How can we justify paying NEW police officers $92,000 per year? And then offer additional incentives on top of that? The Bay is already pricing many companies and individuals away.

And if (when) the Google money stops flowing, what then? Our cost structure is based on taxes on text ads flowing forever.

I also find a $92k starting salary for cops unbelievably high. My starting salary out of law school was $70k back in 2004.

I can't even justify their high salary with these claims that cops are "putting their lives in danger" for the sake of the community. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that more civilians than cops in MV have been fatally shot or otherwise wounded within the past 10 years. All the cops do around here is write parking tickets and make DUI arrests. Oooh, that's really putting your life at stake. Please give me a housing bonus, since I'm more likely to be killed by criminals than they are.

A tip of the hat to our exceptional police force. We are very lucky to live in a town with such great public servants working on our behalf.

me me me- your comments would be laughable if they werent so sad.

$92K starting salary does seem pretty high. I have friends who work for a local municipality and many of their licensed civil engineers with college degrees make less than $90K per year with experience.

The police union must know what it is doing. Hope we don't end up like Vallejo.

But what about local housing for engineers, librarians and parks maintenance workers? These are the people you want to have a vested interest in the community.

Firefighters often live in "Timbuktu" by choice. They live at the station and only commute about twice a week. Therefore, their house can be in Merced - no big deal. The firefighters that I know have second jobs that they work on their "off" days. They are livin' large with a fat pension plan to boot (3% at 50). That means they get 3% of their highest annual salary for every year they worked when they retire at age 50. So a firefighter that starts at age 20 can retire at at age 50 and still get 90% of his highest annual salary.