Duh, Really?

In other parts of the City...our Public School teachers, numbering the hundreds, protested inside and outside of the Newport Mesa School District offices on Tuesday to complain about their low pay, the lowest in Orange County, in fact. As much as I can sympathize with them, I got a real kick out of this quote, ""Some of us are getting to the point where we can't live in Orange County any longer," said Susan McVeigh, a Sonora Elementary School teacher." Interesting because I don't know any teacher who can afford to live in Orange County, especially in Newport Beach, on a teacher's salary alone. Anyway, what's fascinating about this is the fact that Newport Beach now has the highest paid Police Officers in the County, but the lowest paid teachers. What does that tell you? One thing it tells me that we care more about today than we do about tomorrow, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it makes me nervous nonetheless. Don't worry about our kids because our highest-paid police officers will take care of them later. Our City's future is in danger if we don't invest in attracting better teachers with better pay and better benefits, sort of the same argument used by the Police and Fire Unions. And as much as I HATE the Unions, I tend to agree that you get what you pay for, especially with teachers. We will just need to be careful not to fiscally strap our School district in the future and follow the City's example by mortgaging the future with a new City Hall and creating crazy high unfunded pension liabilities.