Worst of both worlds

I have to say that I am most frustrated by this whole OPEB discussion by Tony Daysog.  (I rewatched the video yesterday if you didn’t get that) If you listen to the discussion and the questioning by Tony Daysog it’s clear that he wanted his comments to seem to support the unions, but in his eventual vote he voted against the unions.  And why?  Because the proposal was not “comprehensive” enough.  Of course, no one ever presented the Russo plan (for ease of typing) as a comprehensive “one size fits all” proposal.  And nothing that Tony Daysog kind of, sort of proposed would have done much to close the gap either.

The whole premise of his support/opposition (because Tony Daysog always wants to try to appease both sides) was that he believed the trust fund proposal to be “under capitalized” which, no duh dude.  Everyone, from staff to the consultant who reviewed it, said that the trust fund would run out of money if nothing else is ever done.

So essentially Tony Daysog’s solution  is to continue doing nothing because the first proposal doesn’t go far enough.  In the end his reasons for voting against the proposal falls short and he ended up alienating public safety for no good reason.

Oh wait, it’s also to give away another something and get nothing back.

How is that?  Let me explain.

Instead of dealing with discussing this very distinct issue of these MOUs which would start having labor pay into this OPEB trust fund, Tony Daysog wanted to talk about a different pension fund that exists in the City for older retirees.  To nutshell, there exists in the City pension plans that are separate from CalPERS for retirees who opted to not go through CalPERS.  This pension plan is paid out from the general fund and as people die off (yeah, kind of morbid) the liability reduces because the less people pulling from the fund means less money required to fund it.  The liability for those funds will eventually hit zero because no one gets added to those pension funds.

Tony Daysog wanted to talk about how to incorporate those funds into the MOU discussions for funding this new trust fund.  I don’t have to point out to you all how that would be premature (as was pointed out to Tony Daysog that night) because it’s not as though adding those potential future funds (whatever the amount would be) would make the proposal “comprehensive” either, but here’s when I realized that Tony Daysog either (a) didn’t know what his actual opposition was or (b) was very very confused about the proposal, it’s when he said this (after a lengthy explanation by John Russo about the premature nature of trying to do something with the funds and about how those funds could be used at a later date to leverage more concessions):

In pursing this idea, I don’t want to use it [the other pension funds] to begin bargaining again, like if we do this I want public safety now to give this.

Uh, what?

Isn’t this how we got to this whole liability thing in the first place?  Giving away something for nothing? John Russo handed to the Council what they could do with this pot of money in the future which could be discussed as part of the standing group created by the Council to continue to examine these liabilities.  And then Tony Daysog — who doesn’t vote for moving forward with at least a small step toward “capitalizing” the trust fund — wants to not use this other potential pot of money as a bargaining chip for future negotiations.

Seriously?

Tony Daysog wants to appear to be a big picture critical thinker but in the end he just fails at presenting his logical and cogent arguments, but much like his yes and no votes on the Alameda Theatre project he just wants to have it both ways.