I posted this picture about two weeks ago. Workers were already trying to make repairs. Just imagine what the current storm is doing to this mess.
When I saw the mess Chico Creek had made of the new rose garden at the Chico Area Recreation District center on Vallombrosa, I immediately wondered what the repairs were going to cost. It took me a couple of weeks to get a complete answer out of Director Ann Willmann.
Hi,
I would like a final cost figure on the rose garden, including everything from the first planning to the last installation.
I would also like a cost estimate on the repairs necessitated by recent flooding of the garden.
thank you for your anticipated cooperation, Juanita Sumner
She responded quickly but did not answer my question.
Good Morning. I am in receipt of your email and will send the information once it has been compiled. Thank you, Ann
Almost a week later she came back with some information.
Dear Juanita, the total cost of the Rose Garden was $368,000. The cost to CARD was $218,000 due to the donation from Marilyn Warrens of $150,000.
The repairs have been completed with supplies we have on hand. The only expense will be replacement of some native plants and decomposed granite at approximately $400.
Thank you, Ann
I felt her response was incomplete and wrote back to ask for clarification.
Thanks for your response,
I understood CARD would match Mrs. Warren’s contribution, was the extra $68,000 discussed by the board?
The supplies you had on hand cost money at some point, and then there’s labor. How do those factors affect total cost of repairs?
thanks for your patience in answering my questions, Juanita Sumner
This time she responded a little more quickly.
Hi Juanita, in regards to the cost of the supplies, the dirt used was donated several years ago and has been at a park site and is used as needed. The base rock that was used was left over from the development of DeGarmo Park. I do not have a price they paid for it at that time. The total staff wages were approximately $1,700.
Addressing your budget question, yes the board did approve an additional $70,000 towards the project at the December 2015 meeting.
Thank you, Ann
Has Willmann never had her car repaired? She knows labor is part of the cost of anything. And look at the jobsite – they were probably premature in making repairs, when my husband and I rode by the other day, more sand had washed out of the fence, and the irrigation was still hanging in the air. That’s what $1700 worth of CARD labor looks like?
And yeah, the board approved another $70,000 in funding for this project last December. Your money, my money, our money – nobody called me, did anybody call you?
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Is this all you do? Attack our community outreach programs? CARD serves a huge purpose in Chico. Without CARD our local youths would not have some of the great sports and after school programs that they have now. We need CARD in Chico. Every city needs a Parks and Recreation Center. There are plenty of adult programs as well and considering you seem to have plenty of time on your hands attacking those hard at work trying to provide programs for Chico’s adults, children and senior citizens, maybe you should look at some of their programs for yourself. Because you seriously need a hobby. Try doing something positive with your time and you might not wake up everyday with a stick up your ass. Quit trying to get people to hate the local community center Jaunita. You obviously have something personal going on here and it’s obvious in everything you write. You really come off as a crazy ass woman with a vendetta against children and seniors. Maybe you could volunteer at the CARD office?Anyway I hope you and your dog can survive walking in the same park as the rest of us chicoans without being disgusted by everyone else around you.
So, this is CARD pushing back.
“Your Daddy”? How professional. I’m so glad you came over to show us what kind of people work at CARD.
CARD’s programs are crap, that’s why they need property taxes, they can’t support themselves. With people like you working there, the agency is hanging by a thread. If Chico really “needed” CARD they wouldn’t be subsidized, they could compete on their own merits. CARD has no merits, just salaries, benefits and pensions. And creepy employees like you.
Once again Jaunita you prove to everyone that your wrong. I am very happy to have had my children in a few of CARD’s summer and after school programs. So nope, not an employee. Although I wouldn’t mind helping out CARD. They have provided so many parents with childcare while they finish their work day. But you wouldn’t know what that’s like right? Working for a living. No Jaunita I dont work for CARD but I have used their programs for need and want throughout the years. As do plenty of Chico residents that have children and senior family members. And I really wish CARD would push back because all you do is attack them when all they do is help chicoans.
I’m sorry I let you get me off track with your anonymous trash mouth.
CARD does not maintain their facilities and poorly plans new facilities – take the rose garden and DeGarmo Park for example. Immediately after DeGarmo opened, it flooded! No surprise – it was designed by the same guy they hired to do the rose garden. The flooding caused thousands of dollars in damage and the play field had to be re-engineered and replaced. The same designer put that sponge material on the playground – it was “vandalized” and cost thousands to replace. Just recently the board authorized thousands more to REPLACE DeGarmo’s playground equipment because it had already fallen apart.
Cut ahead to the rose garden – $218,000 plus the donor’s $150,000 – including a $68,000 cost “overrun” – all washed out to Chico Creek, repairs already cost over $2,000, just to be, again, washed down to the creek.
If you think CARD is so great, get out your wallet and start writing checks. But don’t expect me to pour my money into subsidized day care for your kids.
“Every city needs a Parks and Recreation Center.”
Does every city spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a rose garden only to let it be destroyed by rain while not even being able to afford to maintain the parks it already has? (Not to mention the huge unfunded pension liabilities.)
Yes, it’s the pensions, thanks Bob. The auditor said the pension deficit goes up over $50,000 a year. That’s more the average family lives on in Butte County.
This is insane. CARD can’t even keep the trails and roads in Bidwell
Park from falling apart and they have a huge unfunded pension liability
so what do they do? Spend hundreds of thousands on a rose garden and
then let it get destroyed.
What’s that old song? I Never Promised You a Rose Garden? Seems to
be true in CARD’s case. Maybe they just promised a mud garden?
Anyway, it sure is good that you point all this out as David Little
of the Enterprise Wretched and Melissa Daugherty of the Snooze and
Review will never tell us about this. And of course the politicians on
the City Council are corrupt and useless. (Did CARD fix spot where the
backhoe collapsed the pathway?)
And as far as the gooberment pensions are concerned get ready for more tax increases.
“Local governments grapple with increasing pension costs before higher tab comes in 2018”
http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/the-public-eye/article127957369.html
And as far as the homeless, there are a lot of bureaucrats and other
county and city government employees (not to mention NGO employees)
whose salaries, raises and pensions depend on a steady stream of homeless into this county so expect more of the same or worse.
Thanks Colonel, I think the rose garden is a good example of how CARD is managed and spends our money. The designer has lived here for years but went ahead and placed that garden right in the path of Chico Creek. CARD director sends her crew out to fix it because she’s afraid people might notice, spends $1700 on labor and $400 on materials that were subsequently washed out again. When we went by yesterday, it looked even worse, and you can hear what’s going on out your window right now, another storm is washing more of that garden out to the Sac.
Almost their entire budget goes to salaries and benefits. They cut non-management workers a couple of years ago to 28 hours or less to avoid paying Obamacare on those people. They’ve deferred maintenance on their facilities for years, non-compliant with the American’s with Disabilities Act passed in 1990. CARD is over funded and badly managed, we can’t allow them to place a bond or assessment on our homes.
And thanks for mentioning the homeless – having attended the meetings, I know what I heard – the rose garden was built and fenced off because the homeless were overrunning the back lawn of the CARD center. CARD board member Tom Lando made public pleas to Chico PD to deal with the homeless and illegal campers, but they wouldn’t, so CARD ended up planning this fenced off garden mainly as a way to keep them out.
IDIOTS!!!! I can’t waste anymore energy on your over inflated ego Jaunita. I hope one day you figure out that your self importance is a huge waste of better spent time. Your getting up there in age and you should try focusing your twilight years on more positive endeavors instead of always being angry or put out by others. Going through life all the way to end like that is a miserable existence.
you know you got ’em by the gonads when…
Hey Bill, so CARD parks and city parks are ran by different agencies. Jaunita would have you think they are one in the same but they are not. Have a Great day.
reread the whole post moron