Ann Willmann dropped a little bomb yesterday as she started the Aquatic Facility committee meeting – she announced there would be a public meeting at 7pm last night!   She had noticed me of the AFAC meeting, yesterday, 4pm, but didn’t think I’d be interested in the public meeting held later that evening? Apparently she advertised it somewhere, I’m guessing, about a 4 x 4 ad buried in the back pages of the ER. She announced she’d had 12 e-mail responses – I’m going to throw out another guess here – those were from the people she personally noticed, none of which was me.

Willmann is doing everything she can to shove this aquatic center past the voter’s nose and down our throats. Of course, in the mindless chatter that accompanies all these meetings, she said her son is on a swim team that hopes to use the facility. That’s what this is all about – a pack of dogs making demands for a bigger share of meat for themselves.

If you were not at yesterday’s AFAC meeting, you are being misled. The consultants are here to try and make us believe we need to build a pool for Chico Swim Association.  But, I notice, they are also trying to reel this committee into a more reasonable project – I believe Dennis from Aquatics Design Group was trying to tell them it would be more reasonable and rational to repair the two existing pools. Of course, he is all about getting the taxpayers to float some sort of bond or sales tax increase, but at least he’s trying to calm these people into accepting a more rational end figure.

He told a story about a group he worked with in Walnut Grove. When they handed him a Christmas list of goodies, he handed them back a $29 million price tag. They were shocked. He told them, like he was trying  to tell this group of dummies yesterday, “why don’t you find out what you can afford and give me a call…” They came up with $12 million. 

This group wants all the bells and whistles. At one point, members were discussing the different pool temperatures required for different activities – toddler swim lessons and therapy activities need about 10 degrees warmer water than competition practice. Tom Lando asked, exasperated, “is there no innovative technology to heat water?!”  The sky is the limit for Lando, who makes almost $150,000/year IN PENSION. Both the consultant and committee member Haley Cope rolled their eyes and said “yes, but it’s reeeeeaaaaallllly expensive.”  

Lando is really pushing this project, but I don’t believe he is sincere when he says it’s for the good of the community. He has to keep the money rolling into CalPERS to pay his own pension, I think that’s his biggest motivator. $150,000/year – that’s more than $10,000/month! Where does it all go Tom? Care to throw down $100,000 to pay for the consultants we’ve had in on this thing?

Former CARD directors, past board members, and current pension obligations Ed Seagle and Jerry Hughes both reminded us that CARD ran a survey a couple of years ago that came back negative – Jerry said  it – Chico taxpayers are not willing to pay for this project. Seagle also reminded everybody, these projects never pay for themselves, ever. The consultants told them again and again – at best, they could hope for a “35 – 45% return” from users of this facility, they kept repeating – this pig will have to be subsidized by the voters.

Loren from “Sports Management Group” said the taxpayers have to pay for it – “the community has to make a decision about things worth having…” She said, “you can find a bazillion partners who want to use it, but they don’t bring anything of material value…” Meaning, they don’t want to raise money for funding, and then they don’t want to pay fees based on actual cost. She reminded the group – it’s about “price sensitivity…if you make it cheap enough, everybody will want to use it, and then it’s not big enough…” 

So, let’s face it, this project is a money pit, and here she’s admitting, the users will never pay for it. At one point, citing a job they did in the city of El Paso, Texas, Dennis reported, it was determined that only about 15 percent of the total population would even use the facility. 

Yes, we need swimming pools here. We have two that have been steadily used for years, while meeting the needs of the community, that have been neglected into dysfunction. I used those pools for about 10 years when my kids were small, they were always well attended, but never so crowded that we had to wait in line for anything. Sometimes Shapiro would get kind of hoppin’, and the diving board would get backed up.

In the beginning the pools were clean, the staff was nice and eager to please, they knew the kids by name, played games, mandated “Time Outs”. But, by the time my younger son was in lessons, snot hung in the pool (now we find out the filter at Shapiro has not functioned properly for years), the decks were littered with trash from forbidden food, and the staff would stand around in a circle with their backs to the swimmers and chatter gossip. If you asked them for something they acted like you were standing on their junk. 

When I read the report given by a local pool company, I was shocked to see that CARD, who has been responsible for the pools and their finances for years, had not even kept the pools up to code. Nevermind the ADA – that’s the Americans With Disabilities Act – I’m talking about the health and safety code.

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2015/09/27/why-has-card-neglected-shapiro-pool-why-would-laura-urseny-say-theres-not-much-hope-when-it-can-be-rebuilt-for-less-than-a-million-dollars/

There are trip hazards on the deck at Shapiro, for example – some created by the improper removal of the popular diving board.  

Chico is a city of over 80,000. I can’t believe CARD would so badly mismanage our pools. In the meantime, they’ve continued to pay 100 percent of their management pensions, with a $1.7 million pension liability hanging like a wrecking ball. As I sat in that room yesterday, I looked around at four pension liabilities sitting right in front of me – Seagle, Hughes, Lando and Willman – none of whom pay or paid a penny toward their own retirement.

Just imagine getting a check for $10,000/month, for nothing.  Wow, wouldn’t you think a guy like Tom Lando, who is so quick to put a sales tax increase to the rest of us, would yank out his checkbook and cut a quick one for $10,000? Hey, how about $100,000 Tom? 

The whole meeting yesterday was insulting and outrageous. Yes, Aqua Jets was the only organization represented – none of the other “users”, as Loren speculated, are bringing anything to the table. Aqua Jets has done no fundraising for this project. Yes, they expect all the bells and whistles and the public to pay for it. 

When I get a chance, I’ll sit down and work off my notes, but right now I’m afraid having to hash it all over again would ruin my day. Committee members Haley Cope and Jackie Santos made some really insulting remarks – they wouldn’t have made those remarks in a public meeting, I’ll tell you that right now. 

UPDATE: Here’s the “public notice” Willmann ran with help from her pet news reporter Laura Urseny – notice the date and time this article was posted – 11am, the day of. No wonder only 25 participants – Willmann needs to go. 

Tags: CARD aquatic center, Chico swimming pool tax, Haley Cope Chico CA