San Bernardino becomes third California city to seek bankruptcy SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The city council of San Bernardino, California, voted on Tuesday night to file for bankruptcy, marking the third time in recent weeks a city in the most populous U.S. state has opted to seek protection from its creditors. The decision by the leaders of San Bernardino, a city of about 210,000 residents approximately 65 miles east of Los Angeles, followed a report by city staff that projected city spending would exceed revenue by $45 million in the current fiscal year. City staff during a webcast of the city council meeting said that Chapter 9 bankruptcy would give San Bernardino an opportunity to restructure its battered finances. San Bernardino will join the California communities of Stockton and Mammoth Lakes in bankruptcy court. Stockton failed after three months of talks with its creditors to obtain concessions to close its $26 million budget gap and the city of nearly 300,000 in the state's Central Valley last month became the most populous U.S. city to file for bankruptcy. Mammoth Lakes, a ski resort town of about 8,000 residents, last week filed for bankruptcy due to a nearly $43 million legal judgment against it. Like Stockton, San Bernardino has suffered from the housing crash and high unemployment and according to the report to its city council, the city "has reached a breaking point and faces the reality of deficient cash on hand to meet its contractual and debt obligations due in July 2012." "The city has declared numerous fiscal emergencies based on fiscal circumstances and has negotiated and imposed concessions of $10 million per year and has reduced the workforce by 20 percent over the past four years," the report said. Yet, the city is still facing the possibility of insolvency due to a variety of issues including accounting errors, deficit spending, lack of revenue growth, and increases in pension and debt costs. Reporting by Jim Christie; Editing by Lisa Shumaker