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Who is really in charge Downtown?

9 Jun

I had e-mailed my question about the Nature Center loan (essentially, why was it pulled from last Tuesday’s agenda) to city obfuscators Mark Orme, Chris Constantin and fiscal bulldog Mark Sorensen. I got a response from Constantin. 

Hello Juanita,

 The City believes that there is an opportunity to renegotiation [sic] the loan and lease agreements with the Nature Center to avoid needing to write-off the loan.  The promising development is the reason why the item was pulled, and the City decided not to entertain a write-off of the loan at that meeting.

 Chris Constantin, MPA, CIA, CFE, CICA, CLEA

Assistant City Manager

Excuse me, this is always my immediate mental response to an e-mail from Chris Constantin – “What? Can you just tell us what the hell is going on?!”  

That’s why I call them names here, like “mangler” and “obfuscator”, because they won’t just talk about this stuff straight with the taxpayers, they try to wiggle out of a direct answer. Brian Nakamura was one of the best I’ve ever seen – he would contort his way through half sentences, acting as though he was under some brutal torture, and never finish what he was saying.  And nobody in the room was rude enough to say, “spit it out Brian, what the hell are you saying?”  I know my place – I get asked to shut up when I am too curious with these people, I really have to hold back. If you ask more than one question at these meetings, even on separate topics, they treat you as though you are trying to be difficult.

I notice the Enterprise Record editorial this week is getting at the same point – they are being too coy these days Downtown. Dave Little is blaming it on staff, as if the council is getting the same treatment as the rest of us. 

Ex city manager Dave Burkland and finance director Jennifer Hennessey acted the same way. At first the press said nothing, the council said nothing, but when the financial shit finally hit the fan, they were throwing their pointy fingers  around  so fast they almost got them caught in the fan blades. 

So now we have another little melodrama – according to the ER,  staff has now gone insubordinate on Sorensen and the conservative majority. Little accuses them of hiring without council oversight – including the promotion of Constantin to Assistant City Manager. Hey, you know, judging from Mark Sorensen’s reaction to the pulling of the Nature Center loan discussion from last Tuesday’s agenda, that action was a complete surprise to him. Was it? Is staff just wheeling their own deals these days? 

And Little accuses our lawyer consultant of putting up the back of his hand to protests from citizens. Well, as a person who’s seen the back of Little’s hand, I’ll say, nya nya nya. But he’s right, at least our former legal team answered our questions, even mine. Sorensen hired this new team – or did he? 

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Rules change for public entities finance reports – how will unpaid Nature Center loan and pension liability affect Chico’s credit rating?

7 Jun

The Chico Creek Nature Center has still not made payments on the $180,000 (plus) loan they got from the city in 2009. They were forgiven the accumulated interest and penalties last year, but still would not pay the loan. When I sat in on the meetings for this item a year ago, I tried to ask questions about their books, trying to make a point that they weren’t running their lucrative daycare operation above boards, and Mayor Sorensen angrily told me, “that’s enough Juanita!” 

When I finally got ahold of their “finance report”, I found it to be some kind of high school style report – no actual figures! And, gee – they spend exactly what they take in, right down to the last zero, isn’t that convenient? But they just don’t seem to  take in enough to pay their bills. 

In this town? A daycare operation that’s not making enough money to pay it’s rent? In the private sector that would mean the end of business, but in the Chico public sector anything is possible. 

Now the center simply wants the loan forgiven, and for the city to fully fund their sketchy operation. 

This was up on Tuesday’s agenda, I couldn’t make the meeting, and now I find that item was just dropped from the agenda, no explanation. I sent a note to the city manglers and I’ll see if they reply.

In the meantime let me tell you what I suspect. Over the last three years the board membership of Chico Creek Nature Center has changed radically. Formerly run by John Merz, Dave Guzzetti and Susan Mason, the center has now been taken over by friends of Bob Linscheid, employees of Chico State and various “economic development” corps. Is that why Mark Sorensen and his minions on council are so ready to now forgive over $200,000 in loan, interest and penalties? A loan that has been hanging on the books like a big booger since July of 2009? 

Below is the excerpt from the Enterprise Record story of last week:

ER 5/31/15

The council will also be considering several options related to a loan to the Chico Creek Nature Center that is currently in default. Options include forgiving the loan with or without conditions, deferring the loan obligation until July 2016, or taking no action and proceeding with remedies in the loan agreement.

The nature center owes the city a principal balance of $181,026.95. In May 2014, the council amended the loan agreement to reset accumulated interest and penalties from July 2009 to April 2015 to zero, to adjust the interest rate from 1.8 percent to 3.42 percent annually from July 15, 2014 forward, and establish interest-only payments beginning with a payment due July 15, 2014.

However, the nature center did not agree with the terms and has not signed the agreement, which caused the loan to fall into default.

If the loan obligation is forgiven, the general fund would be required to reimburse one of the neighborhood parks funds for the current principal balance plus accumulated interest, at a cost of $205,539.71.

The staff report notes that based on the loan’s history and actions in recent years, nature center likely will never be able to repay the loan.

The nature center has requested the city either assume the loan, provide funding to the nature center for visitor services and subsidizing programs for local families, include the nature center in discussions on transient occupancy tax decisions, or become a significant funder of the center. An alternative is for the city to fund the Bidwell Park visitor information services and the center will then begin paying off the loan.

 

When I asked back in April I got this explanation  from Chris Constantin. The city has been bending over backwards for the CCNC board for over a year now. Something stinks.

 RE: CNCC loan activity

 Chris Constantin
4/19/15
To: juanita sumner Cc: Mark Sorensen, Mark Orme, Frank Fields
 
Hello Juanita,

The City is undertaking a review of leases for city-owned facilities.  As you can imagine, there are quite a few with differing terms and conditions.  We will be looking to draft a comprehensive policy to guide decisions we make with City-owned property as well as leases.

As for the CCNC, the City Council in the lead up to the 2014-15 fiscal year, reset their loan to the original principal amount and changed the payment terms.

For the last several years, the CCNC would request a waiver for paying during the year, and the result would be the City would receive no payments and the loan would accumulate additional interest.  Obviously the CCNC could not pay the principal and interest of the original loan, so even if we reset the loan, there was not a guarantee that we wouldn’t be in the same situation.

To make it easier for the CCNC and to provide some payment to the City, with the change to reset the loan amount back to the original amount in 2014, the City requested an interest only amount to be paid quarterly to at least turn a non-performing loan into some revenue.  At the time of the discussion around this topic, a CCNC representative came to finance committee and the Council meetings and while there stated that the CCNC did not want to default on its obligations.

In 2014, the City Manager proposed writing off the loan completely given that this was funding that went into improving our building, but after the CCNC rep’s statements that the CCNC did not want to default on their obligations, the new option discussed above was approved.

While the CCNC did not disagree with the new option, the chose to not sign the agreement implementing the new option.  As a result, the old, original loan is still in effect.  As of today, they are in default of their original loan, and the City, as part of their lease review will deal with non-performing agreements such as this.  I’m hoping to have something out in May regarding the CCNC.

The real problem is that this unpaid loan looks very bad for Chico’s credit rating. Well, if this looks bad for Chico’s credit rating, what do they think that $94 million pension liability is doing to our credit rating? 

According to Pensions and Investments Marc Lieberman and Mark Lasee, “For many public sector retirement plan sponsors, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s new pension reporting rules couldn’t have come at a worse time. The changes, effective June 15 and encapsulated in GASB Statements 67 and 68, mandate that governmental balance sheets reflect unfunded pension liabilities. This has been met with grave concern by plan sponsors.”

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Read the chief’s report – what does he want? Do we need more cops, or do we need overpaid cops?

19 May

I was reading the article about Chico PD Chief Dunbaugh’s report, and I notice the link to the actual report does not work.

The report should be available when you open the city website, but instead they have an expired article about Enloe’s recent Drug Drop and Dash. The city website hasn’t been kept up very well lately, but the report is available under “Police” in the drop down city departments window, here’s that link:

http://www.chico.ca.us/police/documents/2014AnnualReport_Final.pdf

I don’t know why she didn’t just use the link, that tiny url shit hasn’t been working right for a long time. She probably doesn’t check her own links, I notice she barely has a handle on spelling, grammar and punctuation. Probably cause she’s so busy writing down whatever they want her to say.

What I see here is a man pandering for a tax increase, and everybody skirting around it, but nobody with the gagnas to bring this beast right out into the open, where God and everybody can get a good look and a sniff at it, and say, “PEEEEEE-UUUUUU!” . They just increased salaries down at the cop shop, the cops agreeing to pay – BFD – 12 percent toward pensions of 90 percent at age 50 – and they have the nerve to be crying about staff shortages? 

Here’s my prediction – the whore of Babylon, Downtown Chamber harpie Katie Simmons, will be the one to push it forward. $5 says she’ll do it right before Christmas, threatening us with drunk drivers and muggers. 

International Workers Day: take a minute to tell your overlords how you feel about their salaries

1 May

If you work for a living, today is your day – Happy May Day.

Traditionally a celebration of Spring and fertility, this day has come to be known as International Workers Day.

Today is a good day to note, most of the wealth in this country is owned by people who never turn a finger.  I’m not a socialist, but I do feel, a small proportion of the people in this country have used criminal means to confiscate public money for their own gain.

Did you know, according to statistics released by the Social Security Administration, 52 percent of all Americans make less than $30,000/year? And, among those who have a job, 40 percent make less than $20,000/ year. 

Who makes over $100,000 in Chico? Public employees. Most of the management at the city of Chico and the county of Butte make well over $150,000/year, some over $200,000 – PLUS BENEFITS.

Who sets their salaries and benefits? Well, they do.  In Chico, city manager Mark Orme negotiates all the contracts, including his own. Council goes with Orme’s recommendation on everything, that way they don’t have to think or be responsible. There’s a city clause that says we can’t hold councilors liable for anything they do. Anything.

It was a previous city manager who set us up for this – Tom Lando engineered that long-ago “Memo of Understanding” that attached city salaries to revenue increases “but not decreases…”  It was a “conservative” led council that signed it. That memo resulted in 14, 19, 22 percent raises for staff over the next couple of years, taking Lando’s salary from about $65,000 a year to over $150,000. Orme is making over $200,000, just in salary.

Dear departed Fred Davis had his finger in it too – ever wonder how that old bird got one of the biggest pensions this city has ever paid out?

Name Employer Warrant Amount Annual
ALEXANDER, THOMAS E CHICO $8,947.23 $107,366.76
BAPTISTE, ANTOINE G CHICO $10,409.65 $124,915.80
BEARDSLEY, DENNIS D CHICO $8,510.23 $102,122.76
BROWN, JOHN S CHICO $17,210.38 $206,524.56
CARRILLO, JOHN A CHICO $10,398.98 $124,787.76
DAVIS, FRED CHICO $12,467.78 $149,613.36
DUNLAP, PATRICIA CHICO $10,632.10 $127,585.20
FELL, JOHN G CHICO $9,209.35 $110,512.20
FRANK, DAVID R CHICO $14,830.05 $177,960.60
GARRISON, FRANK W CHICO $8,933.56 $107,202.72
JACK, JAMES F CHICO $9,095.09 $109,141.08
KOCH, ROBERT E CHICO $9,983.23 $119,798.76
LANDO, THOMAS J CHICO $11,236.48 $134,837.76
MCENESPY, BARBARA L CHICO $12,573.40 $150,880.80
PIERCE, CYNTHIA CHICO $9,390.30 $112,683.60
ROSS, EARNEST C CHICO $9,496.60 $113,959.20
SCHOLAR, GARY P CHICO $8,755.69 $105,068.28
SELLERS, CLIFFORD R CHICO $9,511.11 $114,133.32
VONDERHAAR, JOHN F CHICO $8,488.07 $101,856.84
VORIS, TIMOTHY M CHICO $8,433.90 $101,206.80
WEBER, MICHAEL C CHICO $11,321.93 $135,863.16

When they dumped that MOU, they started paying the “employee’s share” of benefits – the cops have only recently agreed to pay anything, for years they paid nothing toward their own pensions. Only in the last two years have they agreed to pay at all, and now only 12 percent. Come on – 12 percent toward pensions of 90 percent of $100,000+ salaries, starting at age 50?

Management and other employees pay only 9 percent, even Constantin and Orme, who make over $200,000 in salary. We pay the other 91 percent. Wow, that’s like  taking your boss to lunch! Every day! At Johnny’s! 

So, if you bend and sweat for a living, take orders, do stuff that is beneath your dignity just to put a roof over your head, take a minute to turn toward Downtown and extend your middle finger. I’ll be doing that at NOON, let’s try to coordinate, maybe we can levitate City Hall. 

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Chico now follows Yuba City into the abyss

25 Mar

Here’s a story from the Appeal Democrat in Yuba City/Marysville. The title states the problem – read further – city expenses have increased to pre-recession levels while revenues have continued to fall, retirement costs have increased by almost 10  percent a year while 32 positions have remained vacant. 

Sound familiar? Well, not if you’ve been listening to Chico Assistant City Mangler Chris Constantin lately – he just made a Pollyanna speech about how everything will be getting better and we need to pump more money into police salaries for cops who only pay 12 percent of their pensions, 90 percent available at age 50. Constantin assumes higher property tax and sales tax revenues – I’d like to see the crystal ball he’s been using, cause my crystal ball says we’re headed straight for the second dip in the ‘W’. Housing prices are going up too fast, builders are building in a glutted market.  In my neighborhood, the same contractor is flipping three houses – putting lipstick on pigs, and jacking the price up to $400,000 plus.  

Below, Constantin admits we can’t really afford these raises for the cops, but insinuates they won’t stay if we don’t pay them more. Meanwhile, interim chief Dunbaugh told Stephanie Taber we had more than 100 recruits for those three positions they just filled the other day. The lies just keep on flowing – Chris Constantin is full of double talk.

“While this agreement includes base pay adjustments, the CPOA has agreed to pay more of their pensions costs (the highest of any employee group) and to convert to a new employee 14-step schedule that reduces the annual step increases from 5% down to 2.5% (a new salary schedule also agreed to by our non-public safety management group). This is a unique solution to the unique issue faced by this high priority area. Unfortunately, it is not something we can afford to give to others without compromising our financial future; however, I believe the return on the investment will positively impact all of us and will bring relief to a workforce that is struggling to maintain even a minimum safe staffing level.”

I predict Constantin will fly the coop before the city announces plans to pursue a sales tax increase. But, read below, you see we’re on the same road as Yuba City. 

 

 

Yuba City budget deficits remain as costs rise

By Andrew Creasey acreasey@appealdemocrat.com

There is a light at the end of the tunnel for Yuba City’s budget woes, but it’s obscured by a mountain of pension debt and rising health care costs.

Those rising costs mean budget deficits will remain until 2018, when the city pays off its pension obligation bonds. Consequently, it’s unlikely the city will be able to add or expand services, Finance Director Robin Bertagna told the City Council during a mid-year budget update at last Tuesday’s meeting.

 Basically, city expenses have increased to pre-recession levels, while revenues, despite an uptick from the improving economy, have not, Bertagna said.

Bertagna projected the city would have a $2 million budget deficit by the end of the fiscal year, although the actual number will likely be lower due to one-time savings realized by 32 vacant positions in the city, said City Manager Steve Kroeger.

Since 2004, retirement costs have increased by almost 10 percent each year. Health benefit payments have increased by 5 percent annually and overtime costs have risen by almost 8 percent each year. Comparatively, general fund revenues have increased by almost 3 percent a year over that same time period.

And required contributions to the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) will increase by 33 percent by 2021, which will add just less than $2.2 million to the city’s budget.

The city has handled the budget deficit in several ways. Employee furloughs have resulted in significant savings — without the 10 percent furlough, the projected deficit this year would be $4.2 million, Bertagna said.

The city has also used a reserve fund, the Economic Stabilization Fund, to balance the budget.

Currently, the fund has a balance of $4.5 million, which Kroeger said should sustain the city’s deficit through 2018.

In 2018, the city will have paid off its pension obligation bond. The city sold the bond to make a one-time PERS payment of about $7 million.

The bond was sold in the interest of saving money, as the bond’s interest rate is two percentage points lower than the unfunded liability rate that PERS charges the city, Kroeger said.

Even with the one-time payment, the city’s total unfunded PERS liability, representing the difference between the assets the city has to pay pension costs and the amount of pension obligations it has, is $53 million.

Kroeger said the city has planned well for the extended economic slump.

“It’s a downturn that most expected to recover sooner than it has,” Kroeger said. “The city’s conservative fiscal planning has served us well.”

CONTACT reporter Andrew Creasey at 749-4780 and on Twitter @AD_Creasey.

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Dogpile on Mary!

11 Apr

Do you remember childhood? Remember being on the playground and hearing somebody scream at the top of their lungs, “DOGPILE!”  And a mob would form out of nothing and jump on some poor kid – usually, a real annoying kid.  Seen it. Done it. Gonna do it now.  It’s highly uncivil, but let me ask you – has Mary Flynn Goloff been civil?  

I’ve actually been holding back lately, but you know I’ve said it before – Mary needs to go. She needed to go from the get-go. She’s never contributed anything worthwhile to a conversation. I remember when she chaired the Economic Development Committee (yeah, it’s all coming back to you now…), I sat in on a meeting where a former Chamber CEO was making his farewell speech as he headed to another town, carpet bag in hand. Jim Goodwin told us that Chico wasn’t going to get any new jobs because our housing was too expensive. Perspective employers know they can’t pay the kind of wages it takes to own a $400,000 house, so they go elsewhere. One manufacturer, of a cool, space age, high tech jet, pulled up stakes and headed for Texas.

Why are houses so expensive here? Well, first there was Tom Lando’s attaching of salaries to “increases in revenues but not decreases.”  Staff and council started handing out building permits to raise their own salaries. By the time that hayride was over, houses had gone from less than $100,000 to $600 – 800,000, in the span of a couple of years. Tom Lando’s salary had gone up about $100,000. 

Then staff, with the blessing of council, started giving the cookie jar to their friends who helped them raise revenues. They’ve allowed developers to come in and get all kinds of cheap to free service – streets, sidewalks, sewer hook-ups. They’ve handed money to developers – the $7 million used to purchase the low-income section of Merriam Park went right into New Urban developer Tom DiGiovanni’s pocket, out of the RDA fund, meaning we’ll pay for it three times. Scott Gruendl arranged for  DiGiovanni to write a “parallel code,” so he wouldn’t have to get variances for the sub-code stuff he does. They just let him write his own code, with narrower streets, smaller setbacks, and stuff like, the wall of one house acts as the fence to the neighbor’s property – your neighbor’s kid can play basketball off the wall of your house, and you have to sue his parents to make him stop. Go look at Doe Mill – you think that’s standard code? But those yardless crappers will still run you over $250,000 each. What?

Goloff sat through that Economic Development meeting listening to Goodwin’s report, and whenever there was a break in the conversation she’d kind of look around the room and flutter her hands and say, “Well I just think Chico is a wonderful place to live.” She just kept repeating that, over and over. 

Yeah, nice if you’re a public worker, and make three, four, five, six times the median income. It’s real nice to live in a town like Chico, where people are desperate, on a big salary. You can have a maid, nanny,  landscaper, all these willing slaves to do your shit work for you.  But it sucks if you’re living on the median income or less, because the high salary assholes drive up the cost of everything from gas to hair cuts to daycare to eggs. I got my hair cut at Dimensions once. I went in and told them, Annie August sent me, so they knew she’d told me how much to pay. I used to get a nice ‘do, a little color, made me feel pretty when I was changing diapers and scrubbing rental toilets. As I sat in the chair getting my color and cut, a lady came in, announced she was visiting from “The City,” and sarcastically asked if she could she get a cut for less than $150? Oh sure! they told her. They did exactly what they did to me and charged her twice as much. I remember how those gals looked at me, “Shut Up!” I never went back. After having a woman like Annie August fussing over you, there’s just nobody else. But I saw what they did, and I never forgot it. That’s the way this town is – take advantage creeps.

And that’s what Mary Flynn Goloff is, a take-advantage creep. She never even understood what she was getting herself into with the job of councilor, she just wanted attention.  I don’t know which ones are worse – the ones who come in with agendas in place, or the ones who come in to be fawned over like some sort of Evita, and end up being used like a Fist Puppet by the ones who do have agendas. That would be little Miss Mary. 

She’s been to rehab at least twice for alcohol and prescription drug problems. She’s already had problems attending meetings – we found out later, she’d been in rehab at that time.  Nobody is going to forget her unannounced entrance at Harvest Bakery while on prescription medication. How can we help but be suspicious that she’s fallen off the wagon again? In an attempt to be civil, I will ask Goloff to buck up and finish her term, but to announce NOW that she does not intend to run again. Thank you Mary for your anticipated cooperation.

 

 

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