Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Helen Nenadal, who has worked for the city of Costa Mesa, Calif., for more than 30 years, was one of hundreds of city workers to receive a pink slip.
Nearly half of this city’s workers were told late last week that, come September, they would probably be out of a job. Nearly every city department will be eliminated. More than a dozen tasks will be outsourced, including graffiti removal, firefighting, building maintenance and street cleaning.
Unlike the drama that played out over
several months in Madison, Wis., the battle over public workers in this bustling suburb of upscale shopping malls in the heart of Orange County is happening at lightning speed.
The letters went out last week to more than 200 of the city’s roughly 450 workers, sending many into a panic as they scurried to look for new jobs. The move will, in one great swoop, reinvent municipal government here, and perhaps lead the way for other cities to adopt similar plans.
Emotions in Costa Mesa, already running high, grew more intense after one city worker, summoned to receive his pink slip, instead climbed five stories to the roof of City Hall and jumped to his death. A small side entrance to the building is now decorated with supermarket bouquets and tall, white candles, a memorial to the 29-year-old man, who had worked for the city’s maintenance department for four years.
The layoffs have deeply divided
this small city, just over the coast from affluent Newport Beach. While Costa Mesa has long been a politically conservative enclave, much like the other wealthy suburbs that surround it, the move to privatize so many city services strikes many residents as a harsh political tactic, meant to remake the city into a national model in the battle over public employee unions.
But the City Council, which moved quickly to approve the outsourcing and layoff plans, says the layoffs are the only way to solve a budget gap of as much as $15 million next year and deal with pensions that grow exponentially each year, eating away at the city’s $93 million budget.
“We see the train wreck coming and the only questions are how bad it will be and how quickly we want to try to stop it,” said City Councilman Jim Righeimer, who has led the push for outsourcing and has battled with public employee unions for years. “We have to stop blaming other people and start to solve these problems ourselves. These are hardworking people, but we know we cannot afford to keep paying what we have been.”
This is the Wisconsin labor battle in miniature — union officials and opponents of the layoffs say it is politics and not money that is driving the decision. City officials say they do not know how much money they will save by outsourcing, although Mr. Righeimer said he expected to cut anywhere from 15 to 40 percent in labor costs.
Mr. Righeimer, a real estate developer, has been a vocal irritant to unions for years, and he fought a bruising battle against them in his bid for the City Council here last fall. But few here seemed prepared for him to push such wholesale change so quickly. Several community leaders called this week for the city to rescind the layoff notices, although there were few signs that officials would back down.
“They should have been thinking from the very beginning what kind of cost saving they were going to get before doing this — not tell us now. ‘You don’t have a job, and we’ll get back to you later if we change our mind,’ “ said Helen Nenadal, who has worked in the city’s maintenance department for more than 30 years and who now believes the city will not back down on the plan. “They are on their mission,” she said.
City officials say the services could be outsourced to a mix of private firms and other municipal governments. The county’s fire department has indicated that it would be willing to take over the firefighting duties in Costa Mesa, as it has for other cities. The department said it could cover the city with 15 fewer firefighters, Mr. Righeimer said.
City officials have not ruled out outsourcing the police as well, one of the only city departments not included in this first round of layoffs. Although other employees, like city planners and engineers, may have avoided the pink slips for now, few feel confident that they will not be laid off later, what with a team of consultants considering cost savings in the entire city.
Wendy Leece, the only one of the five City Council members to vote against the layoffs, said her colleagues were acting “recklessly.”
“We’re a nice, safe and clean city, and we need to make sure we stay that way,” Ms. Leece said. “I’m a lifelong Republican — nobody can out-Republican me. But I think we also need to be conservative on the front end and not rush into something that is going to alienate all our employees.”
“The sky isn’t falling,” she added, “but there is a real effort by some to exaggerate the crisis.”
The city has already been through a round of cuts. Last year, it eliminated or reduced the hours for 77 employees and cut programs. Tom Hatch, the city’s chief executive, said the city currently had the same number of staff members as it did in 1985, “with a much higher demand of services.” And employees have offered some concessions, including paying more toward pensions.
But because so much of the city’s budget goes to paying salaries and benefits, there has been less money to spend on needed city services. Roads have gone unrepaired for too long and it has been years since there has been enough money to buy fertilizer for city parks, said Stephen Mensinger, who was appointed to the city council this year and is backing the outsourcing plan.
“At some point we don’t have money for anything else except for labor,” Mr. Mensinger said. “That can’t go on. We’re not a poor town, but we’ve been spending money without regard to whether it’s for the best possible services at the lowest possible price.”
I once lived in Costa Mesa , Calif long ago. Costa Mesa is to Newport Beach what Northfield is to Margate location wise. Newport is a small very wealthy Calif. Coastal town on a small peninsula of sandy beaches and bays. Costa Mesa is right across a connecting bridge from Newport. This is an extremely conservative area of Calif. so I'm not that surprised that were seeing such a radical solution to a budget problem there. Could this be Margate someday? There are more then a few people in town right now that firmly believe Margate's City Administration is way over staffed and way to costly. What do you folks think?
