Tomorrow night, the Costa Mesa City Council will hold a hearing on a proposed contract between the city and its public-employee union. The contract comes after three years of a nasty fight between the council and the union that made national headlines, a battle that served as a referendum on the state of public unions and their impact on city coffers. The new deal will make employees pay more into their pensions, have a reduction in starting salaries for new employees, and doesn't offer pay raises—yet it's a better deal than the hundreds of layoffs once proposed by Mayor Jim Righeimer. Who won? Who lost? And will both sides ever trust each other again?
KCRW
