East Bay Conservative

I usually pay relatively close attention to the ins and outs of local politics, but I complete missed the website that Bart has set up to inform riders and taxpayers about the excesses of its current union contracts.

Bart announced today that it will hike fares in the face of the recession, essentially increasing the fare to ride to SFO so high that I doubt many people will continue to use the service. The high cost of riding Bart is directly related to its union pay and benefits. And, it might surprise many readers of this blog to find out that the Bart station agents and train “drivers” frequently make more than $100k a year when counting pay, benefits and overtime.

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In the wake of the defeat of last week’s propositions, the LA Times ran a column on the front page of its website essentially arguing that California’s problem is that it doesn’t tax the rich enough.

There are so many problems with this column that it’s hard to know where to begin, but allow me to start with a bit of levity. In reading pieces like this, and those written about impending public-employee layoffs, it occurs to me that California may eventually wind up with just a single rich taxpayer paying for a single very well paid public employee.

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Like Oakland, California continues to stumble toward some kind of reckoning with profligate governmental policies.

By voting no today, or simply failing to vote at all, voters can help bring a dose of reality to our “leaders.”

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I’ve obviously been offline quite a bit lately tending to some things, but I wanted to let readers know that our local Chrysler dealer on Broadway will be closing as part of Chrysler’s round of dealership closings.

Here is a link to the full list of closures. Apparently Oakland’s is one of five or so in the Bay Area, including one in Livermore.

I can’t imagine this will be good for Oakland, and I would guess that the GM dealership is going to close too. We’ll see…