I’m busy this morning, I check my mail, I get the stupidest kind of crap from the city of Chico. Here’s a snatch of a coversation between $85,000 a year plus Sustainability Task Force $taffer Linda Herman and Audrey Taylor of Chabin Concepts – a consulting firm that bellies up to the bar for city funds. This is what the city $taffers call “work”, and YOU pay for it.
<div “”=”” id=”mp0_recip”>To Linda Herman, Shawn Tillman, Ann Schwab, Ruben Martinez, Crystal Torres, Dwight Aitkens, falexander@csuchico.edu, Hannah Hepner, Jill Ortega, juanita sumner, Nichoel Farris, Scott Wolf, Stephanie Taber, Steve Rodowick, Tino Nava, Tom DiGiovanni, Toni Scott
Thanks Linda – Ann had asked me a while back if I could join the task force but we all agreed I might have a conflict of interest since I was contracted with NoRTEC at the time, I should have kept up on it better.
I look forward to any help I can provide and leveraging these opportunities for our businesses – it is all good and I think the time is right for greater collaboration and outreach on all fronts to assist our local businesses.
And thank you, Rubin and Erik for attending the Alternative Fuel & Vehicle meetings – that too is a key part of this which we may want to discuss further of how to leverage.
Audrey
From: Linda Herman [mailto:LHERMAN@ci.chico.ca.us]
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 8:23 AM
To: Audrey Taylor; Shawn Tillman
Cc: Ann Schwab; Ruben Martinez; Crystal Torres; Dwight Aitkens; falexander@csuchico.edu; Hannah Hepner; Jill Ortega; juanita sumner; Linda Herman; Nichoel Farris; Scott Wolf; Stephanie Taber; Steve Rodowick; Tino Nava; Tom DiGiovanni; Toni Scott
Subject: Re: Great job
Thank you Audrey for your comments for I believe that they are spot on and exactly what the Sustainability Task Force and Ad-Hoc Committee have in mind. We would love it if every business in Chico were recognized under this program and want to help them achieve this goal. I also very much appreciated your help last night. I didn’t get a chance to say it, but we, too, had thought about possibly the Chamber taking this program on and Ann had approached Jolene Francis about this concept early on in the process. I also agree that we should join forces with the Economic Development side of this and something we need to pursue.
Attached is a copy of the Council agenda report with the Sustainable Business program materials. Please note that due to the length of the staff report I only attached a copy of the Energy resource guide as a sample. Please let me know if you would like to see the guides for the other five categories as well. We also welcome any comments or suggestions you may have and it occurred to me last night that we should have solicited your input on this earlier.
Thanks again and I am sure we will be in touch in the future about this program.
Linda
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Linda Herman
General Services Administrative Manager
City of Chico
phone: (530) 896-7241
fax: (530) 895-4825
email: lherman@ci.chico.ca.us
web: www.ci.chico.ca.us
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>>> Audrey Taylor <audrey@chabinconcepts.com> 10/3/2012 7:20 AM >>>
Linda
Very good job on the sustainability program..I think it is a good thing and more and more is a great part of economic development which I think is a good thing.
Certainly understand some of the concerns from business perspective – I certainly hope my comments were taken in the right context – I was not suggesting we move the program to the Chamber (I certainly cannot speak to them) but in many areas I know they are starting to take leadership roles in a collaborative setting to take pressure off of cities.
After I thought about it I should have commented that this might be just a positioning opportunity – this as an assistance program to help those businesses interested in triple bottom line to get there through the guideline and resources available and which the City would recognize those businesses and working with partners would provide technical assistance to reach those goals.or something like that. I think that is the intent and totally support the effort as it is shared value to everyone. Know though that a lot of businesses react to “govt” as being received as “regulations” before even investigating…
With this and the PACE program think these are good tools for the Outreach program that Shawn was discussing – possible opportunity to collaborate and leverage the outreach for more impact utilizing the outreach team to deliver messages on tools and then referring interested companies to any of the sustainability team that could help a company. Shawn’s team has been working on a Chico Business Services guide which would be a leave behind..the last page could be used to promote this assistance program.
Just my thoughts and if I can be of help more than glad too. I recently had opportunity to work with City of Benicia on the Sustainability Program and ran into some of the same issues brought up last night…they are fortunate though to have a Valero fund to tap to really assist businesses
Audrey
PS Can you send me copy or link to access the full report/guide – thanks
Audrey Taylor, President & CEO
Chabin Concepts & CR Group
TEL: 530.345.0364 Ext 27
MOBILE: 530.520.2521
2515 Ceanothus Avenue, Suite 100
Chico, CA 95973
twitter.com/AudreyCHABIN
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Something I forgot to mention – Shawn Tillman, the $taffer who’s mentioned here, makes over $100,000 a year. He and “his team” are working on another pamphlet – oh boy!