The inability to create effective public policy is also a result of the toxic and unhealthy relationship elected officials have with the public safety unions that have consistently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy elections, castrate elected officials to vote their way and threaten those who vote against their selfish interests.
Since the city of San Bernardino declared bankruptcy in July 2012, there have been many opinion pieces written with all sorts of different ideas about how the city got to where it is.
While the entire story really is comprised of lost industries, closed military bases, re-routed freeway systems, an influx of renters without the same financial interest in maintaining property values and neighborhoods, a sinking tax base and a county seat that is home to many of the social services needed by those resting upon society’s safety net, the crux of the issue resides with the system that dictates the operations of the city as a municipal corporation – the City Charter.
At the end of the day, we are where we are – and that is on the brink of insolvency, disincorporation, no longer being the city of San Bernardino, and losing the oldest historic city in the county.
The City Council is fundamentally unable to make the difficult decisions that are needed to pull the city back off the brink of the precipice. This is the result of a council that is bound by rules imposed by a charter that dictates to those decision-makers what to pay certain city employees (public safety) – a specific rate that is compared to cities throughout the state that share no commonalities with San Bernardino.
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