Filner signals he’ll block further reform in San Diego
Dec. 11, 2012
By Chris Reed
SAN DIEGO — As I wrote for CalWatchdog just after last month’s election, there was a strong chance that successful reforms with a heavy libertarian flavor were going to be blocked going forward here in California’s second-largest city with the election of paleoliberal Bob Filner.
This weekend, Filner made it all but official, expressing skepticism about continuing with managed competition, a hybrid form of outsourcing in which units of existing government workers compete against private providers in bidding for the right to provide city services. This came with the city poised to make its biggest savings yet on bidding for trash collection, notoriously bloated when handled by a government.
The twist is that Filner is opposed by a fellow liberal, newly installed City Council President Todd Gloria, who likes the money that managed comp frees up for the city’s many other needs.
An additional twist is that government worker units, which are given a 10 percent bidding edge, have won all five of the competitions so far.
Here’s a comprehensive U-T San Diego story from Sunday laying out how managed comp works and the Filner-Gloria divide.
Here’s an editorial imploring Filner not to sabotage a government success story.
Here’s the other Filner angle that everyone is watching for. So far, he hasn’t come close to blowing a gasket. But it is what people expect to happen, given his history.
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What a thug. He’s a Democrat so he gets away with it.
— John Seiler
Im a Filner fan, despite his minor infractions. He will not kill pension reform, he knows that 69% of the voters want it.
“Im a Filner fan”
Rex, you certainly are a puzzle. For someone who seems so antagonistic to tax increases and bloated government you have a strange affinity for tax raising big government politicians (i.e. Boxer, Feinstein, Filner). So what kind of hybrid creature are you Rex? Socially liberal but fiscally conservative maybe? Might as well ditch the fiscal conservatism because we won’t be getting any of that in Crazyfornia for the foreseeable future.
Anything with “A heavy libertarian flavor” should be blocked as poor public policy not only in San Diego, but everywhere else it is proposed.
Dyspeptic doesn’t countenance any independent thinking. It’s either down the line for the rabid right or not at all.
As Emerson so eloquently put it: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
As to Brother Seiler, he throws around words like “thug” with great consistency. Maybe it takes one to know one.
Rexie and I have had many dustups, but at least he occasionally moves the needle toward the center. I’m just surprised that John and Ken haven’t put his head on a stick by now.
The public parasite has dug so deep it’s lodged in the brain. It will take some serious surgery to save the patient.
Boxer and DiFi have done decent jobs in the senate-Boxer is a little bit too liberal for my tastes, but I can deal with her. As for Filner, I would have preferred Demaio, but Filner own-how I do not know- but Files wont try to block pension reform. I hope he does the right thing, and think he will.
Remember, I’m an Independent, no longer have any major party affiliation after being a hardocre dem my entire life, up until 15 years ago when the dems threw everyone under the bus for public employees..
Rexie and I have had many dustups, but at least he occasionally moves the needle toward the center. I’m just surprised that John and Ken haven’t put his head on a stick by now.
I used to love KFI in the 1980’s when they had Tom Leykis on the afternoon shift and he would go on major bombastic rants…………never been a talk radio person.
@ StevefromSacto
“Dyspeptic doesn’t countenance any independent thinking”
That’s complete nonsense of course, especially coming from you. I am actually a registered decline-to-state voter and philosophically a libertarian, not a “rabid right” winger. For instance, I support full drug legalization, legalized prostitution, gay marriage and I’m also anti-war, anti-imperialism and I absolutely despise neo-conservatism. Does that sound like a right wing zealot to you? If it does, then you are very confused.
Besides, the point of my previous post was INCONSISTENCY of thought, not independence of thought. I was chiding Rex for supporting politicians who have high tax, big government agendas though his posts here seem to go in the opposite direction. Get it?
P.S. You misconstrue the meaning of the Emerson quote completely. I guess that doesn’t surprise me. Emerson wasn’t critical of logical consistency (he was much too smart for that), he was critical of small minded people who follow laws, traditions or procedures mindlessly because everyone else is doing it. That’s why he used the important adjective “foolish” to modify the word consistency. He wanted people to be self reliant, the exact opposite of what you lefties want, which is a society of helpless government dependents