Jeff Muir Hits The Mark

By Neil Rubenstein

Observer Columnist

I honestly don’t know what’s so fascinating watching someone trying for hours to outrun the highway patrol and the helicopter. Nowadays police use the pit maneuver or the spike strip or just follow until the bad guy runs out of gas. Has anyone ever escaped? To stop this craziness the British have an invention which uses radio waves to scramble the bandito’s electronic controls. The criminal’s getaway car stops dead in about 55 yards.

Can someone please call my financial guru and ask him why India’s probe left earth November, 2013 and is scheduled to enter Mars’ orbit on September 24, 2014? With so many of her people living in poverty you wonder why they would spend the big bucks necessary rather than investing in helping their people.

My eye doctor recently told me I don’t have glaucoma, cataracts or macular degeneration and with my glasses it’s 20/20. I see what’s going on. A while back I spoke to Mr. Jeff Muir, the city’s financial officer, regarding the ½ cent increase to the sales tax. As you recall in a previous conversation he and I had around a year ago, he felt the city in the first year would get an additional $7.8 million. We all know Jeff came highly rated with degrees from Occidental College and an MBA from University of Southern California, but I felt it was just wishful thinking. But I was wrong. His projections are on target. He is unbelievably accurate.

For those who need a certain something to help your heart function, why not insist on the world’s smallest pacemaker? The Medtronic Micra TPS is less than one inch long and is threaded through the veins to the chest where it’s attached to the heart wall without wires, thus little risk of infections and complications.

Every year on April 28 the unions of the AFL-CIO observe Workers Memorial Day to remember those who have suffered and died on the job and to renew our efforts for safe workplaces.

Foolish me, I thought when the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963 some 51 years ago that the wage inequality would soon be a memory. The gap between men and women doing the same job here in California has closed to 85%. At that rate full equality will be achieved in 25 years.

Culver City established its first sister city February 24, 1964. It was with Uruapan, Mexico. Will China be next?

Citizens can file crime reports online, the Vernon Police Department recently announced. Once the receiving sergeant approves the report it is assigned a report number and a confirmation e-mail is sent back. What a time and money savings for all concerned.

Those cowboys in Colorado are whistling all the way to the bank in Denver. Next year they estimate the take on state taxes will be $134 million from marijuana sales.

Did you hear California Senior U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein alleged the CIA may have illegally accessed computers used by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence? After I finish rolling my eyes, can my lawyer, “Perry Masonstein,” tell me if this act, if true, violated our Constitution? What a joke.

Recently I was walking through a Southern California mall with a friend. We must have asked 30 shoppers if they knew what federal agency PBGC stood for and what was their mission. Not one person knew Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation collects premiums from pension plans and pays employee benefits when their employers cannot. In 2013 PBGC had a record loss of $35.6 billion and if Congress doesn’t intervene the agency could be insolvent in ten years. What a bummer. The most PBGC pays each month is $1,077. That would be quite a reduction for many of us.

From “Where Has the Time Gone” file, 2015 will be the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination. On March 3, 1991 Rodney King was beaten like a drum by Los Angeles police.

According to the personal finance site WalletHub, Los Angeles is the worst city in the world to find a job. WalletHub looked at job openings, employment growth, cost of living and many other factors. Cities that ranked the highest were Fort Worth, Texas (1), Washington, DC (2), Tampa, Florida (3), Arlington, Texas (4) and Dallas, Texas (5).

April is here and you know what that means – Big Bear’s fishing season opens.

 

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