San Diego-area Assembly candidates tangle over lifeguard pensions
Lifeguards in Oceanside get the same retirement package as cops – a fact that has surfaced in an Assembly race featuring two Republicans.
One of the candidates for the San Diego area's 76th Assembly District, former legislative staffer Sherry Hodges, put out an email this week hammering former Oceanside City Councilman Rocky Chavez for the city's "aquatic specialist" pensions.
You probably know them as "lifeguards."
Chavez was on the City Council that unanimously voted to grant those employees a package that guarantees 3 percent of their highest annual wage times their years of service. Under that formula, an employee with 20 years of service making $60,000 annually receives a $36,000 pension.
Chavez, who worked in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, brushed aside the pension hubbub. He acknowledged the vote, which occurred in 2003. And, he said, it affected just two full-time staff members. The city's part-time lifeguards don't get pensions.
Hodges' attack is "one of many attempts" to rescue her campaign, Chavez said, but he's not biting. He can afford to stay above the fray: His campaign's internal polling shows he's up by 15 percentage points.
CAMPAIGN WATCH
Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, left, and his GOP challenger, Ricky Gill of Lodi, face off at 6 tonight in what's expected to be their only debate in the nationally watched battle for the 9th Congressional District. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. at Long Theater at the University of the Pacific's Stockton campus. The university is co-hosting the event with the League of Women Voters.
WORTH REPEATING
"Why is it I get the feeling that Molly Munger is looking at several years of state tax audits?"
BILL WHALEN, a Hoover Institution fellow and former speechwriter for Gov. Pete Wilson, via Twitter on Friday. He was referring to Munger's attack on Gov. Jerry Brown's tax-increase measure.
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