IS CITY HALL LISTENING? - Last Friday, members of the Coalition of LA City Unions presented a 20-page report containing more than $100 million in revenue ideas and budget-balancing solutions for the City of Los Angeles to the City Budget and Finance Committee.
The Coalition has long maintained that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s budget proposal needlessly calls for additional service cutbacks and mass layoffs that will lead to reductions in vital city services and hardship for the working families of Los Angeles.
This was a rare opportunity for the unions to present a complete list of their concrete alternatives. It is the first time in memory that City employees and their labor representatives have been invited to make a formal budget presentation of this kind. But it isn’t the first time that the Coalition has stepped up to assist the City in balancing the budget. Last year, Coalition members worked with the Mayor and other City officials to balance the budget by agreeing to hundreds of millions in contract concessions.
We appreciated the opportunity to present these ideas to the Committee and hope we can work with the Council to keep city services running for all Angelenos.
Please read our entire report on our website by clicking here.
(Bob Schoonover is president SEIU721) -cw
Tags: Bob Schoonover, SEIU, Coalition of LA Unions, Budget and Finance, City Council, city budget, Los Angeles
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 37
Pub: May 8, 2012