Union-Tribune cuts toughest criticisms from mayor’s letter to the editor
Mayor Jerry Sanders has come out of his corner with fists flying in his brawl with the San Diego Union-Tribune. The paper concluded a three-part series today in which they argue that the city has been growing its payroll during a period of fiscal belt-tightening. In his response, Sanders sent a memo to the City Council going through the story line by line to correct the record, and he sent a letter to the Union-Tribune, which the paper published in today’s edition.
But the paper didn’t publish the letter in full. According to an e-mail sent to CityBeat by Sanders’ spokesperson Rachel Laing, the paper cut off the first and last paragraphs of the letter. While it’s common for newspapers, including CityBeat, to edit letters down for space, letters from high-profile individuals arguing controversial stories are often left untouched. In this case, the paragraphs the paper opted to cut happened to contain the harshest criticisms of the story. Laing also provided CityBeat with the complete letter.
“Over several months,” the first paragraph read, “the Union-Tribune was provided thousands of pages of data by my office, and yet still managed to produce an article that was highly distorted, and in some cases, downright false.”
The letter went on to detail flaws in the story’s logic about the purported rise in payroll.
The final paragraph, which was also cut, read: “This information is part of the public record and was explained in detail to the Union-Tribune.
Unfortunately, the newspaper’s Watchdog Team needed a sensational claim to justify its months-long ‘analysis,’ so it distorted some facts and excluded others with the clear intent of misleading the public.”
I left a message this afternoon for Union-Tribune‘s opinion editor Bernie Jones to get comment.
The complete text of the letter, with the missing paragraphs restored, is after the jump:
Over several months, the Union-Tribune was provided thousands of pages of data by my office, and yet still managed to produce an article that was highly distorted, and in some cases, downright false.
So allow me to set the record straight.
First, City payroll has gone down since I became mayor. This is a fact and it is irrefutable. When we finish the 2009 fiscal year Wednesday, overall payroll will have dropped by approximately $7 million between my first year in office and this year.
Instead of reporting on this encouraging trend, the Union-Tribune chose to cherry-pick a single year in which payroll did, in fact, rise — though it was the result of an abnormal convergence of events, a fact surprisingly left unexplained in the article.
The so-called $41 million “increase” in payroll, which followed three years of negative payroll growth, breaks down like this:
$22.5 million was the result of pay raises, the bulk of which went to public-safety personnel to stop the exodus of police officers and firefighters who were leaving for higher salaries offered by other cities. When combined with modest raises granted by the previous administration to general employees — who had gone two years without any pay increases – overall city salaries rose 3.6 percent.
$11 million was spent to repay city employees who either agreed to have their pay reduced or made extra pension contributions – the proceeds of which were to be leveraged for the benefit of the retirement system. When the former city attorney blocked the city from using their money for this purpose, it was rightfully returned to those employees. An additional $1 million is attributable to other one-time expenses.
Lastly, $6.5 million was due to increased overtime, $5 million of which went to firefighters. The article omits that nearly two-thirds of that amount — $4 million – was paid to firefighters who responded to an unusually high number of fires and hurricanes outside San Diego. This amount is initially paid by the city, but fully reimbursed by the state and federal governments.
All in all, nearly half of the $41 million “increase” was due to one-time aberrations: employees getting repaid what they were owed and firefighting costs for which the city is fully reimbursed.
This information is part of the public record and was explained in detail to the Union-Tribune. Unfortunately, the newspaper’s Watchdog Team needed a sensational claim to justify its months-long “analysis,” so it distorted some facts and excluded others with the clear intent of misleading the public.
JERRY SANDERS
Mayor, City of San Diego
I don’t always agree with the mayor, but I love when he rolls up his sleeves and comes out with fist flying. He is such a badass.
C’mon.
First of all, it wasn’t the mayor who sent the letter, it was one of his high-paid lackeys, Darren Pudgil (read the doc you posted). And it wasn’t even written by Pudgil, it was written by the high-paid lackey who hides in dark corners and has become the new Fred Sainz — former UT columnist Gerry Braun. Pudgil is on Cape Cod this week, so he wasn’t writing 9-page memos.
Second of all, the letter doesn’t “correct the record” at all. It’s spin. Take the letter point by point. Every fact in there is in the U-T story — the $22.5 million, the $11 million, the $6.5 million. The story also quotes the mayor saying payroll has gone down during his time in office, and quotes him calling the increase in 2008 an “aberration.”
The letter sounds “badass” as sddialed in puts it, but it doesn’t demand a correction or point out a single error. It’s all how the mayor’s office would spin the data.
I guess it depends on how you define “toughest criticisms.” I would think those would be ones that included some facts, not simple posturing. These just seem like bookends of bloviation.
for a newspaper that’s failing, the UT is sure doin’ a good job of pissing people off. whether it’s the local unions (virtually every day), the schools (ditto) or local democrats (see breen’s weds editorial cartoon), the paper only seems to favor the flat earthers and cheneyites. last time i checked that was about 20% of the population.
maybe it’s time the rest of us gave up the comics and sports sections and looked elsewhere for training paper for our pets.
please share this story about how their series has impacted this city employee…. http://obrag.org/?p=9446
CityBeat and Last Blog’s ongoing love affair with Sanders, in it’s latest manifestation: CB and LB have never met an incarnation of Sanders that they didn’t love. Lies, corruption, deceit, coverups, padded resumes, and an open door that Laing jumps through, as if CB/LB were real journals! what a comedy!
And Rosy, please: the mayor is not some punk singer who deserves admiration for behaving like a jerk. Stick to music scene analysis. You must have voted for Arnold, if fake-tough talk is all it takes to get your attention.