I’ve heard that the best offense is a good defense. Well, wouldn’t it follow that the best defense is a good offense?
Wake up Folks, City of Chico staff are running a blatant revenue increase campaign – and that includes rate increases. You realize council can raise your sewer rate, and can approve increases in your garbage rate. They stand mute when PG&E and Cal Water raise rates because that means more Utility Tax.
As far as I’m concerned, the citizen/taxpayer/ratepayer is under attack. The city is telling us we have to pay more money if we want even the most basic service.
They’ve already raised our garbage rates, telling us we’d get better street maintenance. When I repeated that to former councilmember Mark Sorensen he narrowed his eyes and smiled at me like a snake and told me,”we said ‘roads’, not ‘streets'”. That’s right, they used this year’s revenues from the garbage franchise deal to pave Cohasset Road at the airport, not the “street” in front of your house.
Because they’ve “allocated ” all the money from the street maintenance fund to the “Unfunded Liability” and”Pension Stabilization” funds, 903 and 904.
So, I wrote a letter about it.
“City of Chico staffers continue to use the local media to run their revenue increase campaign. They are determined to raise revenues, whether by tax or rate increase, to pay off their growing pension deficit.
Recently city staff toured a local reporter through Chico’s water treatment plant, pointing out the floating mounds of human waste for shock value. They report an average of a million gallons extra waste per day is being pushed through the facility since the Camp Fire evacuation. According to Action News, “Chico Public Works is now working on a rate analysis to determine if a rate increase should happen…” even though they admit the sewer plant is still only a little over half capacity.
A system that’s only running a little over half capacity is not incurring additional expenses. It’s all about the pensions. More than a year ago city staff alerted council that sewer funds were being run into deficit by salaries, pensions, and benefits. In fact, as of last June, the cities of Chico and Paradise were still discussing a years old proposal to send Paradise sewage to Chico Water Pollution Control Plant, a deal that would have meant millions in new revenues for Chico.
The city didn’t get their millions from Paradise, so now they want a rate increase for everybody in Chico. A rate increase is a clever ploy, as the ratepayers don’t get to vote. You will have to contact your council members and tell them what you think.”
Juanita Sumner, Chico
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Good letter!
They are hell bent on raising taxes and the reasons they will give are everything but the truth. And that truth is the pensions plus the other benefits and the raises which makes the pension burden even worse.
These people ought to get real jobs in the real world. In the real world you can be downsized, outsourced or otherwise shown the door at a moments notice and you sure as hell don’t get a pension any more, not to mention all the cost of living increases.
The pensions are hopelessly insolvent now? Well just wait until the next recession. Then these pensions will be obliterated and the politicians first reaction will be even more tax increases.
Is California’s pension system already underwater?
The new method, called “projected benefit obligation,” aligns pension assets and liabilities with new governmental accounting standards and how the federal government values its own employee pension program.
Using that methodology, CalPERS’ current unfunded liabilities, officially $179 billion, could be more like $360 billion, completely overwhelming the fund’s current assets and making it, on paper at least, hopelessly insolvent.
https://www.chicoer.com/2019/02/03/is-californias-pension-system-already-underwater/
Silly me, I thought the ER wrote this article – hah! Dan Walters!
When will Chico figure it out?