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Chico Unified, Butte College throw down their bond measures at Tuesday’s (7/26) county supes meeting – supes poised to approve both measures for ballot without any discussion

23 Jul

I found the following on the county clerk’s website:

From the Written Ballot Arguments Guide Book – Filing Deadline Based on the time reasonably necessary to prepare and print the arguments, analysis, and sample ballots and to permit the 10-calendar-day public examination, the county elections official shall fix and determine a reasonable date prior to the election after which no arguments for or against any county measure may be submitted. (Elections Code section 9162) Refer to the “Calendar of Events” (separate document) for filing deadline.

There was no “Calendar of Events” posted, so I had to write a note to the clerk.  She sent me the link to which I’d referred, and responded to my other question in blue.  She resent me the link I’d already told her I’d looked at, but no “Schedule of Events.” She simply gave me the information. I am afraid to criticize Grubbs, she’s very vindictive, but she should have that schedule of events posted already.   There should also be something about it in the agenda item on the supervisor’s agenda, but oh well.  It’s our job to stay on top of these people. Grubbs is, of course, supposed to work for the voters – yeah, ha ha ha.

Sent: Friday, July 22, 2016 6:02 AM
To: Elections <elections@buttecounty.net>
Subject: schedule of events for Nov 2016 election

 Hi,

 I have been searching your website for the “Schedule of Events” for the November election, mentioned in the County Ballot Measure Written Argument Guide, but can’t find it. Please direct me.  

http://clerk-recorder.buttecounty.net/elections/pdf/ballot_argument_guidebook.pdf 

I am also interested in being notified when Chico Unified School District brings in their bond measure – is there any such notification list? I know your office will post an ad for arguments, but am afraid I’d miss it – having absolutely no clue as to where or when to look for it –  and I want to be notified so as to be able to write an argument if I choose to do so.  

The district has filed their resolution and request for consolidation with our office.  The request for consolidation will be considered by the Butte County Board of Supervisors at their July 26th Board meeting.  Arguments in favor of and Arguments against must be filed in the Butte County Clerk-Recorder Elections Division Office located at 155 Nelson Avenue no later than 5pm August 19th.  A legal notice will appear in the Chico Enterprise Record with this information as well.

 Thank you for your anticipated cooperation, Juanita Sumner

Anyhoo, I see, the board of supervisors is hearing this item in three days, on the consent agenda! So, the board of supervisors seems to be pushing this thing up our ass?

So I sent the following note to Maureen Kirk, Third District Supervisor:

Hi Maureen,

I see the board will be considering the CUSD bond on the consent agenda Tuesday. 

Here are some things the board should know.

1) the school district has already issued $78 million in bonds – at one time promising a third high school. This bond includes language protecting them if they should fall short – “passage of measure does not guarantee that all financed facilities listed in the measure will be completed….”  They are already wiggling out. 

2) we have teachers making twice the median income and administrators making 4 –  5 times the median income

3) only 15 – 18 percent of CUSD students participate in ACT Testing, and less than 40 percent participate in SAT – these are the standards  by which they measure the district’s collective achievement. There have been charges made that  schools skew their test scores artificially by keeping “dumb” kids from taking the tests – how would we know? 

Please ask them what is their pension deficit, and how much of this money will go toward paying that off?  If they deny that, ask them where this bond will free up other money to pay their pension deficit.

I don’t know if I can attend – we have a fixed schedule, we have to work outside no matter how many digits the thermometer is holding up, we can’t afford to lose tenants right now. So I’m depending on you to push back on this grab. This bond measure shouldn’t even be on the ballot Maureen. Between the utility companies and the school district, Chico is becoming unaffordable.

I’ll have to tell my tenants to look for a rent increase, and I’ll have to tell them why, and who is responsible. 

I just turned over one of my rentals. I noticed, before they even moved in, we got their voter registration/ change of address in the mail box. All my tenants vote.

Thanks, Juanita

The measure is included in this week’s board agenda, item 3.07 ($taff of course recommends approving the measure without any discussion or public notice):

http://buttecounty.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=140

http://buttecounty.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=140&meta_id=55144

The previous item is a  bond for Butte College.

 First you watch the skies, and then you squeal like a pig. 

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How will you celebrate “The Fourth”? Try acting like an American

4 Jul

I always wonder, how many Americans have even read the US constitution? How many of you have read the California constitution? The city charter?

Good homework for “The Fourth.”  

I’ve been reading up on the laws regarding tax measures, how they are enacted, and how the public citizen can resist an avaricious government.

First, we must “Watch the skies!”   Actually, we have to watch the agendas. That is where the initial discussion of putting a tax measure on the ballot is supposed to happen.  We all know it actually happens in private meetings, but, legally, it has to pass through a public discussion before it can be handed to the county clerk, so there’s a place for the observer to begin. I’ve been watching agendas not only for council meetings and county supervisor meetings but the smaller committee meetings in between.

I have to admit, I’ve been distracted with Chico Area Recreation District, trying to figure out whether their tax grab will appear on the November ballot or whether they will go the slimy way and deliver assessment ballots by mail.  Assessment elections aren’t the same as regular elections – they are rigged with bigger property owners getting more votes, the “weight” of each property owner’s vote being determined by the very board that is asking for the tax. These shouldn’t be legal – that’s our fault. We need to try to get rid of the entities that can attach us this way, starting with CARD, and including the Butte County Mosquito and Vector District.

I haven’t heard an elected official at either the city of Chico or Butte County mention a sales tax increase, but with municipalities all around us seeking, and in some cases, getting a sales tax increase out of the voters, I’m worried. Ex-city mangler Tom Lando, the guy who came up with the MOU that attached city salaries “to revenue increases but not decreases,” has been stumping for a sales tax increase for a few years now, saying he wants this and that amenity for the public, as well as better paid cops and fire fighters. 

Wow, what’s better than a base pay of $62,000/year with automatic step increases and mandated overtime that can as much as double that base salary? Not to mention paying only 12 percent toward a retirement of 90 percent of your highest year’s pay at age 50? What the helllllll could be better than that? 

Ask Lando, a guy who is in the regular habit of dropping a C-note for lunch.

I don’t believe Lando is worried about the public, I think he is worried about his $12,000/month pension payments.  Can you imagine living on $134,000/year, without having to work? Just getting a check for the rest of your life.  Ask Barbara McEnepsy – how’s life out on Keefer Road Hon? I don’t even know what Barbara McEnepsy did for the city, but she receives an even higher pension than Lando. 

Here’s the real stinker – these two individuals retired before the rules were changed to make employees “pay their own share” – neither Lando nor McEnepsy paid a dime toward their pensions.

If you are not outraged about paying these pensions, I’ll say – you’re not an American.

 

Sutter county grand jury reports fraud in pension fund

29 Jun

A couple of days ago I wrote a letter to the newspaper about CARD, in which I complained they are not fulfilling their mission, instead letting local non-profits and clubs do their job. They’ve recently backed out of funding the city’s Fourth of July celebration, saying they don’t have three thousand bucks to put into it. Among other local non-profit recreation groups, I mentioned my son’s hockey league, North Valley Hockey.  

I already knew, there’d been an embezzlement in the club. Even though their kids had “aged out” and gone off to college like my kid, the principal players who originally set up the league in an old cold storage warehouse in Hamilton City had kept close tabs on the club and this embezzlement came up about a week ago in the chatter. As they found out more about it, they brought in both Chico PD and Glenn County Sheriff.  

Today the story appeared on the front page of the local section in the Enterprise Record.

The problem – they’d elected a treasurer from among themselves, and then they didn’t keep close enough tabs on her. And, they changed a policy that had been in place when my kid was in the league – instead of having three members approve expenditures, they just gave the treasurer a debit card. She had access to their funds without any supervision.

I was shocked they’d do that, but you know how people are. I’ll say it – a lot of people would trust Satan – and I mean, he could be red and have goat’s legs and be wearing a hat that says, “Yup, I’m Satan” – and they’d let him do whatever he wanted if he promised to do all the work too. Treasurer is a real pain in the ass, lots of paperwork, a sword hanging over your head if there’s a mistake. Who would want that kind of responsibility? Well, usually people who want to  take advantage.

For years the league had a dedicated volunteer treasurer, the grandfather of one of the kids.  He did everything very professionally, he was even sort of a nag. He wasn’t too candy-ass to collect fees off “deadbeats,” that’s for sure. But he was very old, a retired guy with an elderly mother, a wife, lots of kids and grandkids to spend time with. None of whom played hockey anymore. I knew the time would come he’d want to leave, and I knew it would be like ripping the needle off the “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” record.

He tried to retire when our kid was in the league, and he thought he had a good candidate to replace him in one of the parents, a woman who did the books for a  very big local agency. Guess who – Jennifer Hennessy! I kept my mouth shut, but at the very same time, I was going Repo-man grab with her over the city’s books – she didn’t want to show them. She didn’t last long with the league either – way more work than she had imagined, she was actually expected to collect money off people, I don’t think she was ready for that. Shortly after she quit the league position, she got into some hot water Downtown. She resigned just ahead of Brian Nakamura’s weed  whacker, and moved to the butt-ass town of Temecula. And our old accountant was again stuck with the league’s books.

He’s the one who made up the three-member check signing rule, and I always assumed that was standard procedure.  As soon as the old parents went ahead and stepped aside for a new board, the old rules went right along with them, and the treasurer was given her ticket to Perdition – a debit card that allowed access to all the league’s funds and no supervision from anybody but those two little people that stand on your right and left shoulder arguing over your attentions.

Yeah, that’s right, this lady will fry. Her kids will be humiliated.  She might even  go to jail, I don’t know. 

Meanwhile Jennifer Hennessy, who was once allowed to hire the consultant who gave her an evaluation, and then give herself a $14,000 raise for a job well done, is off scot-free, even  though a lot of people around here would like to see some sort of investigation into what kind of recipes she was using Downtown.

And here below, Territorial Dispatch reporter Lou Binninger describes the same sort of shenanigans in Sutter County, with no accountability – idiot Marysvillians approved their own screwing in the election a couple of weeks ago.

 

Lou Binninger, Territorial Dispatch

 

The Sutter County Grand Jury (SCGJ) may release its complete 2015-16 report this week. A portion posted a few weeks ago caused a stir. (See Sutter County website for Grand Jury Report 2015-16) The initial offering has people asking important questions? What difference will this GJ report make? Will the 2004 supervisors and county administrator be held criminally responsible for breaking the law, financially benefitting from doing so and damaging the taxpayers?  The GJ accuses 2004 supervisors Jim Whiteaker, Casey Kroon, Dennis Nelson, Larry Munger and the late Dan Silva of violating numerous government codes in August 2004 when the board deceptively increased county pensions 35% and made the benefits retroactive to the date of hire. County Administrative Officer (CAO) Larry Combs managed the scheme. The impact on the taxpayers is severe. In 2001, there was a $28,707,894 surplus in the county’s retirement fund. By 2014, the surplus had become an unfunded debt of $110,802,083, a $140 million financial collapse in 14 years. In 2004, District Attorney Carl Adams was part of the idea to self-deal massive retroactive pension increases to supervisors and department heads. But when Combs realized they had to include all employees, not just leadership, they were stuck. So, all employees benefitted to make the plan legal. Will District Attorney Amanda Hopper prosecute the accused? It is the State Attorney General’s role to pursue county wrong-doing if DA Hopper contacts them. This avoids any look of politics or bias on her part. However, the AG’s office has been less than stellar when Sutter County asked for help in the past. And, state capitol ranks are managed by government unions that control pensions. The chances of the AG taking action on behalf of taxpayers being defrauded by pension schemes are slim. Some may wonder where the SCGJ has been until now. After Auditor-Controller Robert Stark’s Internal Auditor and the Grand Jury discovered that the County Treasurer had cooked the books to hide losses on county investments ents DA Carl Adams and CAO Larry Combs exerted more control over the GJ. Combs did not like the idea of the treasurer miscue becoming public knowledge. Where once Grand Jurors were sent to training conferences to instruct them on their authority, their tasks etc., that all stopped. Adams said he would do the training and Combs would set the parameters on what the jurors would look at in the county budgets. This overreach violated the independence of the GJ. The undue pressure and influence led to controlling where the juries looked, what they saw and what it meant. Many jurors only serve one year. It is a challenging learning curve. Few jurors would have the governance expertise, thus the courage to take on the DA and CAO if they did not operate independently of them? What happens when the DA and CAO need investigating? That’s the problem. The governance of the county was corrupted. The next step was to remove funding for the Internal Auditor position. Current Supervisor Barbara LeVake was Chairman of the Board that abolished the Internal Auditor. Meanwhile, Adams brought criminal charges against Auditor-Controller Stark and his assistant Ronda Putman for doing their job of questioning financial policies and procedures. By neutralizing the GJ, defunding the Internal Auditor and judicially bullying the Auditor-Controller, DA Adams, CAO Combs and the supervisors were essentially getting the keys and removing the security guards at the bank. Sutter County residents should read the full GJ report when it is posted. Then, they have till November 8 to review the candidates competing for office. Voters should look at whom and what groups are funding the campaigns. Who are the employee unions backing? The Grand Jury has performed its job in exposing greed, corruption, and a heist of the treasury by county leaders and the unions. It is up to citizens to remove those who are part of the problem and elect others who can be trusted to make reforms.

Strap yourselves in, this is complicated

22 Jun

There has been so much to talk about lately, it’s hard to know how to start.

I’ve been having a conversation with Chico Area Recreation District director Ann Willmann about rental policies for CARD facilities. CARD owns a lot of stuff, not just play fields, but buildings that are supposed to be available for public use, with a fee schedule. One such building is the CARD Center, appropriately located near the center of Chico and also near the center of the recreation district’s legal boundaries.  Besides housing CARD operations, the CARD center had been a popular place for private parties, mostly weddings, as well as public events like the “Pancakes for Peace” fundraiser held for many years by the Chico Peace and Justice Center. In fact, for many years, the center parking lot was packed for some or another event every good weather weekend from early Spring to late Fall. I had friends who got married there, it was affordable to working people.

A few years ago I noticed the center wasn’t being used as much.  I also noticed it was a meeting place for the homeless – all along Vallombrosa between Mangrove and Arbutus, every public green space was covered with a little encampment of creepy people, laying filthy and half naked with scroungy dogs, drinking, acting generally scurvy.  Yeah, at the last wedding I attended at the CARD center, there were a bunch of homeless people milling in the crowd, they were really drunk, they went down to the creek and went skinny dipping as the bride’s family tried to usher the guests back into the building.

That whole area got really bad. The post office annex closed between 10pm and 7am, citing “security concerns.”

A year or so ago, CARD board member Tom Lando made a public appeal to Chico PD to help keep the vagrants from camping, crapping and generally carousing around the CARD center.  I don’t know how far that went because quickly thereafter the board made a unanimous decision to move CARD meetings to California Park Lakeside Pavilion. California Park sits at the outermost edge of the district, and the pavilion is located deep within this bastion of private property, loud red “NO TRESPASSING” signs displayed prominently on any patch of grass not directly connected to a private home. I don’t know when exactly the board purchased the pavilion, but I would have loved to be at the meeting to hear how they rationalized the purchase. I’m going to guess somebody made a pitch about how much they could make renting the place out for fancy weddings.

Which would seem to be a breach of the district’s policy and mission, to provide affordable recreation options and facilities for everybody. They have also cited concerns about some projects in past, saying they didn’t want to compete with private businesses. How does the pavilion fit their mission?

“Fancy” just isn’t a word for Chico. Chico has long been an anti-snob town, a place where jeans and work shirts have been considered far more stylish than three piece suits and Ferragamo shirts. But we’ve got a new class of people here in town – public workers who make more than five families put together.  These people have been pushing a “class up this burg” movement. Tom Lando is one of the people behind this push – as retired city manager, he makes one of the biggest pensions that adds up to our city’s 90 million dollar plus pension deficit.

Lando has cried aloud that Chico doesn’t have a fancy sports stadium. He said he ran a survey that said taxpayers would support such a venture, but he wouldn’t publish the results for the rest of us.  Lando wants a tax of some sort to pay for this stadium. He once said, it wouldn’t add up to more than a dollar on the average lunch tab.

Wow, would somebody do that math for me? He’s saying, the tax increase would amount to a dollar on the average lunch tab? How much does he pay for lunch?

People like Lando think Chico needs to grow up and be fancy.  They want richer people to move here, to pay higher property taxes, to support their pensions, is what.

I’d say, they all need to grow up, and pay for their own retirement at age 55 on 70 – 90 percent of their highest year’s income.

Lando was also the guy who brought in the Memo Of Understanding that linked city salaries to “revenue increases but not decreases.”  Then council-member Larry Wahl told me he signed that MOU because he didn’t understand it.  Council proceeded to approve all those subdivisions that are still taking a giant crap all over our local economy. With that late 90’s building boom, Lando’s salary went from around $60,000 to over $100,000 in just a few years. But when things went bust, none of those salaries went down, due to the simple but legally binding wording in that two sentence memo. Today the city manager makes about $200,000/year, and pays only 9 percent toward his own pension.

And that’s what happened when the public  became aware of the MOU during that hot and heavy two or three years that bankruptcy was breathing down our collective neck.  Yes, it was outrageous – I wish people would pay attention more often. But, the public was lulled back to sleep with the following agreement – sure, we’d hold the line on the raises from now on, but the city would pay a whopping share of the “employee share” of pensions and benefits. For many years, it was the entire share for management and public safety workers.

You remember that whole conversation, don’t you? How there was the “employee share” and the “employer share”, and the “EMPC”, or, “employer-paid member contribution”. That means, we paid their share, get that? For those employees we were paying not only “our” share but theirs as well. Only the last couple of years has management and public  safety begun to pay toward their own pensions. At first, only 4 percent, now 9 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

Excuse me – big fucking deal – why aren’t they paying the 50 percent mandated of new hires?  Excuse me again – did I say 50? I say, they pay it all themselves, and if they’re real good, we start picking up a small percentage.  But this practice of getting something you didn’t pay for – ENTITLEMENT – has got to stop.

According to Ann Willmann, her friends are ENTITLED to rent publicly owned facilities under her supervision for less than the public would pay.

Bill Cosby, the comedian, used to tell long, involved stories, and then say, “I told you that story so I could tell you this one…” There is where I will have to leave you for today, I’ll try to get back asap.

 

 

Short Attention Span Theater – we have the government we deserve in Chico

18 Jun

I’ve just been having a frustrating conversation with a friend about public participation. 

Sorry if I have been rude, Friend.

Friend tried to explain to me how overwhelmed most people are in their lives, they can’t pay attention.

That just got my skivvies in a bunch. I pay attention, and let me tell you, I got stuff going on.  I won’t bore you with my epic problems of the past months, but through it all, my close friends have been annoyed with my constant complaining about what the city and county and various local agencies are doing. My husband keeps telling me the government stuff is stressing me out, I should concentrate more on what’s going on at home. At least we can do something about our private problems, he says.

I have a hard time keeping it all under my hat.  Every morning, when I give my dog her insulin shot, I have to mentally prepare – “don’t think bad thoughts, don’t think bad thoughts…” as I skewer that needle into a lump of flesh behind her collar.   She lays on the floor behind me as I read the paper, read e-mails, she can hear me grumbling about stuff. I have to be careful or she’ll slip into the bedroom and stick her head under my husband’s side of the bed. I can feel the tension in her neck, makes it hard to get loose skin, sometimes she lets out a yelp and a half.

What bugs me is how people are so quick to use any excuse to stick their head in the sand, but they still expect to be allowed to complain when something finally gets under their skin.  I won’t mention names, but I’ve watched the local gadflies make big stinks about stuff, after a few months, the stink dies down, and the problem still exists.  All that blab about volunteers for the park – the park still looks like shit. The work they did at the One Mile parking lot last year has become completely overgrown with non-native invasive plants again. An area they did earlier this year is also going back to a mess.   Whole sections of the park are sub-code – if it was your yard, you’d get a notice to clean it up or pay the city to do it. 

And this conversation about keeping public restrooms open has been going on for two years now. Meanwhile, the million dollar One Mile restroom is pretty hit and miss – here’s the conundrum – if it is open, will it be usable? 

Short Attention Span Theater.

I’m going to tell you Esplanade lovers – don’t go back to sleep! Isn’t it pretty obvious, they’ve shelved the roundabouts until after the election? I’m hoping Cheryl King and friends are quietly looking for somebody to run for council, but I’m not going to bank on it.  

I’d like to see somebody run for CARD. Why don’t I do it? I would if I had some support – I ain’t going into those meetings without a posse anymore.  If they pass their bond, it means the people of Chico are completely gone fishing.

Tony St Amant said it in this morning’s paper – we have the government we deserve.

 

 

Somebody needs to run for Tom Lando’s CARD seat in November

7 Jun

When I was a little kid, a teacher told my classmates and I that if we could convince every person in America to give us a penny, we’d never have to work again.  Even a fraction of the population, he said, could make us very rich.  All we had to do was talk them into giving it to us – simple enough?

Well, I could also form an assessment district. Like Butte County Mosquito and Vector Control, or Chico Area Recreation District. Did you know – Paradise and Oroville have cemetery districts.

When you live in an assessment district, that means these agencies can stick a fee on your property taxes. These fees require a vote, but usually, just property owners, and – get a load of this – votes are “weighted” depending on how much property is owned by the individual/company/group. That’s fair, really, since the larger property owners will pay more. 

Ballots are sent by mail, looking like junk mail, and there’s no requirement that these agencies advertise or notify anybody ahead of time.   So watch your mail box – CARD is thinking about putting a property assessment in your mail box.

I wonder how many are returned and how many end up in the trash. I wonder a lot of stuff. I wonder how many homeowners have their property taxes paid by their mortgage lender, and therefore never bother to look at the itemized bill. I wonder how many people just send the check without looking.  I wonder how many people just grit their teeth and pay it, afraid to ask any questions,  cause every question just makes their heart beat harder, their blood pressure push higher, their hair fall out faster.

I’ll tell you two things that are on a ballot in November – two seats up for grabs at CARD.  One of them is currently being smothered under the elitist ass of one Tom Lando.  Mr. Lando had an agenda when he took his CARD seat – appointed, because nobody else bothered to run.  Lando’s agenda was to raise taxes, using CARD’s assessment powers to bring in more revenues to pay CalPERS every increasing demands.

See, Lando is a retired public employee – former manager of the City of Chico, in  fact.  As such, he yanks in one of the biggest pensions that ever inflicted  liability on our fair city – over $135,000/year, almost $12,000/month, in pension.  

If CalPERS goes bust, Lando is out, you heard me – almost $12,000/month. So, it’s absolutely reasonable to assume that this guy would do just about anything to keep the money pouring into CalPERS. 

You’ve heard the old Yiddish proverb:  When the fish stinks, it’s the head of the fish that stinks.  Tom Lando is your stinking fish head, you need to wrap him in newspaper and put him in the bin next November.  In order to do so, we will need a viable candidate. 

 

 

Democracy is an expensive date

2 Jun

So, Joe Montes is really running for Congress? Really? Cause his city council campaign was a joke.  He dropped out without a fight, saying he’d been told, by parties he would not name, that he would just steal votes from Coolidge and Fillmer. Rolled over like a turd in a bowl, what a woos. And now he really expects us to believe he’s got the gagnas to go to Washington? I can’t imagine him doing anything but prolonging the election to November, damn the expenses cause it’s not his money.

And then there’s Jim Reed. After meeting Jim Reed during his 2014 bid for Assembly, I’m convinced he’s  just after some salary or another, any salary over 100 Grand a year would  be fine. Don’t forget that pension.

And then there’s Doug LaMalfa.  Yeah, he’s a big cowboy hat wearing redneck, but you know what – he’s our redneck, and we love him.  At least he’s really  from this area, he’s really a farmer, and he’s got a huge stake to protect. I don’t always agree with him, and he’s certainly not looking out for me, but here’s the bottom line – his interests benefit me, even if only in a trickle down sense. I’d  rather ride his coattails and take his leavings than head down the Road to Perdition with either of the other idiots.

I don’t know what’s going on in the local Republican party, why long time Republicans like Larry Wahl are mad at LaMalfa.   Do they realize – a split vote here means the taxpayers foot for another race in November – all those offices and measures cost 10’s of thousands to put on the ballot every time, Democracy is an expensive date. Or – you know what would be really funny? While Montes and LaMalfa are chasing each other’s tails around a palm tree, Jim Reed steals their clothes and walks triumphantly to Washington. 

Why am I not laughing?

Goddess, what a horrific election. I just checked in with local Repuglicken Jack Lee and he’s backing Donny Trump, speaking as though he’s been waiting for a guy like Trump to come along for-ev-er .

We have the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and then there’s Bernie Sanders sitting in his leaky dinghy with his SEIU thugs, offering us a ride into the perfect storm.  God Bless America!

I mailed my ballot in a couple of weeks ago. I voted for Cruz knowing he couldn’t win. I can’t support Sanders, he’s the unions’ bitch. The other two – well, we’ll get one of them, but not with my vote.  

The interesting race was US Senator. I had to do some research – I googled, “who has the best chance of beating that fascist/racist bitch Kamala Harris?”  And up popped LA Democrat Loretta Sanchez, so I voted for her.  She’s a Reagan Democrat – isn’t that the same as a Republican?  Not sure, but I didn’t find anything disgusting enough about her to stop me, so I dotted in the little circle next to her name.

I voted yes on E. The county makes the dumbest proclamations for their pet groups, let’s just make a proclamation not to frack. Their big argument against this measure is that fracking hasn’t been done in Butte County, that it isn’t profitable, so will never be done.  That’s weak – they need to promise that it will never be allowed,  simple as that. I hope this one passes. Anybody who doesn’t get it should watch “Nothing But Trouble” with Dan Akroyd and John Candy.

I finally decided to vote no on G and H.   I’m sick of the supervisors spending so much $taff time into what seems to be a personal agenda for a couple of people. I wish they’d pay attention to other matters.  According to the current Butte County Community Health Assessment Report, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recently declared national epidemics for both prescription opioid and heroin overdoses – noting that prescription opioids have become a pathway to street heroin use over the past decade . These declarations are especially concerning for Butte County as our age-adjusted drug induced death rate is roughly 3 times as high as for the state of California overall, ranking 56th out of 58 counties…”  

I would call their ridiculous persecution of property owners a poor remake of “Reefer Madness”.  Read that community health report, and send a copy to your supervisor –   http://www.buttecounty.net/Portals/21/Admin/Accreditation/Public/BC_CommunityHealthImprovementPlan_2015-2017%20.pdf

There was also a state measure to punish legislators by taking away their pay, etc, but it was not clear enough what types of things the legislators would be punished for. The whole thing was too sketchy, I voted no.

I hope everybody will make the effort to vote, one way or another. I don’t care if you go out and cancel every one of my votes, I just like the Democracy Dance.  I like to live in a vibrant and active community, and there’s nothing quite so communal as passing laws and electing leaders that regulate each others’ lives. 

 

 

 

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Enterprise Record running a scare campaign on behalf of Chico PD – they will endorse a safety tax, I’ll bet my bicycle on it

8 Apr

I love to read what the readers are thinking about – the search term of the day is “collective bargaining is inherintly political”  Typo included. 

Inherently – according to Google, means  existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute

If you want to understand “collective bargaining,” watch “On The Waterfront“. 

Right now the city is bargaining with the police department. Their contract includes stuff like, automatic promotions with step pay increases.  They get 90 percent of their highest year’s earnings at age 50, paying only 12 percent of the premiums out of their $100,000+ salaries.  And the contract is written so that they don’t have to pay taxes on these benefits. Think about that, but don’t hurt yourself.

They even get paid to “don and doff” – shower and dress before and after their shift. Talk about Divas!  My goodness, somebody get me a wet towel. SNAP!

Chico PD are a gang of racketeers. They use intimidation to get what they want. They use their imbedded newspaper editor to spread fear – gangs? Really David Little? What would David Little know about gangs? His kids went to “charter school” (where students are picked and chosen) and had a backyard swimming pool (despite all his insincere protests about the closure of Shapiro Pool). 

Then yesterday, we see a headline story about an old idiot who leaves his bike unlocked at Walmart and it’s stolen. Because this man makes a weekly fun ride up to Salmon Hole wearing a green t-shirt printed “Park Watch” (that’s funny, I don’t believe he is watching anything but the trail in front of his tire) – we’re supposed to feel sorry for this man? If he were my husband I’d take away his driver’s license and his credit cards, and I damn sure wouldn’t leave him alone with the grandkids.

This merits a big, front page story? And how do you like the way the editor made it sound like a mugging in the park? 

All this, while the death of Merle Haggard runs across the bottom of the page like so much Hollywood trivia.

David  Little is running a scare campaign for the cops.  Good bye journalism. 

 

 

 

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

We hear from Dwight Grumbles, candidate for Butte County supervisor, District 5

22 Mar

Well, the election is finally starting to materialize on the horizon – I got this note below from 5th District supervisor candidate Dwight Grumbles. That seat is currently held by Doug Teeter. 

Hello, My name is Dwight (DH)Grumbles. I am running for Butte County 5th. District Supervisor election June 7 th. 2016.If elected I have pledged half on the base pay (approx. $28,000.00 per year each year of the 4 year term to go back to the 5th. District in the form of donations to youth athletics, school sports and other campus organizations, music,art dance etc.. Also to community service organizations. It’s a start.The pay package for supervisor is $90,000.00 plus. The average household income in Butte County is approximately $33,000.00. If the people of the 5 th. District are not happy with my job after my term, at least they will have gotten back $112,000.00 and if they are happy with me and I’m reelected I will do it again. dhgrumbles@gmail.com Ph # 530-520-1010

Thanks Dwight, and I look forward to a couple of months of intelligent conversation between now and June. If that seat is not decided in June, the candidates will have the summer to debate their qualifications and come back to the ballot in November. 

I’m sending Dwight some information about upcoming rates hikes by PG&E and Cal Water, and hope he will jump in and help us protest these onerous grabs. 

 

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