Firefighters Back Harp

Praise God, it's all lining up for a glorious victory. You cannot stop us. A UNITEd front, blessed and anointed to bring New Haven up to a new level.

Yes please, let the unions drive this Harp debacle forward.

Once we end up like Detroit....

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/us/cries-of-betrayal-as-detroit-plans-to-cut-pensions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

...we can build up new from the ashes.

So now Righteous Cyclist is challelling Xavier for the Harp campagin.

According to the NHI, 69% of the members of this Union live out of town. They want to try to elect someone like DeStefano, who will keep raising taxes on city residents & demolishing city neighborhoods, in order to funnel more and more money out to their Union each year.

There is absolutely no way that this group would endorse a candidate who participates in public financing or who puts the interests of New Haven residents first.

posted by: Curious on July 21, 2013 10:12pm
Yes please, let the unions drive this Harp debacle forward.

Once we end up like Detroit….

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/us/cries-of-betrayal-as-detroit-plans-to-cut-pensions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

...we can build up new from the ashes.

The reason why Detroit is in debt is not because of union contracts. It is in debt because More of the political elite stealing.

An executive overseeing $200 million in real estate investments pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiring to bribe a city treasurer to get business. The former city treasurer also is under indictment.

Earlier this year, an Alabama businessman agreed to pay $4 million to settle a lawsuit with Detroit's pension funds over a loan to his freight airline. Donald Watkins was sued in 2008 after the pension funds said he missed a loan payment and broke other agreements.

And a federal grand jury in March indicted a former general counsel for Detroit's police and fire pension fund. The government says Ronald Zajac forced people who had business with the pension funds to pay thousands in cash to benefit pension trustees.

June 10, 2013 at 1:00 am
Businessman to pay $3.1M in Detroit pension case

Detroit— A Florida businessman agreed Monday to pay almost $3.1 million to federal regulators to settle claims he stole money from a Detroit pension fund, money that could have paid retirement benefits for more than 100 police officers, firefighters and relatives.

Read the rest.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130610/METRO01/306100078


At an Upscale Beverly Hills Restaurant, Claims of Underpaying Workers

By JENNIFER MEDINA

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/at-an-upscale-beverly-hills

Thank god for unions.

come on...I have spoke with more than a dozen fire fighters that live here and not one is supporting harp, infact they were even more vocal than me! Headline is missing leading Firefigher union reps supporting harp. And that is fine. And the pd will be next in line. Again I have spoke with many in town officers that are not supporting her. All that matters are the voters. Endorsements from out of towners does not impress New Haveners anymore.

cycle dude, congrates; means little to the tax payers but contrates. Most fire fighers know what will happen to there retirement down the line if Harp becomes mayor. Looks like team destefano dumped Henry and are now on the Harp spend spend wagon. Will she be funding the pensions? How does she plan on doing this? Simply questions. If she is able to can she do it without taxes tripling?

We all knew this was who they were going to support. Right out the JD ply book. What make Unite anybetter than JD. What I have witness they are far worse. The will push the low income working folks out of town. whatch I call it and i will say I told ya so,

The unions know One City Henry is no pushover. One City Henry will not allow himself to be compromised for the sake of getting elected by union bosses who do not even live in New Haven.

One City Henry is our Rom Emmanuel. Don't f#$% with him. The unions know this.

One City Henry, not so nice, man of the people, a real man, with real ambition for the good of New Haven. One City Henry's mustache has experienced more than most men in the entire lives.

Firefighters have to follow One City Henry from neighborhood to neighborhood because One City Henry causes spontaneous combustion where ever he has trod.

One City Henry, 23 years of New Haven experience, 23 years of slowly loving New Haven, 23 years of knowing this city and what we need.

Senator, who? they ask in the streets. The lady who lives in that big house, that she does not own.

One City Henry, homeowner, rehabilitating neighborhoods, economic generator, a reactor of ideas and action. Can you feel that? It was not a tremor but another idea from One City Henry coming to life.

Endorsements don't mean anything in local races like this one. Of course the firefighters would prefer someone who willfully and voluntarily remains clueless regarding the expenditure of public dollars. I have no doubt, as anonymous writes, that the vast majority of firefighters live some place other than New Haven. Unfortunately, JD set into motion a system of political influence, quite undue, mind you, from outsiders that Toni Harp is glad to continue. Unite Here ( with it's suburban leadership ) the firefighters who live out of town, and the Central Labor Council, am organization that constantly seeks to have union members only jobs that keep hundreds of people from even having a chance, will run the show if Harp is elected. With Jason Bartlett serving as her campaign manager, it is likely that he too will have a top job in New Haven government. If this happens I'm moving and taking my tax dollars with me.

Kottage says she's the candidate who has the "experience" and can bring people together. Does Kottage have one single example? Perhpas Toni Harp has lead on her family real estate empire and cleaning up the decades old mess of thumbing their noses at federal, state and local taxes? Uh, no. Perhaps she has experience in providing code compliant affordable housing? Uh no, never been in a single unit her family owns so she claims. Well, maybe she has lead on issues for working families like taxes and fees and state licenses for everything like contractors, plumbers, electricians and hair dressers, drivers licenses? Yes! She dramatically raised the cost of all of them. How about Toni Harp's leadership on limiting taxes on working families? No. Perhaps Toni Harp has experience on the issues of crime and despair in the poorest New Haven neighborhoods? No, she's traumatized there.

Perhaps Kottage and his merry band of union officials who reliably sell out the people the allegedly serve could put some meat on the bones of his press release. It sounds routine and mundane.

3/5,

Here's a <a href="http://cmsimg.freep.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C4&amp;Date=20130714&amp;Category=OPINION01&amp;ArtNo=307140047&amp;Ref=V1&amp;MaxW=300&amp;Border=0&amp;detroit;-pensions-financial-crisis-retirees&quot;&gt;LiLINK&lt;/a&gt; to a chart by Ezra Kline in the Detroit Free Press describing Detroit's debt.

As you can see, the majority of the debt is unfunded pension and health liabilities. Just like in New Haven, this wasn't a secret. And just like New Haven, municipal unions went many, many years down the road in lockstep with complicit politician(s) knowing that their agreements were not immediately fundable and that the pension fund profit projection of 8% annually was unrealistic. Detroit's is a Ponzi scheme that collapsed. Are we going to let that happen here? This is case in point why a union supermajority shouldn't be running the city of New Haven. The conflict of interest is astounding.

Does anyone know what the status of our pension funding is? I read that Hamden is at about 15% of what it is supposed to be and they are going to start doing some shady stuff to try and close the gap.

Are we better or worse off?

QM,

According to THIS article posted in 2013...

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/pension_funds_pushed_to_invest_locally/

...the Police & Fire Retirement Fund (P&F) and the City Employees Retirement Fund (CERF) are underfunded about 50%.

Here for those that don't seem to get it...this is the direction New Haven is heading if we keep running things as we have been as a city and with the pensions.
http://goo.gl/b0o34

CHR,

Its not as bad as Detroit.
Detroit's annual budget is @ $1.12B and its retiree benefit debt is @ $9B (retiree benefit debt is 900% its annual budget).
New Haven's Budget is @ $500M and a 2011 Moody's report stated that we had retiree benefit debt of @ $430M (86% of our annual budget)
Still, combined with school construction debt, its serious enough to downgrade our bond rating and should be taken very seriously.