I was using the May 9 issue of the News and Review to wipe out the inside of a peanut butter jar (another time, another blog…) when I noticed an editorial I hadn’t read. It was offensive to see that these “journalists” are still pumping the city’s bullshit about being overwhelmed by the Camp Fire evacuees. That is one of the Big Lies they are using to get a sales tax increase, and I’m sick of hearing it from both the print and tv media. We have no journalism in Chico.
So I wrote a letter about it!
(“Chico needs a lifeline” 5/9/19) Chico has not grown by 20 percent in the wake of the camp fire. Like I said in my last letter, the figures the city is using to support the assumption that Camp Fire evacuees are placing a strain on city services are all estimates.. Go out at rush hour – the traffic impacts we suffered in the weeks immediately following the fire were temporary. Today there are over 200 houses for sale within the city. Housing prices spiked remarkably immediately following the fire because desperate buyers were very competitive, but prices are now back to 2017 levels.
The city’s financial problem is the pension liability. Ask public employees to pay more of their own pensions. For example, the city manager gets over $225,000 in salary, over $80,000 in benefits, and 70% of his highest year’s salary in pension at age 55. He pays 11% of his salary toward that pension. The taxpayers are asked to pick up the rest of his tab, including an IRC 457. If he is sincere about “living within our means” he needs to pay more of his own pension – new hires pay 50 %, why are “classic” employees still paying so little?
Join the conversation at chicotaxpayers.com
Juanita Sumner, Chico
I wish some of you would write – I know there are those of you out there who think they can’t write letters. All you have to do is arm yourselves with the facts, the letter will write itself.
Read Mark Orme’s contract here:
Click to access OrmeEmploymentAgreement10-2017.pdf
See his salary and benefits break down here:
https://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Cities/City.aspx?entityid=79&year=2017
Have some fun – search the words “pension,” “liability,” and “deficit” in the budget and see how much money they pour into the pensions every year:
Click to access 2018-19CityAnnualFINALBudget.pdf
Speak up! Maybe we can stop this tax measure before they spend any more TAXPAYER money on it.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
This is why the city wants a sales tax increase and CARD wants another tax increase on your home. And if the politicians and bureaucrats need to exaggerate or even lie about population statistics to get you to pay more, they certainly will!
Why should California’s families have to be on the hook for $78,000 so bureaucrats and other city employees can get pensions worth millions when most Californians themselves cannot afford to retire?
$5.2 Trillion Of Government Pension Debt Threatens To Overwhelm State Budgets, Taxpayers
Pension Tracker has collected data from around the nation, and in California specifically, has gathered information from more than 1,200 counties, cities, and special districts to determine that the total market pension debt in California is more than $1 trillion, or $78,334 per household, the second-highest in the nation after Alaska.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2019/05/31/5-2-trillion-of-government-pension-debt-threatens-to-overwhelm-state-budgets-taxpayers/#58f2e949759d
Thanks Dave, people really need to see this information. When I think how my husband and I will never be able to retire, how we struggle to help our kids finish college, and hold on to our home, I get furious. Just imagine the education I could give my kids with that $78,000.