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Council, CARD board up to no good – Lie Cheat and Steal!

14 Dec

Tomorrow night Chico city council will discuss applying for “Intervenor” status in the Cal Water rate increase application filed last July (CPUC rate case A.15-07-015). I’ve already let them know how I feel, time for you all to do same. 

You can reach them via the clerk, debbie.presson@chicoca.gov

You probably read, the city is under fire in a few directions. According to a study, our employees are among the highest paid in the state. Our desk clerk’s salary compares with cop salaries in the Bay Area, which is an item of concern to more people than just me. If I were a cop in Oakland, and I knew some ditzy bitch who sat on her ass in an office all day was making more in salary than I got paid in total compensation, that would piss me off.

Not to say, cops don’t get paid plenty nice. This whole salary thing is completely WHACKED.

Council is denying Jessica Allen’s claims that they violated the Brown Act, which I think stems mostly from behind doors contract talks. Allen complains the agendas aren’t clear, and she’s right. I get so tired of asking these self-satisfying $taffers to explain stuff – the explanation is usually even more confusing. Like the time Chris Constantin came to one of my Sunday CTA meetings at the library, brought the wife and everything. I thought it was cute the way they got into their rag bag trying to dress down for the common folks. Constantin was very uncomfortable. He was trying to tell me that they needed to wave the two-week sunshine period for the new police contract, saying they needed to get that signed asap to start saving all this money! It was a total load of bullshit, the police budget is bigger than ever now. Of course you might not be able to check on that, because they don’t save the old budgets or contracts on the website. Good luck finding those anywhere. 

We are dealing with liars and cheats,  who steal. Reminds me of the great days of WWE!  I miss Eddie Gurerrero.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lPA050q-GY

Lie Cheat and Steal! Like CPOA!

Tomorrow they will be putting the screw to landlords and tenants when they pass two ordinances that throw out landlord rights and curtail renters’ rights. They will be tweaking the Disorderly Events and Noise ordinances to cut the notice time for property owners. Meaning, by the time you get your mailed notice – and that’s if the county has your correct mailing address on their tax rolls – your tenants could have had a second “event” and you will be summarily charged with any “costs” the police and fire departments decide to rack up in trashing your house. 

You don’t think that happens to good landlords and tenants? How about the time my tenant had less than a dozen friends over to watch a sporting event on tv. When they went back to their cars out on the street at about 11 pm, talking and joshing I’d imagine, the neighbors called the police. Chico PD came over and broke it up, then told the neighbors it was a “gang bang.” Yeah, my tenant was Mexican, and I imagine so were some of his friends. The cops told him his friends couldn’t mill around on the street like that. Well, okay, they’d said. And the following weekend he invited them back over to watch  tv again – you should have seen this tv, it was HUGE. When you put out the bucks for a tv like that, you want to be able to invite your friends.

My asshole neighbor, Pat Brown, who had better have his left on the ready if he ever shows his face to me again, called the cops a second  time. At this time, a week later, neither Mr. Asshole Brown, who had our phone number, nor the cops had bothered to notify us of the first incident. The party was broken up again – again, a bunch of guys yakking at their cars on a public street at 10:30 or 11 pm. This time we got an angry phone call at 7am that next day, from Asshole Brown. He was so loud at the other end of the phone I could hear him in the next room. Then he backed down, he actually apologized, cause you know, he’s the kind of neighbor who acts in anger, because he’s an asshole,  and then wakes up the next day grovelling for forgiveness. 

Maybe he realized, if we went asshole on him, he would be at the asshole end of a lawsuit. So would Chico PD, they already have enough claims of racism against them. 

My husband tells me, don’t worry about this ordinance, we have so restricted our tenants’  in our leases – in fact, today I’m writing up a new addendum. According to this new party ordinance, a “gathering” is 20 or more people. I will have to add a legal addendum restricting my tenants from having gatherings of more than 15 people. Hey, if the cops can do it, I  can do it and will.

Right now I got an Avon Lady. Wow, you know those Avon parties can get swinging out of control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RcXH4nq2PY

This is an attack on renters’ rights, but I’m with my husband – let the renters come out and fight it for a change. Old Juanita has other irons on the fire right now. 

Wednesday (Dec 16 7pm) brings another public meeting at the CARD center to discuss plans for the aquatic center. CARD director Ann Willmann tells me they will not be including any discussion of Shapiro Pool or the cost estimates to fix it, which are not posted anywhere on their website either. I’ve had it with Willmann, she needs to goooooo. 

Aquatic center proponent Jan Sneed was re-elected to the CARD board with 9,000 votes.  If every one of those voters wrote a check for $1,000, we’d have almost enough money to build the least expensive design that’s been discussed so far. Those estimates go up to $28 million, but wow, wouldn’t $9 million be a start? 

 Willmann has a son on Aquajets, maybe she should open her purse. She could easily spare some money out of her $120,000/year salary, especially since she pays nothing toward her benefits or pension. CARD currently sits under a pension deficit of more than $1.2 million. None of their management pay anything toward their pensions, but expect to receive 70 percent of their salary in retirement. 

And they bitch about the street people with their hands out! 

Hold your purse strings tight, there are scum bags on every corner here.

 

 

 

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Happy Election Day! Time to join Chico Taxpayers Association, get ready for the tax blitz!

3 Nov

Gotta love this modern world – today, my cell phone reminded me, is Election Day, “all day.” 

The second Tuesday in November is reserved for elections, whether or not there are any issues to put on the ballot. Elections are usually held in even years, but “special elections” can be called in the event of a vacancy on a board or maybe somebody gathered enough signatures to put a measure up. I’m not sure what the rules are. There’s also an opportunity for “special elections” in June.

What I do know is we have a year before next Election Day, and things are going to start happening over the next six months. People are going to announce their candidacies, and I’d bet my last five dollars at least two tax initiatives will pop up – I’m guessing, Chico PD will go for a sales tax increase and CARD will pursue a bond or assessment on our homes.

There are different ways this can happen. For the sales tax increase, I believe Chico City Council could just vote to put it on the ballot, or they could require some local group to go out and get the signatures on petitions. Measure J, the cell phone tax measure, was placed on the ballot by city councilors, although I can’t remember the vote, it wasn’t unanimous. I don’t know if it takes a simple or super majority to place a measure on the ballot. 

The elected board at CARD could also decide to put an assessment or bond on the ballot, or, failing to get the required votes, refuse to place it on the ballot, necessitating the collection of signatures on petitions by some local group. 

One group that has mentioned raising the sales tax specifically for Chico Police is local realtor Jack Van Rossum, who is also with an organization called “Chico Police Department Business Support Team”.  Interviewed by Alan Chamberlain on his podcast “Chico Currents,” Van Rossum said he would like to have a sales tax increase that is devoted to hiring more staff for the police department. 

I have not seen anything in the agendas about this issue, but I know this man, or member of his group, or the police chief, the president of the CPOA – anybody can lobby members of council separately. Under the toothless Brown Act, he can speak to each and every one of them, and as long as there aren’t four of them in the room together, the public is out of the conversation.  I sat at one meeting where our mayor Mark Sorensen went on at length about the ways council members can kibitz city issues privately without violating the Brown Act.  I know neither Sorensen, Coolidge nor Fillmer are stupid enough to get caught there – and they can check with Debbie Presson, who councils them in the ways in which they can circumvent the Brown Act. 

Morgan is stupid enough, but he knows he’s being watched.

So, I’m guessing there has been a lively conversation about raising sales tax, here and there, snitch and snatch, but we won’t hear about it until they’ve figured out how to get it on the ballot without getting kicked out in the 2018 election.   My prediction is, if they pass this tax, Morgan, Coolidge and Fillmer will toss Sorensen to the taxpayers like a spring lamb and then throw down over who gets the mayor’s chair. 

As for CARD, I’d bet they will also throw a bond or assessment on the ballot without much discussion. I think they’ve already decided to do it, they’re obviously trying to figure out how to frame it for the public.

Imagine my surprise when I read David Little’s editorial this morning:

“CARD promises at least one more of these wish-list meetings, which get people excited about the possibilities. But even though there’s an obvious need for a facility and the site is chosen, CARD continues to ignore for now a key component: money.”

Tough Guy, eh? 

“The consultant says the financing question will be addressed later, but it seems backward. It’s useless to do studies, gather stakeholders and invite the community to public meetings — all of which costs taxpayer money — before figuring out what the community can afford.”

Oh, I forgot – Little did not attend nor did he send any reporter to the 4pm committee meeting that preceded the 7pm public meeting. He would have heard the consultants both telling the committee the same thing. I could tell both consultants were getting frustrated – this group wants all the bells and whistles, they want to sell a pie-in-the-sky to the voters, without showing the price tag right up front. That is exactly what CARD and the Chico Area Swim Association people are trying to do – get us drunk and then tell us to get out our check books.

Even Little is going along with the notion that “user groups” will pay for this turkey.

“CARD has already said it doesn’t have the millions for an aquatic center just sitting around. So any multimilliondollar project would require financial support from swim teams, businesses and taxpayers, probably in the form of a tax.”

The lady consultant flat said it – “user groups” come to the table with their palms up, hands empty. The editor whispers into his shirtsleeve, “probably in the form of a tax.”  Probably? Again, he didn’t attend the meetings, any of them. I wonder if he saw CARD consultant Greg Melton’s three design proposals, the cheapest of which was $10 million. 

It’s easy to see where the Enterprise Record sits on this thing – that’s a pretty limp-wristed protest. I’m guessing they will back the sales tax increase as well.

So, we have our work cut out for us. It’s time to join Chico Taxpayers Association. What does that involve? Stay tuned here. Attend meetings and write a report for me to post. Write letters to the city council and CARD. I’ll keep posting the information and the links, it’s up to you to act.

Like Arlo Guthrie said in Alice’s Restaurant ramble, “One guy is crazy, two guys are (politically incorrect), but three guys – that’s a movement…”

 

 

 

 

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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. 

 

 

 

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Chico PD announces quarter cent sales tax increase campaign through “Business Support Team”

29 Sep

I don’t like the Annie B’s Foundation because it’s misleading. This is supposed to be a community fund through which the willing and able can channel their disposable dollars into various “community benefit” organizations. Lately it is more and more misused by public agencies phishing for money to cover their outrageous salaries, benefits and pension packages.

And, here’s something that makes my teeth hurt every time I read it – “In addition to receiving a grant from Annie B’s, The City of Chico will match your donation by 40-60%! If you give $100, this organization can receive an additional $50 or more, based on how much is raised!”

As a city of Chico taxpayer, I am forced to give to these organizations whether or not I believe they provide any kind of “community benefit.” 

Like Chico Police Department. They’ve found a way to use a good-will organization to get more money for themselves, through an outfit called “Chico Police Department Business Support Team.” Mysterious front man Jack Van Rossum was interviewed a couple of months ago on Alan Chamberlain’s podcast variety show “Chico Currents”.  Van Rossum makes it very clear – Chico PD runs this organization, telling Van Rossum and his friends what they want and sending them out to get the money for it, one way or another. 

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

Not only is Van Rossum stumping for money from Annie B’s Foundation, with the 40-60% matching grant from the city of Chico, but he says CPDBST is asking Chico city council to place a quarter cent sales tax measure on the ballot, “specifically used only for the police department…the primary concern is staffing.”

Backing Van Rossum and the  CPDBST are organizations like Chico Chamber/Clean & Safe, Chico Rotary (of which Mayor Mark Sorensen is past president and an active member), Chico Exchange Club, and Neighborhood Church.  Van Rossum says members have been very generous – he mentions the license plate readers purchased in 2013, as though they were completely paid for out of the donation fund. He forgets to mention, “40 – 60%” of that money came out of the tax coffers. 

He mentions the city of Chico is “on the verge of bankruptcy.” But can still make a 40 – 60% match on charity funding? 

Van Rossum begins by describing the “close to a substation” Chico PD is requesting at Enloe Hospital – that’s what they want the Annie B’s/City of Chico charity handout for. Van Rossum claims police officers spend a lot of time at Enloe Emergency Room,  “because of their requirements when they deal with people they meet on the street…”  He says Enloe will give the space, but it needs to be outfitted with special radio equipment because the cops can’t use their cell phones or radios from inside the hospital. He also complains that the emergency room is “always backed up…the hospital does not provide priority to the police department.”    Anybody who’s ever been to Enloe ER, he says, “knows there’s a long tedious wait to get someone to serve you…” So, these officers need their own space to do “other work.” What other work? Their other work is outside the hospital.

Wow, I don’t know where to go with that – I sat at a meeting earlier this year and listened to the head of Butte County Behavioral Health talk about the new building the county just bought over near the old Chico Community Hospital. This building would house the staff who are supposed to meet the Chico PD officers at Enloe Hospital and take these “street people” off their hands, freeing police officers up to, well, get back to their jobs.  Here Van Rossum is telling us it’s their job to sit down at Enloe cooling their heels “in the cue…”  

So, we need to pay for a county building, and we need to provide a substation at Enloe Hospital? 

And then Van Rossum goes off on a bender about how the police department is having trouble filling the positions approved and funded by our “on the verge of bankruptcy” city because the police department is understaffed. Feel dizzy?

Here’s a direct quote: “the police department has a low morality.” Chamberlain didn’t correct Mr. Van Rossum, neither will I.

 Listen to the complete interview for yourself. This is the beginning of Clean and Safe’s campaign to raise our local sales tax. 

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U-6, labor force participation, the poverty rate, and the New One Percent

28 Sep

I was just questioning the affordability of Cal Water’s proposed rate increase, here:

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2015/09/23/are-cal-waters-rates-affordable-for-butte-county/

Since then I’ve been seeing more evidence that NONE of California can afford to foot the bill for Cal Water’s champagne lifestyle anymore. Read Dan Walters, here, in the Sac Bee, published just the other day.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/dan-walters/article36719727.html

Walters is talking about our “true unemployment rate” or U-6, “which counts not only workers who are officially unemployed, but those ‘marginally attached’ to the labor force and those involuntarily working part-time.”

In Chico, for example, we have hundreds of part-time CARD workers, who by a decision of the board, were cut to 28 hours or less so that CARD would not have to pay Obamacare on these people. Meanwhile, roughly 33 CARD management employees enjoy fully paid packages running as much as $23,000  a year and full retirement at age 55 – for which they pay nothing. 

Walters reports, “Our U-6 rate is 14 percent, down a bit from the recession but still the nation’s second-highest, topped only by Nevada’s 15.2 percent.”

And here’s something I had never heard before – Walters compares our unemployment figure with our employment figure – the “labor force participation rate”. 

“Finally, the true employment picture is affected by the “labor force participation rate,” the percentage of those in the prime working age group (16-64) working or seeking work. Ours is 62.3 percent, the lowest level in 40 years.”

So, “When more than a third of potential workers sit on the sidelines, the official unemployment rate, or even U-6, look much better than they truly are. The true underemployment rate may be closer to 20 percent.”

That sounds more like Chico to me, where most of the people I know are not as employed as they would like to be – construction workers who are not getting 40 hours a week even in this supposed “building boom” we’ve been hearing about, salespeople who are not making enough sales to earn a living, retail workers who are held to less than 30 hours a week because their boss, like CARD, can’t afford Obamacare. 

I talked about the poverty rate in Chico in a recent blog – that’s people living below the poverty level ($24,000/year for a family of four). Chico’s poverty rate is higher that California – 23% compared to 17% statewide. That’s according to

http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/INC110213/00,0613014

Statistics are tough – we aren’t counting all those street people, this is information given by households to the Census Bureau. “Household” meaning a group living under one roof. We also have the State Franchise Tax Board, the IRS, the Social Service administration and the welfare agencies. According to all those people, Chico is poor by state standards, even with all those public salaries over $100,000/year – it takes a lot of poor people to balance out Mike Ramsey and Mark Orme. 

So, we’re poor for California – according to Walters, California is poor by national standards.

Back to the poverty rate. It’s not only higher than the national rate, but as the California Budget and Policy Center points out, the data indicate that 22.7 percent of the state’s children are living in poverty, and they are nearly a third of all officially impoverished Californians.

As dark as that situation may sound, it’s actually worse. By the Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure, which uses broader factors including the cost of living – especially housing – 23.4 percent of Californians are impoverished.

Those data are bolstered by two other factoids. Nearly a third of California’s 39 million residents are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the federal-state health care program for the poor, and nearly 60 percent of K-12 students qualify for reduced-price or free lunches due to low family incomes.

According to the Census Bureau, a lot of Chicoans have no healthcare insurance, more than the state average, so yeah, we have a lot of people who are eligible/enrolled in Medi-Cal. 

I found another “factoid” site when I was looking at all these figures, the California Employment Development Department:

http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/cgi/databrowsing/localAreaProfileQSMoreResult.asp?menuChoice=localAreaPro&criteria=high+wage+occupations&categoryType=employment&geogArea=0621017020&more=More

Above you will find the “High Wage Occupations” in Chico. Are you surprised to find it is mostly doctors and other medical professionals? Of course not, that’s come up before – doctors are the highest tier of the new One Percent who own most of the wealth in America, followed by professional athletes.

Are you surprised to find “Chief Executives” at Number Four in Chico? That includes public and private enterprises. In Butte County as well as Chico, I will throw out a guess – most of these positions are in the public sector, Dave Little just ran an editorial about it.

I would also include the “quasi-public” sector – the utility companies, like Cal Water and PG&E. Cal Water management pay nothing toward their benefits and pension, I haven’t been able  to find out about PG&E. 

The One Percent, vs the Ninety-Nine Percent who are too stupid to get it? 

 

Latest police logs show car burglaries – with windows smashed out – on the rise in Chico

11 Sep

Almost a month ago, my husband and I encountered broken glass littering the ground at the park entrance there where Centennial meets Chico Canyon Road.  It was obvious cars had been broken into, at least four of them, right there at a popular parking lot in full view of the road. 

I was shocked that a person had just driven right up and parked on top of an obvious crime scene.

This picture was taken the morning of August 19. I was shocked that a person had just driven right up and parked on top of an obvious crime scene.

There were about a half dozen newer model cars parked there, never mind the scattered safety glass.  I wondered if people realize how many cars are broken into in various parts of the park and surrounding areas, and I’ve been watching the police logs run in the Enterprise Record. 

I was shocked to see what appears to be a jump in crime, specifically vehicle burglaries. Maybe they’re reporting better? Today I saw a lot more stuff listed than I’ve seen over the last few weeks. 

For example, did you know, there were 16 vehicle burglaries reported in the paper for the period of six days between September 4 and September 9? A vehicle burglary means something was taken without the owner’s permission from within the car, whether the car was broken into by force or the thief got in through an unlocked door or window. If the car got stolen, that’s a vehicle theft. In 10 of those vehicle burglaries, the cars were broken into, 9 of them through a smashed window. Maybe you read the blog in which I posted this video:

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

This is so for real, “ninja rocks”, or “ceramic or porcelain spark plug chips or pieces”, were added to the California burglary code, possession a misdemeanor worth six months in jail or a $1,000 fine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_rocks

When I wrote that last blog a month ago, I realized, something like that is so easy to carry and dispose of, good luck ever catching anybody with them. You’d have to catch a fella in his sleep, catch him at something else illegal – say, illegal camping – and find things like that through a legal search.

The cops have been rousting bums at One Mile lately, it’s their latest campaign. They come in about 5 am and, I’m assuming, sweep the picnic tables and the ball field, maybe the roads and bigger trails directly around One Mile, with flashlights. So far I think they’ve busted about half dozen illegal campers, including some people with warrants or in possession of drugs. But no “ninja rocks” so far. 

Critics have pointed out that One Mile isn’t the only place the bums are camping. There are camps all through the over grown muck from Sycamore Pool to Five Mile, and beyond. You see the garbage littering the blackberry stands, toilet paper fluttering gaily from a dead  tree branch,  backpacks/bindles stuffed into the bushes along the dirt trails, stashed away for the owner to pick up later? I’ve seen a lot of abandoned underwear, just hanging in the bushes. 

This morning about 9am we were riding some trails in Middle Park, just below Manzanita Ave, when we smelled a wet campfire. I know there was a fire in town, but this was close, and very wet. I suspect people are camping without fear in the vast overgrowth between the creek and Vallombrosa, and I don’t know if the cops are going in there. I’m afraid they focus their efforts in areas like One Mile, and they’re just pushing the illegal campers farther up into the park. When the focused on the Downtown area they pushed them onto the Mangrove corridor and into those neighborhoods along Mangrove and Vallombrosa. 

The first thing I would say is, I’m not talking about the truly needy, or the mentally ill, I’m talking about the criminal element that swims among those others and even predates on them.

I believe the police could be more aggressive in enforcing the laws against camping on public property – that would seem simple enough. It’s covered in the city code, first in Title 9 – “Public Peace, Safety and Morals”,   “Except as otherwise provided in this Chapter, it is unlawful and a public nuisance for any person to camp or occupy camp facilities on any public property or any private property which is not operated and maintained as a campground in conformance with the regulations set forth in Title 19 of this code.”

“‘Camp’ means to place, pitch or occupy camp facilities; to live temporarily in a camp facility or outdoors.”  And, “’Camp facilities’ include, but are not limited to, tents, huts, vehicles, recreational vehicles, or temporary shelters”

I will say, the definitions seem to indicate there’s some sort of structure involved. Does this leave a loophole for the bum who sleeps on the ground under the stars? I don’t think so. I think that’s covered under the prohibition on “Depositing Foreign Matter in Public Ways,” which prohibits leaving “any glass, broken wares, hay, straw, dirt, rubbish, garbage, waste matter, filth, butcher’s offal, or branches of trees” laying around on public or private property. 

Vice Mayor Sean Morgan, Busy Bee he is, is proposing to “broaden” the “Sit and Lie” ordinance passed a couple of years ago, (which pretty simply prohibits people from laying on sidewalks Downtown) to our parks and riparian areas, even the grass around City Hall.

The City of Chico (“City”) currently has an Ordinance Prohibiting Sitting and Lying on Sidewalks in Specified Areas (“Obstruction Ordinance”); however, the City Staff recommends adoption of the attached Ordinance to broaden the language of the existing Ordinance to eliminate potential obstructions to the public right-of-way and interference with public property. Furthermore, the proposed Ordinance will designate City Hall and the immediate surrounding area as the City’s Civic Center and allow and prohibit a set of uses that preserve government and civic functions. Lastly, the City does not have regulations in place to protect its creeks, tributaries, riparian corridors and associated natural resources. The proposed Ordinance will create comprehensive regulations specifically prohibiting deleterious activities, such as: disturbing natural resources; staying or camping overnight; entering unauthorized areas; possessing alcoholic beverages; littering and illegal dumping; urinating and defecating; and discharging weapons and fireworks, in the City’s waterways.

First of all, I think our current code covers the problem, makes it pretty clear. Why they had to spend more money having the law consultant write this up is beyond me. Second of all, I’m not really sure what I think of the part where “the proposed Ordinance will designate City Hall and the immediate surrounding area as the City’s Civic Center and allow and prohibit a set of uses that preserve government and civic functions.”  

So, who gets to pick and choose which activities are appropriate for the open space around city hall? I don’t like the sound of that.

When Chico PD screamed for Sit and Lie, I happened to find an article from 10 years ago in the News and Review, regarding a similar ordinance they’d passed way back then, an ordinance that specifically banned lying on sidewalks, panhandling within certain specific boundaries, and many of the other activities the cops were ignoring. They said they needed a stricter ordinance. I didn’t get that, and I don’t get this. 

I do notice, crime is getting worse and worse in Chico. 

 

 

How will Obama’s “Cadillac health plan tax” affect city of Chico?

1 Sep

 

I heard the term “Cadillac Plan” in reference to public and quasi-public pensions and healthcare plans a few years ago. These are “defined benefits” plans – as it was explained to me, this means, the pensioneer is guaranteed payment, no matter the economy. Meaning, we, the taxpayers, are on the hook for these benefits that we were never allowed any oversight in negotiating, no matter that our jobs are headed overseas, and our homes are threatened with foreclosure.

Let’s face it – we never would have agreed to pensions or healthcare benefits for which the employee pays little to nothing, and  we certainly would have chortled and guffawed at pensions of 70 – 90 percent, available at age 50-55. But we weren’t consulted. 

These contracts are still negotiated behind closed doors without public  oversight. They show us what they’re doing, between sessions,  but it’s not like we’re allowed to push some button and throw the whole thing out when it sounds crazy. And how would we know – have you seen the kind of double-talk these things are written in? 

Steady public pressure has made slow changes. “New hires,” meaning those newly hired employees who have never worked for any public agency, are now required to pay 50 percent of their own pension and benefits. The police department has taken in a couple of new recruits from the academy over the last few months, but Chico mostly hires people who are already in the stream, and they are allowed to go on paying 9 – 12 percent.

The police recently agreed to pay 12 percent, up from ZERO percent, only if they were given generous pay raises. Right now they are pushing for a “step system” with automatic salary increases, salary minimums, and “compaction” increases – whenever a subordinate’s salary comes within a certain distance of their supervisor’s salary, the super’s salary automatically increases. Salary increases raise their pension and benefits expenses – for employees who have been “in the system,”  over 30 percent of that expense is shouldered by the taxpayers, the rest still rides on a bucking bronc of a stock market. Cal Pers is demanding more be paid by the employer/employee every year. So far our “fiscally conservative“council majority is allowing the employee to ride pretty cheap, while the taxpayer is expected  to pay more to run along behind the truck. 

Or, in this case, the Cadillac Escalade. 

The other day I finally heard about the “Cadillac Plan Tax.” Wow, how did I miss this? I know, I usually am skeptical of taxes, but this one might just pass the mustard for me. It seems, health care plans worth more than $10,200 for an individual and more than about $27,000 for a family will be subject to a (sit down) 40 percent tax.

Am I hearing, tax the public workers?

That’s what the unions heard way back in 2010. They went to Obama, who gave them a reprieve til 2018. So, that’s why we’ve been hearing about it again – they’re reprieve is about to expire, and the unions are beating the drums to get it dumped. Here’s an interesting article on that, from 2010:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/details-emerge-on-white-house-labor-health-care-agreement

But, here’s the thing. It’s not a tax on public workers, it’s a tax on their employers. Oh, shit – that’s US! Here’s an article I found from about a year ago – the state of Vermont was predicting it would cost them $9 million a year.

http://vtdigger.org/2014/11/24/cadillac-health-plan-tax-expected-cost-state-9-million-start/

And here’s Obama, trying to modify our behavior again:

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150302/NEWS/150309985

But the tax also was viewed as a way to reduce the number of health plans that have little cost-sharing and premium contributions, which some argue contribute to the overuse of healthcare. President Barack Obama has been quoted as saying the excise tax will discourage “these really fancy plans that end up driving up costs.” Lavish executive-level health plans and collegiate benefit packages, like Harvard University’s, have been oft-cited targets.

But oh oh, he might have got his pants caught on his own pitchfork – 

“However, many collectively bargained policies fall into the Cadillac bracket as well.”

And here’s the truth – public employees pay less and get more than the taxpayers.

The Health Affairs study, published Monday, sought specifics about what kind of health benefit packages unions provide for employees. People with union plans have lesser out-of-pocket obligations and don’t pay as much per month toward their premium as others with employer-based insurance, but the surprise was “the magnitude of the differences for certain things,” said Jon Gabel, a healthcare fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago and one of the study’s authors.

For instance, families in collectively bargained plans paid about $828 per year toward their premium, or about $69 per month, according to the study’s surveyed data. That compared to $4,565 for the average employer-sponsored family plan, or about $380 per month, according to 2013 data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

I don’t know if this pending doom scenario has caught on yet with our city council. The last time I looked, council members were getting packages in excess of $10,000. They choose the package they want, and only pay 2 percent of their salaries – the mayor only makes about $9,000, so he pays about $180 a year for a policy worth about $21,000.  Other councilors get similar policies but pay less because they make smaller salaries. Who wrote that? Will they pare packages down? Or will we pay more? 

I’ll try to keep an eye on this. 

 

 

Meet the New Boss – same as the Old Boss

27 Aug

Yesterday I attended the Finance Committee meeting Downtown, and found out the “salary schedule” plan Human Resources had hatched out of Reanette Fillmer’s head is as bad as I thought. I was surprised to hear Ass City Manager Chris Constantin say so. He says it will not only amount to automatic raises without review, but it will tie the city’s hands somewhat in negotiating salaries with new employees. He and Manager Mark Orme are passing along a negative recommendation to council. 

Fillmer’s little gal from Human Resources argued that it would set maximum salaries, but Constantin aptly pointed out – it sets up minimum salaries too, and they’re too generous to be competitive in our favor as employers. 

The committee – Mayor Mark Sorensen, Vice Mayor Sean Morgan, and council member Randall Stone – also rejected the salary schedule, but are recommending other changes to employee policy, regarding severance and other items. I don’t understand all of this stuff, but I hear interesting things. The severance package is important, according to Constantin, because “it’s not just about the employee getting money when they leave, it’s about them signing away their right to sue…” The stuff you hear at these meetings. 

I’ll tell you what I got out of that conversation – and yeah, this is just my best guess – the cops and fire department want automatic pay raises, and Fillmer was going to hand them over through this new salary schedule BS. I knew she was going to be bad news. Her sole purpose on council seems to be backing the public safety unions in their money demands. 

The next item involved the city’s purchasing practices. I remember listening to Constantin when he came here, telling us the various departments were just buying their pencils and paper and other supplies as they wished, some of them had caches of the stuff. At the end of the month they’d just present their bills to ex-Finance Director “Lucy Goosey” Hennessey and she’d pay what she could and turn the rest over to the red column. 

Apparently this is still going on. At one point Administrative Services (Finance) Director Frank Fields said, “we have to get it through to the department heads – you’re out of money, stop spending…” But, he still wants to raise the discretionary spending limit (what they can spend without permission) from $1,000 to $2,500.

And it’s not just about paper and pencils. There’s stuff in there about management being allowed to throw little soirees within certain amounts – and they do. The other day Mark Orme threw a little gala for Comcast. He got to use the big scissors and everything. Apparently Comcast just put some money into their infrastructure for a change, and that’s a reason to cut work and throw a party at the taxpayer’s expense. Maybe if I’d been invited my nose wouldn’t be out.  Maybe if this meant better Comcast service for me, my nose wouldn’t be out. 

This meeting was all about the State Auditor. The State Auditor determined that Chico was at high risk for financial collapse and put us on the red list. They were threatening an AUDIT, which I think they should still do, but will be satisfied  if they see that Frank and the boys  are putting some awesome overtime into talking about the budget. All they need to be doing is manipulating funds to make sure there are no deficits. They talked about that new ordinance at the last meeting I attended – whenever a fund is low they just steal money from another fund. It’s called “allocation.” Fields admitted there were severe  shortages in some funds  – one fund short by $6 million – but those deficits will be “allocated away.” In fact, some of them will be “allocated” to the Finance Committee meeting we just sat in yesterday. All those staffers – including the fire department employee who sat silently behind me through the whole meeting – will have their salaries for yesterday morning paid out of the funds discussed. 

So, yesterday’s meeting wasn’t about solvency, it was about pleasing the State Auditor and avoiding an audit. They sure are afraid to be audited, is what I’m hearing. 

Fields said as much about 100 times, he’s very “frank”. There were four items for recommendation in his report – three had to do with bookkeeping, but the fourth was just fluff – an ordinance stating that the city would use local vendors whenever possible, even  if they couldn’t beat prices from out-of-town vendors. Mark Sorensen said this idea was “ridiculous” because it would mean turning away a vendor who might be located “200  yards” out of the city limit. 

I think it’s counter-efficient. The bid should go to the lowest offer, unless that vendor is known  to be sub-par. But, Sorensen and the team recommended this be “redefined” by the city’s law consultants and brought back. I can’t imagine how much that is going to cost, for an ordinance the mayor has described as “ridiculous.” Then Fields said it didn’t matter – the auditor was only interested in the first three items. The local purchasing ordinance “clearly sends a message that the city desires to do business with local vendors.” That’s the same kind of feel-good crap people like Sorensen and Morgan complained about when the liberals were in charge.

Meet the New Boss – Same as the Old Boss.

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When will the crime problem stop getting worse and start getting better? The evidence says it’s still getting worse

19 Aug

This morning, riding bikes in a markedly deteriorating Bidwell Park, my husband and I found evidence of car break-ins at the parking area there at the gate above 5 Mile, where Centennial hits Chico Canyon.

I was shocked that a person had just driven right up and parked on top of an obvious crime scene.

I was shocked that a person had just driven right up and parked on top of an obvious crime scene.

 

From the piles of glass, it looked like at least four cars had been violated.

From the piles of glass, it looked like at least four cars had been violated.

As my husband was snapping the photos, a neighbor came along with her large German shepherd. She asked us what was going on. We pointed out the glass on the ground, and she seemed shocked. I don’t think she would have noticed it if we hadn’t pointed it out to her.

I was shocked that people would just drive up and park their cars at the scene of the crime and wander off down that trail.

I’m not reporting this to Chico PD, because I don’t know any of the details, and I would assume that the owners of the cars would report it.  But, I’m reporting it to you, and I hope the word gets out.

I’m not going to assume anything, except that several cars had their windows busted out in this spot. I’m guessing it wasn’t a rash of people locking their keys in the car. I’m also guessing that it happened at the same time, quickly, because the glass looked all the same, as though it hadn’t been laying there very long. I’m no Columbo, but I’ll guess if you park there the chances are pretty good your car will be broken into, I think that’s a pretty safe guess.

Later in the morning my husband took me to a North Chico hardware store, and overheard the cashier telling the customer ahead of us that he should never leave valuables in his car, and always lock it up when he was going to be away from it for any amount of time.  Car break-ins are becoming common all over town.

We heard a lot about the “carjacking” over on Vallombrosa.  I’m not sure what separates “carjacking” from “car theft,” unless it’s the fact that the victim actually made contact with the thief, chasing the car as it sped off. In one early report, I heard the car was left running in front of her house, unattended. Later it was said the keys were left in it. She said she just went into the house to get a few things, etc. I hate to go all Jack Webb on you, but the cops have the discretion to cite a person for leaving their car keys in the car, and I’m pretty sure the insurance company takes a dim view of that kind of behavior. Leaving a car running unattended is a threat to public safety.

Wake Up People!

The car broken into across the street from my house had a purse left laying right on the seat in full view – her window was smashed so fast a woman looking out a window across the street didn’t even see it. She just saw a man walking away.   A friend of my kid’s left his IPOD on the seat of his car at Bear Hole, in full view, and his wallet under the seat. His window was broken out and both were taken from his car.

I think this is a matter of professionals who know how to get into your car quick, know what to take and how to cash it in. I’ve heard some interesting chatter about various ways thieves break into cars, but for the “smash and grab,” they’re not after the car, they’re after valuables they  can carry away in a backpack.

So, you think you’d see people walking around with little hammers or something – those would be heavy and hard to conceal. And pretty damned incriminating. There’s a funny little trick these thieves use – tempered glass from broken automobile spark plugs. They’re called “ninja rocks”, and as of 2003, the California penal codes lists them as “burglary tools.” But they’re alot easier to conceal, and probably just about as easy to discard on the run.

Want to see how fast it happens? Watch this video:

and here’s Part II, where he busts a toilet with a sledge hammer – this guy is a scientist!

I’m guessing these are common around Chico. I’m guessing many of the “street people” we see weaving their way through town and along Chico Creek are professional criminals who find the homeless highway a very convenient getaway, going from town to town, stealing as a way to make ends meet.

The cashier at  the hardware store told the man ahead of us, “we need to clean them out.” There was something sinister in the young man’s face as he said that.  I remember Lloyd Brown – beaten to death by two drunken Butte College Students who discovered him sleeping in an alley. I don’t want that kind of campaign.

The cops have gotten raises, and the city is talking seriously about hiring more cops. The county Behavioral Health Department got over a million dollars in grants to deal with the mentally ill, and have recently closed escrow on a new Chico Behavioral Health Center. Why are we still having this problem with “street people”?

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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

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