Readers React: Ending DROP is a no-brainer to everyone except our union-backed City Council members

To the editor: Thanks to the Los Angeles Times for its continued coverage of the great scam known as the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, which pays veteran L.A. police officers and firefighters both their pension and their salary over the final five years of their career. Only newspapers cover these kinds of important issues.

The decision whether to reform DROP will provide one of the best answers as to which of our Los Angeles elected officials represent us, and which represent the unions of police officers and firefighters. It’s not at all complicated.

The City Council approved this budget-busting scam, which the unions endorsed. My guess is that our elected officials do not have the guts to upset the unions.

Jeff Heister, Chatsworth

..

To the editor: As a high school teacher, I am paid an annual salary, period. I receive no overtime pay for grading papers, attending mandatory staff meetings or performing non-classroom duties.

All the extracurriculars are part of the job. That’s what I signed up for.

I thought firefighters and police officers were civic servants as well — that is, they were hired to serve the public good, not to enrich themselves on the public dime.

The DROP program should be immediately terminated. It is a form of “legal corruption.”

Armando Cepeda, Yorba Linda

..

To the editor: One can only imagine what the more than $1.7 billion spent on additional pension payments because of DROP could have done to alleviate our homelessness problem.

It’s time for Mayor Eric Garcetti to exhibit some leadership on the DROP program rather than running around seeing if there’s a groundswell for him to run for president in 2020. His lack of leadership on this and other crucial local issues suggests to me that he is nowhere near ready to assume any greater responsibilities than he already has.

We currently have one ineffective leader in Washington. We don’t need another one.

Gordon J. Louttit, Manhattan Beach

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook