Third Calif. city files for bankruptcy protection

Jim Penman, city attorney for San Bernardino, Calif., answers questions July 11, 2012, during a news conference to discuss the city's bankruptcy. / AP Photo/The Sun

(CBS/AP) SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - San Bernardino officials filed an emergency petition for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in response to the $45.8 million budget shortfall the city faces this year, making official a move the City Council approved last month.

Interim City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller said Tuesday's filing won't affect essential service to the community, and there are no immediate reductions or changes planned.

San Bernardino's bankruptcy frustrates residents
Bankruptcy-bound Calif. city under investigation

Travis-Miller said city officials are working on a plan for the city's operational budget during bankruptcy, and once the plan is complete reductions may occur.

Travis-Miller hopes to submit a plan for the City Council's consideration within the next three weeks.

The city of 210,000 people declared a fiscal emergency July 18, becoming the third California city to declare insolvency this year. In June, Stockton and Mammoth Lakes also declared bankruptcy.

San Bernardino has nearly 16 percent unemployment, CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reported last month. The foreclosure rate is three times the national average.

(Watch Tracy's story at left)

"We have a host of our residents who are not working, not paying taxes, don't have disposable income so they are not shopping," Mayor Patrick Morris told Tracy. "That's a problem for us."

Morris, however, was optimistic that online retailer Amazon was about to open a big warehouse in San Bernardino, which was expected to create 1,000 jobs.

[TimeToEvolve]

The Wall Street Banksters are the cause of this. We have met the enemy and it is the giant corporations who bought the government to implement fascism.

Of course you can also blame the anti-tax zealots (who ARE the corporations) for Prop 13 in California.

[Resin-Smoker]

Looks like the other shoe of the financial meltdown has begun to drop.

With housing values in the toilet, state and local governments don't generate the revenue they need to remain solvent. This has been a long time in coming and will have a much wider and profound impact then anything the housing crisis did.

In the end the only winners here will be the folks on Wall St.

[ballwyllo]

What says everything is the link to the previous article..."in 13 of 16 previous budgets, the data was falsified thus masking the problem"
Sound familiar? Build more prisons and start filling them up with government workers and politicians that commit fraud! Since we can't seem to vote them out of office, maybe we can move their offices to a nice secure prison cell. Just a thought!