Well, whattya know! There are signature gatherers at Safeway on Mangrove, and they are carrying the gas tax petition – along with a pile of other petitions I had no interest in signing.
I’ve walked past these people a couple of times, but because they have a big sign up for another petition I had no interest in hearing about, I just ignored them. It looks like that’s all their collecting signatures for. They aren’t very professional either. I’ve met professionals before – these gals were hired out of the EDD, just to make a few bucks. I’d prefer to get somebody who knows something about the process, when we finally talked to the gals at Safeway they were clueless – one of them had her toddler in tow.
But who paid them? That’s my next question. When I contacted Jim Nielsen’s office, I got a call back from a really snotty guy who didn’t identify himself, referred to Carl Demaio as “somebody from San Diego” and said I’d been given “misinformation.” He assured me that Nielsen was supporting this effort “with his personal resources” – but he didn’t say a word about the signature gatherers at Safeway, so I’m going to assume he knows nothing about them and they were paid for by Demaio and the folks at Reform California.
“somebody from San Diego”? That’s the kind of smack talk that’s going on within the Republican party, that’s why they can’t get anything done.
I also got a call from Larry Wahl, who said he’d seen signature gatherers at Safeway too – but he sure seemed surprised. I e-mailed him back and asked him who paid for them. He also referred my e-mail to some guy at the Butte County GOP – Saulo Londono. Londono also runs Nielsen’s office, so I’m guessing he’s the mystery man who called me in response to my e-mail to Nielsen. Great! Nice people running the GOP these days!
So, you know, I can admit it when I’m wrong – if the local GOP has paid for those local signature gatherers, well, my apologies. But I don’t think they did. I don’t think they even knew they were there until they went out for groceries. We’ll see if I get any answers out of this Londono guy.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
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