ANAHEIM : New Majority Targets Privatization Policy

The City Council’s new majority said this week its first major act will be to rescind a recently enacted policy prohibiting the city manager from asking private firms if they could perform city services for less money than city employees.

Mayor-elect Tom Daly, Councilman-elect Frank Feldhaus and Councilman Irv Pickler each said that they want to revoke the controversial policy, which Mayor Fred Hunter and Councilmen William D. Ehrle and Bob D. Simpson enacted last August over City Manager James D. Ruth’s objections. The policy, which was backed by the city’s employee unions, in effect prohibits the privatization of any more city jobs.

“I will give our city manager a clear signal that he should be evaluating the costs of providing services, both traditional services, such as police and fire, as well as the special operations like the Convention Center and golf course,” Daly said.

Feldhaus defeated Ehrle in Tuesday’s election. Daly defeated Hunter for mayor, but Hunter still has two years remaining on his council seat. Shortly after the moratorium was enacted, Hunter received the endorsement of all four city employee unions, while Ehrle was endorsed by three.

“The people of this city have decided that they want to take control of the government back from the unions,” Pickler said. Hunter and Ehrle “walked hand-in-hand with the unions, and they got beat. I think we have the best police officers, firefighters and municipal employees around, but most of them don’t live in this city, and the residents are sick and tired of outsiders controlling City Hall.”

The city, which has about 1,800 employees, already has 335 contracts worth $126 million annually with private firms that perform city tasks. That is about one quarter of the city’s annual budget. The firms perform a range of tasks, such as processing parking tickets, score-keeping and officiating at city athletic leagues and lobbying government officials in Washington.

Sharon Ericson, president of the Anaheim Municipal Employees Assn., the city’s largest employee union, said that she considered the moratorium broken two weeks after it was enacted when the city hired an outside firm to do work for the library. One employee faces a $450 a month pay cut because of that move.

“All we were looking for with the moratorium was a breather so that the city management could go back and look and see if the city is really saving any money by contracting out” services, Ericson said. “I’m not sure they do.”