It seems the Enterprise Record is running the campaign for a local tax increase – read Laura Urseny’s “Biz Bits” column for Sunday:
“Former Chico airport commissioner Karl Ory certainly brought a surprise to last week’s City Council meeting. During the public comment period over the AvPORTS proposal to manage the Chico airport, Ory suggested that airport improvements might warrant a bond measure.”
I know Ory has been beating this horse, can’t figure out what his interest is. Maybe somebody out there can fill me in.
“AvPORTS — and others — have suggested that the terminal at the Chico airport is too small, given airline industry trends toward larger planes to carry more people. Sky-West used to fly in with a 30- seater, but nowadays the planes that might come to Chico — if commercial service ever returns — could be in the 100- seat size. AvPORTS suggested a larger terminal with a larger area for the Transportation Security Administration processing is needed.”
Chico couldn’t even fill the 30-seater, is the reason Sky-West is gone. Why in the hell would they send in a bigger plane?
“One criticism was that Chico has no way to pay for the improvements. A counter was that no airline was going to come to Chico without those improvements. Ory suggested Chico could turn to a bond for a public vote to pay for capital projects at the airport. Ory is a retired Chico airport commissioner and retired city councilman.”
Here she forgets to mention, the airline wants a subsidy to cover their losses when they can’t fill the planes – like $200,000/year!
Then she seems to be playing the Devil’s Advocate. “But this is one of those suggestions that raised eyebrows. We wonder if the community would vote to tax themselves for airport improvements, when a smaller group wouldn’t even fly out of Chico to help support commercial air service here.”
But here she comes again with that bond stuff.
“Since then, I’ve heard from another airport advocate who didn’t automatically dismiss the idea of a bond.”
She’s talking about Tom Lando, I’d bet my last $5. Maybe Lando is finally getting a thin-skin about being tagged with this tax increase.
“Why such a thing might warrant community support, he explained, was because the airport benefits many in Chico. Benefits include the transportation for residents and businesses, as well as jobs. The advocate pointed out that large companies in considering a new location would consider getting in and out of Chico via commercial service important.”
Lando is also a member of the CARD board, as well as member of the Aquatic Facility committee. He listened to the consultant say that not having an airport was a bad indicator for the success of the Olympic style swim center CARD is pushing. If we can’t support an airport, how could we support this aquatic facility? Lando and friends are even proposing a sports stadium for Chico, all to be built with a bond.
What neither Urseny nor Lando is talking about is how big of trouble every public entity around here is in over their unpaid CalPERS liability. You just read here, the city has assigned $6 million in pension debt to the Private Development Fund – that’s only the tip of the iceberg. That’s what a bond would really be about, and then, in a couple of years, like Chico Unified, they’d be telling us they need yet another bond to actually improve the airport. Same old story. I hope you kids are paying attention.
Recently I’ve noticed our local media has fallen to yellow journalism. We don’t really have a newspaper in this town. I know, I’m just a blogger – internet gossip monger? But these people are supposed to uphold some sort of journalistic integrity. They are supposed to work for the public at large, not the government, or the corporations.
Aside from the rather loose rules set before me by Word Press (for one, you have to publish, something, somewhat regularly, or they will take your blog away!) , I am free of corporate and government influences. I will continue to work in 2016 to inform you and be a tack on the chair of the Overlords.
POST SCRIPT: And today (11/25/15) Dave Little has foisted an editorial – he’s actually mad because Chico isn’t “stepping up” to “save the airport”.
Mr. Little, you need to step aside, and let a real journalist save the newspaper.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Anyone with any grasp of reality knows there is no current economic justification for subsidizing commercial airlines that don’t want to come here, for a new aquatic center or for a new sports stadium. This city can’t even maintain the facilities it already has and is looking at huge unfunded pension liabilities. Our local rulers need to tackle these two issues before they start demanding more things we can’t currently afford.
These new and expensive demands are being pushed by people who are corrupt, clueless or both. Lando is both and Urseny is clueless. She is not a reporter but is a scribe. She just writes down what people tell her.
You know, at the meetings, you see them – this little group of well-heeled assholes who think we all owe them some sort of gratification. Yes, clueless is the word I’d use – but of course, they think we’re clueless, because we don’t understand how paying for something that benefits somebody else is good for us!
My friend Dan chimes in to remind me, this is called, “entitlement”.
So that would make it 3 bond measures on the ballot.
Does Lando even live within the City? Is he just advocating a tax increase for others?
You know, I don’t know where he lives now. He used to live next to the channel in a Drake house. He and his neighbors sued Drake because they complained their houses weren’t the square footage they’d been sold. In 2012 he went through a divorce – the city was dragged in because his wife wanted a big chunk of his $135,000/year pension. That went on in Butte Superior Court over a couple of years, I don’t know what happened there, but we paid the city’s attorney.
Lando has not been shy in past, saying the sales tax increase he wants will not even amount to an extra dollar on lunch. He’s such an ass, I think he really hates the working poor because they don’t get him any money from the state or the feds, and they don’t pay what he does in taxes.
Hopefully everyone realizes that Karl Marx Ory is a hard core socialist. Karl was among the Tom Hayden Center for Economic Democracy cult followers. Of course the only thing needed is more tax money tossed at the issue. Unfortunately people do not remember their history and must relearn painful lessons.
https://archive.org/stream/CampaignForEconomicDemocracy.PartITheNewLeftInPolitics/ia13_djvu.txt
Someone at a recent meeting said it correctly in that if Chico could actually fill 3 or 4 planes per day at today’s higher industry standards of 80 to 100 people per flight then one or more airlines would come to Chico and invest in a proper terminal. But the simple truth is that the Chico catchment area cannot fill that number of airline seats. Adding to this problem is that we are only a 90 minute ride to Sacramento and could never compete with Sacramento’s insurmountable convenience of factors of a selection of destinations, and selection of departure and arrival times. Never.
Lando is a good guess for the unnamed source. He is the camel that wants to get his nose back into the tent, so much that he is probably thinking of running for council.
Thanks for saying – yes, Karl Ory seems to be among this elite crowd that thinks the public needs to foot their inflated lifestyle costs. My grandma used to say about these people, “they can’t see past the end of their nose…” And I’d add, “don’t want to…”
“He (Lando) is the camel that wants to get his nose back into the tent, so much that he is probably thinking of running for council.” Wow, no kidding – what makes you think that?
Interesting link, btw – really took me back. I had forgotten a lot of that stuff. I realized, this campaign has fruited into the Obama administration. And for all that “economic democracy”, look what we have – poor people getting poorer, working and middle class in trouble, while the One Percent just keeps getting richer.