By Andrew Perry President, Artesia Local 1520 Vice President, AFSCME District Council 36 Artesia, California - City employees had to do a double take when the City Council decided to offer handsome salary increases for two managers in particular, while maintaining historic low salaries for all other employees. As union president, I take the philosophy of transparent local government to heart. Many Artesians have expressed to me the approval of not just the fight for the City in 2021, but also the reasons behind it - that employees were concerned about the City's finances and the ability of the City to serve its residents. Recent events have again raised concerns about transparency, particularly in light of the roles these two managers played in 2021, when the City was under a different city manager, whom employees contend ran the City like a mafia boss. How Two High Level Managers Compromise Artesia's Integrity When every employee rebelled against the former City Manager for...

Over the years, Artesia’s budget process has gone through a very puzzling evolution. Prior to the current City Manager Bill Rawlings, the City’s budget was straight forward and easy to understand. In fact, it actually won awards for those traits! Shortly after Rawlings started, he hired a woman named Tracy Fuller to act as a consultant of sorts, and one of her duties was to assist with the City’s finances. Together, they created a budget that to this day makes both auditors and laymen scratch their heads. Fuller is no longer with the City, but Rawlings is still responsible for creating the budget. A Balanced Budget in 2020?   In June 2020, the City Council passed a budget along with a new contract with the employee union, which was a stark difference from what most other cities were doing. In the middle of the pandemic, most cities were preparing for a huge economic downturn and employee layoffs due to a massive decrease in revenue. Artesia was different. Yes, there was a project...