After a long and chaotic city council meeting in which two council members and the mayor showed blatant disregard for procedure and the law, the Compton City Council came out of a closed session late last night to approve a budget that includes over 100 layoffs–all of which could easily have been avoided.
“I’m devastated,” said Rose Downs, a Compton city analyst who will lose her job on August 2. “After 20 years of dedicated services, it comes to this.”For months, the Coalition of Compton Unions has been urging the Council to pass a responsible, balanced budget free of layoffs. The Coalition’s goal has been to protect essential city services for Compton residents.
“The
mayor said we’re a family, but they’re destroying the family,” said
Rosie Navarro, a Compton administrative analyst who will also lose her
job on August 2.Councilmembers Yvonne Arceneaux and Dr. Willie O. Jones led an effort to pass a no-layoff budget.
But in the wee hours of the night, after Dr. Jones had left the building, Mayor Eric Perrodin and Councilmembers Lillie Dobson and Janna Zurita rammed through a vote on a budget that includes concessions that the three legislators cherry-picked out of the Coalition proposal. Unilaterally imposing selected concessions on union members who have a contract is a violation of labor laws, a fact that City Attorney Craig Cornwell pointed out to the Council several times.
“They were informed that these actions were illegal, yet they approved a bogus budget full of discrepencies, and now the community will suffer,” Downs said.
The Coalition plans to file legal challenges to the layoffs.
In the meantime, if you don’t like what Perrodin, Dobson and Zurita did, call their offices and tell them you support transparency, the rule of law, public services and a strong middle class for Compton. Mayor Perrodin and Councilmembers Dobson and Zurita can all be reached at (310) 605-5590.