'' to ``Seinfeld.'' It is probably best to leave ``Seinfeld'' to those of us mature enough to accept it for what it truly is, an extremely funny and entertaining show. - Eileen O'Neill West Hills |
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