I have been asleep at the wheel. It’s that time of year – leaf management, gutter cleaning, whack and blow, etc etc. And then I got the next council agenda, and I kind of woke up out of a stupor. It was the Finance Committee report from their meeting earlier this month.
Following a presentation from finance manager Barbara Martin, “Councilmember van Overbeek stated he is concerned that the unfunded liability number keeps growing and inquired if all employees are part of CalPERS.” The finance director answered yes. “Councilmember van Overbeek stated the UAL increase from $117 million to $180 million is a startling increase.“
I have to ask, was Van Overbeek elected yesterday? He’s on the finance committee, he never heard about the pension deficit?
Then Van Overbeek suggested outsourcing – yeah, yeah – we’ve heard that conversation about a thousand times, with no results. Sorensen said that outsourcing would cost more money in the long run. Van Overbeek still wanted to pursue it, asking staff to come up with a “breakdown” of all the departments and where there are “opportunities for outsourcing..” Here’s this guy talking about employee costs who doesn’t seem to understand how expensive staff time is, he just expects to snap his fingers and get this stuff. At this point Sorensen did his job – he told van Overbeek that this information was available in the appendix to the city budget that Van Overbeek is supposed to be familiar with.
Tom, you’re a fucking idiot! Time vampire! You have been on council long enough to participate in a number of contract agreements with various employee groups. You have signed onto contracts offering guaranteed raises and abysmally low shares of benefits costs without wondering where the money would come from to pay for these raises, or what effect the raises and underpayments would do to our CalPERS obligation? Why didn’t you ask these questions during the Measure H campaign?
And here’s the question for council and city manager Mark Sorensen – why, when we’ve had this same conversation all the way back to when Brian Nakamura was city manager and Mark Sorensen was on council, we’ve been fully aware of the pension deficit, and none of you have once suggested that employees pay a more rational share of their overly generous benefits.
Instead you’ve tried to foist an illegal Pension Obligation Bond without putting it to a vote of the taxpayers. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association had to put a cease and desist order on that. What’s your plan now?
Chico Taxpayers Association 
this is outrageous . I’ll comment soon
I’ll look forward to hearing from you, I never got back to your last comment, which kept me awake a few nights. In the meantime, I’ve been digging back a few posts. In August ’25 I found some reports from 2022-23, remember that post? In 2022 the UAL was over $150 million, a year later, it was down to $92 million. How did that happen? We all know that CalPERS is losing money – the most recent report I just posted from the finance director said CalPERS lost 21% in the last quarter. So where did the city of Chico get the money to pay the deficit down almost $60 million between 2022 and 2023? And now we’re up another $60 million? I wish I could say I’ve been attending these meetings but no, so I can only speculate. The way they move the peas and walnuts downtown, there’s some fish odor in all this.
Tenessa Audette is talking about the same kind of peas and walnuts in Redding, she’s getting a lot of push back from the city manager, but all he keeps saying is people have to trust him. We need more accountability from these people, they just expect us to close our eyes and think of Mother England.
I assume you heard about the Chico PD sergeant, Mike Williams, who was eventually fired for having sex with five women on duty in 2023. He went on leave in November 2023 and got terminated in January 2025 — 14 months, paid that whole time, presumably, plus 3 months pay kicked in at the end to get him to drop appeal over firing — an appeal he only filed in order to take another $38,000 grand with him out the door. But getting to pensions, I was struck by breakdown of Williams’ total compensation of nearly $250,000 for 2023 (latest year available):
Total pay: $155,000
Benefits: $44,000
“Penson debt”: $50,000
City paid more on his pension than for all those City benefits!
thanks Dave – I can’t have a cow about everything all by myself, I appreciate you pointing this out.
I can’t help wondering, has this pervert been re-hired elsewhere?
I already fixed that. Grammar is one of my CO things.
The Williams payout is yet another scandal cover-up by the Chico Police Department (CPD), funded by your tax dollars. Chico likely spent around $500,000 or more to fight my lawsuit regarding the tragic killing of my son. However, when a police officer has legal recourse, union protection, and connections with individuals like the misogynistic Van Overbeek, Chico simply rewards him with a generous payout. This situation is appalling.
For the past 12 years, there has been a troubling pattern of sexually victimizing vulnerable or mentally ill women, yet he is rewarded with a substantial financial settlement. This is a scandal on multiple levels, and I refuse to let it go unnoticed. Any support you can provide would be invaluable in exposing the reprehensible “good old boys” network at Chico.