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Sorensen flees failure – what next for Chico? What rough beast?

1 Jan

I’ve been watching on the news about Nashville, Tennessee – recovering from a bombing that was centered in their historic retail district five years ago, business owners are complaining that the city is not being helpful. Like the city of Chico, property and business owners are being hit with fees, fees, fees.

Their disaster relief money went mostly to public safety agencies, with business and property owners offered “low interest loans”.

Sound familiar? Chico was also bombed – with the COVID shutdown, the Shelter Crisis Designation, and now the failing sewer system that is running beneath our Downtown and older neighborhoods. And recovery is not even on the horizon. The COVID relief money, Camp Fire relief money – that’s all gone to salaries and pensions.

That’s what Sorensen is fleeing – total FAILURE. He’ll wear that around his neck like an albatross for the rest of his life. I predict he will move to another town, we’ll have to watch his little compound over on Manzanita to see the For Sale sign.

And now Eric Gustafson, who has been a failure as Public Works Director, is our interim city manager. Oh, God.

Ramin RealTalk: They got the pension, you got the bill!

18 Dec

Thanks to The Dude, for introducing me to Ramin RealTalk.

According to his youtube site, Ramin Ekhtiar is a loan officer located in California. And he’s even more pissed off about the pensions than I am. Go Ramin! Take a minute to listen to his post “They got the pension, you got the bill…”

https://www.youtube.com/@RaminRealTalk

I feel like I’m living in a zombie movie

16 Dec

Yes, I saw that Mark Sorensen is tucking his tail and jumping the ship that he has sailed onto the rocks. He’s been at the head of the ship for years – first, as city council member, then mayor, and finally, a very lucrative jaunt as city manager – very profitable for Mr. Sorensen, not so good for city of Chico. He will retire with 70% of his $211,000+ salary.

Meanwhile, those of us not hooked up to the public teat struggle to keep up with the tax increments, the petty but steady increases in our utility rates, and the ever-increasing “quality of life” crimes and gawdawful traffic. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a zombie movie.

Speaking of taxes, my husband and I had a heck of a time paying our latest installment of property taxes this year. It’s been a long-time tradition for me to mail our property tax payment the Monday after Thanksgiving. Never had a problem. Until this year. We always use the county website to make sure that our payment has been posted by the tax collector. This year, it just didn’t turn up, didn’t turn up. So when December 10th rolled around, my husband was finally able to contact the office – our check had not arrived, and the employee recommended we just pay it online, with a fee, of course. The county employee said that if they received our check they would send it back to us. (yeah, by way of the same post office…)

She also went on at length about what a pile of shit the post office is these days. Like I need a lecture from some sack of a county worker about how crappy the post office is.

This is asinine. You take your tax payment to the post office and hand it over to the staff, and it still can’t make it to Oroville within a week and a half?

Yes, by jiminy, it’s Christmas – and we ordered our gifts online. When my son’s gift arrived here on December 9th, we realized, the size was way off – our mistake. But Amazon has a great return process. We immediately got busy with the return process, and ordered a new item at the correct size. Wow, maybe Amazon should run the post office – we received the replacement on December 12th. The package we returned was received and posted on our account by the 15th. No fees, no fuss.

Our government is insubordinate. When you look that word up you also get “churlish” – yes, public employees are just plain rooooooood!

In these days of lawlessness and disorder, we have to stick together and hold our position. My position is, I will not spend a taxable dime in Chico, or Butte County. We actually went to Orland last week to do some last minute shopping. Orderly little town, great “antique stores”, felt safe leaving our car on the street. Yes, they have a penny sales tax, but that hardly matters when you are buying tiny trifles at the thrift store. I got some incredible vintage Christmas cards and handmade soap, less than $10. Went to the Farwood Grill and where my husband and I split a ginormous BLT – local bacon, on REAL bread. Picked up 20 lbs of mandarins, small bag of meyer lemons and a $4 dozen eggs at a local farm.

Don’t just sit there. Do something.

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Please support Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (Reform California) in his effort to get the California Voter ID initiative on the ballot – sign the petition by December 31 (2025)

8 Dec

San Diego Republican assembly member Carl DeMaio came to Chico Women’s Club on October 21, two weeks ahead of the recent special election, to oppose Prop 50 and gather signatures for his Voter ID initiative. You can sign at the following link:

From Reform California https://www.reformcalifornia.org/cavoterid/home

The California Voter ID Initiative is a state constitutional amendment being proposed to impose a Voter ID requirement for all future elections in California. Because the proposal is a constitutional amendment, once approved by the voters, state politicians will be compelled to comply with it for all future elections – no exceptions. Here’s what it requires:

1. Photo ID to Vote: Voters would provide a government issued ID for in-person voting or provide last four digits  of a government ID for voting by mail.

2. Verification of Citizenship: Election officials would be required to verify that only eligible individuals are registered to vote and receive ballots. Citizenship must be verified.

I think this is perfectly reasonable, so I signed the petition. In 2024, I wrote a post about a notice I got from the Butte County Clerk saying that I didn’t even need an address to register to vote, with no proof aside from my heartfelt assurance that it was true.

Holy Fraud Batmom – you really can register to vote from a street corner!

Read it yourself, you can click on that picture and see that it says “nearest cross street… ” It’s not just Butte County, it’s the entire state – you can register anywhere folks, maybe multiple times and more than one address, given the atmosphere in this state.

Here’s what worries me – Gavin Newsom has declared war on California voters, by telling us we are not allowed to put constitutional amendments on the ballot. In 2024 he and friends in the legislature removed the Taxpayer Protection Act from the ballot through a lawsuit, saying that the citizens of California are not allowed to make amendments to the constitution.

I think we need to call James Gallagher and Doug LaMalfa. You can call LaMalfa at his Chico office at (530) 343-1000. Gallagher – 530-895-4217. Ask the staffer who answers the phone what they are doing to support the California Voter ID Initiative.

And then come back here and let us know what you found out.

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The city of Chico has a lot to do with the cost of housing

19 Nov

Last night my husband and I realized, it’s T-Day minus 9, time to make a foray into the grocery store and stow up some food so we don’t have to go during those last few hysterical days. I though, we’re so smart, we’ll avoid the mob, get ahead of the panic, get in and out before anybody looks at the calendar…

The parking lot at Winco was looking good at 8:15 am. I had my list in hand, and my shopping bags slung over my shoulder. I grabbed a cart with no janky wheel and I walked on through the door, feeling pretty confident.

The mayhem usually sets in at the produce section. Winco does have good deals on produce, today they had a big box of blueberries for $4. I noticed, not only were there alot more people than I had sensed in the parking lot, but they already seemed aggressive. Already? Really?

And then my husband came around the corner – “hey, there’s free turkeys, should we get one?” So, that’s it, the lure of a free turkey is turning these people into animals. I think Winco does this every year, with a minimum purchase. Butterballs not included, but wow, they had a bin the size of a small sedan, full to the brim with free turkeys.

Which is weird, cause I just heard on the news that the price of turkeys is up this year. Says AI –

Yes, the price of turkeys is up this year, with some sources citing an 11% to 25% increase in retail prices and a 40% rise in wholesale prices compared to last year. Key factors contributing to the higher cost include supply chain issues, higher feed and labor costs, inflation, and recent avian influenza outbreaks that have reduced the available turkey population. 

So Winco is giving away huge turkeys, FREE. Due to an increase in the wholesale price? What? Can you believe anything you hear on the news?

That is how those who sell drive the buyers to pay more – the whole supply and demand thing, and yeah, they’re willing to lie about supply. Watch “Trading Places,” it’s a nice Christmas movie about how the stock market works. Hysteria drives up the price and drives people to buy. Hysterical people are easier to steer, like a herd of cows.

Speaking of hysteria, you hear alot from the government and the media, about the “housing shortage”. Drive around Chico, that is a total crock of shit. There is new housing going in ALL OVER CHICO, but neither new home prices nor rents are going down. Why? Because the city of Chico keeps raising permit fees for everything from lot splits to sidewalks and gutters. They charge thousands of dollars for a “survey” to determine whether or not you can even develop a piece of property.

Here’s a funny side note – in one of those recent agendas I’ve read, staff suggests decreasing the thickness of sidewalks in new subdivisions, an attempt to lower costs for developers who have complained about the new fees. Don’t lower the fees, just stick it to the residents, in the form of shoddy, cheap construction? As long as the city gets their fees. The city of Chico is not interested in lowering the cost of homes – the price you pay is the basis of the property tax value, even if your sidewalk will buckle within a few years.

Something I’ve always considered but never heard in the public discussion of housing costs are property taxes, insurance, or utilities. The other day I finally heard a reporter talk about it on the national news, as if she just found out. Locally, the city has a lot to do with these costs.

Property tax evaluation is based on the price paid by the buyer. The evaluation goes up 1% per year. Not to mention the school bonds and other assessments, many of which are added to your property taxes without a ballot. Also, if you do any sort of permitted work to your house the assessor can show up without notice and reassess you for more – even on necessary repairs like a new roof.

And then there’s the insurance. Right now Chico has a high fire-risk rating because of overgrown street trees laying in power lines all over town, and that raises all our home insurance. They’ve hired the same contractors used by PG&E to evaluate trees, you’ve been seeing them all over the old neighborhoods and the park. We’ve had several trees marked on and around our property, but nobody has shown up to do the work. Then we see more contractors coming around making new marks on different trees. When will the work get done? We asked the contractor who came to our door to get permission to trim a tree out of the power lines running to our neighbor’s house. The answer – he was just there to get the permission slip. But would the work get done? “Maybe in three or four months, or the city could deny it…” He said we wouldn’t know until the tree company showed up on our property. Because of the condition of the trees in our neighborhood, our property insurance has gone from $900/year to over $2,000 in just the last couple of years.

And finally, the utilities. We all know what happened to PG&E rates after they were made to pay restitution for the various wild fires they’ve caused. At the same time Cal Water has raised the cost per tier while decreasing the amount of water per tier. Recently they noticed customers that they will be charging an additional $2 per ccf, to recover costs for work done all over town, whether or not your neighborhood sees any benefit from that work. And the garbage company raised their rate this year as well.

The city and county both could mount a formal complaint against the utility rate increases but have never made any such attempt. The city of Chico collects a “franchise fee” from PG&E and a Utility Use Tax from Cal Water, both of which are tacked on to the bill. Utility tax is 5% of the bill, and is also one of the city’s top sources of income. Of course they would have no interest in helping residents lower their utility bills.

So when you hear about “the cost of living” you really have to think what drives the cost of living. Your behavior has more to do with it than you think.

Internal affairs committee to discuss raising speed limits around town while allowing outdoor booze consumption Downtown. Meanwhile, on BCFAC – 2am, 10/31/25, 4 people transported to hospital when speeding car goes up on sidewalk at 2nd and Ivy – “First responders on scene suspect alcohol may have been a factor.”

1 Nov

Click to access 11-03-25%20Internal%20Affairs%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf

From the Internal Affairs Committee agenda, for the upcoming 11/3/25 meeting (see agenda link above) – The City of Chico’s recent radar speed surveys were conducted in accordance with state law and the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). These surveys analyze the “critical speed,” which is the speed that 85% of drivers travel at or below, to determine appropriate speed limits.

In other words, they set speed limits according to how fast people drive. The report goes on to say they consider the “setting” – residential, commercial, etc. They why did they raise the speed limit on an entirely residential two-lane street like Palmetto? When Tom Lando was city manager, he admitted, he was tired of neighborhood complaints about speeding, so instead of better enforcement, he raised the speed limit. People objected that if you raise the speed limit in response to speeding, people just drive faster.

Read the rest of that agenda to see the discussion about serving booze outside restaurants Downtown. The public will pay for that ordinance in more ways than one.

Meanwhile, BCFAC reports crazy accidents related to booze and speed every day. This report popped up today.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/butte.county.fires.accidents.crimes

Four Injured After Vehicle Strikes Crowd on West 2nd Avenue

Chico, CA Saturday 11/1/2025 @2:00 A.M. BCFAC: Four people were transported to Enloe Hospital after a vehicle struck a crowd in the 700 block of West 2nd Avenue. Injuries ranged from minor to severe, including one trauma activation.

The driver (who was also injured) initially refused to exit the vehicle. First responders on scene suspect alcohol may have been a factor.

What does this mean to me? They raised the speed limit on two streets that I regularly use on my bicycle, including the street right at the end of my driveway. I love riding my bike – it’s fun, convenient, and saves mileage on my car and GAS. But it’s not worth being a statistic.

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A picture is worth a thousand words

19 Oct

Protesters march against the Trump administration during ‘No Kings Day’ (photo KRCR News)

I’ll never forget the impromtu peace march I joined back in 1990. “Operation Desert Storm” had just been launched. It was a scary time. I was pregnant with my first child, I looked like a straw with an olive stuck in it, and I needed to walk. My husband had to work that Saturday. So I went Downtown. There I met some friends, who said, Hey, why don’t you join our march against the war. So, I did. Very impromtu.

As we walked down Main Street headed for the Plaza, the crowd grew, 20, maybe 30 people, maybe 50. Marching, talking quietly, I don’t remember any signs. Sometimes it was so quiet you could hear the Burkenstocks scraping the sidewalk. Sometimes happy chatter, but no screaming, no obscenities – Chico used to be a nice town.

“Let’s go around the block!” someone shouted, so we turned at Fifth Street and headed for Flume. As we marched toward the old Gold Country Market, I noticed tables in the parking lot – first farmer’s market, three tables. There was the cabbage man – remember him? And this guy was selling apples, looked pretty nice, can’t remember what the third guy was selling. It was a real boon for the market, instant customers. I bought half dozen apples.

We walked around the market and headed back toward the Plaza, for a little rally, I guess. Can’t remember. It was a very magical time. Saw friends I hadn’t seen for a while, enjoyed a really good vibe. I don’t know what we expected to achieve, but what we got was community. It was really neat.

2025 – “No Kings Protest” Nasty old entitled WHITE people with hateful signs. Shutting down streets. Where’s the community? I think the picture tells the story – it’s just drama and fun for them. At the end of the day they’ve accomplished nothing but dividing the community. I don’t think they care.

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Unfunded pension liability up by $60 million – van Overbeek wants to “outsource” Hey, Tom, grow a pair – let’s ask the employees to pay a rational share of their own benefits!

17 Oct

I have been asleep at the wheel. It’s that time of year – leaf management, gutter cleaning, whack and blow, etc etc. And then I got the next council agenda, and I kind of woke up out of a stupor. It was the Finance Committee report from their meeting earlier this month.

https://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=1180&meta_id=99060

Following a presentation from finance manager Barbara Martin, “Councilmember van Overbeek stated he is concerned that the unfunded liability number keeps growing and inquired if all employees are part of CalPERS.” The finance director answered yes. “Councilmember van Overbeek stated the UAL increase from $117 million to $180 million is a startling increase.“

I have to ask, was Van Overbeek elected yesterday? He’s on the finance committee, he never heard about the pension deficit?

Then Van Overbeek suggested outsourcing – yeah, yeah – we’ve heard that conversation about a thousand times, with no results. Sorensen said that outsourcing would cost more money in the long run. Van Overbeek still wanted to pursue it, asking staff to come up with a “breakdown” of all the departments and where there are “opportunities for outsourcing..” Here’s this guy talking about employee costs who doesn’t seem to understand how expensive staff time is, he just expects to snap his fingers and get this stuff. At this point Sorensen did his job – he told van Overbeek that this information was available in the appendix to the city budget that Van Overbeek is supposed to be familiar with.

Tom, you’re a fucking idiot! Time vampire! You have been on council long enough to participate in a number of contract agreements with various employee groups. You have signed onto contracts offering guaranteed raises and abysmally low shares of benefits costs without wondering where the money would come from to pay for these raises, or what effect the raises and underpayments would do to our CalPERS obligation? Why didn’t you ask these questions during the Measure H campaign?

And here’s the question for council and city manager Mark Sorensen – why, when we’ve had this same conversation all the way back to when Brian Nakamura was city manager and Mark Sorensen was on council, we’ve been fully aware of the pension deficit, and none of you have once suggested that employees pay a more rational share of their overly generous benefits.

Instead you’ve tried to foist an illegal Pension Obligation Bond without putting it to a vote of the taxpayers. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association had to put a cease and desist order on that. What’s your plan now?

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Is this purchase really necessary?

4 Sep

Wow it’s Christmas in August for me. Yesterday my husband and I were driving down Notre Dame Blvd and he spotted a discarded push mower leaned up against a dumpster at an apartment house. I have been wanting one for my tenants’ yards, just for those little patches of crab grass that spring up around shady trees. I found two on Craigslist – one in Napa for $35, the other in Redwood City for about same. Too far. Home Depot has one for $89 – too expensive for my budget. But I knew I’d find one if I just kept looking. Then BAM! We’re driving down the street one day, and there’s one just leaned up against a dumpster next to a very shabby mattress and box spring. Hello Dolly!

And it’s dandy – in good shape, working order. Fresh cut grass stuck to the blades. And oh gee – Made in the USA! Looks like they only discarded it because they had moved into an apartment building. Boy howdy I jumped out of the truck and loaded that fellow right in the back, waved Thank You! at the windows of the building, and drove away feeling like a lady who saved eighty-nine bucks. Always good to keep something out of the landfill too.

My husband and I are practicing attrition, a $64 word for cutting our spending. Partly because we’re tight right now, having spent a bunch of money doing repairs and replacing old fixtures at the rentals, and partly because, we want to support American manufacturing and the new trade deals the president is seeking. Unless it’s a necessity – like a new toilet seat – if we can’t find American-made, we don’t buy it.

Yeah, we had to buy a China-made toilet seat for the new American-made toilet we bought for the rental, which I find ironic, but here’s the reality – we didn’t find any seats that were made in the USA in the price range we are in. Life is full of compromise.

But compromise is a two-way street – when we went to buy the toilet seat we found the mower. Get out!

I love that about our town – when somebody has something they don’t need that’s still perfectly good, they put it at the end of their driveway with a ‘FREE’ sign. Just the day before we found the mower, we were driving along Vallombrosa and there it was – the wheelbarrow I’ve been wanting. A nice old metal barrow with good wooden handles. Obviously used, but here’s the thing – the tire was still good, newish even. We use our wheelbarrows for various chores until the arms or the tire rot off, and then they are used for flower beds. They’re so expensive, we haven’t replaced the last one. Until the other day, when, there it was, alongside the road, with a carboard box saying ‘FREE’. Inside the box there was the perfectly good tire and all the parts to put it back on.

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, you just have to believe.

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With revenues remaining ‘flat,’ Chico just sent over $14 million to CalPERS in “catch-up” payments – that’s where the Measure H revenues are going, just follow the bouncing dollar sign.

29 Aug

My husband and I recently took a “working” vacation – workation? We needed a new toilet for our rental, and finding the prices at Chico home improvement stores to be prohibitive, we went to Oregon to find a better deal. With school in and Summer slowly giving over to Fall, our usual motel had a cheap room for us. We got more savings at local grocery stores and produce stands. We stocked up on household stuff at Walmart, including all the type of over the counter medicines that are taxable in Chico. Shoes on SALE! at Big 5, we bought two pairs. We saved money that offset the price of the motel even further.

I’ll say, you need to do stuff for your mental health too. Every now and then, we need to get out of town, see how other people are doing things. As a Chico resident, I can tell you first hand – Chico has become an unpleasant place to shop, financially, morally, and aesthetically.

Medford, for example, has a vibrant retail sector. The stores are clean and well-run, and you can find what you need, no empty shelves. Their Winco is bigger and has a wider brand selection of various products. There are two really nice natural foods stores, with super fresh local produce. We couldn’t do the U-Pick farms this year, but we found really good apples and pears at the grocery store, for $2.50/lb.

Free parking everywhere, no kiosks, no hassle getting where you want to go.

Here’s the funny thing – while Chico is reporting flat revenues, even after a full one-cent sales tax increase, Medford reports their revenues have been on the up, up, up since COVID ended. With no state or local sales tax.

Chico made the same mistake that a Redding City Council member has called out – basing budget projections on one-time money, and then crying poormouth when the funds dry up. Specifically, American Rescue Funds. Those funds – millions – were horribly miss-spent by the city of Chico, and furthermore, included in budget projections for the future, even though they were one-time grants.

Having spent those funds like a pack of drunken sailors instead of dedicating them to needed infrastructure projects, they had some nerve to put the bite on voters to approve that one-cent sales tax. Of course they put up a simple majority measure that guaranteed the money would go into the General Fund, with no restrictions on spending.

“The ending of federal funds, like the American Rescue Plan, and a drying up of city grant money ($5.2 million) are creating a gap that could lead to dipping into the general fund for programs, including those for the homeless.”

“programs” – yeah sure! As usual, employee expenses continue to grow. According to city finance manager Barbara Martin, “On the expense side, personnel costs remain the leading driver. Unfunded pension liability continues to loom large, with the city’s payment for the upcoming year exceeding $14 million.”

Yep.

Meanwhile, “City of Medford revenues are not flat; recent trends and future projections indicate growth, though the rate has varied. While growth slowed slightly during the COVID-19 pandemic, city reports and budget adoptions show upward trends, with a significant increase projected for the upcoming 2025–2027 budget cycle…”

Medford voters will be asked to approve a Transient Occupancy Tax increase. My husband tells me Oregon’s overall TOT is higher than California. But who cares – it’s a percentage of the total room price, and the places we stay in Oregon are so much cheaper than their counterparts in California, TOT is more like a charitable donation to keep the town you’re visiting ahead of the extra infrastructural strains of tourism. I’ll say, the big, busy streets and intersections around our hotel and the retail areas we patronize are well planned, well maintained, and pedestrian friendly.

UPDATE: I looked it up – Medford has a 10.5% TOT, 9% of which goes to the city of Medford to help provide the amenities that tourists enjoy while remediating the strains of tourism, like extra traffic. Meanwhile, Chico charges 12% TOT, 10% goes to the GENERAL FUND. As you will recall, the General Fund is a grab bag with no restrictions. Again, the General Fund is looted every year for millions (this year over $14 million) to pay the unfunded liability left by the completely unrealistic shares that city employees pay for their overly generous benefits.

When we shop in Chico, I oftentimes have to sit in our truck while my husband goes into a store to safeguard tools we have to carry in the back of the truck. We’d never think of walking to do any shopping in Chico, even small grocery purchases, and we never ride our bikes in Chico anymore. People who have moved here within the last 20 years just wouldn’t get it – Chico was better than this when my husband and I were raising our family here. Now it’s gone past the pale, and I don’t know if there’s any coming back.

My prediction – they are going to try to float a bond for the sewer.

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