Archive | garbage franchise RSS feed for this section

What are the issues leading up to November?

7 Feb

The top three searches this week, in order of popularity,  were

  • “torres shelter executive director brad montgomery salary”
  • “joe matz recology”
  • “water rate increase”

I was relieved to read that Chico city council gave the Torres Shelter the back of their hand last Tuesday, offering them the $277 collected by way of those new red-topped meters Downtown. That is a perfect solution for both the Torres and for naysayers who appropriately pointed out that the city shouldn’t collect money without specifying exactly what it will be used for.  It also tells us, point blank, what the community really thinks of the shelters – those meters have been available since August, and they’ve only collected $277? (compared to about $35,000 raised over roughly the same period by the non-charity News and Review). That’s a pretty clear message if you ask me – “Go Away.”

 A letter in this morning’s paper suggests that the Jesus Center and Torres should merge.  Good point. I had always thought there was a board of directors that ran the various homeless agencies in town, but no. They all have their own boards of directors, staff, etc. The Jesus Center has 12 paid employees, the Torres boasts anywhere from 8 to 16 – wow, that’s a lot of people being paid to serve the same hundred or so people a night. Maybe merger would be the best answer.  

I hope the search for Joe Matz, Recology, was out of curiosity over the trash deal the city is working out with the haulers. I had just inquired about the deal, and again Chico city manager Mark Orme assures me he has nothing to report. I’ll speculate here – they are fighting like, well, junk yard dogs, over this deal. The trash companies were given 5 years “notice”, so in that time  they can drag their feet, saying they are doing cost studies, etc. The city is asking for too much, and the haulers know the public will buckle under the rates  they will have to charge to cover all these services – street sweeping? Hazardous trash  pick-up? I told  Orme the public needs to be let into this discussion but as usual he will not respond to that request. I don’t know if he’s just stupid or doesn’t care what the public thinks, but county admin officer Paul Hahn already warned him what would happen when the deal rolls out – “phones ringing off the hook for two weeks…” 

 Of course people are pissed about water rate increases when we have been told that Chico came within half a percentage of meeting it’s water saving goals while other districts around the state are not even coming close. Farmers in So Cal are growing strawberries with water transfers while we are being told to rip out our lawns. Of course, doing their part to spread propaganda, the Enterprise Record sent Heather the Hack over to Cal Water’s open house to act as their mouthpiece. She’s a lawn feeder, that girl. No, she did not ask Pete Bonacich how much he gets in salary or why he doesn’t pay anything toward his benefits. 

I didn’t see any searches about the swimming pool tax, the school bond, or the sales tax increase, but as November draws near, I think the conversation is going to get pretty hot. 

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.

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:

Stay Awake – there are a lot of issues to watch these next few months

8 Jan

What a week. I’ve been busy trying to stay on top of 2016.

People are still angry about the shooting in Paradise, judging from the searches I’m seeing, they want criminal charges for Feaster.  We’ll see where that goes, but it looks like the DA is just going to fall on the ball and lay there.

There are also a lot of searches and hits on information about city contracts, pension deals, etc. People finally seem to be paying attention to the CalPERS disaster, we’ll see if they come to the polls in June and November to do something about it.  If there’s one thing I’d like to see out of 2016 it would be four new faces on city council – four new faces that are not beholden to public employees. I’d like to see Sorensen, Coolidge and Fillmer sitting on that dais with their thumbs up their asses, getting voted down on everything, that’s what I’d like to see.

Did you read David Little’s editorial this morning? Sorry, I still read the Enterprise Record compulsively, it’s like the back of the cereal box, it’s just there.  This morning I was treated to a huge surprise – Editor Little taking on his old buddy Mark Sorensen over the hike in room fees at city hall. Ooooo, do I sense a little rub between the conservative factions? Little seems to be sticking up for League of Women Voters – which is weird, they’ve always been a little to the left, and I had thought Little was such a staunch conservative. Is his wife a member of the League? He acted the same way about Country Day School when his kids were students there – one word against Country Day and Little would go ape.  The guy has no objectivity if he’s got a dog in the fight.

I got a notice from CARD director Ann Willman about an upcoming Aquatic Facility Committee meeting, next Thursday, Jan. 14, 6pm, at Lakeside Pavilion. She also informed me they’d posted the consultant’s presentations for the previous two meetings on the website. Of course she didn’t give me a link I had to search the website.

I have to wonder why these meetings aren’t noticed on the usual page with the Board and Finance Committee meetings, but Willmann won’t answer me  on that. She’s determined to run this AFAC thing under the table. You won’t find any information about who attended or any remarks made by attendees. But, the consultant’s report is pretty damning – over 60 percent of the cost of this boondoggle will be salaries and benefits, and they will never come close to recovering costs through fees. This monstrosity will have to be almost entirely taxpayer supported, by people who will never even drive by the facility. You can see both of the consultant’s presentations here, but these aren’t “reports.”  

http://www.chicorec.com/About-Card/Aquatic-Study/index.html

I’ve probably missed some important stuff here, things are busy, busy, busy.   Other issues I’ve tried to keep track of are the school district’s plans to put a bond on the ballot, the city’s airport management discussion,  the city garbage deal, and the changes at the county dump, but that will take more nose to the grindstone, I’ll keep you posted. 

 

 

Tags: , ,

Strap yourself in, 2016 may be a rough ride!

2 Jan

I feel overwhelmed by tv and print news stories about “the year in review.”   I don’t like letting the media tell me what were their most important stories, it smacks of tail-wagging-dog.

I let the readers tell me what were the most important stories of the year.  Looking over my statistics for the past year, I found one of my most hit posts was the recent one about Paradise Police officer Patrick Feaster being related to former Butte County Supervisor Jane Dolan. I’m still getting searches for those names and also “recall Ramsey”. We’ll have to see where that sad story goes in 2016. 

I don’t watch county politics as much as city politics, that story about Feaster was sent by a friend.  I see the posts that usually generate the most traffic here are those related to City of Chico management, or mismanagement, whichever way you look at it.  That’s the way it’s always been, pretty much.  This blog really reached a peak under the liberals, when the general feeling around town was, “why would we want to pay more taxes when our city council buys stuff like ‘Spirit Flags’?!”   We thought it would be different under a group of “conservatives” – boy, when will we learn – they all tell us whatever we want to hear, we’re just too damned easy!

People are slowly figuring that out, and “Brown Act” has become one of the most common searches.   I haven’t covered the city’s – really, Mark Sorensen’s – skirmish with Jessica Allen over the Brown Act, because I don’t understand it. The Brown Act seems toothless to me, really, because it depends on the honesty of the elected people, and the diligence of the voters. Excuse me – guffaw – that is a hoot.  I hooted my way through Sorensen’s assertion that they’re not doing anything wrong, just go back to minding your own business people.

People are also coming here to find out about tax increases, in general, but “sales tax increase” and “assessment” are probably the most common search phrases. Posts about CARD’s proposed aquatic center are specifically the most hit.

I think Bob and Jim speak for everybody when they express concern about the upcoming tax measure tsunami headed our way this year. It’s like, knowing the Dark Forces are massing, somewhere out there beyond the stars, trying to go on with your life with one ear pricked up to the sky, one eye turned to the horizon. 

2016 will be a hostile year for the Taxpayer. We have to figure out whether we are going to sit here and be milked like a herd of shackled bovine or whether we will mount counter campaigns and demand the public employees start paying down their own pension deficit, out of the salaries they currently enjoy. 

As always, I will have one ear pricked to the skies and one eye on the horizon, and a megaphone to my mouth to squeal like a pig as soon as I see the rough beast coming ’round at last. You do same!

 

 

search term of the week: “how to defeat a city sales tax increase…”

4 Oct

I’ve been busy – I got a splinter in my finger and whoa, it got infected. Having run the gamut with the local medical scene, I waited until it was swollen up like a basketball and then I got a new razor blade out of my husband’s tool box and I cut it.

BOOM! Bloody puss everywhere, what a mess. I had to cut it a couple more times to get all the junk out, squeezing it and dabbing at it with a Q-tip soaked in witch hazel. Then I took a pair of scissors we got from the vet, and I cut the rest of the blister off so it wouldn’t get full of puss again. At this point I started to see tadpoles swimming in my eyeballs so I had to quit.

I would have amputated the finger to avoid a trip to any of our filthy local medical establishments. I’m looking at it right now, poking it with my other finger and everything – I can’t believe it’s almost healed already. Feels brand new, except a stiff little scab on the tip of my finger. It’s shocking how an injury like that just takes all my concentration, even now I think about it every time I touch that finger to the keyboard.

It’s still hard to concentrate with all the stuff going on around here. It’s like one of those tv shows where the plot line is so complicated, if you miss one episode you might as well quit watching. And when I turn to fellow audience members to see what happened while I was in the bathroom, I get, “sorry, I missed that meeting…” or “oh, I don’t have time…”  

After a recent conversation with one of my elected representatives and staff regarding the homeless situation, crime, and the County Behavioral Health Department, I’m tempted to blow this whole Chico scene and go off grid.  Just say,  Fuck it,  like EVERY DAY.  But when I look at that sea of crap floating in here and all I got is this little dinghy, I want to scream at the top of my lungs, “Man the battle stations!” There is nothing left but The Fight. I won’t give up everything I own here and hit the road like a dust bowl Oakie.  

So imagine my delight when I look at the search engine and see “how to defeat a city sales tax increase” hanging among the debris of the week? Somebody else is out there!  

I wonder what they found besides this blog. I type their search phrase into the computer.

I find out, right off the top, about two-and-a-half years ago, the voters of Los Angeles defeated a half-cent sales tax increase – $211 million/year “to prevent layoffs, fund the Los Angeles police and fire departments and improve city streets and sidewalks.”  Facing a $215 million deficit, 55% of voters just said “No!” to their city employees’ outrageous demands. Good for the people of Los Angeles. But that’s kind of a squeaker.

Next I read an interesting story from Park City, Kansas, a small town near Wichita, where a sales tax increase was placed on the 2008 ballot.   According to a pre-election article in  the Wichita Business Journal, ” a proposed one-cent sales-tax increase over 10 years — to be decided by voters Nov. 4 — to finance the construction of an $8 million recreation center is putting Park City’s pro-business reputation under fire.”

There are pictures of businesses around town with “Vote No” messages on their marquees – a sign at the local Spangles gives a phone number and encourages passersby to contact their  council members. “Park City business owners talk about the competitive disadvantage and how a higher sales tax rate would drive patrons to places outside the city with a cheaper sales tax.”

Good for Park City business owners, and good for the voters who turned out to trounce that measure by 88%.

In 2014, Wichita tried their own sales tax increase – to fix roads was all I could find on that – but the voters defeated that measure by 62%. There were three sales tax increase measures on the Sedgewick County  ballot that year, all defeated.

Kansas kicks ass. 

But, I can’t find very much about how they defeated these measures.  And there’s not much news for what happened afterwards. I found an article that threatened more highway fatalities because Missouri voters defeated a sales tax grab.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/blog/morning_call/2014/08/missouri-sales-tax-hike-defeat-could-mean-more.html

That’s all they have – threats. Here in Chico, our police department threatens not to do their job. Well, they already don’t do their job, so what do we have for perspective?

I find, I’m not the only person who thinks the government is a financial black hole, that our public employees are only interested in their personal finances, and that we the taxpayers have had enough. 

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , ,

Nature Center lease to come to council next month; nothing “of a public nature to share” on Trash Tax

10 Sep

I went to the Internal Affairs meeting at 8am yesterday only to be told that the meeting would be delayed 45 minutes because “the chair can’t make it”. I cooled my heels for 45 minutes until Chair Tami Ritter walked in with wet hair carrying a steaming cup of drive-thru coffee, but I realized my topic would not come up until well after 9:30 and I had to be elsewhere. So I left with questions unanswered – sometimes it’s just more efficient to e-mail staff anyway.

So I did. I asked Assistant City Manager Chris Constantin about the Nature Center lease – this seemed appropriate since staff was introducing a new leasing policy. Constantin  says the new leasing policy needs to be approved by council and then they will tackle the Nature Center lease at some point in “late October, early November.”  Apparently the city has no specific leasing policy, they just negotiate with people on a case by case basis. Badly. Council is smart to start spelling out policy, that’s really how the city got into this mess in the first place. 

I saw several points on the proposed policy that should bring the Nature Center’s possession and use of the buildings in Bidwell Park into question.   Unfortunately, it’s up to Council, a subjective decision based on favoritism. We’ll have to see how they play it. 

The other question I had wanted to ask was not on the agenda for yesterday’s meeting – the garbage franchise, more aptly known as The Trash Tax. I’ve been asking city manager Orme for information, for a public discussion, for a year or so now, and I keep getting the same answer – we’re in negotiations. 

Well, who the hell is “we”?  When will the ratepayers be brought into the negotiations? I’m sorry, I have the feeling we have already been brought into the negotiations – like a piece of meat hung over a dog pit.

So I asked Constantin, sometimes he’ll at least give a hint of what’s going on. But he deferred to Orme, saying, “As for franchising, Mark is taking the lead on this with the consultant, so I don’t have anything of a public nature to share.”

Well there it is. Shake it, don’t break it, wrap it up and I’ll take it.

Tags: , , ,

What rough beast slouches toward Chico to take the garbage contract?

4 Sep

About two weeks ago I was puttering around in my yard, just happened to be wondering what was going on with the city’s garbage deal, when I noticed the Waste Management truck coming along the street. So, I flagged him down and asked him if he’d heard anything.

Yes, he said, he’s heard,  Waste Management will get all the accounts east of the freeway. But he also reported that the city is not moving very fast, so Waste Management is short of staff because they don’t know what’s going to happen. He said that’s why they aren’t picking up unused cans right now.

A neighbor of ours moved out almost a month ago, the new neighbor has moved in and ordered Recology, and there sit three empty Waste Management cans, just out on the street, nobody will take responsibility for them. On a regular basis I see a man who walks his dog down our street dump a bag of poop in them, as if they’re just sitting there for the convenience of passersby. When trash pick-up days come around they are out there to add confusion and take parking space. 

I know there’s an arm-wrestling match going on over this deal – and we’re the prize! The paying customer, including all those people who will be forced to get service whether they need it or not. I’ve asked about customers who share service, many of my neighbors do, because they don’t generate enough trash in their one-to-two-people household to justify a gi-normous truck grinding to a stop in front of their house every week. But Orme keeps giving me the same stone face the haulers are getting – they don’t have a deal yet, and he ain’t talking.

I’ve also asked City Manager Mark Orme, what about low-income customers? PG&E and Cal Water both have subsidy programs, paid for by all their other customers. Orme will not discuss that provision either, he won’t even tell me whether they will require service or not. The consultant they hired said they had to require service to make this deal feasible for the hauler. 

Orme is being too tight lipped. He acts like this deal is none of the public’s business. There’s an Internal Affairs meeting next Wednesday, 8am – you know I love the 8am meetings! The garbage deal is not on the agenda but I can ask about it. 

I wish some of you would bop on in. 

Norman Elarth: “they will speak of uncontrollable external cost increases, rather than overcompensated and underfunded employees”

8 Aug

From the Chico Enterprise Record:

Policies help conceal false allocation of resources

Aquatic centers, solar power, new sports arenas around Sacramento, etc. Many are seeking the notoriety, above-market compensation, or even the cheap entertainment that becomes available by taxing the workingman. The question is why our politicians want to destroy our wealth by investing in entertainment and doubly expensive electricity, particularly since businessmen will not increase production and employment until workers are capable of paying down debt and increasing expenditures.

Unfortunately, while democracy and capitalism are both succumbing to government overspending, public greed, and the faulty allocation of financial resources, the problem is amplified by the leaders of government and its related entities. In order to maintain their power, they must increasingly provide a free lunch even more grandiose than the public can stomach, and hence we often find that their policies are shrouded in falsehood and deceit.

Thus, while our school board obscures the cash bonus and cumulative 9.2 percent raise given to our teachers, they completely hide the additional 4.3 percent of their salary that we will be paying into their pension fund for the years 2014 and 2015 combined. Another 4.3 percent will be added next year under Assembly Bill No. 1469. Their poorly managed total compensation for 10-months work will be about $60 per hour.

When cities and water and power companies help bankrupt our workers and the elderly with increased fees and rates, they speak of uncontrollable external cost increases, rather than overcompensated and underfunded employees.

— Norman Elarth, Chico

Tags: , ,

Orme says garbage deal isn’t about the money! What a liar!

14 Jul
Something Orme forgets to mention is that city of Chico residents will be forced onto garbage service whether they want it or not. The county agreement doesn’t require residents to get garbage service, so they only got complaints from existing customers. Orme won’t admit, the haulers will have to jack rates substantially to include those rainbow services like street sweeping and illegal dumping clean-up. 

I can almost hear Orme sweating right now. He’s trying to answer the critics, including me, and it just doesn’t sound sincere. 

City of Chico advancing slowly toward waste franchise agreement

By Ashley Gebb, Chico Enterprise-Record

POSTED: 07/13/15, 4:59 PM PDT | UPDATED: 2 HRS AGO

0 COMMENTS

Chico >> As the implementation date keeps shifting, Chico’s city manager says a waste franchising deal is still in the works as the city negotiates with haulers to create an easier, effective transition.

The city has been working with Recology and Waste Management since August to split Chico’s waste hauling between the two refuse companies. An initial goal was to have the system in place by the start of this year, then March 1, and then July.

This week, Orme said he is no longer focused on a timeline but ensuring the best outcome. He’ll meet with the haulers again this week to negotiate.

“What this shows is the city’s willingness to take its time on implementing such a large change to the public,” he said. “We need to do this right. We don’t need to see how fast we can do it.”

The goal is to negotiate franchises with Waste Management and Recology based on two exclusive residential service zones divided on a split of the current revenue base. The city would set the maximum rates for both commercial and residential services

Negotiations are confidential so Orme could not release any details about what has been discussed so far or points of disagreement. He did say the discussions are a challenge, as the city tries to push for fairness for both the haulers and the taxpayers.

“This is something that has to be done right, if it can be done,” he said. “Both haulers have been good partners through the negotiation process and seem to want to do what is right for the community.”

In the city’s favor is that it will not be the first local government in this area to implement such a change. Beginning March 1, a franchise agreement went into effect for Butte County residents who live outside city limits, giving three waste hauling firms the exclusive right to operate in three specified zones.

Waste Management alone now serves the northwest area of the county, excluding the city of Chico. Only Recology serves the southern portion of the county outside Oroville, Gridley and Biggs. Biggs is served exclusively by Waste Management under a separate contract.

“It makes it a lot easier when you have somebody who was a test case,” Orme told members of the Local Government Committee in May. “Watching the rollout of the county has been very educational.”

At the committee meeting, Butte County Chief Administrative Officer Paul Hahn said the county received more than 500 complaints from citizens in the immediate aftermath of the switch.

“There were a lot of unhappy people and luckily, we were able to fix that within a one- or two-week period,” Hahn said.

The county also realized it could have done several elements differently to ease the transition, and that some components of hauling were not initially addressed in the agreement. A major challenge was Waste Management had no local call center for customers with questions about the service change, which meant calls were directed to Phoenix, Arizona.

“These people had no idea where Butte County was or what our issues were,” Hahn said.

Other issues that arose included a need for a waiver of liability for picking up trash on private roads and addressing inconsistency in additional can agreements, where customers had multiple cans at discounted or free rates that were not accepted by their new haulers. The county worked with the haulers to find solutions.

“Since then, we are down to practically no complaints now,” Hahn said.

The city’s stated goal of switching from a fee agreement to franchises is to recoup the cost the haulers cause through wear-and-tear of city streets, and reduce the hauler truck traffic for both infrastructure and environmental reasons.

“There was a lot of assertion made by individuals that all the city is trying to do is create a revenue strategy,” Orme said. “Our goal is to create accountability by the revenue haulers and make sure no entity is being unfairly taken advantage of — be it the city, the citizens or the haulers.”

Once a tentative agreement has been reached, a draft will be brought before the City Council, which can determine if it desires any changes. Once the council approves the agreement, it could take effect immediately, although shifts in service delivery may stretch over several months.

The council has also expressed interest for the agreement to address items such as street sweeping, leaf collection and other items. Negotiations are taking place within the parameters of the council’s direction, Orme said.

Recology and Waste Management currently operate in the city of Chico through permits, which are approved every five years. The existing permits will expire in June 2016.

Contact reporter Ashley Gebb at 896-7768

Tags:

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →