Up to my neck in meetings

I get up in the morning, sometimes as early as 5:30, even 5:00, just to be able to deal with my correspondence and blog. I attend these meetings, which are a giant pain in the ass, and I feel if I don’t write something in my blog the time was stolen from me with no good purpose. 

As I whined in my last post, I’ve been trying to get into Chico Area Recreation District’s secretive little Aquatic Facility Advisory Committee meetings. CARD staff has held me off by the forehead because I’ve been critical of their activities – no surprise there – the public sector seems to be full of petty, vicious little people trying to protect their snatch, what else is new?

It’s been frustrating – at one point I had board member Jan Sneed yell at me and stick her finger in my face, charging me down a hallway because I had asked for a copy of the monthly finance report. In another instance, I sat in the audience while former and currently interim director Steve Visconti told the board they needed to get people to write letters in response to letters I’d been writing about their activities. That was weird,  I was sitting right there, he knows who I am, but wouldn’t address me or even  look at me. 

When I noticed reports from the AFAC on the board agenda and asked why I had not been noticed, temporary director Jerry Haynes raised his voice to me on the phone, telling me there was no committee, no meetings, and no intentions of getting an assessment or bond. Shortly thereafter he announced his departure, citing differences with the board? Sure. And Visconti was back, but he passed me off to staffer Jennifer Marciales. Marciales told me repeatedly I was on the notice list, that there hadn’t been any meetings, and seemed annoyed when I asked her why there were still reports on the board agenda if there weren’t any committee meetings? I found out, Jerry Hughes and Aqua Jets president Brad Geise had formed an ad hoc committee to get around reporting and noticing rules. Then I noticed my inquiries were being handed to the Recreation Superintendent Robert Hinderer. 

Hinderer’s the poor dummass who was made to apologize to me. What a stupe – I would feel sorry for this person but he’s making twice my family’s annual income in salary, and paying NOTHING toward his own benefits.  A shill deserves no pity. 

I’ve tried to get the editor of the News and Review to send  a reporter or cover these meetings – Laura Urseny from the Enterprise Record has been at almost every meeting I’ve attended but her stories never say anything about plans for an assessment or bond, she won’t use the name Aqua Jets. She sat through that first meeting, where Jerry Hughes detailed the workings of the legislature, telling the 30 or so folks from Aqua Jets and the school district that they needed to wait until the legislature had lowered the threshold for tax  measures from 2/3’s to about 50 percent.  He talked about that for about an hour, but there was NOTHING about it in Urseny’s subsequent story. She is also a shill, and deserves nobody’s pity. 

The Good News! I got a note from Third District Supervisor Maureen Kirk. I had been haphazardly trying to remember to include Maureen  in the conversation the last couple of years, and when she realized they’re giving me the business, she wrote to CARD and asked to be put on the notification list too. I really  appreciate her oversight here, this is an entity that needs a lot of scrutiny.  

Although, it remains to be seen if either Supervisor Kirk or I will actually get a notice, or just the usual lame apology.  I’ll keep you posted.

Tags: CARD, Chico swimming pool tax