Archive | Chico bankruptcy RSS feed for this section

Where will the taxpayer find shelter?

29 Mar

At 3:22, I found myself too awake to lay in bed, but not quite awake enough to do anything.  I got up and followed the glow of light to my coffee maker, and I pushed the little button. I always set myself up a cup of coffee for these mornings when I wake up ahead of Me.

The moon was hanging so bright outside – not even full, but lighting up my driveway like a flashlight. The wind has scoured the sky very clean, the planets and stars look very bright too. 

As I wandered around the house in the dark, I could hear the 3:20 train, a few minutes late, screaming it’s way across town – GET THE HELL OFF THE TRACKS!  

I have a couple of things screaming their way across my head, I guess that’s why I can’t sleep. 

First are the rate increase notices I’ve got – not from Cal Water or PG&E, but from the California Public Utilities Commission. CPUC is having a hearing for both rate increases in April, on the same night, giving the public one hour to discuss the PG&E hike and then opening the floor to ratepayers from Willows to Marysville regarding the Cal Water hike. 

CPUC does not work for the ratepayers, they work for the utility companies. This is not really a “hearing,” it’s a “telling.” Our CPUC judge will explain to us that in 2018, PG&E will switch all ratepayers to “time of use” rates – meaning, your smart meter will keep track of the market price on the hour, and as you go along using your electricity through the day, you will be charged whatever power is selling for on the open market at that very moment. 

After the PG&E “telling” the judge will explain to us that Cal Water is merging Willows, Oroville, Chico, and Marysville into one district so Chicoans can help pay for “improvements” in those towns. When Cal Water asked for rate increases in those towns to cover the cost of long-neglected repairs to their infrastructure, CPUC said the increases were not reasonable. So, CPUC sat down with Cal Water to work out a system by which the costs for those districts will be handed over to Chicoans. 

Here’s the thing – those towns have all suffered from a lack of development. Here in Chico, we have development out the ass, so we get a lot of new water stuff. Right now Cal Water is getting ready to put a new water tower in at Fogarty’s new subdivision on Hwy 32, held up arguing over who will pay for it. Meanwhile, Willows, O-ville and Marysville (named for a survivor of the Donner Party, omigosh!) have been sidestepped by prosperity, and their local governments have not held Cal Water up to any standard, so their infrastructure is substandard. I’m guessing those towns have pipes dating back to the time when lead poisoning was considered a fact of life.

What will the ratepayer do?

Meanwhile, I’m being harangued by the director of a local homeless shelter because I criticize the way he runs the shelter and efforts he’s making to get more funding out of the city of Chico. When I said he already gets county funding by way of other agencies that share staffers with him, he really got pissed off. He denies getting public money – I keep explaining, he gets it by way of other agencies. He admitted he shares the staffer position I found, but now denies that agency gets public money. I got sick of arguing with him, but he keeps coming over  to argue, saying the same crap over and over.  

County Admin Officer Paul Hahn says the county spends over half it’s budget on “indigent” services, “including homeless services.” They fund agencies like the Catholic Relief Services, so does the city of Chico. These agencies spend that money on staffers who work at both the Torres Shelter and the Jesus Center. 

We have definitely become a magnet for criminals who use “homeless” like a shield. Just the other day, I read about a couple of guys who were found standing over a sleeping man in his apartment in the middle of the night. They were later found by the cops in the stolen vehicle the victim had described, with not only stolen articles but drugs. When I typed their names into the superior court index, they both came up, multiple arrests over the years, including robbery. 

Again and again, these people are released “OR” – own recognizance – back into the community to commit the same crimes over and over. They seem to disproportionately attack the campus neighborhoods, breaking in even when people are in their homes, stealing electronic items and any other valuables they can grab. They steal cars, they steal from cars.  And they commit strong-arm robberies, using knives and beating their victims.

I believe the services offered by our city and county attract these people. They know they will find sympathy here, they will find people who will shield  them from the law.  We have way too many people that enable the behavior – cries to build “little tiny houses” for the “homeless,” people who clean up their encampments just so they can move back in, etc.  We have too many public salaried voices screaming about the “criminalization of homelessness.”  So we have a regular army of people who don’t have fixed addresses, who wander out of the supervision of the law and turn up six months or a year later, arrested for the same crime or worse.

I have studied the operation of the Torres Shelter, and I feel they attract the criminal element without doing anything to control them. The director admitted that they have strict rules for who they will let in – but when they get turned out, they are only told to leave the immediate property. Right out front of the center you will find a little camp in the street. Then there’s the area between Park Ave and Fair Street known as “The Wedge” – a de facto homeless camp, sprawled out there behind the old Victor toxic Superfund site.

From the Chico Chamber of Commerce “Team Chico” report:

VICTOR SITE Redevelopment of the Victor Site, which is under a state consent decree overseen by the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC), has been recognized by all interested parties as a key to successful redevelopment of the Wedge. To promote that effort, EPA agreed to allow grant monies to be utilized to hire a local design firm to develop a range of development scenarios for the site that in turn will be used to develop a conceptual cleanup plan for approval by DTSC. This process is involved and the outcome uncertain, but it is intended to lay the framework for the purchase and redevelopment of the property by a viable interested party. The City, DTSC, and local development interests are working together toward that end.

That site has been known to be toxic since the 1980’s or earlier. Here they received money from the EPA, and they used it to hire a design team? What? And now, added to whatever Victor pumped into the  ground, is the toxic mess left behind by these criminal campers – the usual garbage, feces, drug paraphernalia, etc. 

No, I don’t like the Torres, I think it’s run badly, I don’t like taxpayer money supporting it.  I am also sick of Team Chico masturbating our money away with their concepts.

Meanwhile, my tenants and I, working class slobs, trying to pay our bills, trying to keep a roof over ourselves so we don’t end up on the street, get no sympathy – the city, the school district and the rec district are all considering separate tax increases. 

Where’s the angst from all these bleeding hearts? Nobody to cry for the working people? Brad? 

On a positive note, The Wedge is also a great tune by Dick Dale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbonHS_mONo

Team Chico – city still spending $taff time on “economic development”

26 Mar

My husband and I are turning over a rental. We had a big load of cleaning rags to wash, so we took them over to Bubbles laundromat at Mangrove Plaza. We’ve used that laundromat for years, whenever we have an oversize load, to use their bigger, more powerful machines.  I think that was the last load we’re going to do there after the experience we had yesterday.

Over the last few years, Bubbles has been dealing with the homeless problem that moved to Mangrove Plaza with the Downtown “sit and lie” ordinance. There are almost always homeless people sitting in there when we have brought in laundry. They usually sit quietly, I assume they also have laundry to wash, so I’ve never thought anything about it. Yesterday I found out, it is a problem.

As we entered with our bag of laundry and handful of quarters, a woman came walking toward us, she looked very pissed off. She stepped right in front of us to confront a man who was sitting in a chair, staring at a row of unused machines. “If you’re not doing laundry,” she said, “you will have to move along.” She was not friendly, she had already decided the guy would be moving along. This seemed to be a situation she had dealt with before.  My husband and I skipped across their confrontation like a pair of deer avoiding a car wreck.

This man, about 30 years old, sat back in his chair and challenged the woman’s authority to kick him out, challenged the idea that he did not have laundry in one of the machines, and challenged the notion that he was not allowed inside unless he did have laundry in a machine. She asked him to show her his laundry, and the conversation got belligerent on both ends. The woman lost patience and stalked toward the office, saying she would be calling the police.

At this point, we had our machine running, and we left to walk to Safeway to get groceries.  We felt a presence behind us, it was the homeless man, grumbling his way out the door.  A little boy who had witnessed the scene was crying, and his dad took him outside to comfort him.  We watched as the ejected man lumbered out across the parking lot toward Mangrove Avenue, then we went about our business, wondering if the woman actually called the cops, and if they would actually respond.

When who should we almost run into but little Katie Simmons, Chico Chamber shill. She had a bundle of papers, and seemed to be standing there in front of that new sandwich place, waiting for somebody. I saw a couple of young, office-dressed men join her, and then an older, casually dressed man – Team Chico.

Team Chico is our “economic development” policy. They go out and walk around whatever retail area, checking in with businesses, letting them know the chamber and the city are there to help them with whatever. Whatever. You mean, like these homeless creeps who stand around the front door of my business, scaring away customers?

I sure wanted to ask her if she was planning to go into Bubbles, but I had business of my own to attend to.  I believe Team Chico is nothing more than a membership drive for Chico Chamber of Commerce, which has come to have way too much influence in city business. It annoys me that she has city employees in tow. When I asked former city staffer Shawn Tillman what the city was spending on Team Chico, he said, “The City put no money in it–just staff time.”   

Just staff time. 

Look how quickly idiot Tillman landed in a sweet new job! While still living in Chico!

http://www.lincolnnewsmessenger.com/article/1/13/15/tillman-says-residents-can-help-shape-city%E2%80%99s-future

There’s no accountability in government. 

 

Tags: ,

Efforts underway to undermine Prop 13 for both commercial and residential

14 Mar

We barely recovered from paying our property taxes (which empty out our bank account twice a year just in time for some personal emergency to manifest itself) when I found this article online. 

http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2016/03/40-years-later-prop-13-to-be-a-main-attraction-on-2018-ballot/

For years I’ve been aware of the effort to undermine the protections of Proposition 13 for commercial properties, but now we have an effort to undermine the protections on people’s personal homes.

Wow, after that last BOOM!, can you imagine what your property taxes would have looked like under the old law? How many people would be forced out of their homes if we lost Prop 13? I know my elderly neighbors would be paying more in taxes than they paid for their home, and that seems very, very weird to me.  

And if they sold, they’d still have to pay tremendous income tax, regardless of the property taxes. Why don’t people see this for what it is – SHAKE DOWN!

In a perfect world, property taxes would be assessed based on projects within a certain distance of your house – your “neighborhood”.  We should pay for maintenance of the streets and other public infrastructure around our homes, that seems fair. When was the last time you saw any road work in your neighborhood, that didn’t involved hooking somebody up to sewer? Yeah, the city wants folks on the sewer, so they can pilfer the sewer fund for salaries and benefits, but you notice they don’t fix the street after they gopher their way in, they say they don’t have the money…

The streets in my neighborhood and around my rentals are a disaster, but the paychecks still roll out, and we are still on the hook to pay for pensions of 70 – 90 percent at age 50 – 55.   

It’s hard for little people like me to fight these big efforts, I spend most of my energy locally.   If we had better local watchdogs, we could make a difference. We need better people on council, who can negotiate down the pay and benefits and get more employees in the bargain. We have so many overpaid management positions, paying less than 10 percent toward their own pensions, we can’t afford anybody to actually do the work. 

Mark Sorensen and his friends are the beginning of the end for Chico. These people have taken business behind closed doors, actually cancelling this week’s meeting, saying there’s no business for the agenda.

Well, I’d sure like to know why my garbage man is telling everybody that Waste Management will get all the residential accounts east of the freeway when Mark Orme keeps telling me the deal is “still in negotiation”?  I’d like to know what the city, who was supposed to register with the CPUC as an “Intervenor” in the latest rate increase case for Cal Water, has not made any announcement of the hearing that’s been scheduled for next month.  It seems Mayor Sorensen feels it is not important to keep a rapport open with the public. It’s just too damned expensive to keep the public in the loop, isn’t it? 

Write those letters, ask those questions.  

City of Chico needs to amend employee contracts to count employee benefits toward their income, make them pay their own “Cadillac Tax”

2 Mar

 

When I first heard about the “Cadillac Insurance Tax” I had to giggle – a tax on those over-generous health benefits packages we give our public employees – then I found out – they don’t pay it, WE PAY IT.

Something I haven’t got around to bitching about is the health benefits packages enjoyed by public workers. I’ve said plenty about the Pension Time Bomb – well, there’s a health benefits time bomb too, at least as big as the pension bomb. Workers are getting three and four times the benefits enjoyed by most tax payers – look at the controller’s website:

http://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Counties/County.aspx?entityid=4&fiscalyear=2014

Top of the list, Dorian Kittrell, County Behavioral Health Director – $48,000 in benefits. I don’t know the split there between pension and health insurance, but I know he pays less than 10 percent of the premium out of his almost $300,000 in salary.  The taxpayers pick up maybe 30 percent more, and then the rest rides on the stock market.  That is what creates the “liability” in these funds – our gracious elected officials have promised these crazy salaries, pensions, and health care packages to our elite public management, but they are paying less than 50 percent of  the cost up front.

At the city of Chico

http://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Cities/City.aspx?fiscalyear=2014&entityid=79

public safety “workers” take away outrageous packages – at the top of the list, a $74,229 benefits package for  one fire chief who makes more than $200,000/year in salary. 

These are the “Cadillac” plans Obama is after, to pay for his failed Obamacare, and the county of Butte and the city of Chico will be on the hook to pay 40 percent of the value of those packages. 

Why the employer? Because we give our public workers a contract stipulation that says their benefits will not be counted as part of their income. That leaves the public entity on the hook, and that means, WE PAY IT.

Here’s a good link to find information about this tax, which is set to go into effect by 2020, if not 2018.

http://www.fightthe40.com/news/

As for our local situation, the contracts are on the table right now, write to your mayor and tell him we want the benefits counted as income. Tell him we are not willing to foot the bill for these people’s outrageous lifestyle demands. 

That’s Mayor Mark Sorensen, mark.sorensen@Chicoca.gov

Chasing my own tail, I finally got an answer out of Butte County Behavioral Health Director about cops in Enloe ER

21 Feb

I got a note from Tim today, asking if I was still up to having meetings at the library. Thanks for asking Tim. Right now I am up to my armpits in family sickness, but yes, I’d like to gas up the old CTA and get ready for Election 2016.

Maybe I’ll be able to think about that in March,  right now I’m sleeping on my living room floor in increments of about 15 – 20 minutes, one ear always ready for the sound of puking or other illness. It’s the dog flu, it’s hit us good and hard, and we’re hunkering down.

You know how nothing else matters when somebody you love is sick?

Thanks though, I’ll get on that, you other taxpayers start thinking about a meeting too.  

And Thanks again Tim, you reminded me, I finally got an answer from Butte County Behavioral Health Director Dorian Kittrell. I had asked him a few questions about procedure.

As I have repeated about 800 times, the police have always used this story that they spend so much time at Enloe Hospital babysitting homeless people (whom they perceive to be “a danger to themselves or the public”, they need more money for stuff like:

  • special radios – they can’t use their cell phones in the hospital
  • a special room, just for them, within the hospital, where they can sit privately while waiting. Supposedly they have all these reports to fill out, they figure while they cool their heels with these indigents they drag in they should be doing paperwork.  The hospital, they say, is willing to provide a space, but the cops say they need money to fix that space up (not sure what exactly that means). 
  • more staff, automatic step promotions and pay increases,  88 percent of their CalPERS, etc.

I sat in at a meeting where Kittrell described Behavioral Health services, and part of their job is to go to Enloe Hospital to collect “people who are a danger to themselves or the public” from the police.  I wanted to find out, how long does it take these BH staffers to show up at the hospital. Why are the police claiming they are stuck with these indigents for hours on end? 

Kittrell answered back, but was slow in telling me anything. He immediately admitted, “I have been working with the new Chief of Police and it has been helpful to have a collaborative relationship with his department.”  Then he suggested we should meet and discuss it. Oh yeah, right – guy makes over $200,000/year in salary, plus health and pension for which he pays about 9 percent of the premium, but he has time to meet with me and answer questions? But he can’t do it in an e-mail? 

They always try to meet – they don’t want to say anything in writing.  I just had to keep asking.  He told me he’d spoken with the police chief, who denied efforts to get a substation. I gave him the link to this interview when I’d asked him, but he just acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about.

http://chicocurrents.net/2015/08/10/459/

Again, I just kept asking and he just kept the conversation going without answering – at one point complaining there is a lack of “beds” for these patients, as if they were having trouble taking them off the cops’ hands.  I realize, I’ve been trying to get the answer to the substation question since last August.

In October Kittrell told me and Maureen Kirk, ” The biggest issue facing people waiting in the ERs is the number of acute psychiatric inpatients beds available at any given time – they are often full.  There are plans for another 120 bed facility to be built in Sacramento but that is two years out.  Since I have come to Chico, I have purchased 4 beds at a Yuba City inpatient facility which has increased the total number of beds controlled by Butte County to 20 (16 in our Chico facility (Cohasset Road facility purchased last year) and now 4 in Yuba City).  In particular, the number of inpatient psychiatric beds for patients that have medical needs (in other words, they need a psychiatric bed but also need hospital level services, e.g. have IVs or need significant wound care, etc.) are in greater need and these types of beds are almost non-existent in Northern California (Woodland Memorial has approx. 20 of these type of beds for the entire North State).

Look at the money  this guy is spending, but the cops are still claiming they spend so much time in Enloe, blah blah blah. I finally had to ask him, just how long does it take one of your staffers to get over to Enloe to collect these people?

I thought he was finally giving me the slip when I got a notice that he would be out of his office for a week, so I sent my questions to Supervisor Kirk, and cc’d Kittrell. He responded immediately, even after his auto-response had said he wouldn’t be able to access e-mail or phone until sometime the following week.  While his previous e-mails were positively chatty, his last e-mail was terse.

Juanita,

 Behavioral Health has staff in the ERs 7 days a week from 2pm to 11pm to serve clients coming to the ER.   Between 11pm and 2pm we respond usually within one hour, often times shorter. (This seems contrary to what he told me previously about having trouble finding “beds”)

 Regarding the rate at the PHF (psychiatric facility), it is approximately 550 per day.

I replied, 

Thanks, Mr. Kittrell, for your patience in answering my questions. 

One hour, oftentimes shorter – the reason I ask, is that Chico PD claims that officers are kept so long at the ER that they don’t have time for other duties. They also claim that  their cellphones/radios don’t work in the hospital, and because they spend so much time there, they need funding for new ones. 

And thank you for answering my other question – $550 per patient per day. 

 – JS”

See, I’m always polite, but I’ll be damned, after raising two kids, if I’m going to let some carpetbagging slicker dodge me on a question. 

So, I almost forgot the other question I had asked him. I had read an article in the ER about Kittrell citing an old law from the 80’s, that extended the amount of time the county is allowed to put a “psychiatric hold” on a patient without their consent, increasing it by about 30 days.  I’d asked, what agency would pay for this, and how much more money per patient the hold would amount to.

There he tells us – the county gets $550 per patient per day for these people they can collect off the street. Get aload of this – the patient does not even have to be “a danger to themselves or the public,” it’s just up to the county doctors to decide when this person is ready to be released. While they collect an extra $550 a day to hold onto this patient. 

I think the money provides too much incentive to hold people who are not really being helped.  I feel Kittrell is more of a fundraiser than a psychiatrist. To my knowledge he doesn’t even use the title “doctor”. Here’s how he signs an e-mail:

Dorian Kittrell, Director

Butte County Behavioral Health

109 Parmac Road, Suite 1A

Chico, CA 95926

Phone: (530) 891-2850

Fax: (530) 895-6549

See, no “DR.” in front of his name. 

This man is supposed to help people with behavioral health issues, but I think he just sees cash cows. 

Is he driving you crazy yet?

 

 

Election 2016 will be The Battle For Chico

2 Feb

I like to look at the blog stats, see what people are thinking about, what searches bring them here. I have to wonder if somebody’s just having fun with me when they type in “reanette fillmer stupid bitch.”

What in the world did Ms. Fillmer do this time?

A month or so ago, the lines were bouncing with curiosity and outrage over the Feaster shooting – now it’s the Torres Shelter. Tonight shelter director Brad Montgomery will make some kind of plea before City Council, we’ll see what happens.

A friend of mine asked me what I thought of Chico Chamber chair Mark Francis’ suggestion that Chico is ready for a quarter cent sales tax increase. That reminded me – I need to make another order from Lucky Vitamin. I found Lucky Vitamin a few years ago when former city manager Tom Lando started talking about raising sales tax. I didn’t like online shopping at first, but wow, it’s gotten so much better.  Since Lando first broached the subject of a sales tax increase, I’ve found my way onto various shopping sites that offer good prices and free shipping. I find shipping to be getting a lot better, and when there’s a mistake, you don’t have to drive to the store and wait in an onerous line to make your return.

It’s up to the seller to collect sales taxes, and they are not required to do so unless they have a “physical presence” in California. I know Amazon.com has made a deal with the Franchise Tax Board but only for items shipped from a California location. The customer is on the hook to report and pay uncollected sales tax, or  “use tax,” but there is no mechanism to sort this out by city, the state just keeps it.

http://blog.taxjar.com/sales-tax-for-california/

Whether or not the city gets the sale tax, local businesses will suffer. They need to know that before they decide whether or not to support a sales tax increase. For a while I got over Lando’s little threat, but I shop online more now than I did, and Francis has pissed me off again.

Sheesh, Nevada is a day trip, do they realize that?

It’s funny-weird, not funny-ha-ha,  that Francis’ wife Jolene has brought a proposal to rename City Hall after former City Mangler Fred Davis.  Davis, until his recent death, was one of the biggest pigs in our pension trough.

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2013/07/13/heres-whats-really-behind-the-park-closures-more-than-21-retirees-get-over-100000year-in-pension-ex-fire-chief-gets-over-200000/

How did that old guy worm his way up to over $149,000, in pension? He helped Tom Lando pull off that MOU that “attached salaries to revenue increases, but not decreases…”  That’s how!  Old bastard had a bag of tricks, and long after he’s rotted to dirt, Chico taxpayers will be paying for his hijinx.

Time to mount up, get ready for battle – they are coming after the roof over your head, the food on your table, your kids’ education.

It’s the Battle for Chico.

 

 

 

Tags: , , ,

The state of our city is disgraceful

30 Jan

At yesterday’s “State of the City” address, Mayor Sorensen admitted that pension liability is the biggest problem we face, that only 51 of our 400 and something employees are under the new “post retirement reform” laws (meaning they pay 50 percent of  their own benefits instead of 9 percent like the others), but cried like a baby that we “have no control” over the situation.  Soon we will be paying 41 percent of their pensions, while most of our employees pay 9 percent. We’ll pay more next year, and the year after that. We don’t have the money – that’s why they call it a “liability.” 

Sorensen even had the nerve to say, the city is putting their “deficit” to bed soon. If you look over the meeting agendas of late, you will see how they have separated the pension deficit from the budget – a second set of books – to hide the millions we owe on pensions for long-gone city employees. 

Mayor Sorensen might be a master chef and book cooker, but his daddy must have been a glassmaker, cause we can see right through him.  Although, I don’t think Sorensen can see past the end of his own nose. He simply has to protect the pensions, because he’s going to get one when he retires from his job as city manager of the little town in the orchards, Biggs.

Knowing people in town are pissed off about the condition of city and neighborhood streets, letter after letter asking that the Esplanade be left alone, and just another letter this morning describing our City Plaza as a “refugee camp,” Sorensen apparently didn’t touch those subjects. Fair weather mayor. Instead he’s going to spend a bazillion more dollars on gadgets for the cop shop. 

Like Nextdoor, the website that was touted as a kind of “Neighborhood Watch” on the computer? A big crime fighting tool? I wouldn’t know, apparently I was held out of most conversations because I did not have a “neighborhood group.” None of my neighbors were joining, nor were they interested. When I asked to be added to another group they simple never responded.  So,  I was left out of most conversations, left with general postings like, yard  sales, ad for local services, now and then a report of a suspicious activity, and meandering chatterfests about what neighbors were doing that would come to a halt as soon as somebody got their nose out.

Frankly, I began to wonder – are there even 100 Chicoans signed up for this service?

Then, after I’d been signed on about a month,  they sent me the notice about their “privacy” practices, including this blurb about cookies:

Server Logs. We automatically collect information created by your visits to our website and use of our apps, your use of Nextdoor, and your interaction with the messages we send. This information may include the browser you are using, the URLs you came from and go to, the model of your computer or mobile device, the operating system version, IP address and protocol used by your computer or mobile device, your mobile device or app identifier, and usage and browsing habits. We use this information to provide and improve our Services, to diagnose and resolve problems, to analyze trends, to help target offers and other ads (if and where applicable), to monitor aggregate usage, and to gather broad (aggregate) demographic information.

You can configure your browser to reject cookies, but doing so will prevent you from logging into our website. Our systems are not configured to accept browsers’ Do Not Track signals.”

So, I realized, this was the entire idea behind Nextdoor – gathering data for advertising. Wow.  And, I never found any useful news – I know there are car break-ins and other property crimes going on within a mile of my house but nothing ever turned up on Nextdoor.  My husband and I are able to find out more about what’s going on in our neighborhood simply by taking a rake out to our front yard and puttering around for half an hour. We also walk the hood at different times of night and day, we try to stay in touch with our neighbors. Having face time with neighbors is probably the best way to keep your hood safe.

Chico PD has credited chatter on “social networking sites” with helping them solve certain crimes, but they’ve never named Nextdoor so I don’t know what sites they’re talking about. I’m sure they watch Facebook, I’m guessing it looks like a scene from “Batman Forever”.

Take a good look, this is what you look like to passersby when you’re texting. So much for technology and crime fighting.

I didn’t hear Sorensen’s whole speech, I had to rely on the media! I didn’t hear him talk about the crime rate. But I did read a back page story about a guy who was just arrested in October for stealing a car – grand theft auto – furthermore, assault on a “police animal” – and just got arrested for essentially the same thing again this week.

http://www.chicoer.com/general-news/20160129/chico-police-nab-man-allegedly-spotted-in-stolen-pickup

In fact, Anthony Raymond Beck seems to bust out and steal a car quite frequently. In 2013 he was arrested and convicted for stealing a  car under the influence of drugs and booze, causing injury and property damage, but let out on probation in January 2014. By March he had violated his probation, arrested again for obstructing a police officer. He was arrested three times within a week in April 2015, released “O/R” each time, even after found with burglary tools.

He was arrested a total of six times in 2015, found with drugs and needles, burglary tools, under the influence, with stolen cars, yadda, yadda, yadda.

And now another stolen car. This guy is a crime spree. Why is he still out there, endangering the public safety? 

The cops will tell you it’s because these crimes have been lowered to misdemeanors by the voters. The jail is overcrowded, and they are forced to release criminals without serving a sentence, because of the voters.

No, it’s because their salaries and benefits eat the budget so that we can’t build a decent and sufficient jail. Now we are told we must pass a bond to pay for improvements at the jail or we will be at the mercy of criminals.

I feel like we’re at the mercy of the public workers. When will we get these people to do the right thing, pay their own way? 

 

Tags: ,

You public employees are nuts if you think we are going to pay down your $220 billion unfunded liabilities – pay your own bills, you slackers

19 Jan

 

We’ve been hearing about this budget surplus in Sacramento – now hear this, from an article y Jonathan J. Cooper of Associated Press:

But even as the governor and lawmakers debate how to spend a budget surplus, there’s a looming financial hurdle: Unfunded pension and health care liabilities of $220 billion for future retirees who work for the state and the University of California system.

Wait, shouldn’t that $220 billion been included in the total deficit? How can you have a budget surplus when you owe $220 billion?

As the Brown administration prepares to enter labor talks this year, the governor is seeking changes to help the state cut future costs, warning there’s “a serious long-term liability.”

Oh, you don’t say?!

Over the past four years, the Legislature moved to improve the financial outlook for the state’s largest public-employee pension systems, the California Public Employees Retirement System and California State Teachers Retirement System. Brown is now setting his sights on a rapidly growing retiree expense, health care. He’s asking workers to pay more to fund those benefits.

Get out! Asking workers to pay their own way! Stop it!

Reform advocates warn that failing to address unfunded liabilities will ultimately require higher taxes or cuts in other government services so the state can pay for its obligations to retired workers.

I guess that makes me, a reform advocate.  I don’t really like the word “reform,” cause they can turn that word in any direction, like a .45. “Reform” can just as easily mean, taxpayers pay more.

The state has promised an estimated $72 billion in health care benefits for its current and future retirees, an amount that will increase to more than $300 billion over the next three decades, according to the governor’s Department of Finance.

The bill for retiree health care has historically been paid year-by-year, about $2 billion in the proposed 2016-17 budget. Brown proposes prefunding benefits similar to the way the state pays for pensions — by paying into a trust fund that accrues investment returns over time, reducing the amount of money that taxpayers must contribute in the future.

In negotiations with public-employee unions, he’s asking state workers to pay into a fund through a deduction on their paychecks. The state would pay an equal amount.

“Over the next three decades we’d have enough money to basically eliminate that unfunded liability going forward,” Finance Director Michael Cohen told the California Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

That sounds like a no-brainer to me – have the employees pay ALOT MORE. But here’s the catch – if we expect them to pay their own benefits and pensions they want pay increases.

Brown’s budget proposal includes $350 million for pay raises that could be used as a bargaining chip in labor negotiations. The state is actively negotiating with four of its 21 bargaining units, including corrections officers, firefighters, scientists and maintenance workers. Talks with 15 others open this year.

The governor points to an agreement last year with state engineers as a model he’ll pursue with other bargaining units. Engineers agreed to pay an escalating portion of their paycheck toward their future health care benefits, eventually reaching 2 percent of salary, matched by the state.

Two percent of their salaries?

“The employees would not be too thrilled with paying the state’s bill” for retirement, but the agreement on the whole was viewed as acceptable, said Bruce Blanning, executive director of Professional Engineers in California Government, the union that reached the deal. The three-year deal included pay raises of 5 percent and 2 percent, he said, and there’s a chance to renegotiate before the health contributions are fully phased in by 2019.

Prefunding health care can help protect the benefits, but asking employees to contribute is part of the give-and-take of collective bargaining, said David Lowe, chairman of Californians for Retirement Security, a coalition of public-employee unions, their members and retirees that has fought to preserve the current pension system.

“That’s a legitimate way to ensure that the benefits get funded into the future,” Lowe said. “It’s just a question of figuring out how much the employees are willing to pay … and bargaining it.”

Find out how much they are willing to pay? Has anybody ever asked the taxpayers how much they are willing to pay?

“Reforms” enacted to date have done nothing to slow this train.  Public workers are determined to rip off the taxpayers.

“We can see from where the numbers are going how it’s going to crowd out education and all the other California services, and it’s ultimately unsustainable,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. “The governor has to address it now and he’s been clear that he’s going to try to do that.”

I don’t see that, I see a big  train wreck ahead. Public workers have gone completely crazy.

Election 2016 sneaking in the back door – what rough beast, know what I mean?

14 Jan

Here’s the latest schedule of events for Butte County Election 2016.

http://clerk-recorder.buttecounty.net/elections/archives/eln33/33_election_calendar.pdf

What I was looking for are the deadlines for announcing candidacy and for putting measures on the ballot. Looks like all that stuff has to be done by late February – by March 14, the county clerk is supposed to be appointing letters to the various measures and turning ballot information over to the state printing plant. 

I don’t know all the rules for measures and bonds, but it looks like the paperwork needs to be submitted by February 4th for consideration at a February 23 Supervisor’s meeting. So, I will keep an eye on county agendas. 

Here’s the schedule on the Secretary of State’s website, easier to read:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/june-7-2016-presidential-primary-election/key-dates-and-deadlines-june-7-2016/

I’ve been waiting so long, I was afraid I’d go to sleep before the action started. Now’s the time to check these websites regularly to see what is going to end up on our June primary ballot. 

As usual our lazy city clerk, $135,000/year plus benefits Debbie Presson, has not posted any election information. I think we have three seats up in November – Morgan, Schwab and Stone.  Correction (thanks R.K.): Tami Ritter’s seat is also up for grabs.   Our lovely clerk is still posting old information from Election 2014. She insists she does not have to post up-to-date campaign contribution information online because the city does not require her to do so. I would like to see both her and “deputy” clerk Dani Brinkley retire soon. I’d just like to see what kind of clerk’s office we could have if those two weren’t sitting on it, like a couple of hogs in the manger.

http://www.chico.ca.us/city_clerk/election_information.asp

 None of the encumbents are campaigning publicly right now, but I’m pretty sure they are all gathering money.  But no websites, no press releases. Why is this election so quiet? 

 

City still “in negotiation” on garbage tax – ratepayers need to ask more questions of this deal

13 Jan

Holy Cow, what a storm!  Think the drought’s over yet?

Well, sit down and shut up – Jerry Brown will tell us when the drought’s over! But Cal Water will not relieve us of their rate increases, those will all hold long after Dairyville is an island.

I haven’t heard any news of the water rate increase and I haven’t heard anybody bitching about it lately. Some people have a short attention span.

But, I’ve had searches here for news of the city’s pending “trash tax.” That’s what Mark Sorensen called it one night from the dais, so that’s what it is. The garbage franchise deal is their way of using the trash companies like a shield to get more money out of the taxpayers without having to put it on the ballot. 

Every time I ask about it, I am told, it’s “still in negotiation”. Ha ha ha – but the public is not allowed to do any negotiating. This is why the city of Chico is being sued – they play too fast and loose with the Brown Act. Sure, they stay within the legal limits – or so says Sorensen – but they also depend on us not being able to understand the law or afford a lawyer. Sure you’ve heard people say, “leave Esplanade alone,” but they weren’t being asked were they? Staff tells us, they don’t ask us – this whole Esplanade deal is about state grants to pay salaries, benefits, and especially the pension deficit Downtown.  Sorensen goes along with it both because he is stupid and weak and because he is set to get the same deal for his tenure as city manager of Biggs, The Little Orchard that Could!

So we are held out of these conversations by the forehead. Just like the county trash deal, this city trash deal will be rolled out without any input from the ratepayers, and the city of Chico will endure “phones ringing off the hook” with complaints, all too late.

I’ve tried to raise various issues with Mark Orme – first and foremost, if the city is going to require property owners to get trash service, the city must pay a low-income subsidy, like those offered by PG&E and Cal Water. I  can always tell by the look on Orme’s face that he had hoped nobody would bring that up, just like cities around California hoped nobody would notice that they were taking taxes off our cell phones when that had been declared illegal.

When we questioned their illegal takings from our cell phone bills, they acted like we were assholes!  I love that – you get caught with your hand in somebody else’s cookie jar, and they’re assholes!

I’ve also mentioned the issue of private driveways. There are private easements all over Chico, in the city and in  the “areas of influence.”  County staff reported that the haulers must get permission to go on any road that is not maintained by the county, and that goes for the city too.  But Waste Management immediately ignored this law, driving up our shared county easement to pick up one neighbor’s trash. They had already left ruts in the gravel driveway when we noticed, so I contacted  Waste Management via their website. I got no response, and the trucks came in again the  following week.  I had to contact County Admin Officer Paul Hahn and my supervisor Maureen Kirk. They gave me the number of Ryan West, WM front man, who never responded to me, but the trucks stopped coming in the following week.  The question being, why did I have to do that after I sat in a meeting, where Ryan West was also present, and listened to county legal staff tell us the garbage trucks can’t use private easements without the permission of every person living on that easement?  The county roads are clearly marked. 

Another issue I and other people have brought up to the city of Chico is the issue of shared cans. We have several single neighbors, living all alone with their tiny undersink trash can, and they don’t put out a grocery sack a week of waste.  They either share cans with a neighbor or take their trash to their job or business. The idea that we are made to have trash service certainly doesn’t follow their assertion that they are trying to reduce trucks. Every stop makes a hole in the pavement, why would we want the trucks stopping more?

Recently I searched for more information on this issue, and ended up at Post Scripts with Jack Lee. Jack seems to have looked at his garbage bill and noticed the fuel surcharge and wondered, with gas at new lows, why are we paying a fuel surcharge? He says he contacted Recology and was told the city made them keep that charge on the bill, despite low gas prices.  Lee promised to check with the city so I am watching his blog for any news. 

I’m just relating a second hand story, I really  don’t resent the $1.80 fuel surcharge. In fact, I wish they’d itemize our bills with exactly how much goes to labor, maintenance, gas, etc. You know, the average garbage truck driver in California makes between $12 and $15/hour. I’m pretty sure we’re already paying plenty – now the city wants us to pay for city employees who make more than four times the median income.  

I wish more of you would write inquiries about this deal to Chico City Manager Mark Orme, mark.orme@chicoca.gov   – don’t forget that dot between ‘mark’ and ‘orme’.  CC your council members. 

 

 

Tags:

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →