Chico Taxpayers Association

It’s hot, like those summers growing up along the Sac River. Don’t give me that global warming crap – I grew up here. In the 70’s we had 117 out in Glenn County, I’ll never forget the weird weather – lightening out of nowhere, little tornados – the neighbors’ barn “exploded”.

I get up early, I do my chores, I waddle back into the house and take up my station on the recliner, under the tiny air conditioner we installed last year because it was cheaper than bailing out to Fort Bragg every time the mercury hit 105+. I been watching a lot of television. Trump is in the news, all these legal issues, I try to understand. When I heard about the “immunity” case, it made me think of this word I see in the city’s employment contracts – “indemnification“.

What is the difference between immunity and indemnification? They both have to do with protecting somebody from the consequences of their own actions, but not in the same way. Here’s a legal/insurance website that gives some explanation.

Confusion reigns between “indemnity” and “immunity”

This article deals with legal cases in regards to COVID vaccine makers, but I think the definitions are the same. Immunity is protection against prosecution for a person’s/corporation’s actions, indemnity means the person won’t have to pay for the consequences of their actions. Read the following passages –

“In the USA manufacturers have immunity (which can potentially be attacked under certain circumstances – such as in the presence of fraud) imposed by a law known as “The PREP Act”. Immunity is a legal shield.  The law simply provides that ‘these manufacturers shall not have any civil liability‘.

So, I’M NOT A LAWYER, but it looks to me as though immunity is only good if you truly did not break the law. In this case, they’re talking about civil immunity. Trump is asking for immunity against prosecution. But I believe this section applies in both instances – “(which can potentially be attacked under certain circumstances – such as in the presence of fraud)” So, I’ll guess, if we were to find out, in either case, that the manufacturer or the president acted fraudulently or illegally, the immunity would not stand. Again, I’m just guessing, but I do know it’s a subjective term legally given the recent court ruling.

Indemnification is different. “But in the UK the manufacturers do not have such immunity.  What they have – in their contracts with the UK government – is an indemnity. An indemnity is an agreement that one party shall cover the losses of the other.“

Here’s the indemnification clause from a typical city of Chico contract – I just googled, “city of Chico, indemnification” and this contract popped up. These contracts are supposed to be available on the city website but it’s quicker and less frustrating to search it on the internet.

The following clause is also in the city council contracts.

Section 8. DEFENSE AND INDEMNIFICATION.
a. The City shall provide a defense to Employee as to any claim, action, suit or proceeding
against Employee for any tort, professional liability claim, or other cause or demand of a
civil nature, whether groundless or otherwise, arising out of an alleged act or omission
occurring in the performance of Employee’s duties under this Agreement or resulting from
the exercise of discretion by Employee in connection with the performance of Employee’s
duties and responsibilities under this Agreement, unless the act, omission, or exercise of
discretion involved negligent, intentional, willful or wanton misconduct by Employee.
The defense provided by the Employee shall continue until a final conclusion of the claim,
action, suit or proceeding, including any appeals brought by any party.

Meaning, no matter how bad the decisions they make, they are not held personally responsible. If they get sued for something they’ve done as an employee or elected official, the taxpayers provide them with legal defense. Unless “ the act, omission, or exercise of discretion involved negligent, intentional, willful or wanton misconduct by Employee.” Well, here’s the thing – we’d have to prove “negligent, intentional, willful or wanton misconduct” or we’d be on the hook for their legal defense, until a final conclusion of the claim, action, suit or proceeding, including any appeals brought by any party.“

Off the top of my head, here’s an example – Sean Morgan, acting as mayor, had a guy arrested from the podium because Morgan didn’t like what the guy was saying, and the man was demanding his three minutes. The man turned out to be within his rights, and the resulting lawsuit cost the city about $50,000.

But here we sit in the middle of a financial and physical crisis, our town is a fucking wreck. This is the result of many poor decisions made by current and past council members – including a guy who is now sitting in the city manager’s chair . How many of you have received your homeowners’ insurance bills? Ours doubled. California property insurers cite urban sprawl and poor emergency response times, as well as high crime rates – all true in Chico. Bidwell Park, overgrown and unmaintained, is a liability not only to the city but to nearby homeowners. Our streets are not consistently maintained or mapped. Phone and internet in the older parts of Chico are still in lagging the 20th century.

The only people we can hold responsible for this mess are the people we elected, as well as our idiot selves for electing them. The only recourse we have is to throw them out on their asses in November.

Of course, no matter who you elect, you have to be ready to have your vice grips handy.

I was glad to have a response to my last letter to the editor, regarding the effect salary increases and new positions have on our pension deficit, which is the worst problem facing the city of Chico right now. Michele Jordan asked, “what can we do to fix this problem?”

City Council has made the contracts with the employees behind closed doors, with no input from the public, here’s what they can do to fix it – ask employees, particularly management, to pay their own pension deficit, now, and in future.

Transparent California is a website that provides “comprehensive and easily searchable information on the compensation of public employees and retirees in California”.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/chico/

It’s provided by the Nevada Policy Institute, a “private non-profit, free-market and limited-government policy research organization based in Las Vegas, Nevada. ” Here’s more information from Wikipedia.

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

TC provides information gathered from California public agencies, including the city of Chico, Butte County, and the Chico Recreation District. I have cross-referenced this site with the California Secretary of State’s publicpay.gov site, as well as information I’ve gathered from the City of Chico, and it’s reliable and accurate. So I believe TC is correct in their estimation of each employee’s personal pension deficit, using their salary, their expected pay-out at retirement, years served, and their personal share of the cost. I was shocked to find that some of these people have a personal debt equal to some people’s entire salary, more than the median income of our city.

Mark Sorensen, for example, as of 2023, had a base salary of $205,823, (total $213,079 including “other pay”), and a benefits package of $46,282, for a total compensation of $340,441. With previous years of service, his personal pension deficit, as of 2023, was $81,079. I don’t mean to be petty, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask this man to write a check for $81,079, it’s the right thing to do.

So I wrote a letter to the editor about it, I hope other people will chime in. I don’t think people realize the situation the city is in, or why.

Michelle Jordan asked what we could do to fix our pension dilemma. For years now, consultants have told our city leaders that the pension deficit, created by a management top-heavy staff that pays unrealistic shares toward their very generous pensions and benefits, is the biggest problem facing the city of Chico. The pension deficit undermines the budget, siphoning money away from infrastructure and other public needs. Former city manager Mark Orme and his assistant Chris Constantin admitted that the city had been deferring maintenance of roads, sewer, and other critical infrastructure in favor of paying CalPERS costs. At the same time, new positions have added to the cost, even with increasing annual “catchup” “payments – this year’s payment budgeted at $18,000,000.

What can be done? Here’s my simple solution – ask employees, especially management, to write a check to cover their personal pension deficit.

Transparent California, a non-profit public research agency, collects employee salary and benefits figures from public agencies all over California. Using base salary, years of service, and CalPERS contribution, TC figures the individual’s personal pension deficit. Our city manager, for example, has racked up an $81,079.82 deficit as of 2023. Given a salary of over $200,000/year, why couldn’t he just write a check to pay his own deficit? If all the top management and public safety employees paid their own deficit, we could even talk about getting out of CalPERS.

Why should the burden be on the taxpayers?

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

I had my hopes up for this lawsuit out of Grants Pass but now I realize the whole thing is completely meaningless as long as we don’t have a jail to put these people in.

Our jail has long been known to be sub-code, and I’d say, inhumane. The Grand Jury reported years ago that the womens’ jail was sub-par, plumbing didn’t work, the place was filthy. There were court cases involving sexual assaults, including one guard found to have been coercing women into sex for tampons. A recent lawsuit involved a prisoner allowed to wander the jail free at night who assaulted two other prisoners so badly they are left with permanent injuries.

The above article, from 2023, promises updates that have been promised for about 20 years. Sheriff Kory Honea received $44.5 million almost 10 years ago – I saw agenda items indicating that money was being used to pay down the sheriff’s office pension deficit. According to the article, the county still needs to come up with almost $5 million to complete this update.

In 2015, Butte County supervisors established “jail impact fees”, to be tacked on to the price of your home. Yes, they charge a lot of fees for the building of a house, which are passed along to the home buyer.

https://www.buttecounty.net/256/Fees

But according to this article, jail impact fees didn’t last very long.

Jail fees were eliminated in 2017 due to a lawsuit brought forward by several of Chico’s major developers. I don’t know what happened after that, I can’t find anything further about jail fees. I do know the county received annual funding from AB109. Here’s a post I wrote about how they were spending it as of 2020.

I’m too busy to cut excerpts, so read this article, thoroughly, before you ask me any questions or accuse me of anything. But let’s see how this lawsuit plays out – a new game of Whack-a-mole, involving a round trip to an overcrowded jail, is what I’m expecting.

I read Bob Mulhullond’s letter to the editor – I won’t print it here, because it was about as poorly written as the “Argument Against” Measure H that he and Karl Ory tried to submit to the ballot pamphlet in 2022. But, he made a good point – as soon as Chico City Council, knew they had Measure H, city manager Sorensen (and clerk Presson) got 5 and 7% raises.

In 2012, when I started this blog, then city manager Brian Nakamura reported a $68 million pension deficit, now it’s over $92 million. In order to get us back on our financial feet (he said… ), Nakamura not only fired a bunch of staffers, he got management to pay a share toward their own pensions, a first. That was good for us, but not enough.

After Nakamura left, Mark Orme followed, instituting the “Pension Stabilization Trust”, and the city started funneling millions out of the General and other funds to make the annual “catch-up payment”. That was bad for us. That’s when they shifted the major burden of the pension deficit from the employees to the taxpayers. At first it seemed to work – at least once I saw the pension deficit start going down.

But that was short lived, the deficit at first stalled, then started to grow more every year as they added more police positions and increased salaries across the board. Then suddenly, over 2021-22, it went UP by $28 million – given the millions they’ve been paying to CalPERS in catch-up payments, that’s shocking. Here’s why – they added at least four new management positions over the last few years, all over $100,000 in salary, with really nice packages. And now we see our pension deficit went up $28 million over that period?

So I thought I should add to Bob’s letter.

A letter mentioned recent management salary increases. Here’s what that means to the pension deficit – $92,247,723, and growing exponentially like a pack of rabbits.

Management pays the least amount toward their own pensions and benefits – 10.5% of a pension worth 70% of their highest year’s salary. The city borrows the rest from CalPERS. That’s how the pension deficit was created and continues to increase despite millions in “catch-up payments”. Catch-up payments are made annually, in addition to the regular CalPERS monthly contribution. This year’s payment is budgeted at about $18 million. It’s spit on the griddle folks – the pension deficit grew by $28,000,000 over the 2021-22 fiscal year, despite an $11,000,000 catch-up payment.

Where do they get the money to pay increased salaries and the corresponding increase in costs? From the General Fund, including Measure H monies.

When Mark Sorensen was a member of city council, consultant Chad Wolford reported that our city was “management top-heavy” – too many redundant management positions with high salaries and low contributions. Subsequent consultants have told council that their biggest problem is the increasing cost of CalPERS. Why then do they continue to create new management positions and give out raises, while telling us we need to pay a higher sales tax if we actually expect to get any services?

It’s distressing that as soon as they have a sales tax in the can they go about divvying up the pie among themselves, but that’s what we get for giving them a general tax measure.

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

You probably already heard that the California Supreme Court has taken the Taxpayer Protection Act off the November ballot. This also means that the measure Mark Sorensen talked the city of Chico into spending $200,000 rewriting is unnecessary. Just another instance of money wasted by bad management.

Sorensen could have waited to see if the TPA made the ballot, and then waited to see if it passed, but he was in such a panic about losing Measure H, knowing that it was a weak, 50+1 measure that barely passed in 2020, that he talked council into paying a consulting firm (at least) $200,000 to put a new measure onto the same ballot.

Sorensen is a worm. He wormed his way from a private sector job and city council position into a public management position, and then he wormed his salary up to over $200,000 a year. Now he’s wormed himself two raises over the next two years. Knowing fully well the effect his greed is having on our financial situation.

Next time you see this man at the grocery store let him know what you think of his tax measure. He likes to shop at Raley’s.

I got a loaf of bread in the oven, so this will be short. A couple of weeks ago, Mark Sorensen plopped out his NEW AND IMPROVED! tax measure for council to rubberstamp. Here’s that agenda item with the report.

Here are some excerpts that I found particularly entertaining.

3.90.050 – TRANSACTIONS TAX RATE. For the privilege of selling tangible
personal property at retail, a tax is hereby imposed upon all retailers in the incorporated
territory of the City at the rate of 1% of the gross receipts of any retailer from the sale of
all tangible personal property sold at retail in said territory on and after the operative date
of this chapter.

Well, you can see the kind of game these desperados are playing. For the “privilege” of providing necessary goods and services to the citizens of our town? For the “privilege” of taking huge financial risks to promote the financial health and welfare of our town? The consultants who wrote this measure try to make it sound like retailers are getting away with something, as though this TAX actually only applies to the retailers and retailers just pass it along cause they’re a bunch of jerks. NO the city is taxing US and they know it. This measure is intentionally MISLEADING.

.90.070 – USE TAX RATE. An excise tax is hereby imposed on the storage, use or
other consumption in the City of tangible personal property purchased from any retailer
on and after the operative date of this chapter for storage, use or other consumption in
said territory at the rate of 1% of the sales price of the property. The sales price shall
include delivery charges when such charges are subject to state sales or use tax regardless
of the place to which delivery is made.

wow – sales price includes delivery charges – yes, this tax includes “services” of all kinds, including that trip to the vet for hot spots and all the medications that go with it.

But here’s the most important part, this is one of the reasons why they have to put this measure on the ballot (so far spending about $200,000 from the General Fund to do so) –

.90.120 – NEW REVENUE USE RESTRICTION. Any new revenues generated by
the passage and collection of this transaction and use tax for general government use that
is available for unrestricted general revenue purposes.

They sold us this tax saying they would use it for public safety and infrastructure, but yes, there was a clause in the original measure that said it would go to the General Fund, meaning NO RESTRICTIONS ON SPENDING. I know a lot of the voters were hip to that , the original measure barely passed. Unfortunately this time it will run again as a General 50+1 measure. Why? Because neither Staff nor council wants to be restricted in spending the revenues. In fact, next month they will make an $18 million payment to CalPERS on the unfunded pension liability. And they’ve already given staff raises that will exacerbate the liability – including 5 and 7% raises for our city manager and city clerk over the next two years. These folks don’t pay squat toward their pensions.

.90.160 – EFFECTIVE DATE AND SUMISSION TO VOTERS. Pursuant to
California Government Code section 53724 and Revenue and Taxation Code section
7285.9, this Ordinance was duly approved for placement on the ballot by a minimum
two-thirds (2/3) supermajority of all members of the City Council. This chapter relates to
the levying and collecting of the City transactions and use taxes and shall take effect
immediately. Pursuant to California Elections Code section 9217, this Ordinance shall be
deemed adopted and take effect only if approved by a majority of the eligible voters of
the City of Chico voting at the General Municipal Election of November 5, 2024. It shall
be deemed adopted when the City Council has certified the results of that election by
resolution and shall take effect ten (10) days thereafter. This Ordinance shall only take
effect if the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (“Measure _” on
the November 5, 2024, State of California General Election Ballot) is approved by a
sufficient number of voters of the State of California.

I wasn’t sure what this passage meant by “sufficient number of voters of the State of California” and I get tired of being accused of spreading misinformation, so I asked Ben Granholm, who is working to pass the Taxpayer Protection Act. He was aware of Measure H and confirmed my suspicions that the new measure will be a 50+1.

Measure H was a general tax that passed by just shy of 53%. While Measure H did list specific uses, the wide variety of uses indicates a general tax. The City feels it necessary to put the measure before voters again, due to the same confusion you are citing, as the original measure does not specifically state that it is a general tax for general government use.

Yes, you are correct – as a general tax, it requires a 50% +1 majority vote to pass.

Well, here we go again, but at least we’ve made them come forward and tell us the first measure was a blatant lie. Why couldn’t they come up with a 2/3’s measure when they know that’s what people want? Because they want to be able to spend the money as they please, like they’ve already been doing.

This is exactly why we need to pass the Taxpayer Protection Act and defeat Measure H and the new measure as well. These people will tax you at will, as they already have for years, unless you stand up on your back legs and say NO!

I hope everybody sees what a bait-and-switch City of Chico sales tax Measure H has been. City council and management promised us they’d fix our streets and do something (?) about the state of lawlessness we’ve been living in for the past 5 or 6 years. Instead we see they are using Measure H funds for questionable projects and raises for city management. To date council has already approved $275,000 toward a new sales tax measure for the November ballot. That money comes out of the General Fund, which includes Measure H revenues. Next month they have scheduled an $18 million payment to CalPERS, the annual catch-up payment for the employee pension deficit, money that has been siphoned out of the General Fund.

We’ve all known people that can’t handle money – we’re living in a city run by those kind of people. The more revenues they get, the deeper they run into debt. You realize, that without existing laws requiring some voter input, these people would just raise taxes whenever they needed more money to shovel into their debt machine. They already do – remember the sewer “rate change” passed over Christmas by a mailed ballot? They doubled sewer fees, using a mailed ballot that if it was not returned meant you voted Yes. That’s legal as hell, by rules made in legislative chambers behind our collective back.

So we need the Taxpayer Protection Act, which reinstates rules that have quietly been removed from the books by a governor and legislators who want to be able to raise your taxes to cover their champagne and French Laundry lifestyles.

The TPA was put on the ballot by petition of the voters, the legal number of signatures was gathered, and the Secretary of State approved it for the ballot. The governor and his cronies were pretty pissed about it, claiming, ” citizens are simply not equipped to deal with the complexities of taxation and should not be allowed to render such a decision.“

Are you insulted by that? Cause I’m insulted. Wouldn’t you think, if the voters are so dumb, it’s the state schools that are responsible for that, and why do we keep shoveling money at schools that turn out people too dumb to vote? To think they’d just say something like that, as if it’s completely disconnected – sounds like Matt Tennis.

These people are trying to keep us from voting on tax measures because they know we’re anything but dumb. We’ve finally been overturning tax measures over the last few elections, and now the voters have put the TPA on the ballot because we want more control over how we are taxed and what the money is spent on.

Last night Chico City Council heard an update from Mark Sorensen regarding the ballot measure they want run in November, with changes necessitated by the possible passage of the TPA. I’ll talk more about that next time.

Here’s a quick read from Attorney Jonathan Turley, (thanks Dude) discussing why the governor and legislators are trying to upend this essential right of the voters.

Dave Waddell made some pointy observations on my last post about the generous raises being considered for city manager Mark Sorensen.

“On June 30, 2024, Mark Sorensen will be making $207,000 annually. On July 1, 2025, the taxpayers will be into him for $232,565 annually (times 14 years of free service credit in CalPERS = a gazillion dollars).” That last remark is a reference to the deal Sorensen made with the city of Chico (thanks for that correction Dave) when he left the City of Biggs (East Biggs?) (why is there a difference?) and took the city manager position here. Chico residents paid for him to be gang-jumped into CalPERS, since, at his decrepit age, he would never have time to accrue 15 years of service to qualify for pension. At this point he has still not served 15 years and I’m guessing he will retire before he does.

And what a retirement – at 70% of a salary of $232,565/year, with a very generous 4.12% COLA, Sorensen will be part of the One Percent. And Chico’s pension deficit-unfunded liability will continue skyward like TWA 800.

Which is what is important here – the effect these endless and unwarranted pay raises have on the city’s pension deficit and overall debt. And here’s what pisses me off – Sorensen, a former city council member, even mayor, knows fully well how the pension deficit works. As far as I’m concerned, his full knowledge of the fact that he is enriching himself at the cost of our city’s financial welfare makes him corrupt and unfit for public service. But that’s just me, old lady at large.

While we can’t vote Sorensen out of office anymore, or send him out of town in a hail of rotten tomatoes, we can pass the Taxpayer Protection Act and we can refuse the new tax measure he’s talked council into putting on the November ballot. Here’s a recap – because the TPA would require local tax measures to have 2/3’s voter approval, retroactive to 2020, if passed, it will overturn City of Chico one cent sales tax Measure H. Sorensen, whether or not he really believes TPA will pass, has convinced council to spend – to date – $275,000 on a new, updated Measure (?) for November. This new Measure (?) will supposedly be written to conform to the TPA.

Here’s the good news – that would mean, the new measure would either need to include specific uses or it would require 2/3’s voter approval. Council will discuss all of this at tomorrow’s meeting, the report is in the agenda, I’ll try to post more tomorrow.

Handing these people more money has only emboldened their ludicrous spending habit. It’s time to cut up their credit cards, and that starts with defeating both of their tax measures in November and passing the Taxpayer Protection Act.

Above is the link to the agenda, here are links to the reports regarding each salary increase.

Debbie Presson’s salary will be increased to $198,000/year.

https://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=812&meta_id=91595

Sorensen already makes over $211,000,year, he also gets 7 and 5% raises over the next year.

https://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=812&meta_id=91599

They’re also asking for another $175,000 to pay costs for putting their new sales tax measure on the ballot. Council has already approved $100,000.

Coming home from Winco the other day, my husband and I were almost hit on Vallonbrosa by a Ford F350 swerving to avoid a gi-normous pothole. This letter popped right into my head.

I saw the signs at Humboldt and Stilson Canyon Roads – newly surfaced and paved with Measure H money. How many city dwellers do these roads serve?

Meanwhile, the street in front of my house, in an old well-populated neighborhood annexed over 20 years ago, is not only crumbling, but long stretches have no sidewalks or drains. Thirty years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, pedestrians are forced into the street, to compete with cars and bikes – all dodging the enormous puddles and serial potholes created by years of no maintenance. Every time I ride my old bike around the hood I watch drivers swerving into oncoming traffic to miss various road hazards.

Driving over to patronize various South Chico businesses,, I see the traffic is backing up as expected around the Bruce Road corridor, adding almost an hour to the trip, eating my gas as I sit, polluting the hot summer air. A sign on Springfield Avenue boasts that widening is being done with Measure H money, even though it’s obviously necessitated by new development. They’re asking for state grants to widen Hwy 32 for the Fogarty subdivision. Why aren’t developer fees paying for those projects?

One last question – how do I get on the list for some Measure H funds on my street? The street I pay taxes on needs complete resurfacing, not just slop-job pothole patches. I’m still waiting to see the benefits of that garbage tax they foisted on us 10 years ago.

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA