I won’t lie – I been trying my best to ignore what’s been going on in Chico. I been doing what some people have been suggesting for years – I been minding my own fucking business. And that has been working out for me somewhat – my husband and I have got our rentals buttoned up and easier to manage, we’ve cut utility bills, we’ve even made enough room in our budget for a little tomato patch. No more $8 tomatoes, we can eat BLT’s every night if we want. I got three jars of salsa sitting in the fridge right now, I feel like the queen of England. I blew out my tomato press, and have a new one on the way.
Here’s the thing – you turn your back on a rotten apple and it just gets rottener and rottener. Oh-my-god, they hired the new city manager out of Vallejo! When I heard that news, I thought of my old cousin, bless his soul – he was on the Vallejo City Council in the 1960’s. He told me, that was when Vallejo and cities all over California made a vital mistake – they gave their city managers “executive powers”.
“A city manager serves as the chief administrative and executive officer of a municipality, operating under a council-manager form of government. Their executive powers focus entirely on managing daily operations and implementing policy, explicitly separating administrative duties from the political and legislative role of the mayor and city council.”
Yes, this reduced our city council to the position of fist puppets, essentially cheer leaders. So why bother having a city council? Because that makes “the people” feel like they are still somewhat in charge. Meanwhile, the city manager does essentially what he wants, with a rubber stamp from weak ignorant council members who think they could not possible run a city without the help of this vested, completely indemnified asshole.
What kind of crack was I smoking when I recently said I would support Kasey Reynolds? Just because I don’t like her challenger, who has made it clear she is coming to the chair with an agenda of her own? I’m starting to think we should just eliminate council and go straight to electing our city staffers.
Are the voters intelligent enough to do that? If you have an opinion on that question, chime in. I’m not interested in hearing your opinion of me or posting advertisements for your business.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Dear Juanita:
A City Manager form of administration is popular among Chico City Council members because it provides them with plausible deniability. When things go wrong, they can fire the manager at will. When things go well, the council can take credit for overseeing the City Manager, even though that oversight is illusory.
Chico councilmembers want to be popular and pontificate at public meetings; after all, they are politicians.
Thanks Scott, good to hear from you.
The best predictor of future actions is your past actions and past experience. So I did a little reading on how the City of Vallejo has been doing lately. I just read some general newspaper accounts I didn’t dig into their budget. Well it turns out financially they’re in trouble. It turns out there currently proposing to cut as much as 20% of staff. And they have unfunded pension liabilities.
we are paying our new city manager more than we were paying our old city manager. When you add salary plus benefits plus expense accounts plus travel allowances plus health benefits plus everything else that comes with a municipal job, the compensation package is well over $300,000 per year. And she looks young judging by the picture and short resume. Which means if she hangs around 10 years that totai comp number goes to $400,000.
As I’ve written in the past I’m fine with numbers like that. No envy or jealousy from me. As long as she does a meaningfully good job and the city gets its money’s worth. With an unfunded pension liability well north of 100 million dollars and 20 million of catch up provisions every year not to mention probably another 20 million dollars of regular contributions, this is the most important financial problems that he faces.
There are pensions and then there’s everything else.
if she tackles this problem she’s worth every dime. If she doesn’t tackle this problem she has certainly been swayed by the municipal powers that be and does not have the long-term best interest of the city in mind.
don’t judge a book by its cover only time will tell.
Hi BC, thanks for chiming in.
Currently the city of Vallejo has about $128 million in UAL, while Chico UAL is about $181 million. Remember, last October, Van Overbeek was so alarmed about that $60 million increase – yeah, this is an incremental debt, it’s like “rabbit math”.
Both cities have adopted “aggressive” payment plans – in Chico that means a solid cut from every department budget to pay for not only the UAL (including interest) but like you mention, the “regular” contributions. That hasn’t done anything to stop the rabbit math, becaaaauuuussssse… they keep hiring new people at exorbitant new salaries, while giving the cops and fire raises every time they turn around.
Hiring this woman at her new salary is just a can of gas BC. Are you being facetious when you say she could EVER be worth that salary when she’s already driving up the pension deficit? She’s not going to do anything about the pension deficit except TRY TO HANG IT AROUND THE TAXPAYERS’ NECKS. I predict she will try to bring back the Pension Obligation Bond.
And then there’s her track record. Bryce Goldstein said Vallejo had “settled” the lawsuits against this woman. At what cost, to the taxpayers? For her lawyers? For staff time involved? Add the cost of deferred maintenance.
And now she’s coming to Chico? Water get a little hot in Vallejo? What’s that saying about one city’s trash? The next city’s nightmare?
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover? You should read Naked Lunch.