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CARD cut employee hours in 2013 to avoid paying for their healthcare

21 Mar

I’ve been cleaning through my drafts file, and here’s an article from 2013 that reports CARD cut a number of employees’ hours so they won’t have to pay Obamacare for those people.  Urseny is so embedded – she didn’t even ask how many people would be cut to 28 hours. She didn’t even bother to talk to those employees about how they would manage. She has never done a follow-up to this story.

Meanwhile, management pays between 2 and 6 percent for benefits packages which range from $25,000 to  $30,000/year.   CARD spends about $500,000/year on management benefits for employees who make as much as $120,000/year in salary. 

Chico Area Recreation and Park District hears about impact of Obamacare

By LAURA URSENY-Staff Writer

POSTED:   07/30/2013 12:01:24 AM PDT
 
 

CHICO — Like many getting acquainted with the federal Affordable Care Act, there are a lot of question marks for the Chico Area Recreation and Park District board and staff.Some of those were answered by Rose Krepelka of CARD’s insurance provider, InterWest Insurance Inc. of Chico.

“I can go for 15 minutes or for four days,” Krepelka told the board last week when she asked how deeply they wanted to delve into the Affordable Care Act — known as Obamacare.

She acknowledged there’s a lot of confusion about the new regulations, especially since some affecting businesses have been delayed to 2015.

CARD already provides medical coverage to full-time employees, but more employees will be eligible for medical insurance in 2015 with the new definition of full time.

Obamacare’s definition of full time is working 30 or more hours weekly on a regular basis.

At CARD there are 32 full-time employees, and part-timers vary from 120 to 180, depending on the time of the year and recreational offerings. The full-time-equivalent is 85, according to General Manager Steve Visconti.

Medical care coverage per full-time employee currently costs CARD about $10,000 yearly. With the new definition, CARD was forced to adjust schedules of some employees to keep them part time. Visconti said CARD’s budget couldn’t afford to provide coverage to more employees.

Individuals without medical coverage can start shopping in October, with the coverage launching in January. Individuals without insurance are subject to tax penalties at $95 per adult $47.50 per child. That jumps to $325 adult, $165.50 child penalties in 2015.

CARD’s part-time employees can find insurance from California’s health exchange, called Covered California, or from Medi-Cal, she noted.

Employees will be getting information on obtaining insurance through letters from companies like hers. In addition to that, Krepelka noted there will be “navigators and enrollers” who are trained and certified to help Californians understand Obamacare. Residents might run into them outside a big-box store or at a mall.

Krepelka said the jury’s out on how successful Obamacare will be. People who have been unable to get medical coverage because of their conditions will now be part of the system — and an expense.

Krepelka said the balance built into Obamacare is that young people, who don’t need much in the way of health care, will pay for the older people who are greater users of services.

Likely, existing insurance rates will increase for those already covered as well, she said.

“There’s information coming out weekly,” she noted, including a Californian’s ability to sign up for insurance that starts in October.

Covered California’s website address is www.coveredca.com. The exchange is also on Facebook and Twitter.

In other news, the CARD board approved the 2013-14 budget unanimously and with no discussion, but directors Jan Sneed and Herman Ellis were not at the meeting.

Time to stand up – contact CARD and ask for a copy of the survey

21 Mar

I have been too busy in my personal life to keep up much chatter here, but I’m hoping to post more about the CARD survey next week.

I am also hoping that people will call the CARD office (895-4711) or e-mail director Ann Willmann and ask for a copy of the survey presented to the board on March 16.  The public is entitled to a copy of anything given to the board, so don’t pay for it. 

Once you’ve read it over, be sure to call back and ask questions. I was relieved to see the League of Women Voter’s observer at the meeting last week, she asked pertinent questions  about the survey. One thing she got out of  the consultant was that respondents were chosen on the basis of where they lived.  

Random eh?

We need more people like Margaret Bomberg in our community. Stand up people, or be had.

CARD staff to appropriate an additional $75,000 to fix rotten Cal Park Lakeside Pavilion roof

1 Feb

Chico Area Recreation District posted a cancellation notice of their January board meeting on their website:

The January 19, 2017 Regular Board Meeting has been cancelled.

The next Regular Board Meeting will be on February 16, 2017. 

But they didn’t mention a “special” board meeting scheduled for 3:30 this afternoon. They probably didn’t want us to know they’ve gone way over budget on the mammoth repair job they call “Lakeside Pavilion.”

They’re on the hook for over a million dollars for that building, which was riddled with rot and non-compliant with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act when they bought it. When I attended board meetings there, I found it a challenge to make it across the parking lot and into the building without tripping over buckled asphalt and cement. They said it would pay for itself with regular bookings for weddings, but that just didn’t happen. CARD director Ann Willmann told me they rented it to “Every Body Healthy Body” at a discount because they didn’t have any other bookings at the time. 

So, I will try to make it to their special meeting to find out why the roof repair has gone $75,000 over budget. Hope you can join us – that’s TODAY, at the CARD center on Vallombrosa Avenue, 3:30 pm.

CARD to run phone survey in late January, early February, trying to convince us to tax ourselves for their pension deficit

21 Jan

Run in the Enterprise Record, 1/22/17

At their November 16, 2016 meeting, Chico Area Recreation  District Board authorized  $28,000 for  EMC Research of Oakland to conduct a community engagement survey.  Consultant Ruth Bernstein said a phone survey would be conducted in late January or early February. Callers will not mention CARD, nor that CARD is seeking an assessment or bond on property owners.  Bernstein told the board the survey will “build community support for your vision,”  identifying  “what they want…then you know what to say about yourself…”  

CARD has spent nearly $100,000 on revenue measure consultants since a 2012 survey came back negative. Consultants have told CARD repeatedly, they need to build their image in the community to get the public to tax themselves more for this agency. This survey is part of a campaign to convince residents CARD could give them whatever their hearts desire if only they’d agree to tax themselves more. 

CARD already gets about $3.8 million – roughly half their budget – from property taxes. They spend almost $800,000 on retirement and health benefits for less than 30 employees. Management, protected by “PERS PEPRA”, only pay 2 – 6.25 percent of their benefits. According to their auditor their pension deficit increased by $54,480 this year, now $1,758,200.  At the current rate of employee contribution the auditor reported the pension deficit “will never go away.”  

If you receive a call from this consultant, be sure to ask a few questions of your own.

Juanita Sumner, Chico

 

 

Enterprise Record a “conservative” paper? Really?

26 Dec

Here’ s the latest editorial from the man who endorsed Measure K and then refused to interview me when I mounted official opposition to the bond measure.  I had to post the whole thing because it’s not available online, there’s no link.

NOTE:  This editorial ran in the Monday December 26 edition of the Enterprise Record, but for some reason,  as of Wednesday the 28, it has still not appeared in the online edition.

NOTE-NOTE:  Looks like Little picked up this editorial from the Mercury News, but failed to identify it as a pick-up in the the e-edition that I get.

So, I took the opportunity to add my own commentary.

CalPERS keeps loading public with huge debt

Chico Enterprise Record, Monday December 26,  2016

The nation’s largest pension system last week demonstrated once again that it’s willing to drive taxpayers deeper into debt to placate government worker labor unions.

Why drive the taxpayers deeper into debt? Why not demand that the workers either pay their own pensions or lower their expectations for retirement bling?

Directors of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System voted to lower their investment forecast, a move in the right direction that means employers and in many cases employees will contribute more to shore up the ailing pension plan.

Again he’s saying employers – and that’s the taxpayers – should have to pay this debt – why? 

But the changes will be phased in at a glacial rate over the next eight years and CalPERS’ own numbers show they’re not nearly enough.

CalPERS has known about this pension debt problem for at least ten years, I’ve been blogging it myself for at least four years. 

By its actions Wednesday, CalPERS acknowledged it has only 63.5 percent of the assets it should. That places the system’s shortfall at about $170 billion and on the backs of taxpayers. It averages more than $13,000 of debt for each California household.

The backs of the taxpayers? Why? We were never consulted when Gray  Davis made this scheme, we recalled him, but we still got stuck with the deal he struck with the employees’ unions.

It’s actually worse than that. And the longer the union- dominated CalPERS board fails to comprehensively address its funding problems, the larger that debt will likely grow. Unlike upfront contributions that are shared between government employers and workers, the shortfall lands solely on taxpayers.

Why?!

Nevertheless, Gov. Jerry Brown touted the deal, which his office struck behind the scenes with labor. He said the change is “ more reflective of the financial returns (CalPERS) can expect in the future. This will make for a more sustainable system.”

More than what? Yes, it’s closer to a reasonable target than the past policy, which was completely divorced from reality, but it doesn’t come close to actually putting CalPERS on a sustainable path.

Like the governor’s muchtouted pension law changes of 2012, this CalPERS adjustment only marginally slows the bleeding. It doesn’t come close to solving the problem.

Specifically, the CalPERS board voted to lower its assumed rate of investment return from 7.5 percent to 7.375 percent in fiscal year 2017, 7.25 percent in 2018 and 7.0 percent in 2019.

That means the pension system will lower its expectation for how much interest it can earn from its assets and instead turn to government employers to kick in more.

But that increase in contribution rates for state and local governments, many of whom are likely to pass on some of the burden to workers, won’t be fully phased in until 2024.

Oh my God – he’s calling pensions of 70 – 90 percent of a worker’s highest year’s earnings a burden on the workers!

To understand how far short this move falls, consider that CalPERS announced Wednesday that it hadn’t hit a 7 percent average over the last 20 years and, going forward, it estimates that there’s only roughly a 1-in- 4 chance that it will meet that target.

And CalPERS’ consultant warns that the pension system should anticipate only an average 6.2 percent in each of the next 10 years.

CalPERS officials rationalize that state and local governments couldn’t afford higher payments that would result from lower investment forecasts.

If that’s true, the solution is to change the system, not keep denying reality.

I believe Little is talking about further raising taxes to float these pensions. That’s why he endorsed Measure K, and that’s why I believe he will back up CARD and eventually the city of Chico when they put their own tax increase measures on the ballot. He refuses to admit that these pensions are unsustainable, period, he just keeps expecting the rest of us to set up these public workers like Phay-rohs!

When are we going to get a real newspaper in this town?

NOTE: I contacted a managing editor at the San Jose Mercury Register – this piece was actually written by one of his co-workers and reprinted by permission in the ER (same owner owns both papers…)

This year, state employee pensions will cost taxpayers $5.4 billion, according to the California Department of Finance

23 Dec

Bob sent this link, a must read for those of you who  don’t understand “The Pension Bomb”.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-deal/

As Jack Dolan reports, “It was a deal that wasn’t supposed to cost taxpayers an extra dime. Now the state’s annual tab is in the billions, and the cost keeps climbing.”

“This year, state employee pensions will cost taxpayers $5.4 billion, according to the Department of Finance. That’s more than the state will spend on environmental protection, fighting wildfires and the emergency response to the drought combined.”

Agencies like CARD and Chico Unified School District make promises to build new facilities and replace mold, rot and asbestos, upgrade to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, but this is what they really want the money for.

 

CARD pac distributing new video about “sports complex” – gee, what happened to the “aquatic center”?

22 Dec

Jim sent this video, an early pitch for the CARD bond.

Produced by a group called everybodygoodbody, this shows us just how much money they are willing to sink into this bond measure. I don’t know if CARD provided funding for this video, but yesterday I got a note from CARD director Ann Willmann regarding employee pension contributions.

“The management staff has 3 PEPRA PERS members, therefore they pay their 6.25% employee portion. There are two CLASSIC members who currently pay 2% of the employee portion.

 Our pension Liability for the 2015-16 fiscal year was $1,758,200 which is an increase of $57,480 from the previous year.”

As you can see, CARD management pay little to nothing for their pensions, which amount to 70 percent of their highest year’s salary at age 55.  Willmann currently yanks in over $100,000 a year – I can’t get the exact figure out of CARD, but the public pay website says she makes over $120,000/year just in salary. But still expects the public, with average household income at about $40,000/year, to pick up 98% of her pension. Ann, you’re a pig.

Meanwhile, like the auditor told the CARD board, their pension deficit “will never go  away…will never go down…” He gave the room every expectation  that the pension deficit is going to go up at least $50,000/year in perpetuity.  In fact he said as employee salaries go up the increase amount will go up. He smiled like a goon as he said it.

Because this board, including pensioneer Tom Lando who gets more than $11,000/month in pension paid by the city of Chico, refuses to make the employees pay their own pensions.

Sneed, Mulowney and Ellis are up in 2018, and they need to go. Sneed has been on the board through CARD long decline. She was on the board when CARD agreed to take on the skate park, and now she and the rest of the board want to give the skate park back to the city.  She was on board through years of neglect of Shapiro and Pleasant Valley pools, refusing needed maintenance for those pools while encouraging the Aqua Jets to hold out for a big, taxpayer funded “aquatic center”. The public rejected that, so now she’s come back with a “sports complex”.

We know they won’t build it, not on the first bond anyway. The first bond will go to their salaries and benefits, stuff for their offices.  Think people – the school district has passed three bonds since they first promised to “fix the schools” in 1998. How many bonds will CARD tack on to this one in years to come?

 

 

 

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CARD plans phone survey for late January to promote new funding measure

20 Dec

The school bond and the lawsuit CUSD pressed against Chico State to hide the e-mail conversation regarding mold in classrooms has kept me distracted from Chico Area Recreation District’s plans to assess homeowners to pay down their pension deficit and eliminate other problems caused by poor management and bad decisions on the part of the board.

An audit report from Matsom and Isom showed that CARD’s pension deficit has actually increased by about $50,000  over the last year, but the board is only now asking employees to pay into their own pensions, and they’re asking less than 4 percent. 

CARD is also under the same pressure all public agencies are under – CalPERS wants more money, more money, more money. They’ve stepped up their demands and are threatening fees on late payments.

And then there are some poor decisions made over the last 10 years that beg examination.  For example, I’ve always wondered, who approved the purchase of Lakeside Pavillion at over a million dollars, a building riddled with rot and out of compliance with 1990’s Americans with Disabilities Act?  Who profited from that sale? Who arranged it?

Here’s a good question – why not sell it?

Here’s a better question – why should the taxpayers have to bail them out?

This is the kind of stuff people need to know and ask about before they vote to give this agency any more money.

CARD has spent almost $100,000 so far on consultants who keep telling them the public does not support a bond and will need a lot of convincing. These consultants, ranging in price from $50,000 to about $3,500, have told the agency one thing over and over again – it’s going to be an enormous amount of work for staff, especially manager Ann Willmann.    The last consultant told the agency they needed to run extensive Public Relations campaigns to make the public think they want a bond or assessment on their homes to fund rainbow promises.  That’s going to take a  really professional propaganda blitz, and Willmann is not up to the task, so she’s just kept hiring one consultant after another in hopes she could get a firm with a price tag acceptable to the board.

It looks like she finally convinced the board they needed to hire an out of town crapslinger –  the bay area firm that hammered the school bond through on us. The board approved  to run a “survey” after Christmas, probably late January.  Consultant Ruth Bernstein said they would try to do 400 “interviews” within about a week.  

These “interviews” will not be indiscriminate.  The consultant will use the voter roles – “we know demographics”  – meaning, they can call people they feel will support the bond.

The purpose?   Bernstein posed the question “How do we build community support for your vision…” and then answered it.

“Building community support [for a bond or assessment] is difficult,” Bernstein admitted. A survey would identify “what they want…then you know what to say about yourself…”  

In other words, you simply find out what rainbow dreams the public has (well, 400 of them, anyway…) and then you tell them you need a bond to pay for it! Swwwwweeeeeeet!

No, it’s really not that easy. Bernstein went on to warn the board about opposition.  “We won’t recommend placing a measure on the ballot if we sense too much opposition in the community.” 

How to avoid opposition? Don’t  tell people what you’re doing. Bernstein assured the board the callers would make no mention of the agency, no mention of the bond effort – “We don’t tell them what it’s about. We don’t want to attract people who hate CARD,” she warned. “We have to be careful who we survey…” The callers, working from the Bay Area, will even program a local area code onto their caller ID so the respondent won’t know the agency is from out of town. 

So they will take this effort around the back  door, survey less than half of one percent of the population, and then use the information to make their bond campaign.  That’s what worked for Chico Unified with Measure K.

The board had a few questions. Michael Worley wanted to make sure Chico State students, an admittedly transient population, will be in town for the survey. That’s the kind of thinking that got Worley more votes than any CARD candidate in history.  He not only doubled Jan Sneed’s total for 2014, he got more votes than our new mayor, city council record spender Sean Morgan. As far as I know Worley did so without spending a dime cause he didn’t file any reports with the county.

The consultant answered Worley, “we’re not going to have a big  student turnout in 2018, so why include them in the survey?” She said statistics pointed out that students don’t vote in non-presidential election years. Right in front of us, they were marginalizing people using occupation.  What other demographics will go into how they pick  and choose who they will call? 

Then Tom Lando opined that he would rather hold off on a survey until CARD finishes their 2017 master plan, first draft due in February. Jan Sneed responded tersely, “the master plan isn’t going to change…” Wow, that’s an open mind, somebody toss a cigar butt in there.

Director Ann Willmann, who only recently agreed to pay less than 4 percent of her own pension premiums, having paid nothing up to now, was anxious to add that the “survey should define ‘quality of life’…”

Willmann is the stinking head of this fish, because she knows she ain’t going to get no pension if CalPERS doesn’t get their money.  She’s smart – yeah, get people to tell you their wishes and dreams, then dress that up on a platter for 2018. 

The board passed a motion to hire EMC, with Lando dissenting. I  think he supports the measure but worries about the timing.

They promised to fix the skate park when they took it over from the city. They’ve led a group of citizens along by  the nose, allowing them to raise funds, and now backing down. Why would we expect them to behave any differently with promises they make to pass this measure? 

http://www.chicoer.com/general-news/20161218/card-board-irked-over-skate-park-expenses

 

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CARD consultant ready to convince Chico voters they want to pay another bond, parcel tax, or assessment

18 Nov

Last night Chico Area Recreation District board and staff heard from Ruth Bernstein of EMC, a consultant that does the groundwork for agencies who want to pass bonds, parcel taxes or assessments. 

CARD manager Ann Willmann had been asked by the board at a previous meeting to find a local consultant but said there are no such companies in Chico – board members had mentioned Chico State, but I don’t know if Willmann checked into using CSUC resources.  She instead chose EMC because they did the groundwork for the recently passed school bond.

Bernstein had been scheduled to  give her presentation after the Nature Center report, but explained she had to drive all the way back to San Francisco, so requested her presentation be moved up. I couldn’t help but notice Nature Center manager Caitlin was kinda peeved  about that. She was pretty bitchy in the hallway outside the meeting,  seemed impatient. I’d be mad too – like Caitlin’s time doesn’t mean anything, just because she wasn’t hired from San Francisco?  

And then I have to wonder – despite Bernstein’s assurances that her mother-in-law lives in Chico and she “is familiar with this community,” she sure burned rubber getting out of the room when she finished her spiel. Yeah, a four hour drive, much of it through pitch blackness.  My husband and I left at the same time Bernstein did, and we waited at the bike rack to make sure she was well out of the parking lot before we ventured out on our old tandem.  She might be “familiar” with our community but care? I don’t think so.

Bernstein described her agencies services – “we do polling,” which she describes as figuring out  “how to actually communicate with the public…” Her task is to “build community support for your vision,” she told the board.

She means, talk the public into paying for it.

On their website, EMC claims “Professional interviewers can ensure quality control by probing and following up incomplete or invalid responses”

“invalid responses”? They mean, what the district doesn’t want to hear.  They are offering to lead respondents to say what the district wants to hear. 

They admit that  “Results can be impacted by the human interaction and quality of the interviewer”

Two ways Bernstein admitted EMC misleads respondents 

  • cost of projects proposed will not mentioned in the survey
  • CARD will not be mentioned in the survey

Bernstein explained, “Building community support is difficult.” First, she says, you must learn what the community wants, “then you know what to say about yourself.”

She means, find out resident’s deepest desires, no matter how far-fetched or Taj Majal, and that’s what you promise in your tax measure.  They don’t really have to keep their promises, we found that out with the school district.

Chico Unified promised a third high school back in 1998, when they floated Measure A out on the turd pond. Trouble was, the fish and game department had already told them the land they promised to use was not usable, that they would never be able to build out there by Old Raleys. The district went ahead and promised that specific spot, promised to build a third high school they really never intended to build, and got the voters to swallow it, hook, line and stinker.

Bernstein says her company will phone landlines and cell  phones, looking for 400 respondents. Really? In a district of over 90,000, she’s looking for 400 people to tell her what the rest of us want? 

And of course, respondents are chosen from the voter’s rolls, “we know demographics,” says Bernstein.

Wow, so that’s how they skew the results – she mentioned several times that a “conservative” town might not pass a bond. So, her company picks and chooses respondents to create the notion this bond is supportable. I love the way she just admits that right up front.

“We might use some slight weighting, but only a little bit…” Weighting essentially means, providing responses for the respondent, they don’t get to use their own words. This makes it easier for the surveyor to get the kind of responses they want instead of having to analyze a person’s actual  thoughts. 

It’s also called “leading”.  They act as though it’s just for convenience but it’s totally skews the survey in the direction they want it to go.

Bernstein bragged about her company’s success rate in terms of how many of her clients had passed bonds. That’s what they do – they don’t help agencies figure out what the taxpayers really want, they help these agencies convince the taxpayers what they want. 

Phone surveys have other flaws. “Caller ID is annoying,” says Bernstein. She admits people don’t like surveys, don’t want to participate, and don’t pick up when they see it’s a survey company. She said they program their phones with a local  area code (!) but don’t leave messages because “people don’t call  back.” So they repeat dial the same numbers over and over, from morning till night (“we quit by 9pm”), for about a week, until they get 400 responses they like.

The board asked when she would time the survey. Tom Lando was worried that information gather in Winter 2017 would be “stale” by election 2018, and Bernstein agreed, suggesting another survey directly before the ballot.

So, is Lando proposing a bond measure to be put on the 2018 ballot? Because it looks to me like the rest of the board wants to go the sneaky route with mailed assessment ballots. We’ll see.

Michael Worley was concerned that “the students” would have an opportunity to participate, and Bernstein said the survey could be timed for after they come back from winter break. But, she also opined that students only vote in presidential elections, so why bother to include them in the survey for a non-presidential election?  Again, it sounds like they are planning a bond measure on the 2018 ballot, but they never talked directly about that.

Lando also argued that he wanted to finish work on CARD’s Master Plan – currently being concocted  behind closed doors in ad hoc committee. Ann Willmann argued that they need survey  results to finish the master plan. She won. The board voted 4 – 1 to pay EMC $28,000 to run a survey in January or February. They will be working, again in ad hoc, to come up with the questions they want on the survey.

Willmann says she wants the public to “define ‘quality of life'”. Board chair Bob Malowney wants to know, “what is the public perception of this agency.” Two distinctly  different questions. Willmann is asking the public for their dreams, Malowney is asking them what they actually think of CARD.   We’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, board members Jan Sneed and Tom  Lando,  who seemed to be getting a little testy with each other over the timing of the survey, announced they agree on one thing – CARD should have control over all of Bidwell Park. 

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CARD needs to do a cost allocation study on their programs, find out the real costs of running private businesses under the bus

2 Oct

Off The Wall Soccer owner Mario Sagastume wrote a letter to the paper last week regarding their complaints about Chico Area Recreation District (CARD).

Regarding the recent article by Laura Urseny, understand the owners/management of Off The Wall Soccer (OTWS) are not Anti-Soccer.

To the contrary, all of us have supported, organized, promoted, played, coached and enjoyed the game.  Furthermore, we continue to encourage youth/adults to play the game, indoor and outdoor.

We have not requested CARD to reduce or eliminate their soccer program.  We simply asked them to honor an agreement made with OTWS in 2006.  OTWS opened in 2000 to provide year round soccer.  At the time CARD ONLY offered 11-aside in the Fall.

We were successful for a few years until CARD began offering 7- aside soccer in the Fall/Spring.  This had an immediate impact on sign-ups.  Any small business would struggle to compete with a government organization receiving about 60% ($4,000,000.00) of their annual funding from property taxes.

In 2005 we approached the CARD Board with our concerns and were directed to coordinate with management.  In 2006 the CARD General Manager agreed to only offer 7-aside in the summer and 11-aside in the Fall/Spring.  This was a fair compromise.

In 2013, after experiencing falling participation, we learned CARD had been offering 7-aside in the Fall/Spring for several years.  When we again met with CARD management they apologized and assured us they would abide by the agreement in the future.

Foolishly, we took them at their word, their commitment lasted less than a year.

Last week we approached the CARD Board and requested they have management honor their commitment.  Other than Tom Lando, THEY DECLINED.

Mario Sagastume

Partner, Off The Wall Soccer

Most members of the CARD board wrote off OTWS complaints as sour apples. They ignored the well-made point that they are using taxpayer money to subsidize their efforts to undercut private businesses all over town.

Here’s my suggestion – have CARD do a cost allocation study on their soccer program. When Chris Constantin did cost allocation for the city, he figured in all the salaries involved, which in this case would include director Ann Willman’s $100,000 plus salary and benefits, and even the air conditioning charges in the room where they discussed the programs. I’m telling you – they don’t price these programs for cost, they price their programs to run private businesses under.

Their costs are enormous. They spend about 90 percent of their more than $6 million budget on salaries and benefits. Only recently were CARD management asked to contribute to their own pensions – yeah, that’s right – none of the previous management, not Steve Visconti nor Ed Seagle nor Jerry Hughes – paid one red cent toward their own pension. Visconti recently retired at a salary of over $120,000/year – he will received 70 percent of that, with cost-of-living-increase, for the rest of his sorry life.

Now Jerry Hughes expects to be elected to the board. Let me tell you a  story I heard Hughes relate to Enterprise Record reporter Laura Urseny at a meeting. He was building his new house in Tahoe – that’s right, Tahoe – when his neighbors informed him that his plans trespassed over the property line onto their property. They were trying to tell them he couldn’t do that, and he was telling Urseny that he had got a lawyer to settle the matter. He was telling her, his trespass was just a silly thing, and he didn’t understand why the neighbors were making such a big deal about it. He had trespassed on them, admittedly, and he was making them get a lawyer to get him off their property.

That’s Jerry Hughes. Let me tell you another story about Jerry. When CARD paid three consultants a month or so ago to give a presentation about how to pass bond measures, Hughes asked them a question Michael Worley had already asked (because he’s either deaf or doesn’t listen).  Worley  wanted to know if the city of Chico could run a bond for them, and the consultant said the city would control the money, which might not work out so well for CARD.  When they repeated the same answer to Hughes, he actually turned his back on the consultant while the man was talking and grumbled his way back to his chair. Hughes is not fit for office.  This is how he treats a consultant who is paid with the taxpayers’ money.

And then we have candidate Dave Donnan.  Read here.

Donnan tries to clear up my accusations that others tried to bully him out of running in 2012, but only adds more mud to the water

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make fun of a man’s problems, but this man is an idiot. I would bet you $5, he hasn’t attended a CARD meeting to date, and he’d admit that, but try to excuse himself with his myriad of personal problems. If he has so many personal problems, I would suggest he keep his dick out of  the public mousetrap.

They’re both horrible. Which leaves us with Lando and Worley.  They’re weasels, but (heavy sigh), they’re weasels we know.   They are professional and businesslike. I wouldn’t expect that out of either Donnan or Hughes.

Three CARD board members will be up in 2018 – Sneed, Mulowney and Ellis. These people need to go. We must come up with at least one viable candidate to run for 2018. I would nominate either Dave Stahl or Mario Sagastume, or both. They’ve been in the recreation business all these years, I’d say it’s time to get some people on the rec board that actually know about recreation.

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