I’m sorry I forgot to post this month’s “First Sunday” meeting – I was so excited about the signs I ordered, I wasn’t thinking. I just notified the usual suspects and we had a quick meeting to compare notes. We’ll have another meeting or two before the election, watch the skies.
We have all been working in our own way to spread the word about Measure J. Sue and Stephanie walked out at the closing night of Thursday Market to hand out fliers about Measure J. They reported what I had suspected – people don’t know about Measure J, and when they find out, they are angry about it. “What?!!!!” was apparently the general reaction.
It is always dumbfounding to me how little the public knows about their government. I’d bet my last five dollars most Chicoans couldn’t name the Mayor if they were given a shot of Vitamin B6. In fact, some council candidates I’ve spoken to have demonstrated an alarming ignorance of the city code, the employee contracts, salaries and pensions. One candidate I spoke too actually believed it was necessary to close Station 5.
That’s why the only candidate I’ve endorsed or asked the other members of the CTA to endorse is Toby Schindelbeck. Schindelbeck has worked hard, familiarizing himself with the city charter, going to all the committee meetings for months now, finding his way around the maze Downtown. I know I won’t always agree pointblank with Schindelbeck, but he’s not going in there just to heat a seat cushion two nights a month.
Another candidate asked for our endorsement, but I haven’t got any solid support from the rest of the members, and this candidate has not done anything lately that I can endorse him about. I’m not campaigning against anybody but Schwab – she’s the stinking fish head in this basket – but if you want my endorsement, or my support in any way, you need to work for it. Schindelbeck is the only one I’ve seen consistently at meetings, and he’s spoken forcefully on our collective behalf to get finance records and other murky city affairs out in the public eye. For example, Scott Gruendl was on the committee that was to lay out the guidelines for choosing a new city manager, as well as, the guidelines for replacing a council member when they stepped down before their term was up, when he was himself a candidate for city manager. Schindelbeck pressured Gruendl to either step down from the oversight committee or remove himself as a candidate for city manager, and Gruendl was forced to do the latter. If it hadn’t been for Schindelbeck, Scott Gruendl would likely be our city manager right now, hand-picked by himself, and we’d watching his anointed appointee led to his chair on the dais.
I’m still waiting for the signs to come back from the printer – sorry to wait til the last minute, but they will look really nice, I’ll promise you that! Let me know here if you want one – I won’t print your response, but I’ll keep track. Give me some address to deliver the sign, one per customer, as long as they last. I’ll post a picture of a sign when I get them, some time in the next couple of days.
What can you do about Measure J? Please talk to one or more of your neighbors today. I know, it’s tough, neighbors aren’t as friendly as they were 10 years ago. But, for every asshole you encounter, I swear to gawd you’ll meet a nice person.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
What school board candidates are worth voting for?
Thanks for asking – none, as far as I’m concerned. I am completely frustrated with Chico Unified, they suck. These people are all trough dwellers, sunk in good, looking to hook in even better.
None of them are worried about the excessive administration, the huge salaries, the pensions – they make the same promises about better readers and clean bathrooms, as if they were going to teach the kids to read and scrub the toilets themselves. None of them know what they’re talking about.
we need more PARENTS on the school board, but Erik Lyon doesn’t impress me. He says the budget is okay? And he’s a trough dweller just like the rest.
My best advice for parents is that if there’s any possible way, home school your kids. Once you get over the aspect of “free daycare,” you find it’s very nice. You just have to put your kids where they belong – make them your first priority for a change (sorry to be insulting), not your job, or your boss, or your co-workers, your musician friends, your car, your baseball tickets, your gym membership. It blows my mind how little time most of the parents I know actually spend with their kids. Sorry if I’m on my box here, but that’s the main problem with education in our country – parents who use it as free daycare and don’t even want to know what’s going on with their kids when they’re not around. You can’t just vote for some stranger and then expect them to “fix” problems you don’t even know about.
If you can’t take your kids out of school, spend more time at school with them. Insist on sitting in their classes, un-announced. There’s no reason parents shouldn’t be allowed to shuffle in the back door quietly and observe what teachers are doing with their kids whenever they feel like it. Talk to your kids teachers and your kids, together, don’t get into that “he said she said” shit, make them talk to each other in front of you. I know everybody can’t homeschool, but more people could PAY ATTENTION.
Right now, I have both my kids at Butte College, and it’s the usual crap. I like my younger son’s English teacher, she seems competent – far better than the lame bitch my older son got stuck with. But last week she told the class she’d been “encouraged” by the administration to “encourage” her students, to “encourage” their parents to vote YES on 30. She didn’t seem too happy about it. I was so pissed I called the English dept and the president’s office. I’ve been too mad to blog it, but I will try. We’ve also got e-mails from Butte, telling my kids that if 30 doesn’t pass they won’t be able to take very many classes next year. That’s just blackmail – they charge you the same general “fee” no matter how many classes you get. This semester they’d only let our “freshman” take one class! But Butte College president Kim Perry still gets her salary, in fact, I’m pretty sure she got a raise, just like Paul Zingg and Kelly Stale-y.
So far it’s been harder having my kids in school than having to school them myself. My older son’s English teacher was AWFUL, she ditched class all the time, had excuses for not returning homework constantly and finally just gave everybody an A to keep them quiet. She only assigned one paper all semester, and my older son was stuck with this broad for a two-semester course. She managed to undermine everything I taught him about work ethic. His math teacher never went over the homework, just assigned pages out of the book and told the class they could leave anytime they wanted. If you had any questions you had to look her up in her office! My son was constantly confused and got a D from the woman. But when he took the same class from another teacher in summer session, he got an A – go figure.
We’re toughing it out, because I want my kids to have a documented education – homeschool isn’t good enough for most employers. Not for now. It’s become more acceptable since we started doing it, before long, employers are going to figure it out.
I hear you! The public schools are a disgrace, a VERY EXPENSIVE disgrace.
I remember along time ago Casey Aplanap ran and I voted for him but that’s the only candidate I ever voted for for school board.
Wow, I had no idea Casey took on a school board election. Maybe I could get him to tell us what that was like, I’ll have to ask him.
I have thought about running for public office but even the slimmest chance that I could get elected always scared me off.