California Police Chief- Fall 2013 CPCA_2017_Winter Magazine Final | Page 38

NOW IS THE TIME FOR
A Great Pension Convention
By: Captain Steven Gorski, Walnut Creek Police Department
Our country’s Constitutional Convention began on May 25th, 1787 in Philadelphia. The Con-
vention had the rather simple goal: to revise the imperfect Articles of Confederation. In truth,
many of the attendees wanted to exceed that mandate and create an entirely new government.
For almost four months, those with competing interests argued back and forth until they cre-
ated the most remarkable governing document in history - the United States Constitution. The
key to the Convention’s success was compromise and the inclusion of dissenting voices.
Most of you reading this will receive a pension from the
California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS)
when you retire. Most of you are also Chiefs or command
level officers in your organization. These are not neces-
sarily competing interests, but they do allow you to view
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the pension debate from varying perspectives. This makes
you uniquely qualified to explore remedies to the current
sad state of affairs. The battle lines go something like this;
public sector unions and Democrat legislators on one side;
and pension critics, mainly Republican legislators, and