City Council Wants Public Input on PERS Retirement

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Pacific Grove - The Pacific Grove City Council voted 4-3 in favor of placing an advisory measure on the November ballot. The City filed a resolution yesterday with the Monterey Elections Department. The advisory vote will ask the citezens of Pacific Grove their opinion of taking the City Employees out of the CALPERS Retirement System and placing them into a 401K type of plan. UPEC was unable to obtain the exact language today and told to call back after August 8th.
The City Council had previous voted 3-4 against placing CALPERS item on the ballot in their July 2nd meeting following comments from Fire, Police and UPEC representatives. A week later the item was back on the City Council agenda for the July 16th meeting. Business Manager Chris Darker said the CIty Council is determined to do away with CALPERS claiming that the retirement system is too costly and to blame for their projected budget shortfall.