Adachi Proposes Pension Reform Compromise; Press Conference Audio

Pension hawk Jeff Adachi yesterday held a press conference on the steps of City Hall to compare -- unfavorably, natch -- Mayor Ed Lee's reform plan, which has the buy-in of most city unions, to his own, which doesn't. In fact, city workers probably enjoy hearing about Adachi's quest to make them contribute more to their pensions and benefits as much as the SFPD looks forward to watching those videos he keeps releasing at his day job as public defender.

After slamming the mayor's plan as too weak, Adachi then proposed a compromise set of numbers (page 4 of this .pdf.

He said while the mayor's plan would save between $50 and $81 million a year, and his plan would save between $100 and $140 million a year, the compromise would save between $97 and $123 million per year.

Adachi also said that under his plan, lower-paid employees would have to contribute less than under the mayor's plan.

Listen to Adachi propose his compromise

So why does anyone have to pay attention to Adachi? Because he's putting his plan on the ballot, where it will compete with the City Hall/union proposal. Adachi said yesterday what he's said before: Only if the mayor's plan is strengthened will he pull his.

So far, at least, Lee's not biting, at least publicly. "Mayor lee has his proposal," a spokeswoman told KQED's Mina Kim yesterday. "It's been vetted through very solidly, and he feels very confident that this is the proposal that should be brought to the voters and does not need to be changed."

Back in February, Adachi clued in KQED's Joshua Johson on some of the specifics of his plan. You can listen to that interview here. For details on the mayor's plan, check out this Chronicle article from May 24.