As an investor in the company that now owns The San Diego Union-Tribune, the union that represents Los Angeles police officers is demanding the ouster of the newspaper's editorial page staff.
The Union-Tribune's editorial page, says the Los Angeles Police Protective League, "is one of the most virulently anti-public safety employee pages of any newspapers in California, if not the country."
In a letter to Platinum Equity Chief Executive Tom Gores, Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul M. Weber said the Los Angeles Police and Fire Pension system is now a Union-Tribune part-owner because of its $30 million investment in Platinum. The private equity firm, which is based in Beverly Hills, completed its purchase of the Union-Tribune for an undisclosed amount earlier this month.
Weber wrote that the Union-Tribune "was certainly free to express its hatred of public employees when it was under different ownership. However, since the very public employees they continually criticize are now their owners, we strongly believe that those who currently run the editorial pages should be replaced."
Bob Kittle, editor of the Union-Tribune editorial pages, told the Los Angeles Times that his staff has written several editorials critical of the benefits and pension commitments city leaders have made to San Diego's five public employee unions. But he denied that his staff is hostile to public employees.
"We are not anti-public safety or public employees," he told The Times. "All of this has to be considered within the context of what the city can afford. A bankrupt city can't provide any public safety very well." In a recent interview with the Union-Tribune, a Platinum executive indicated that the union was wasting its time because Platinum has no editorial agenda.
The Protective League represents some 9,000 Los Angeles Police Department officers.
"When you went to pension funds seeking their investment dollars, you promised to invest that money for the benefit of those funds and their members," Weber wrote Gores. "One way you can fulfill that promise is to dismiss the Editorial Staff of the San Diego Union-Tribune."
