Culver City Observer -

Recently I wrote several articles concerning excessive wages and benefits paid to senior city employees and retirees.

Many residents have stopped me at various places to express surprise that many pension checks totaled well over $125,000 per year and some presently "on the clock" were getting over $300,000 in wages and benefits. Just in case you need additional eye openers (and I have plenty), Culver City has people getting over $40,000 in overtime and our taxpayers send approximately $900,000 each month to CalPers in Sacramento.

But let us not rehash the past. We will all see soon enough that the $8 million in added taxes collected per Measure Y told to us by City Hall is just a pipe dream. If they were just up front with us they'd say that under the present system the city will be forced to cut services including police and fire or raise revenue on both within, I would guess, no more than seven years, or go bankrupt.

So from now on whenever I put in a Public Document request I will inform everyone what my reasons are, and when I get the information I will describe my findings. There are several active inquiries:

1. Monthly payments to Sacramento for retirees' medical

2. Culver City employee PAC contributions to local candidates

3. County property tax election to clean up La Ballona Creek

Neil Rubenstein

Culver City