Mailbag: What about the shortage?

I would like to thank the Glendale firefighters for the fantastic job they did knocking down the house fire and saving a disabled man’s life (“Neighbors save man,” May 6).

Prior to the Fire Department showing up, the neighbors in the 3500 block of Las Palmas chipped in to help save the man and the house.

It is great to know we live in a wonderful city where people care about others.

ROBYN WILSON

Glendale

Financial warnings to city were ignored

The Glendale News-Press front-page story April 24 “IN DEPTH: Pensions: City can’t keep up with cost,” reports what seems to me to be the city’s first public acknowledgment of the strain on its finances due to its employee pension benefits arrangements, which are administrated though the California Public Employees Retirement System, and that those arrangements are unsustainable.

Over the last few years, Herbert Molano has periodically appeared before the City Council, particularly when employee contracts were up for renewal, and presented trend data from the city that he obtained and analyzed.

Based on that analysis, and considering that the CalPERS fund for benefit payments is in investments subject to the stock market and housing bubble, he warned that the city needed to take a different tack on pay and pension benefits.

The News-Press story leads me to ask: Why were his early warnings ignored?

Why did the city not take steps the to deal with the problem then instead of waiting until now when further cuts in city services are needed to meet our CalPERS liability and to cover our dramatically increasing pension commitments?

HARRY ZAVOS

Glendale