*Item #1…Why Mayor Mike "BB" Rawlings can initially claim the pension fix brokered by State Rep. Dan Flynn was a taxpayer "bailout" and going to raise taxes, but now, this senate "Conceptual plan," is no longer a "bailout."
Perhaps that's because it never was a taxpayer bailout to begin with. Raising taxes was never, ever in Flynn's plan. Trust me, I read all 188 pages. It just made the city take responsibility for its legal and moral obligations to fund the pension.
At the mayor's press conference, one reporter went astray and asked the mayor about that very point. Why, the reporter asked, isn't this amended plan a taxpayer bailout? Rawlings did what he does best--a bit of a sidewinder shuffle:
"The nature of this bill creates a system where we're not locked in for the set amount for eternity and the last bill did that, and that's why I called it that," Rawlings said.
Hmmmm, interesting how for months Rawlings screamed "taxpayer bailout." He painted a cat a dog, but no one questioned it. Then suddenly, someone pulled the cat's tail, the cat meowed, and now the cat is no longer a dog, but a cat. Go figure.
*Item #2…Why all the stakeholders at Senator West and Senator Huffines marathon meeting apparently agreed not to comment on the details of the "nonbonding conceptual" agreement until the senate amendments to the pension bill were drafted.
And then, the senators immediately held a press conference.
Not to be outdone, Mayor Rawlings squeaked in his press conference waving around the non-binding agreement paper in his hand and talking about how from the beginning he always said "to fix this plan everybody has got to come to the table."
Well, last time I checked, Mr. Mayor, the police never left the table. Nor the firefighters. Nor Chairman Flynn. Nor the pension folks. But where were you? Oh, that's right, you were blowin' and goin' about taxpayer bailouts and pistol whippings.
Interestingly, police and fire groups honored the agreement to remain quiet because, well, a promise is a promise, and first responders take those things rather seriously. That is until the senators and Rawlings blasted the info across the evening news, startling all the active and retired members of the those groups.
This leaves me wondering about what the end game is for that. Is it so that it will be more difficult for police and firefighters to back out or re-negotiate when the actual amendment from the senators proves to be a different thing entirely? You know, when that cat becomes a dog again?
We shall have to wait and see what the senators come up with and how it fits with Rep. Flynn's pension bill. Flynn said he remains "committed to continue to support the 10,000 Police and Fire members and their families first and will not allow them to be bullied by the City."
*Item #3… I will never understand why Mayor Rawlings tries to pretend to care. He's painted first responders as greedy and self-serving among other things. At the press conference, a reporter asked him about the animosity between him and first responders. He did that sidewinder shuffle again, but I found this tidbit rather enlightening:
"We've had a lot of frank conversations. The retirees," Rawlings said about the negotiations. "There were tears in that room. There was emotion going on, and at times there were almost my tears."
Almost.
You know like a cat is almost a dog.
#savethepension #peoplebeforeprojects #RawlingsDoesntCare
