Archive | public employee unions RSS feed for this section

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. 

 

 

So much for public safety – city of Chico doesn’t take Americans with Disabilities Act too seriously

13 May

Bureaucracy gets a deserved bad name because it sucks up a lot of money and resources without producing anything.  Here in Chico we spend 10’s of millions – I’ve lost track of our total budget – on salaries, health benefits and pensions, but our streets are broken to pieces, our park is in disgrace, and public buildings all over town are in disrepair. Former public works manager Ruben Martinez reported a few years ago that instead of having a regular schedule of maintenance for city fixtures and facilities, the department just waited  for things to break.  This he called, “Failure Maintenance.”

Think about that. Say it a few times, and think about it good.  It sounds like the City of Chico is maintaining failure.

 I was telling my friend Jim how the city of Chico has bottomed out the gas tax fund – a cash register rings Downtown every time you gas your car in the city limits – paying salaries and benefits of people who have nothing to do with fixing our streets. Jim reminded me that the gas tax is supposed to go toward repairing streets, so I was telling him about “cost allocation.” This is the legal process by which they move money from one fund to another, “allocating” funds to pay for salaries. Here’s a simple example – if they have a meeting about the sewer facility, every body at the meeting gets their salary for that hour or two out of the sewer fund, everybody from the clerk to the city manager.  They even “allocate” an amount appropriate to pay for the PG&E  in that room for the duration of the meeting.

I first heard this many years ago – remember Jennifer Hennessy? She delivered the news to the Finance Committee, which included Mayor Mark Sorensen at that time, very casually and matter of factly, as if it was okay. Since she left in a hail of insults, her replacement, Chris Constantin, and his replacement, Frank Fields, have made it administrative policy. Moving peas under walnut shells is now the official finance policy of the City of Chico, CA.  Before he was mayor, Mark Sorensen complained they’d bottomed out the Sewer and Development funds the same way. Now you don’t hear him saying much about the red ink all over the city books, cause they juggle them so fast nowadays it’s just a blur of pink.

The other official policy Downtown is, they only fix stuff if they can get grants for it. In fact, as we have seen with the plans they made up for Esplanade, they will fix stuff that doesn’t need fixing just to get the money. And here’s the real sticker – they have to match that grant money with city funds. So, as in the case of the Downtown remodel undertaken over the last five years, with all the bulbing of the sidewalks and the traffic circles, ended up costing about 4 times as much as if they’d just fixed the sidewalks and put the ADA compliant access points at the intersections like the feds told them to do.  But, oh boy! We can get all this extra money to pay down our pension deficit if we put traffic circles and switch parking from parallel to angle parking!

The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed about 1990. Intended to make our streets and public building more accessible to people with “mobility issues” like wheelchairs, the ADA is pretty simple – if a competent wheelchair jockey can’t navigate a section of sidewalk, it’s not ADA compliant. Cracks, buckling around trees, potholes in sidewalks or streets – these don’t just prove challenging for people with disabilities – try getting a stroller out there, you find out quick, there’s whole parts of town that aren’t doable.  

And then there’s the liability. There’s a section of sidewalk across the street from my house with a buckle in it. It’s not much, it’s hard to see, but when I occasionally kick that buckle with my foot, it hurts all the way up my spine to the back of my head. Think I should talk to a lawyer about that?

I don’t remember how many years ago the city was told the Esplanade was not ADA compliant, but they’ve taken that and turned it into a gazillion dollar remodel, with over sized traffic circles and other changes necessitating the removal of many huge trees.  In the drawing I saw, the traffic  circle in front of Bidwell Mansion looks as if it will send cars right through the front doors of Northern Star Mills.

Protest led council to shelve the traffic circle plans, but only until 2017, just after the upcoming election. Wow, that’s not obvious. You’ve got Cheryl King whooping up a war dance, she’s got a basket to put your head in, so you postpone your decision until after the election. Gotta hand it to Sorensen, he knows how to handle the liberals. He won the Farmer’s Market battle, and he’ll win this one, just watch. 

Meanwhile, what about the ADA? Are they going to fix Esplanade at all? There’s miles of busted up sidewalk, and other liabilities that just need to be fixed. What about complaints about speeding? The  cops have made a big deal of patrolling it – as if it’s a big effort on their part to do their jobs, we’ll see how long it lasts.

Jim sent me a picture of ADA compliance in his neighborhood.  

Speaking of ADA, they put in these handicapped access a few years ago in my neighborhood. Nobody uses them, cars block them off, and they are full of dirt and water.

Jim says, “Speaking of ADA, they put in these handicapped access a few years ago in my neighborhood. Nobody uses them, cars block them off, and they are full of dirt and water.”         

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. 

 

 

 

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.  

Bits and pieces – readers’ questions lead me to some interesting reading

10 Mar

Recently somebody got so frustrated they typed in the search term “why is pge screwing us!!!!!!!!”

Yes, eight exclamation marks, I counted ’em.

Here’s an answer: it’s the pensions, it’s the pensions, it’s the pensions. I don’t know what PG&E’s pension liability is, but I’m guessing it would be more than the city of Chico.  They don’t pay into their own pensions, but they expect the same 70 percent at age 55, do the math.

Here’s another answer: cause they can.  Something happened at some point, and all the public watchdogs turned on the people, including the California Public Utilities Commission. Here’s an article from the Sac Bee on how that happened (sorry, old column from last October, but full of details):

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article38487060.html

Eight exclamation marks, but I wonder – has this question asker written any letters, attended any hearings? 

I’ve been getting a lot of searches regarding “Chico homeless problem” and “Torres Shelter,” as well as “Brad Montgomery salary.”  I see I’m not the only one who is curious how much it costs to run that place. Montgomery came around to answer some of our questions, including, his own salary and how much that translates into day-to-day costs – see his comments here:

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2016/02/02/its-good-to-see-people-asking-questions-about-funding-torres-shelter/

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2016/01/27/torres-shelter-closing-may-be-reason-to-celebrate/

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2016/01/28/i-think-we-all-agree-we-need-some-level-of-help-for-homeless-people-but-we-need-to-be-asking-questions-about-the-expense-and-lack-of-results/

He says they don’t receive much public money – he seems to forget all the salaries that go into that place that are paid with public money. I’ve given examples in those posts. According to Butte County Administrative Officer Paul Hahn, over half the county budget goes to indigent and mental health services.

Montgomery says it costs roughly $25  a day to house each person at the Torres, asking who can beat that. Well, I can’t – I did the math on our property taxes yesterday, and that adds $26 a day to our expenses, right off the top. We also house people, and yeah, given they have to pay their own utilities (including the salaries and pensions of utility company management), buy groceries and gas in a town swimming with public salaries, and compete for everything from daycare to clothing with people who can afford anything they want, I’m pretty sure it costs them more than $25 a day per person.

And when we go to Enloe Hospital, we are on the hook for our whole bill, or we are dead beats. Not only does Enloe serve the indigents for free, they just handed $20,000 of patient’s money to the shelter, as if it came out of  Mike Wiltermood’s back pocket.

Got any more comments to make Brad? Please, step right up, don’t wait until a post is a couple of weeks old and you don’t think anybody is reading it anymore.  

I also noticed in my stats, somebody had been looking at posts I made about Tea Party presentations. We used to have a very active Tea Party, they met monthly, and had guest speakers, like Brian Nakamura, short term city assassin. They’d filmed these presentations and posted them, sending me links to post. Now those links don’t work anymore, sorry about that. When I checked into the Chico Tea Party, I see it’s pretty dead. I can’t find current information on any local Tea Party groups. Wow, talk about a tempest in a Tea Pot.

As I recall, Tea Party patriots I knew started joining the “State of Jefferson” movement. They were having regular Sunday meetings at the library, but I don’t see those scheduled anymore. State of Jefferson, or the Pacific State, as some call it now, is still active elsewhere. 

https://www.facebook.com/StateofJeffersonParty/

At last, the unfunded pension liabilities are getting some attention.

http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2016/03/doing-the-gasb-gasp/

John Moorlach actually considered a run for governor a couple of elections ago, but I’m  guessing he stared straight into the machine that is Jerry Brown and his testicles went right into his throat. At least he’s still banging his drum.  

Reading that, we must wonder, what is Butte County’s unfunded liability? City of Chico is carrying over $90 million. 

 

 

 

Join Chico Taxpayers Association – get some peace of mind by giving others a piece of your mind!

8 Mar
At the intersection of Mangrove and Vallombrosa

At the intersection of Mangrove and Vallombrosa a little circus parade entertains the drivers as they wait for the light to change.

My husband, out on errands yesterday, sitting at a red light, snapped the picture above with his cell phone. There was a woman with a similar rig in front of the car, wrangling her unruly pitbull as she trundled her household on wheels across the traffic island, walking out across the traffic lane just as the light was turning green.  My husband said the man had a pirate flag flying from the back of his trailer, but couldn’t snap the shot in time to catch it, unfurled and glorious. 

At a recent meeting city council extended an ordinance that had originally been written almost exclusively for Downtown and the Lower Park, “criminalizing” camping, littering, loitering, defecating, urinating, defacing and generally disrespecting our shared “public” areas.

This is so conflicting for me sometimes. I mean – public lands and spaces belong to the public, and that’s everybody, right? At the same time, I have to remind myself – like Harvey Two-Face, I am of two minds on many things – so I have to remind myself, that means, no one person should be able to flop themselves out and take over any given public space for more than what another member of the public would think is reasonable.

In the city of Chico, “reasonable” includes, willing to pay for it, according to a price scale made up by city staffers. I don’t have to time to look it up, it’s in the Municipal Code, and that’s your assignment for today  –  learn it, know it, live it…  Certainly everybody should know their own Municipal Code, it should be a condition of graduation from the Eighth Grade. You should know that the average person or group wanting to use, just for example, the City Plaza, would end up paying hundreds of dollars, minimum, for use of stuff like the public bathroom that’s supposed to be open all the time anyway, and may very well be vandalized or pooped beyond use and locked up good and tight when you arrive with your party. But, here’s the funny thing – if you have a city councilor friend who is willing to “sponsor” your event, in any of the city’s facilities, including City Chambers, you get it free. Probably get the toilet cleaned up and running for you and everything!  Isn’t that the way we scratch each other’s backs here in Hazard County?

No, I don’t like the way the city of Chico manages our “public spaces.” They been selling public sidewalk to various Downtown restaurants – at one meeting a few years back, it was an annual payment of $15,000, per parking space of street frontage. That sounds like a shakedown  to me, but these big restaurants are willing to pay it to increase their square footage, get more bodies inside to pour down their marked-up liquor and crap food. $$$$$$$$!

Ever been Downtown on a warm evening? The smell of garbage will knock you over. But people are willing to pay to sit out on these patios in 105 degrees and smell that swamp odor, go figure.

Meanwhile, pedestrians are relegated to a tiny strip of sidewalk barely wide enough to walk single file, facing moving cars with their strollers and dogs and the parcels they’d ideally be carrying from the shops they’ve supposedly patronized. Uh-huh.

But, here in my retail neighborhood, I’m tired of seeing something that wouldn’t be tolerated Downtown – bodies plopped out under trees and across shady sidewalks  all around long-time businesses like Rite Aid and Safeway and the Vallombrosa post office. Transient parades stopping cars crossing the streets on red lights, or simply running or riding bikes out in front of cars, oftentimes dog running loose, between intersections.  I keep hearing other shoppers or postal patrons around me ask why transients are allowed to have shopping carts, obviously stolen property.

 I don’t like leaving my car in the parking lot at Mangrove Plaza, because I’ve seen transients meandering among the cars, obviously checking for unlocked doors and easy grabs inside. Having seen them run out of Payless Shoes with stolen merchandise, I wonder how long before they get bold enough to smash car windows out in the no-man’s-land between the gas station and the store fronts. 

 Why do the police need new ordinances to ticket or even arrest people for breaking laws that are already on the books? It’s always been illegal to camp in the park – in fact, it’s illegal to be “loitering” in the park more than a half hour after sunset, according to signs that have been posted in various locations in Bidwell Park since I was a kid. I’ve heard discussions Downtown specifying “loitering” to mean, not walking home, or using the park to “get somewhere“.  In other words, you better be moving.  None-the-less, the cops needed a new ordinance to kick transients out of de-facto campsites – tents with campfires! – around the park and other public parks and waterways around town, and then they need to expand that to cover the rest of town, not just the Downtown grid. 

They also lobbied council to give them a “sit-and-lie” ordinance, even though a very specific panhandling ordinance had already been on the books for 10 years, but had rarely been enforced. 

Meanwhile they’ve tweaked the “disorderly events” and “noise” ordinances so that they no longer need complaints from neighbors to wade onto private property to investigate when any officer may suspect is an illegal situation taking place. They also weakened the provision saying that landlords/property owners must be notified before they can be charged an unspecified amount in “response charges.”

All along whining and  crying that they don’t have enough cops in the department because pay and morale are low. Council has given them new hires and also instituted an administrative pay step increase plan that insures automatic promotion and pay raises, but they still want more money for stuff like new radios, license plate readers, and they’ve even  wish-listed a “substation” at Enloe Hospital.

That latter item because they say they spend so much time with transients down at Enloe, they need a private room off the beaten path where they can fill out their reports. Or do whatever they damned-well please out of the scrutiny of the inquisitive taxpayer.

Our local daily  editor David Little has acknowledged a campaign to raise sales tax, a “public safety” tax to benefit the police department. He’s berated the CARD assessment, leaving me to believe he and the paper will endorse this “public safety” tax.

Wow, I’ll tell you what – I see a public safety crisis alright – Chico PD!  A pack of purse snatchers, is what they are. They want your retirement money. They want your kids’ college money. They think you’re rich enough to pay for their outrageous lifestyles, just because you haven’t been foreclosed! They want your money, and they are going to pull out the stops in November to get it.

They’ll show you pictures like the one above, and tell you the only way you can get your beloved town back is throw more money at them. 

Get ready to pull out your bottle of these.

My mom gave me these. She used to go to a lot of these meeting too.

I hope you haven’t used yours all up with the presidential debates.

You know what else you  can do? Join Chico Taxpayers Association – we’re having a lifetime membership special – FREE! All you need is a sense of righteous indignation.

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

Response from Behavioral Health Director

12 Feb

An update to yesterday’s post. I had resent my questions, highlighted in green for easy reading, to Supervisor Kirk after I’d received a notice that Kittrell would not be in his office until next Tuesday. He responded, 

With regard to your question in green.    The matter approved by the Board of Supervisors was related to patients in our Psychiatric Health Facility which is an inpatient, acute psychiatric hospital (16 beds).   This facility is run by my department and is funded with State realignment dollars we receive from the State as part of the department’s total budget – most of it Federal and State monies.  This is a Medi-Cal eligible facility so we also receive some Medi-cal reimbursement for Medi-Cal clients.  The particular agency that oversees County Behavioral Health Departments is the California State Department of Healthcare Services.   Also, you inquired about documents or reports.  The staff report related to this particular item that went before the board is available at the Board of Supervisor’s website, as well as video of the BOS meeting.  I have included a link for your convenience.

 http://buttecounty.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=296&meta_id=48717

 With regard to your questions regarding law enforcement.  I did inquire to the Chico Police and at this time there does not seem to be movement towards a substation.   I would recommend getting in touch with their department for any further details.

Okay, there’s the answer. This is a move to get more money from the state and feds. Kittrell says it won’t cost the county any more – like so many public workers he plays ignorant to the fact that we pay the state and federal taxes too. The report does not include any dollar amounts.

As for my question about the substation, he never really listened to what I was asking. I sent him the link to the interview with “Police Department Business Support Team” leader Jack Van Rossum. I told him the police claimed they spent so much time with drunks and mentally ill people brought in off the street they needed a special room where they could sit and “fill out reports.” They were also asking for special communication equipment because, they say, their cellphones will not work in the hospital.  Meanwhile Kittrell was claiming that BH staffers are sent to Enloe to collect these patients.  That sounds like a disconnect between the Behavioral Health department and the cops. I’ve asked Kittrell one more time, how long does it take for a staffer to get to Enloe to relieve the cops of these patients, we’ll see if he gets back to me. He just seems to be avoiding the question, because, as he told me in a previous e-mail, ” I have been working with the new Chief of Police and it has been helpful to have a collaborative relationship with his department.”

Yes, they collaborate like a string quartet – fiddling while Chico burns. 

Tags: , ,

Whose being mau-mau’d here? Trying to get answers out of public staff, I’m just getting “the business”

11 Feb

 

I got so many issues I’ve been trying to follow lately, let’s just take a little walk and talk.

Yesterday I tried to pick-up a conversation I’ve been trying to have with county staffers about the programs administered for local homeless, mentally ill, and indigent citizens. I sat in a meeting last Summer at which county administrative office Paul Hahn reported the county spends “over half” it’s budget on these issues. This is frustrating to me because I don’t see any good coming out of their efforts. I see more homeless on the streets, I see more crimes, I hear about more crimes. And lately, I’ve heard more grousing about it from other taxpayers. 

Over the past few weeks I’ve overheard casual questions from fellow citizens about why the “homeless” are allowed to possess obviously stolen shopping carts, why they are allowed to camp along waterways, as well as around public buildings and shopping malls, why they are allowed to have unlicensed (unvaccinated?) dogs, why why why.  I’ve read newspaper reports of the recurring arrests of the same persons for the same crimes, or worse – the crimes escalate, from seemingly petty stuff like driving without a license, to stabbing a woman 54 times in a drug-induced rage.

As you read these reports you have to ask yourself – how many of these street people are on crank? Selling it? Committing crimes in order to pay for it?

Sitting in meetings Downtown, or reading reports from Butte County Supervisor’s meetings, you see the stream of money that is being pissed onto this fire, and you have to wonder – why are all these loonies/druggies running our streets? Where’s all this money going? 

You think you’d just be able to ask a question of these people – good luck!  I’ve been trying to get answers ever since I sat in that meeting with Paul Hahn last Summer. After I heard a police department representative say they spend so much time with street people down at Enloe that they want the city to pay for a special substation inside the hospital,

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2015/09/29/chico-pd-announc…ess-support-team/

I wondered why. The county  received a big grant to hire more behavioral health staffers. They’d bought a new building over on Cohasset and hired a new  director, Dorian Kittrell, at over $200,000/year, just in salary. All that money spent, and the cops are still stuck at Enloe babysitting street people? The county is supposed to have a special unit, a new building, and funding to pick these people up and take them off the cops’ hands. I wrote a note to my  county supervisor Maureen Kirk last August, asking for an explanation.  She referred me to Kittrell.

He responded, “We are moving along with program implementation in the ERs – Enloe included. We have many of the staff hired (though not all the staff – we are finding some challenges recruiting for the evening shift staff) – and will hopefully be interviewing a new group of candidates next week or the week after. Our IT departments are working together and are almost finished with setting up the secure internet connections in the ERs. Finally, we have completed site visits for Medi-Cal certification and are just waiting for State/Federal response. Our Crisis Manager is working with Enloe to begin setting up training for staff. I am hoping that program start-up (at least at Enloe) will begin in early to mid September. We are also working to get triage personnel in the shelters during this same time frame.

In the meantime, we continue to provide the mobile crisis services at the ER as we always have.

Hope this information is helpful. Let me know if you have any further questions.”

But I kept hearing complaints from Chico PD, wanting more money, using the homeless and street crime as the carrot. In October I asked Kirk and Kittrell why Chico PD was spending so much time with these people given all the money the county was spending on the new building and staff.

Kirk responded, “This is a complex issue. Behavioral Health has grant funding to hire staff to help with the mentally ill in all three hospitals. There are two BH staff at each hospital from 11am – 8pm. The crisis management team is on call 24 hours per day. The new arrangement has helped with the ER problem. I have been told that the Chico PD is not spending considerable time watching over these patients as they had in the past. I would like a correction if that is not true. The biggest barrier is that often these patients need to be placed somewhere when they are discharged. Often, our 23 hour facility is full to capacity. It takes time to identify a placement and often it is out of town.

 The other question is about the new facility. The county has closed escrow and is remodeling this facility. It will be crisis placement for ten clients. It is hoped that they would stay at the most for one month. During their stay, there will be services to get them stabilized on their meds, if needed, counseling and finding more permanent housing. This should be operational in the near future.

 I have not heard about the police substation at Enloe. I will pursue that to find out more about it.

 Behavioral Health is an asset to our community and does an excellent job with the resources that are available to them. The mental health issue and ERs and police staffing expertise are problems throughout the state.”

Kittrell chimed in,

“Maureen, you have outlined this fairly well.   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 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).

 I have not heard anything about a substation at Enloe, either.  I do have a meeting coming up with Chico PD this month and will inquire.”

I responded with a link to the Chico Currents site and the interview with Van Rossum. He responded further,

“I will inquire with PD to get a better idea of when they may stay in the ER.  Generally, if a client is cooperative our staff can assist ER staff in providing care.  There can be times when law enforcement may need to continue to provide assistance – particularly if there is a crime involved or significant risk of danger as a result of the client’s behavior.  Each case is evaluated to determine what is in the best interest of the client and the community and the staff.   It is important to note that while there are behavioral health staff in the ER to assist with clients, the client is in the care of the hospital.  Behavioral Health staff are there to provide assessment, support and assist with psychiatric hospitalization or another disposition for the client.   I have not heard recently of prolonged wait times for PD in the ER but will check in on this issue at my meeting with them later this month.   I hope this information is helpful.  I will be out of the office until Wednesday of next week.  If I receive any further from PD I will share it with you.”

Okay, I know that’s a can of worms, but what I got out of it is, the county spends “over half the budget” on these programs for how many people? And I also see a total disconnect with the city of Chico and especially Chico PD.

Of course neither of them got back to me about this substation business. You know, I get tired of that kind of treatment. It’s very insulting, but of course, we have to treat them with the utmost civility and respect, or they are allowed to blow us off for good.  I try to back off when I feel I’m getting on their nerves.

But lately the “homeless” situation has just been getting so bad. I know it’s not just me – I get searches, I hear from friends, I know other people are more fed up than me. I listened to a very sinister conversation between a retail cashier in North Chico and a customer ahead of me about “getting rid of them.”  I sincerely fear this situation will result in violent attacks on the truly helpless.

I just paid my property tax. I’m a landlady so I am paying for four households, that comes out to a burden. When I think of the upgrades I could make on my rentals with that money – my tenants should be pissed off too. And they are – they are constantly telling me Chico is becoming “unaffordable,” between the utility rates, groceries, daycare, healthcare – all run up by these ridiculous public salaries. When you and your spouse make less than $100,000 between you, it’s tough competing with people who make over $100,000 with one salary. They drive up the cost of everything, just by existing. 

You pay these kinds of rates – you’d expect to be living in some kind of Wonderland, but here we are, looking at filthy bodies laying in piles of trash in our public parks and school yards, walking on sidewalks that make you want to throw your shoes away, wading over bodies at our  retail outlets, dealing with unlicensed-unneutered-unvaccinated dogs – what are we paying for? 

Try asking that!  I have.  Hellllloooooo?

The other day I saw an article in the ER about the county supervisors extending the amount of time a person can be involuntarily held by the Behavioral Health Department. Besides the connotations of “Chattahoochie” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” I was suspicious about the true intentions behind this policy change. I’ll  be honest – I think they just want more money. 

I wrote to Kittrell and Kirk again, reminding them I never got an answer regarding the substation. I try to be nice.

Hi,

 We never finished the conversation below, you were going to get back to me regarding claims that Chico PD spend so much time in Enloe ER that they need a substation. You were going to inquire with Chico PD .  I didn’t bother you about it because I know your time is valuable, but I’m still wondering if you got an answer. 

 Enloe and the police department both claim huge expense in dealing with mentally ill indigents, but I have never seen the true numbers.  That’s why I’m curious when they say they need a substation at the hospital at more cost to the taxpayers.

 I have another question about a story I read in today’s paper about an extension of the psychiatric hold.  I’d appreciate it if either of you could answer, or refer me to another staffer who has the information.

 How much money does the county get for a person who is held this way? From what agency? 

 Thanks for your patience in answering my questions, Juanita Sumner

I always wonder if I could have worded things better, am I doing something wrong? It’s so hard getting a straight answer out of these people.

Kittrell responded,

Juanita,

 I am very sorry you did not get an answer from me on the question of law enforcement in the ER – I have been working with the new Chief of Police and it has been helpful to have a collaborative relationship with his department.   I would be happy to discuss with you the mutual efforts we are making on collaboration.   I also appreciate your interest in the psychiatric inpatient unit.   I would be happy to meet with you to discuss these issues from the Behavioral Health perspective.  Would you be willing to meet?  I am adding my assistant, Kristy Hanson, to this email so that she can arrange a meeting if that works for you.

A meeting? Why can’t you just answer my question? Or, like I asked, refer me to a staffer? When do I have time to go to a meeting? I had to get up at 5:30 am to post this, as I have a full day of work ahead of me.  I work my ass  off to maintain my properties because after I’m done paying my property taxes I don’t have enough money to hire anybody. I try to stay on top of issues that cost my tenants not only money, but quality of life, and this guy says we need to have a meeting before he can give me a straight answer? 

I get so mad, but I try to be polite. I responded that I don’t have time for meetings, and I asked another question, “where will these people be housed?”

I got a response from Kittrell immediately,

“I am out of the office and will return Tuesday, February 16th. Beginning Friday, February 12th I will not have accesss to phone or email. If this is urgent, please call 530 891-2850 and ask for Amy Wilner Asst. Director for Administration.”

I bold faced that notice about him being out of his office because that’s the second time he’s told me that. I guess the commute to his home in Yuba City is rather time consuming.

UPDATE: I got a really nice note from Tim, which I answered here:

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

 

Calling all Chico Taxpayers…

9 Feb

Lately I feel public and quasi-public workers are launching an attack on the working public to make us pay their ridiculous salaries and benefits whether they are sustainable or not. Not only are city of Chico, Chico Unified, and Chico Area Rec District asking for tax increases in November, but we’ve got a water rate increase and a garbage tax coming around the bend.  The county is also talking about getting rid of the septage ponds at the dump and making a deal to tote our poop all the way out to the city sewer facility west of Chico – if you have a septic tank, you are about to be forced  onto sewer rates.

The common denominator? Unfunded pension liabilities. I got a figure for CARD’s liability – about $1.7 million, and only for a staff of 33 employees.  I don’t have the most recent figure for city of Chico, but Brian Nakamura once quoted about $64 million. And good luck getting anything out of the school district – they’re not there to educate anybody. But I’ll guess their liability would rival the city’s. 

I never asked the county for their figure, but I know it’s bad because for years now they’ve been complaining that the dump can’t support itself. I know, these conversations are so dumb. One minute, they scream they aren’t getting enough trash, and the county has made a deal and the city is working on same deal that would force the trash haulers to bring all of our trash to Neal Road instead of taking it out of the area for cheaper “tipping fees.” Of course, cheaper tipping fees would be good for us ratepayers, but the county needs the fees to pay their salaries, and yeah, unfunded pension liability. 

But in a separate conversation they say the dump is so full they have to take out the septage ponds. Follow your tail, that’s right, just keep  following your tail…

My supervisor, who shall remain nameless right now cause I am too tempted to call her nasty names, tells me this is okay, “we’re not trying to force you on sewer.” But, I told her, if you make that deal with Chico to take our septage to the sewer facility, you are forcing us on sewer, and we’ll be at the mercy of city of Chico and their unfunded pension liability.

Ask Mark Sorensen, he wrote an extensive blog about how the city has pilfered the sewer fund into the red paying salaries and benefits for employees who have never even been on that side of town. Sorensen took that blog off the Norcal blog site after he became a council member, you can’t find it now, wonder why?  Because under Mayor Sorensen city staff has administered a system called “cost allocation” – if an employee attends a meeting in which the sewer is mentioned, their salary and benefits for that meeting are  taken out of the sewer fund. Yep, an administrative version of walnut shells and peas. Watch that pea, Suckers!

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/dan-walters/article55313690.html

Sorensen has made it clear he will not fix the pension problem, instead, holding employee contribution at 9 – 12 percent and  instituting a “step system” for automatic pay raises and promotions.

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2016/01/03/public-managemen…ost-per-employee/

For that matter, the county has done nothing to turn their pension liability around. That’s why the weird conversation about the dump, they’re desperate to pay down that pension debt just like all the other public and  quasi-public agencies. They know we need trash service and septic tank owners all over the county are dependent on those septage ponds, and they’re twisting that knife.

Bernie Sanders talks about a revolution – well, you can’t have a revolution if nobody shows up. I’d like to mount a stronger campaign against these grabs, I need some help. 

Do you pay taxes? Of course you do. Do you live in the city of Chico or Chico “area of influence”? That would make you a “Chico Taxpayer.” Get involved. Bring your comments here, or take them to your various elected officials. Tell them you’re a Chico Taxpayer, and you’re fed up. 

I like to quote Arlo Guthrie here, even if he and I would probably never agree on much – but what he said in “Alice’s Restaurant” is absolutely true: “One guy is crazy. Two guys are (politically incorrect). But three guys are a MOVEMENT…”

It’s true, I’ve seen it – politicians don’t listen to one person, unless that person is a BIG donor. They don’t listen to two people. But something magical happens after that third, fourth, fifth person chimes in. Then it’s worth their attention, you might get them to actually DO SOMETHING. 

UPDATE:  I got a note from a fellow Chico Taxpayer regarding the city’s pension liability – as of December, over $99 million. This was apparently covered  in the finance report at the last council meeting, so the exact figure should be in the reports available on the city website. 

Thank you fellow citizen – it’s nice to know somebody is paying attention!

UPDATE UPDATE:  I got a note from another Chico Taxpayer asking about CARD’s staff, what kind of packages they get. I referred them to http://publicpay.ca.gov/

As I looked over the information, I see the employee packages are very inconsistent, spread out over more than 33 employees, but wow – how come some people get packages worth over $20,000 and others get packages worth less than $2,000? I don’t know how that money is divvied up, what they get for it, but I know there is no employee contribution. 

Tags:

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →