Mayor Pat Morris knows that as he prepares to leave office he will most likely go down in history as the worst mayor of San Bernardino.

This is not a subjective opinion as Morris and his supporters will claim. It’s a fact.

Don’t think so? Then please name one other Mayor of San Bernardino who had the City go bankrupt while they were in office.

Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about another fact Pat Morris doesn’t want to admit:  he is responsible for San Bernardino’s bankruptcy no matter how you cut it.

If you believe that out of control spending is the culprit, then Pat Morris as mayor failed to veto those budgets and spending items that were behind the red ink.

If you believe pension benefits provided to San Bernardino’s Police Officers and Fire Fighters are to blame for the city’s insolvency, Pat Morris is still to blame.

Before Pat Morris was elected Mayor, the 3% at 50 retirement benefit didn’t exist in San Bernardino. Pat Morris introduced it.

Pat Morris proposed increasing retirement benefits to San Bernardino’s public safety professionals. It was the brain child of the mayor himself.

He even got the entire City Council to go along with him, including Rikke Van Johnson who also likes to bash public safety pensions as the City’s main problem.

And here’s the documents that prove it:

 Morris’s recent publicity tour calling for a constitutional amendment to gut retiree pension and healthcare benefits is nothing but a sham to paper over his horrendous record as Mayor of San Bernardino.

He does not have the money or the support statewide to pass such an initiative, even if he really wanted to.

And make no mistake, Pat Morris doesn’t really want to curb public employee pensions. After all he’s got a very nice pension himself.

According to CalPERS, Pat Morris makes an annual pension of $117, 199.52.

That’s a monthly stipend of $9,825.96.

Not bad for a failed judge who became a failed mayor of a city where over 31% of the people he was elected to represent live below the federal poverty line.

An editorial by Steve Desrochers, chairman of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association Political Action Committee.

When you think of all that is at stake in this election, does it keep you up at night? It should, but for most people, the answer is no.

Future of San Bernardino hinges on the outcome of this election (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That is primarily because, I think the voters are numb.

We have been hit so hard and so frequently with bad news about the City, the behavior of the leadership and the constant negative force of state programs (elimination of the Economic Development Agencies and AB 109, for example), that many just turn away when the topic turns to San Bernardino.

Others don’t believe that their single vote can account for the vast amount of change needed to make a difference.

When you consider that in 2005, about 25,848 cast a vote in the Mayoral election. In 2009 mayor’s race, as the recession was just winding up, that number dropped to around 14,930.

I’m thinking that we should see resurgence in the number of voters this year, but will that materialize?

Every voter should make every attempt to get to the polls this November. It is critically important.

We are a bankrupt community, with a huge leadership deficit.

Mayor Morris is walking away from the mess he engineered and probably won’t lose any sleep over it.

Narcissistically, he has blamed every other possible group (the council, the unions, the City Attorney, the Charter, etc.) for his own legacy and will enjoy his golden years, likely in some other community. Any other community.

I say that’s fine. Let him go. Let the past go and let’s start the recovery.

Technically, we have 10 candidates who wish to replace Mayor Morris. I believe that field is actually much smaller.

If you eliminate those with no fresh ideas, no plan for the future and no (apparent) talent whatsoever, the field thins.

San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris gave his final State of the City speech this week to a half empty room at the Sturgis Center.

Mayor Pat Morris continues to deny his role in the collapse of San Bernardino.

Most mayors use such an address to pat themselves on their backs for their accomplishments or to promote their agenda for the coming year.

That didn’t happen as financially ruining a city and driving it into bankruptcy is far from an accomplishment. And Pat Morris doesn’t have an agenda for the next year as he’s thankfully decided not to seek a third term in office.

So one would think that within only a few weeks left in office and the election for his successor in less than a month that Mayor Morris would skip giving a State of the City speech this year.

But Pat Morris has always enjoyed telling people how great he is. So how could he resist giving the speech even if he had nothing to talk about?

So instead of giving an honest and frank speech to honestly assess his failures and shortcomings, Morris used a good portion of his long-winded 90-minute speech to attack San Bernardino’s firefighters and police officers.

The group that in May served notice of intent to recall nine city officials still intends to turn in petitions from residents seeking the recall of all nine, despite announcing last week that signature-gatherers would begin focusing their energy on officials who aren’t already on November’s ballot.

So reports Ryan Hagen in today’s San Bernardino County Sun.

With the news of this flip-flop it’s important to reiterate the true costs of this recall effort on our financially troubled city.

It has been determined that the cost of holding a citywide Recall Election for all of the elected officials in the City of San Bernardino would be approximately $222,000.

This is a huge amount of money that the City cannot afford.

An unexpected cost to the City adds to the financial burdens of the City.  These extra costs could translate to more cuts to public safety.

Any additional cuts to San Bernardino’s Police and Fire Departments would be extremely harmful to the safety of San Bernardino’s neighborhoods and families.

Given the fact that there is a regularly scheduled election for Mayor and three City Council Wards in November, we consider it an unwise burden to require San Bernardino’s taxpayers to be saddled with any additional costs beyond that of the General Election.

For these reasons the San Bernardino Police Officers Association believes the regularly scheduled November Election is the best forum for voters to voice either their support or dissatisfaction with the Mayor and the City Council.