SOMEBODY IS ACTUALLY MAKEING A BIG DEALOUT OF THIS

by Bob Walsh

The practice of "pension spiking" is prevalent in California.  It is so bad with the CHP it has a name.  They call it "Chief's Disease."  It looks like somebody may have pushed it far enough to cause trouble.

Three chiefs of police and a police commander from the burg of Broadmoor, just outside of San Francisco, are under criminal investigation for the practice.  Two of them are alleged to have taken disability retirement and continued to work.  One returned to active duty after retirement, resulting in a $60k per year bump in his retirement by working for 13 months.  CalPers is asserting that this person, Police Chief David Parenti, never actually retired and continued to receive his $3,000 per week salary.  He also received a $100,000 disability payment for some unspecified injuries, and another $100,000 payment that nobody seems to be able to explain.

The San Mateo County D.A. has already successfully prosecuted former Broadmoor police chief Michael Connolly.  He managed to make himself Chief while serving as a volunteer Police Commissioner.  He was at the time retired from a Deputy Chief position with the S.F.P.D.  

Broadmoor is strange.  It is a "police protection district" totally surrounded by Daly City.  It has about 4,000 residents and less than a dozen officers.  Some of the investigation will be difficult as one of the former chiefs took the district payroll records with him when he was fired.  

The interim chief of the department, Ronald Banta, resigned last week.  A new interim chief, Mark Melville, has been named.  He is a former deputy sheriff from San Mateo County.  The county operates its own retirement system and is not part of CalPERS.  

It is possible that this whole mess may result in the Broadmoor Police Protection District being disbanded.