05-31-2010, 02:32 PM
When the average city employee costs Waukegan $93,000 per year (salary and benefits), when this level of compensation is locked in by union contracts, when employee expenditures are by far the lion's share of the city's budget, and when the only alternative to preserve Waukegan's solvency in this economic downturn is the painful one of laying off workers, there must be an upsurge in volunteerism to do on a voluntary basis what the city can no longer afford to do on its own. We either pull together, pitch in, and get our hands dirty, or sit back and watch the inevitable slide into the abyss. Bitching, at this point, gets us absolutely nowhere.