I didn’t watch the last council meeting on tv, but the newspaper mentioned they’d voted to apply for “party” status on the Cal Water Rate increase case (Rate Case A.15-07-015). That’s really not much effort on their part, I’m very disappointed. A “party” can very well be supporting the rate increase. In order to formally protest, you have to get “Intervenor” status. The news story said they might be considering that, but it was pretty lackluster. We need to put a shine on their behinds with some letters/e-mails, get on that will you People.
It’s like watching your child learn to walk. You don’t want to praise or criticize too freely, but it’s hard not to be impatient with these people who expect to get the kind of salaries they get.
http://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Cities/City.aspx?fiscalyear=2013&entityid=79
Would you look at those salaries and comp packages – Mark Orme gets an $82,000 package, in addition to his $225,000/year salary? How can a person who takes that kind of compensation be sincere in helping us out of our financial problems? Mark Orme doesn’t care about our water bill.
But, according to the $taff report for last week’s meeting, he does care about this bill
This is a summary of the city’s Cal Water charges for July 2014 – yeah, that’s $29,080 and some odd cents for a month of Cal Water. The total check was almost $35,000.
This bill is what I’d call a “pant loader”. There’s Chris Constantin, spending our money.
How does the city use so much water?
Each address where the city uses water has separate billing. Here’s a $440 bill for irrigating medians out at Cal Park. For one month!
Here’s the bill for the lawns along one side of Lower Bidwell Park.
Here are two bills for irrigating the medians near Forrest Ave and Springfield Drive. A few months earlier I had called in to report those sprinklers were running all over Forrest Avenue and $taff acted like they didn’t even know they had sprinklers there.
Hutchinson Greenway?
Here’s the water bill for all those showers at the Taj Majal fire station on Manzanita. I once listened to ex-finance manager Jennifer Hennessy report that the gas bill from showers at the cop shop put the police over budget.
Wait a minute – here’s the other half of that bill – over $1200/month to shower a bunch of guys who might put out a fire once a week?
I have other bills for this period. Last year I asked to view the city’s PG&E and Cal Water bills for this period, and took pictures with my little digi-cam. They would have charged me per page to have copies – don’t go for that, they include stuff you don’t need, blank pages, and charge you for it. This digi-cam was one of the best investments I’ve ever made.
These bills are for 2014, when we already knew we were in a drought and Cal Water was making dire warnings of rate increases, water rationing, punitive fines, etc. I’ve seen the city waste water on landscaping for years – look at the beds at City hall on a dry day, you will see water run-off. I saw stains from water run-off all around the flower beds when I went to a meeting last week. I’ve turned off my sprinklers over a month ago, the city is still running sprinklers on their flower beds, what, every day?
To see this kind of waste on the part of our city leaders when Cal Water is threatening and fining homeowners for watering a postage stamp lawn is very discouraging.
I would like to go down and get the bills for the same period this past July/August, but I don’t know when I will have time. I’ll try to do it soon, before they throw them out. They’re throwing stuff out hand-over-fist down there these days, nothing like a paper trail to get you in the rear end later.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
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