The most basic question of San Bernardino’s bankruptcy remains unsettled: are they eligible. After millions of dollars in legal fees and months of court action, the City seems to be losing its patience and has asked the judge to finally settle the first of many questions in the case.
The case has been essentially stalled until eligibility can be established.
CalPERS claims the City is ineligible because it hasn’t presented a plan to restructure debts. Instead, the pension giant has accused the City of simply using bankruptcy as a stalling tactic. One of the City’s unions had previously argued that the City wasn’t truly insolvent but not argues that the City didn’t live up to the intentions of the state legislature by not going through a period of arbitration to resolve and restructure debts before declaring bankruptcy.
The City Attorney, James Penman, says that the City and its leaders would not have risked the ire and stigma associated with a bankruptcy filing if it were not the last resort.
Read the full article at the San Bernardino Sun.