True Obsession...

salary obsession? the NewsPress needs to start fostering a "fact obsession"....
the NewsPress has long been obsessed with public salaries. Defunct ex-editor Travis Armstrong thought he discovered gold when he published city of Santa Barbara employee salaries in the paper. This information is available to the public anytime, so Travis thought he could lay the recession blame on city employees, instead of on the Wall Street/private corporation corruption where it belongs. Travis often made things up to try to discredit the city of Santa Barbara employees and the unions that represent them..all for political reasons. When the News-Press political endorsements failed at the last election, Armstrong resigned and snuck out of town with his tail between his legs...since his departure, the News-Press has two lackeys writing guest editorials: Lanny Ebenstein and Terry Tyler... two failed city council candidates. Tyler also failed to establish a career with the City of Santa Barbara and has been crying about it ever since he left. He sat on the board of a non-profit called JobSmart, which his wife ran and recently has been absorbed by the dis-Unity Shoppe...they provide clothes for people looking for jobs, or something related to etiquette. Lanny Ebenstein calls himself Dr or Professor and is the president of a nonprofit Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association, which has a very cozy relationship with the News-Press...both nonprofits are tax exempt and very shady organizations..they don't pay taxes and I do!!
In true Travis Armstrong style, Lanny Ebenstein repeats himself with the city employee salary obsession. Often, he takes things out of context and doesn't include information about salary details. This is yellow journalism and is typical of the News-Press and Wendy McCuckoo. Lanny is a big supporter of "anything goes" free market capitalism..the stuff that nightmares are made of..or should I say Madoff. Lanny doesn't seem bothered when CEOs get millions in severence pay to leave a company after driving it into the ground; he's not concerned when ENRON steals pensions of California workers and then elects a governor (Arnold) who tries to do the same; Lanny is blind to the fact that free marketers are manipulating markets and picking pockets; however, when a person spends 30 years public service with the city and then retires on his own investments into the PERS retirement system, the moneyhounds at the NewsPress have a problem. Talk about screwed up values: Wendy gets rich in a divorce settlement; Lanny sponges off the university system and nonprofits, neither of them has a discernable work ethic, and they complain about the working class??
The city provides essential services and jobs/careers for people who want to work..and they get benefits that increase their chances for success over the long haul..it's just a good idea to respect the workforce who provide the services..the military has pension and health care packages..so should Walmart, auto workers and everyone else with a career..that fundamental security is what makes us competitive in the real world....the News-Press seems content to cry about salaries instead of understanding what the city departments do and who the real culprits are in the last economic meltdown....very lazy, yellow journalism.
The pictures say it all: Lanny Ebenstein at a city council meeting with right wingnut Gina Perry of the Daily Sound. Lanny was wanking about salaries and pensions and Gina recently had her opinion pulled fron the pages of the Daily Sound for advocating, among other things, whacking President Obama, calling him an extremist! Where's the FBI when you need them?