Chico Taxpayers Association

I don’t think I owe anybody at Butte County GOP any apologies. 

Oh, maybe Larry Wahl. I believe Larry Wahl has made sincere attempts to further the gas tax petition, but he doesn’t run Butte County GOP.  Jim Nielsen and his staffer Saulo Londono run Butte County GOP.

Londono, who wears two hats as Nielsen’s office manager and Butte County GOP manager,  is the guy who told me in a phone call that I was being misled by “somebody from San Diego“. He said Nielsen was “devoting his personal resources” toward the petition effort…   “to make sure it gets across the finish line…”  Sounded pretty vague, so I wrote him a note asking who paid for the petition gatherers at Safeway.

“I am the one who called Jim Nielsen’s office yesterday, and believe I had a phone response from you. You referred to Carl Demaio as “somebody from San Diego” so I don’t know how much you know about the gas tax petition, but will ask,  who is paying the signature gatherers who are currently collecting signatures on the gas tax petition (as well as many other petitions for various initiatives) at Safeway stores around Chico? “

His e-mail response was as vague as his phone message.

Juanita-

Thank you for your inquiry. As I stated in my voice message to you, the information you received is not accurate. The Senator is very committed to the repeal of the gas tax. He has held multiple rallies to collect signatures and has donated a lot of financial resources to the effort. 

The local Butte GOP is also committed to the repeal campaign, having used its platform to collect signatures and sponsor rallies. The Butte GOP does not have a year round office, so while there is no place for pickup of signature forms, the Butte GOP has the forms and has delivered several packages when they are requested. 

To answer your question, I assume that the petition gatherers are being paid by the Repeal campaign, and as I’ve stated the Senator is not only in support but has already donated significant financial resources. 

I also know that Congressman LaMalfa and Assemblyman Gallagher are just as committed as well.

Hope that answers your questions. We will continue to fight hard to repeal the gas tax and we thank you for your enthusiasm. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have other questions or concerns. 

Saulo

Some problems with this response:

• “the information you received is not accurate” – then insinuates I was told Nielsen was not committed to the repeal – no, I told him Carl Demaio had said he did not get any response from Butte County GOP – was that inaccurate?
• “a lot of financial resources to the effort” – really? how much? And paid for what?
• “The local Butte GOP is also committed to the repeal campaign, having used its platform to collect signatures and sponsor rallies” – Well,  Butte GOP may think they are committed, but that statement is not true – Butte County GOP did not sponsor the rallies, they were set up by local businessman Bud Caldwell, owner of Northgate Petroleum as well as the gas station where the two rallies were held.
• “Butte GOP does not have a year round office, so while there is no place for pickup of signature forms”   Whoa!  doesn’t even have a Butte County office? no place to sign? I’d say, why bother with Butte GOP at all? In the time it takes to get ahold of Londono (who took two days to respond to me), you could download, print, sign your own petition and have it in the mail. 
• “I assume that the petition gatherers are being paid by the Repeal campaign”   In other words, they are not in contact with Demaio’s people, they won’t mention Demaio’s name, and the campaign is called “Reform California” not “the Repeal campaign“.   He again claims Nielsen “has already donated significant financial resources.”  To whom? For what? 
• “I also know that Congressman LaMalfa and Assemblyman Gallagher are just as committed as well.”  Yeah, well they’re both up for reelection too – just another co-inky-dink? 

Saulo Londono is a carpet bagger. I got a local Republican to admit Londono is not even from Northern California, does not maintain any office in Chico. I had frankly assumed that his beef with Carl Demaio was regional, but then I did a little further digging. 

I didn’t know, Carl Demaio is an openly gay politician, having publicly married his partner about two years ago. I’m going to guess, this is why local Republicans don’t want anything to do with him. At first I couldn’t believe they’d be so petty, in this day and age, but I think there’s a huge power struggle going on in the GOP, and lines are being drawn based on lifestyle choices. A paranoid, “them vs us” mentality has taken over. 

But they expect to take advantage of Demaio’s hard work and financial contribution by using the petition drive for rallies for their reelection campaigns. Cute.

I don’t know about the statewide Republican party, but Butte GOP is in trouble. Take a look at Chico Democrats sometime – all run by “local” people. You might not like Bob Mulhullond, but he’s lived here for about 40 years, you see him at the grocery store, the gas station, and public meetings he is not paid to attend. Former council member and long time politico turned embezzler Dave Guzzetti, scumbag that he is, sacrificed a child to Chico public schools.  Mark Stemen has been working and living in Chico for at least 15 years, having graduated from Chico State in the 90’s and returning to take a job. 

Meanwhile – here’s something funny – when I googled Londono, I found he had come to America from Brazil as a child with his parents, eventually moving from Colorado to San Diego to attend college. He came to Sacramento via Fresno, having only achieved citizenship in 2014.  He took over the Butte County GOP  a few years later. I just don’t believe he could possibly have any notion of our local needs with a track record like that. I don’t believe he could be committed to anything but his own resume.

I don’t like Chico Democrats or the Democratic Action Club, they’re a nasty pack of trough dwelling dogs ruining the manger for everybody.  But fighting a locally-based and entrenched group with some snot-nosed carpet bagger is just an invitation to your own ass-kicking. 

Dude sent me an interesting article recently that sent me on a snoop.  It’s taken me days to plop out this post because I just kept reading more outrageous stuff. 

https://www.dailynews.com/2018/03/12/new-retirees-in-gardena-pasadena-and-riverside-make-200000-pensions/

We now have pensions over $200,000/year – pensions – money given to people for sitting on their asses with their mouths open like seals at the San Diego zoo. 

“Transparent California released the figures Monday as part of an ongoing campaign to raise awareness about the growing costs of California’s pension system, according to Executive Director Robert Fellner. The total amount spent on retirement benefits rose to nearly $21 billion last year, a 43 percent increase from 2012.”

“‘It is siphoning resources from public services, it is driving taxes higher,” Fellner said. “The real driver of this cost is the generosity of these benefits.'”

I immediately think of Chico’s worsening streets, the disgraceful condition of Bidwell Park, and the bums overrunning all of our public spaces.   If we complain we are told we need to pay increased sales tax, with more bonds and assessments from the school and rec districts. 

And like Fellner says, it’s the benefits – both pensions and health benefits. We’ve talked and talked about the pension deficit here – but I’ve never gotten around to the benefits deficit… it makes me sooooo dizzy.

Southern California seems to have the most egregious offenders.

“In Pasadena, pension costs have nearly surpassed the cost of current employees in the city’s Police Department, according to Mayor Terry Tornek. “

Even though Pasadena and other cities have started new hires paying more, it’s not enough – there are too many old employees. I predict many cities, like Pasadena, will have sales tax increases on this November ballot.

“when the retiree payroll is bigger than the current payroll, it’s not a good situation,” he [Tornek] said. The skyrocketing costs of pensions is one of the reasons Pasadena plans to ask voters for a sales tax increase later this year. Employees already pay more toward their CalPERS contributions and more than $5 million of that burden has shifted from the city to employees, Tornek said.

“Obviously, we’d take some legislative or some legal relief, but we still want to be fair to our employees and we want to be competitive in the marketplace,” Tornek said.”

Fair? That’s a load of crap. In Chico, former City Mangler and current CARD board member Tom Lando floated a memo to City Council in 2006 that tied salaries “to revenue increases but not decreases…” Read that again Pollyanna. When I asked then city council member and current county supervisor Larry Wahl why he would sign something that stupid, he told me he didn’t understand it.  How does someone that dumb get elected, Larry?

When the voters finally figured that out, Lando’s salary, for example, had gone from around $65,000/year to over $150,000/year, in just a few years. Current City Mangler Orme now makes over $220,000, just in salary. He pays less than 10 percent of his share of pension.

Furthermore,  “ those already in CalPERS prior to Jan. 1, 2013, are not subject to the act’s limitations. The “classic members” are largely why pensions of more than $200,000 are still somewhat common even after the reforms, said Dane Hutchings, the league’s legislative representative.”

“Classic members” – like Ann Willmann at CARD.  

So, the next one of these people that uses the word “fair” in reference to these pensions had better not be standing in my arm’s length, I’m done with their BS.

In Butte County, we have agencies I bet you never heard of that will have us on the hook for pensions. I found three of them on “Pension Tracker”

http://www.pensiontracker.org/agencySummary.php?id=157#summary

Did you know we pay the director of the Butte County Mosquito and Vector Control over $100,000/year, and he pays less than 5 percent of his pension? I bet you never even heard of the California Interscholastic Federation, but you pay their pensions.  Then there’s BCAG, BCAQM, and many more. Through these agencies the taxpayers pay out hundreds of thousands a year in pensions and benefits for, many times, less than 10 full time employees per agency.   I  think there’s five at the mosquito abatement office. There are less at BCAG. They all have boards, they get to make their own rules, and until we start rattling their chains they will continue to loot the cookie jar. 

Workers, like the guys who actually drive around spraying the mosquitoes or mowing the play fields, are not full time and do not receive benefits. Only management get benefits in these agencies, which furthers poverty in our county. Can you imagine, doing a job like spraying mosquitoes, and having no health insurance or pension coming? Being kept as a “seasonal worker” – these people have to turn to welfare to make ends meet, and that’s not good for our economy, it’s just a further drain on the taxpayer.

When I looked at Pension Tracker, I saw the words “actuarial” and “market” valuation, and the term “smoothing.”  I’ll put it in a housewife’s terminology – and then I have to get some tortilla dough going – they have tricks to make the pension deficit look smaller to doofusses like us. I found a good blog about that –

http://neighborhoodeffects.mercatus.org/2012/06/07/actuarial-camouflage-part-i-asset-smoothing/

– I’ll try to pick it up there next time, on “Up Shit Creek Without a Paddle, with This Old Lady”.

About 10 years ago, my family joined a group of local disk golf enthusiasts to petition the city of Chico to legitimize a long-time “bootleg” disc golf course on Hwy 32 east of Chico – now Peregrine Point Disc Golf Course.  The course has since been managed by the Chico Outsiders, who have an agreement with the city of Chico taking responsibility for maintaining the trails and tees. But the extensive trails that lead out of the course are part of Upper Bidwell Park and the parking lot at Peregrine Point has long been used by hikers and mountain bikers and is owned by the city of Chico. 

About a year ago we noticed evidence that homeless people were camping in the parking lot – we found them sleeping in their cars. Increasingly we’ve also noticed evidence of cars being broken into.

There were piles of broken car window safety glass all over the ground.

There were obvious piles, like the one pictured above, but it was when I squatted down to tie my shoe that I realized how bad this problem really is. The sun came out for a brief moment, and all around me, the ground glittered with safety glass. I know the difference between safety glass and a shattered pop bottle. 

I don’t know who you would report to if your car was broken into at Peregrine Point. It’s city property, but I don’t know if it’s in the city limits. I do know, since it would be under $1,000, Chico PD would expect you to report it online – good luck with that. I think you can download a form to hand over to your insurance agency, if you are insured.  Neither of my kids’ cars are new, so we don’t have full coverage for them – too expensive. So, if something like that happened to one of our kids while they were shooting a round up there,  they’d be TSOL. 

My advice would be, don’t leave your car out of your sight anywhere in Bidwell Park.

I got a notice from the Reform California people  – “leave it to Jerry Brown to pull another trick!  Gov. Brown plans to demand a full recount of all signatures to delay the process and potentially push us past November’s election.”

This is the kind of BS I expected – in Butte County, our lovely and unchallenged County Recorder, Candy Grubbs, can decide whether to take a sample or do a full count. I thought she made that decision based on her own politics – but apparently there’s a rule.

According to Reform California spokesman Carl Demaio, “Fortunately under the law, if we submit ten percent more signatures than we legally need, Brown can’t demand a full count and we qualify within 30 days on random sample!”

So they’re asking for more signatures, tell your friends – it’s easy to print out, sign, and send in the form. You will get follow-up emails, some of which ask for donations – you can opt out if those are annoying to you, but they will also send updates if you’re interested.

http://act.reformcalifornia.org/petitions/cartax/html/gen/

Remember:

• California registered voters only
• be sure to fill out the form completely, including the “signature  gatherer” portion, even if your signature is the only one you gathered.