counties run into trouble and in some cases file for bankruptcy they reportedly have included san bernardino mammoth lakes both in california central falls rhode island jefferson county alabama a few others have filed for bankruptcy but had their claims rejected and over the summer stockton california was poised to win then subsequently did file for bankruptcy in line to be the largest u.s. city to fail with the city council halting bond payments so heavily talk about what is going on in muni land the risks the rewards the reality is kate long she's a guest contributor to reuters dot com where she writes the muni land column and i'm so excited to talk about this because i have to say we don't cover this ever so i'm so excited to have you here today. thanks so much joy yeah so let's just start with a very big picture and tell us where you are in terms of are you more with team whitney who saying they're still going to be more pain in union land they're going to be more defaults more disasters this is not going to end well or are you more in the camp of those say i'll say the david kotok camp

got a few bankrupt cities in my home state that i'm used to california being a mess but one is san bernardino and historic fight is actually going on there here's a little of the back story. in may this region have the third highest foreclosure rate in the country and should be unemployment stood at fifteen point nine percent people are not working they're not paying taxes they're not shopping they're losing their homes or the five thousand homes that are in foreclosure. so negative economic factors needless to say drove that city in part to bankruptcy and now the california public employees retirement system better known as cal pers is engaged in an historic fight in san bernardino according to business week it's trying to rewrite the rules for bankruptcy claiming that it should get paid before almost everyone else including bondholders so let's bring back in to ask her what is at stake here so kate long it's been cast as historic what is it stake here in this cal pers fight with san bernardino well basically the question of if the pension rights or benefits of public employees are protected

pension fund filed court papers denouncing the financially troubled california city of san bernardino for what it called a sham bankruptcy and accuse the city of criminal behavior it withholding payments to the pension fund so send bernadino the city went bankrupt and it's the first city to ever deliberately fail to pay calipers a california public employees retirement system calipers as you point out throughout the theme here is that the bond market is coming unglued whether it's the collateral that's being questioned holding up private equity shysters like paul singer or whether it's a municipality with a pension scheme that apparently has no ability to pay out its pensioners without growth to generate coupon payments the bond market which is as you say the last you know the ok bond corral you know this thing is to blow and this is what this is what these people don't understand who constantly say well there's no inflation there's no inflation no but there is a curse the collapse baked into the cake and you're about to get a vista right hello helpers manages two hundred forty one bi

clowder allies debt obligations and now everybody's going broke and in the case of california san bernardino has decided they're not going to take help or scalper is saying we have primacy as a creditor we are arm of the state wall street bondholders and insurers however the . emily disagree arguing that federal bankruptcy law trumps state authority and should allow them to fight with cal pers in court as equal creditors so again this is the ok bond corral we have the insurers we have the bondholders we have wall street we have cowper's we have san bernardino a corrupt city where you know all sorts of managers of this this tiny city were paying themselves exorbitant salaries and looks like all the violence in america is leading up to a new civil war between savers versus speculators so san bernardino it's going to be divided between savers versus speculators pension guaranteed holders versus private equity you know you'll have mitt romney on one side versus the pension holders of of helpers and this will be the new civil war in america just you must have been looking at the case of paul sayi

of the san bernardino california police force who have to shrink by eighty officers this year to cover their budget deficit during a local meeting the chief of police laid out the city's problems the sea is facing waves of gang violence theft and drug trafficking but with all the prisons completely overcrowded many of these criminals go right back on to the street and there's just nobody to put more police out there to fight them the police chief really only had one solution offer a given situation go home lock your doors and load and you know what actually that's not that bad of a proposition america's always been a country where people been expected to look out for themselves and i appreciate the police chiefs honesty but i know the world we live in and i have a feeling that the second some homeowner shoots a guy who jumps over his fence at night that homeowners going to go to jail for life you can't expect that a nineteenth century attitude towards crime will be able to work in a twenty first century world where rapists can sue you because they slipped on your slippery kitchen floor

. >>> authorities say a policy shot and killed a graduate student at san bernardino campus and got a disturbance at an off-campus student housing complex. >> they contacted him in the hallway of his dorm. during this contact, a physical altercation occurred. officers faring for their safety fired their weapons striking him in the chest area. he was pronounced deceased here at the scene. >> the student was identified today as 38-year-old bartholomew williams. the shooting is under investigation by san bernardino police. >>> police in sacramento say a high school teacher taking photos on railroad tracks was fatally struck by a train yesterday. authorities say 52-year-old catherine carlisle was taking pictures of an approaching train when she was hit by behind from another train. she died at the scene. >>> dozens of gay couples tied the knot today for the first time in washington state. today marks the first day same- sex couples can marry in washington. this after voters extended marriage rights in last month's election. coming up at 5:15 we'll take you to the ceremonies held today at

we see that in stockton and san bernardino. we go to court and bankruptcy law versus pension law. you can see current services cut. tax hikes and other lousy outcomes if we don't see reforms. >> you admit we are having problems paying out the pensions. they are bankrupting. >> the pblem is that los angeles is not the place. and it is a ballot initiative. you have front runners that become mayor . they will not support it it was a nonstarter and never going to work in thetave . you have a better chance of succeeding. >> at least it was a plan . it is no law that said you cannot change 401 k's. that is future and new hires and for their plans. you don't have ill defed benefits and by the way the private sector doesn't get. there is a pension liabity in the state of the california. vicki is right. government services are starting to get cut in cities in california . so i tell you, it doesn't cut it when you have things like let's raise the retirement age to age 52. >> the fact is, these things are going broke. right now the budget 26 percent of la's budget is consumed by the budget c

. >> in 1989 a train derailment in san bernardino damaged a pipeline that caused $14 million damage. kindred morgan is a texas company that controls pipelines in the midwest. if the name sounds familiar it may be because of earlier accidents. five workers were killed when they struck a kinder morgan pipe. the company was fined. federal officials ordered kinder morgan to inspection and repair all its pipelines in california. but local fire departments do not get the results of that work. >> if there's information to share with us, we're willing to accept it. >> the company did replace about a mile long section of its jet fuel line near richmond and told us the inspections and repairs in the bay area are now complete. in a statement to ktvu, kinder morgan says pipelines are monitored 24/7. >> there's not the money to repair the pipelines to a standard that we all would like. >> we hope it doesn't happen. and hope it's no strategy for success in this one. >> oh, no. >> you didn't know? >> no i didn't know. >> susan kat just learned those lines are near new condos. >> you never know when

have dealt with dozens of accidents and fender benders, including this jackknifed big rig in san bernardino. and you can always stay ahead of the storm with our interactive hi-def doppler radar. it's only 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at cbssf.com/weather. >>> well, checking some bay area headlines, police have released a composite sketch of a monte sereno murder suspect. this is the man investigators suspect of killing a 66-year- old millionaire, raveesh kumar kumra, on friday. his wife called to report intruders. she had been beaten and her husband killed. police are not saying how many were involved or what was taken. >>> investigators in san francisco are trying to figure out how a man's body ended up on muni tracks. the body was found near the at&t parking lot at the mission bay neighborhood this morning. officers are treating it as a vehicle collision. but they don't know if a car or a muni train was involved. >>> and a san francisco landmark has been gutted by fire. smoke was reported at the old pool house for the old fleishhacker pool near the zoo about 1:00. the building has been a

the san bernardino police department is investigating. >>> they are getting ready for the purpose of a real live launch, plus more from the hospital, stay tuned. [ male announcer ] steak and lobster is on the menu at sizzler. a fresh-cut tri tip sirloin served with a succulent lobster tail. just $16.99. sizzler. . >> reporter: president barack obama and house speaker john boehner had not met to negotiate for weeks. now of course both sides are private about their conversation but still no deal, they have 21 days to reach an agreement or the country goes over the fiscal cliff even if they come up with an international monetary fun, an agreement is imminent. >> it prevents investors, entrepreneurs and households to make decisions because they don't know what tomorrow will be. >> president barack obama heads to washington to push for the democrats' plan but democrats have quite a bit of leverage, allison bops ktvu channel 2 morning news. >>> north korea is extending it by another week at least until december 29th. scientists found a technical deficiency in that rocket. now the u.s. thin

in an unrelated case, san bernardino police served a search warrant on a car belonging to a man namedre looking for drugs but they found something else under the spare tire in kuros' trunk. it was a photograph of garrett warren with a circle drawn on it. and garrett's home address, which very few people knew. so detectives showed garrett a six-pack, a photo lineup that included a photo of miguel kuros. >> i'm looking at the photos and i say, by all means, that's the guy i recognize. >> that's the guy that shot you. >> yep. >> no doubt in your mind? >> no doubt in my mind. >> in 2003, detectives arrested miguel kuros for attempted murder. he was neither a gang banger nor a hired gun. instead he owned a pizza parlor. sheriff's detective mark gayman. >> did it seem like he was your middle class, very nice guy that everybody in the community loved? >> and yet garrett was identifying him as the shooter. >> yes. >> other than garrett's i.d. of kuros, there was nothing to suggest they had ever met. >> had they ever done any business deal before? >> no. >> kuros connected in any way to the gy

. >>> the city of san bernardino will tell a judge it is so in debt it is releasing the debt.million to employees before it declared bankruptcy in august. it was for unused vacation time and sick time. city officials say the timing is a coincidence. they have a 46 million deficit at this time. >>> they are trying to save lives. live christmas trees in apartment building lobbies are being removed by the fdny. the trees are a fire hazard. upset residents say the lobbies are part of their homes and removing the trees kills the holiday spirit. >> developments overnight in the battle to avoid the fiscal cliff which is less than two weeks away. house republicans voted not to vote on a plan b doug luzader is live in washington. >> i hope we still have the christmas spirit in washington. it is about to become a ghost town because everybody is heading out of town with no deal on the fiscal cliff. house republicans left the meeting last night with their leadership. they called it the plan b because it didn't have enough gop support in the past. others drew a line. in fact... >> that's t

. >>> the campus at san bernardino said they not and killed a student. few tails have been released. they were forced to fire their weapons after a graduate students became violent. he was treated for life-threatening injuries. >>> a man was shot in a standoff with the s.w.a.t. team. that standoff started yesterday afternoon when police responded to a report of an armed robbery at the fast food restaurant and follow some boulevard. they discover -- folsom boulevard. they discovered there were two hostages. >> they were forced to take action to end this safely. >> neither of the employees were hurt. the suspect was taken to the hospital where he died of his injuries,. >>> new this morning, a motorcyclist is in critical condition after being hit in oakland. that happened at 10 in the evening at high avenue. they are looking for the driver who left the seen of the accident. anyone with information on the accident is asked to call oakland police. >>> a cyclist was killed in alameda county. the chp said the rider hit a rock. but authorities weren't able to gi

the drama on a frozen upon in san bernardino county. it was caught on video. almost turned into a christmas day disaster when a man fell through the ice, setting off a chain reaction. one person after another tried to save him, only to fall in themselves >> we saw this guy coming across the ice really fast and it went from cheering to all of a sudden just an unbelievable amount of panic and chaos. >> give me the rope. >> wow, i'll say. a crowd gathered on shore frantically screaming for help. at one point twelve people were in the water. eventually everyone was hauled to shore and no one was hurt. >>> preparations are underway for the 124th annual tournament of roses parade, now just two days away. they are getting the floats ready, putting on the flowers and doing the painting. about two dozen marching bands from all over the country, including a band from san jose, will participate in the parade. you can watch the tournament of roses parade new year's morning beginning at 8:00 right here on abc7. and abc7 news sports anchor, mike shumann, is heading to the r