Posted by Steven Nelson, a resident of the Cuesta Park neighborhood, on Jun 15, 2012 at 5:34 pm

Nice to hear the city and public safety unions are talking. Hope this continues for years. BTW, our last city manager, as a way of showing comparisons, had listed in a council budget meeting (jam packed with citizens) the departments that had trimmed their expenses most over the previous 5 years. The fire department was dead last. With less fire calls over the last decades (and more para-medic calls) it is (IMO) obviously time to start working with unions to change the workforce composition for THIS VITAL SERVICE! We want you, we value you, we just expect you to lead the way in efficiently providing this service. [after the Firehouse 5 dedication I now appreciate a little better the past 'best of class' reputation of our fire service]

Posted by Otto Maddox, a resident of the Monta Loma neighborhood, on Jun 21, 2012 at 8:45 am

Wow.. 11% towards their pensions.

I pay 100% towards my retirement. And it's still not garanteed like these pensions are.

I'm glad the city is getting concessions but it's still not enough. The money is gone. Time to make the really hard cuts.

Maybe we didn't really need the new fire station.

Instead of a brand new fire fleet how about replacing 1/3 of it every couple years.

Of course now there is talk about a new police/fire administration building.

Spend spend spend.