Checking In on Vallejo, California

Remember Vallejo?  I wrote a column about their budget woes in the lead-up to the June special election that would have allowed for binding arbitration for Fort Collins city employees.

Well, the woes continue:

When the town of Vallejo, California, declared bankruptcy this spring, Mayor Osby Davis predicted — and rightly so — that he'd get an earful from his constituents, employees and retirees. What he didn't anticipate was the chorus of phone calls from mayors outside the city, both close by and clear across the country. They told him they were watc hing Vallejo's bankruptcy proceedings closely, and some of them, he says, indicated that "they find themselves not too far behind us."

Vallejo, a city of 120,000 about 35 miles northeast of San Francisco, flat-out went broke this year through a combination of generous public-safety salaries, declining property values and fiscal mismanagement. The city is estimating a $17 million deficit for the current fiscal year.