City moves forward on cut jobs, furloughs

Just in: LA City Council votes to begin the process of 926 layoffs and furlough days for all employees while negotiations with the unions continue for another 48 hours. It will take up to six months to organize and implement these layoffs. Furloughs, however, will begin September 28th.

Meanwhile, the Mayor's E-RIP/Golden Handshake plan goes back to the LACERS (City pension) committee which is loaded with mayoral appointees. In other words, it sounds like the City Council did nothing... except perhaps improve their bargaining position by getting closer to being able to implement layoffs immediately -- something they should have done on January 1st so the trigger could have been pulled on this bargaining chip before the July 1 start of the new 09-10 fiscal year, not six months from today's date.

(...and these conflicted impartial city council gutless wonders representatives are paid almost $200,000 per year by us taxpayers to make the big decisions for us taxpayers when the going gets tough... wow. Doesn't anyone have any actual balls leadership ability?)

More details via the latest LA Times article.