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Politics & Government

Santa Cruz Police Outraged by City Cuts

Santa Cruz police officers pay 20 percent of their salaries to pension funds under new contract.

Black-clad and silent, around 30 Santa Cruz police officers lined the walls of the City Council Chambers on Tuesday afternoon to protest a two-year contract agreed upon in April that will take $3 million in benefits and pay from police. The city hopes to use the savings to reduce its $8 million deficit.

The contract will raise the amount officers pay into the city pension and create a separate plan for new officers. Called a “two-tier system,” the plan will increase the retirement age of new police officers from 50 to 55 and base their pensions on the average of their three highest-paid years, rather than their one highest-paid year, as it was in the past.

All Santa Cruz police officers will pay more than 20 percent of their salaries into pension funds.

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Sgt. Mike Connor, president of the Santa Cruz Police Officers' Association, was the only officer to speak to the City Council, but his message was sharp, critical and clear.

“I have been approached by the city, the mayor and the individual council members about coming before you today and speaking great things about this new contract, and how well we all worked together to produce $3 million in cuts,” Conner said.

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“I'm sorry, but I can't say that ... because it just isn't true. Nor can we participate in a public relations show that is not a true account of what really happened,” he said.

Conner implied that the council had strong-armed the police officer's union into accepting the contract and that the impacts would be devastating for officers and their families. He criticized the council for making cuts, while giving $2.3 million in taxpayer loans to De La Veaga Golf Course and $350,000 in taxpayer loans to local dirt-bike manufacturer Motorcycles Inc., and spending $110,000 on a beach trolley for summer tourists.

“The city said several times, if we don't reach an agreement, they're gonna impose a contract on us, so there wasn't a negotiation,” he said.

Before Conner's public statement, Mayor Ryan Coonerty and several members of the City Council profusely thanked the assembled officers for cooperating with the council and lauded the contract as a sustainable plan for the future.

“We have been negotiating and are happy to report that we have reached an agreement with the police officers association,” Coonerty said. “That is tremendous in cutting our structural deficit to basically half."

Coonerty implied that the police were not alone, as the city has eliminated $10 million from its general fund since 2001, ended funding to the teen center, the museum of natural history, the surfing museum and the beach flats community center, and cut 48 percent of funding to community programs in recent years.

“It avoids layoffs; it allows the city to create a base from which it can move forward,” Coonerty said of the contract.

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