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Bidwell Park is in big trouble

10 Jan
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We came over to investigate the downed tree, and found the city back hoe had sunk into the flimsy asphalt path.

Years ago when the city installed the asphalt pathways that intersect the park in places, I saw this coming. My dad drove a belly dump for Henry Teichert, I had seen a little bit of roadwork from the cab of his Peterbilt. You don’t lay asphalt on dirt, silly rabbits.

As a park commuter, I watched gophers undermine the paths immediately, creating hazards, especially for pedestrians. But it never occurred to me that city vehicles would have to use these pathways. I was shocked when we encountered the back hoe sunk deep into the muck, broken asphalt on both sides, no thicker than heavy mil cardboard.

Duh!

The park has been badly managed for years, because there is no accountability. The staffers who are responsible for this stuff come and go, and nobody leaves notes for the new guys.  The man who was driving the back hoe was also shocked – he had only been with the city for 11 years, he had no idea the asphalt had no support under it. I hope he didn’t get into trouble because it’s not his fault.

Management gets paid to know this stuff. Dan Efseaff makes about $100,000/year, plus pension and health package, to know this stuff. I’ll have to send him this picture. I already sent it to the Enterprise Record, we’ll see if it makes it into Hot Shots!

 

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Camping in Bidwell Park is a crime – report it!

31 Dec

Yesterday, having reported an illegal camp in Middle Bidwell Park to city of Chico officials, my husband and I walked over to the site to find that the campers seemed to be gone but had left mounds of trash behind. In fact, we encountered more trash yesterday than we’d seen the day before.

These pictures were taken yesterday morning. 

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Here’s the pile we encountered Thursday December 29, still there – notice the dismantled bikes. Somebody had added – a real estate sign? – to the pile.

We noticed new piles, clothes,  trash bags,  kipple of all kinds.

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I wonder if they steal from each other, and here’s somebody’s stuff that has been rifled and left.

 

This is located about a block or two from my home, my tenant’s home. We’ve always locked everything up – Chico was never that nice of a town that you could leave your valuables unlocked, that’s been known for some time.  

But lately we’ve been hearing about weird stuff, stuff that goes beyond home security.  One guy was caught stealing a woman’s panties off her back yard clothesline, in broad daylight. Her husband  caught him in the garage, having broken in through a back door to steal a bike.

A man on the  website Nextdoor reported someone had torn the door off a storage shed in his side yard, but said there was nothing of value, so nothing was taken. Lucky him!  I had been bothering my husband to buy one of those metal  sheds at Home Depot for our tenant’s bikes, so she wouldn’t have to keep them in her laundry room. He laughed  and told me, “that’s like telling the transients, ‘look, here’s some stuff for you…'”  He’s right, these people can just rip the door off a shed, hidden in your back  yard, you and  all your neighbors gone off to work. 

As I’ve said, Chico is not a nice little town anymore. How do we fight this? Report it, report it, report it. Demand action.  I’ll e-mail city manager Mark Orme and ask him who is responsible for cleaning up this mess and when that will be done.  I’ll cc both news editors as well as my third district supervisor Maureen Kirk. I may cc the entire council, but Reanette Fillmer is the one who has shown the most interest in this issue.

Please join me in reporting illegal campers. Follow up – if you still see the problem the next day, politely ask what has been done or why nothing has been done. Don’t be intimidated by their polite refusal to do anything – send your e-mail conversation  here, and I’ll print it verbatim. 

  • Mark Orme, city manager – mark.orme@chicoca.gov
  • Sean Morgan, mayor – sean.morgan@chicoca.gov
  • Reanette Fillmer, vice mayor – reanette.fillmer@chicoca.gov
  • Maureen Kirk, Butte County Supervisor District 3 – mkirk@buttecounty.net
  • Larry Wahl, Butte County Supervisor District 2 – lwahl@buttecounty.net
  • David Little, editor Chico Enterprise Record – dlittle@chicoer.com

NOTE: As of Sunday Jan 1 the trash is gone.  I don’t know who picked it up but will thank Orme for staff’s response. 

 

 

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Bidwell Park becoming a hobo camp

30 Dec
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My dog investigates a pile of trash left behind by illegal campers in Middle Bidwell Park. We saw several bike frames and various parts laying among the piles.

My family lives a block from Middle Bidwell  Park – ooooo! Lucky us!

When we bought and fixed up this old crapper, we were re-assessed very eagerly by the old county ass-essor, Fred. He told me, our proximity to Bidwell Park added to the valuation of our house.  He jacked us good!

Now we live next to a hobo camp. Wonder what  that does to property value?

We walk our old dog Biscuit in the park every morning – she’s got the diabetes, just like a person, she has to have regular exercise to keep her blood sugar down.  So we walk the two or three blocks worth over to the creek every day, early, in the cold and damp, kind of a morning ritual

We let ourselves get into kind of a rut, taking the same main trail every day. One morning this couple was coming along with a pretty tough looking poodle – and you know, Biscuit is not one to back down – so my husband shooshed us off without warning onto a less-beaten path – The Fitness Trail!

The Fitness Trail runs between Vallombrosa and Petersen Drive in the park. The city spent I don’t know how much, putting in these “fitness stations” – I think they’re nothing but a liability, and would like to have seen the money spent on trail maintenance, but the  people who made that decision are already long gone, so what’s the use of complaining?

The park has become a disgrace. Non-native species  have been allowed to grow up and push out the native growth. Overgrowth is everywhere, smothering big trees, causing limb drop. Big trees have been falling, including a tree that smashed to a million pieces all over Vallombrosa a week or so ago and shut the street down while  crews swept it off to the side of the road. Where it still  sits, creating rot and blocking the view of the park from the street.  It’s not nature, it’s an eyesore.

The park used to be nice to look at, now I’m more concerned about the cops being able to see in there.

As my husband and I followed Biscuit up the unfamiliar trail, we suddenly spotted an obvious, well-entrenched homeless camp.  Five tents and an E-Z up were visible from where we stood.  All occupied. Garbage littered the ground in every direction, including a scattering of those poop bags the city provides to pick up after dogs. They were laying on the ground full of poop and tied in knots. Whose poop is anybody’s guess.

We skee-daddled – I don’t want to mess with those people. I remember how Ann Schwab snickered as I told the story of a guy named Jerry Paddy. I used to live and work in Sacramento, I used to ride the city bus. I had to change busses at K Street Mall, walk a few blocks up K Street. Every morning as I joined the mass of commuters I’d see this guy, dressed in bed sheets. We all called him “Jesus,” and we all walked within arms’ distance of this beaming idiot.

One day a man who was visiting a relative at Sutter Hospital noticed this Jesus character wrestling in the bushes near Sutter’s Fort with a woman. This passerby thought it was a sexual assault, and confronted  “Jesus”, who reached into his sheets and took out a 12 inch knife and stuck the poor man right through the gut. This is where Ann Schwab snickered, cause I used the word “gut”. I got news for you Ann – the poor bastard with the stuck guts wasn’t laughing, he was dead before they could get him into the hospital.

“Jesus” was a man named Jerry Paddy, and he showed no remorse for the murder. He went off to the state hospital wearing his idiot grin.

So this is what I’m thinking as I encounter that same grin in the park, or around town, or walking down the sidewalk in front of my home or  one of my rentals.

When we realized we were standing in a homeless camp, my husband and I went home and called the Park Division.  The woman who answered told me a ranger would be sent over to the location – The Fitness Trail, between Stations 3 and 4.  Later we realized, it was more extensive than that, but we figured the rangers would see it.

Next day  the tents and E-Z up were all still there, with more trash.

So, I e-mailed city manager Mark Orme. He said,

“Thank you for this e-mail.  To answer your question, yes, the City is following up on these reports.  I’ll follow-up with staff in relation to this specific site. “

Later he got back to me,

“Again, thank you for your reporting of this.   As additional follow-up, I can tell you that the Park Rangers did engage with this group yesterday, after the report was received.   Additionally, the Rangers have engaged and ticketed this group of illegal campers several times over the past week.  The Park Rangers are coordinating with the Police Department for follow-up today for this specific illegal encampment. “

Yesterday morning this is what we encountered.

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The tents and E-Z up were gone, but they’d left all the trash. I don’t know whether the city came back to get it, but if it’s still there this morning we’ll take more pictures and get back to Mark Orme.

Why should the public be saddled with the “burden” of public worker pension debt?

28 Dec

Here’s a letter I sent to the Enterprise Record in response to the editorial run Monday – “CalPERS keeps loading public with huge debt”.  

In answer to the editor, I’ll ask why the taxpayers should be stuck with the “burden” of public employee pensions? 

At Chico Area Recreation District, for example, management has only recently started paying into their own pensions – at a rate of 6.25 percent.  “Classic” management members pay 2 percent. For 70 percent of their highest year’s salary at age 55. The current CARD director makes over $110,000/year in salary.  

The median household income in Chico is about $43,000/year, while the average city of Chico worker makes over $80,000.  Many public safety workers and  most of city management make over $100,000, plus perks. Why can’t they contribute more than 12 and 9 percent, respectively?

The state mandated that “new hires” – that’s an employee who has never been in any public retirement system – pay 50 percent. Why aren’t existing employees asked to pay 50 percent?

Our current mayor, and vice mayor, and two council members are or have been enrolled in the public retirement system. The spouses of two others are enrolled in the system.  Does this make it difficult for council to demand more from our city employees? 

Join me at chicotaxpayers.com to demand that  public “servants” pick up more of the tab for their retirement.

For some reason, Little failed to post that editorial in the online edition. That is a physical job, requiring intent. Little once admitted to me that he doesn’t print every letter he gets in the paper edition, but chooses instead to post them online. So, it’s definitely a choice he makes, whether or not to post in the online edition.  

What? Didn’t want to open the editorial to discussion on Disqus? 

So, something tells me, he’s not going to print my letter. Well, there it is. I hope the rest of you will give him your two cents.

NOTE: I contacted the San Jose Mercury register, a managing editor told me the editorial had been written by one of his co-workers. He explained to me that the ER is owned by the same company at the MR, and has permission to reprint.

So, this is “local” journalism?

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 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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Even if voters try to be informed, getting information out of local agencies is pretty sketchy

27 Nov

Here’s something I found in the minutes from the August 18, 2016  Chico Area Recreation District board meeting. They don’t post minutes up to date so this has only recently  become available.

I wonder how many people would have voted for Lando, Worley or Hughes if they’d known about this.

Senate Bill 628- Enhance Financing Districts Jerry Hughes addressed the Board and encouraged the Board to lead the discussion regarding including Special Districts in the Enhanced Financing Districts legislation. He suggested that CARD contact agencies such as the California Special Districts Association (CSDA), California Parks & Recreation Society (CPRS) and California Association of Recreation and Park Districts (CARPD) and request that the topic be added to these agencies Board meetings for consideration and support. He stated that it is important that a good plan be developed to present to other agencies. Director Lando stated that he feels we need to get more information from legal Counsel.

M/S/C/ (Directors Lando/Worley) that the Board of Directors directs staff to prepare a letter requesting that Special Districts be allowed to create Enhanced Financing Districts and work with other agencies to gain support.

The vote was as follows: Ayes carried Ayes: Malowney, Ellis, Sneed, Lando, Worley Noes: None Abstain: None Absent: None

Senate Bill 628, passed without a whimper in 2014, allowed CARD to tax us with 55 percent of the vote.

SB 628, Beall. Enhanced infrastructure financing districts.

Existing law authorizes a legislative body of a city, defined to mean a city or a city and county, to establish an infrastructure financing district, adopt an infrastructure financing plan, and issue bonds, for which only the district is liable, to finance specified public facilities upon approval by 2/3 of the voters.

Existing law authorizes an infrastructure financing district to fund infrastructure projects through tax increment financing, pursuant to the infrastructure financing plan and the agreement of affected taxing entities, as defined.

Existing law requires an infrastructure financing plan to include the date on which an infrastructure financing district will cease to exist, that may not be more than 30 years from the date on which the ordinance forming the district is adopted.

This bill would additionally authorize the legislative body of a city or a county, defined to include a city and county, to establish an enhanced infrastructure financing district, adopt an infrastructure financing plan, and issue bonds, for which only the district is liable, upon approval by 55% of the voters; to finance public capital facilities or other specified projects of communitywide significance, including, but not limited to, brownfield restoration and other environmental mitigation; the development of projects on a former military base; the repayment of the transfer of funds to a military base reuse authority; the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of housing for persons of low and moderate income for rent or purchase; the acquisition, construction, or repair of industrial structures for private use; transit priority projects; and projects to implement a sustainable communities strategy.

The bill would also authorize an enhanced infrastructure financing district to utilize any powers under the Polanco Redevelopment Act.

This bill would require the legislative body to establish a public financing authority, defined as the governing board of the enhanced infrastructure financing authority, comprised of members of the legislative body of the participating entities and of the public, prior to the adoption of a resolution to form an enhanced infrastructure district and infrastructure financing plan.
This bill would require proceedings for the establishment of a district to be instituted by the adoption of a resolution of intention that, among other things, states the boundaries of the district, the type of public facilities and development proposed to be financed or assisted by the district, and the need for the district and the goals the district proposes to achieve.
If the resolution is adopted by the legislative body after a public hearing, the bill would prohibit the public financing authority from implementing the infrastructure financing plan until specified events occur.
This bill would authorize the public financing authority to initiate proceedings to issue bonds, and would require the proposal to issue bonds to be submitted to qualified electors of the proposed district, as specified. By requiring electors to make specified declarations on ballots under penalty of perjury, this bill would expand circumstances under which a person may be convicted of a crime and thereby, would impose a state-mandated local program.
This bill would authorize an enhanced infrastructure financing district to fund infrastructure projects through tax increment financing, pursuant to the infrastructure financing plan and the agreement of affected taxing entities, as defined. This bill would authorize the creation of an infrastructure financing district for up to 45 years from the date on which the issuance of bonds is approved, as specified. This bill would require an infrastructure financing district to contract for the performance of an independent financial and performance audit every 2 years, as specified.
This bill would authorize a city, county, or special district that contains territory within the boundaries of an infrastructure financing district, upon approval of its governing body, to loan moneys to the infrastructure financing district to fund the activities described in the infrastructure financing plan, as specified.
This bill would authorize an enhanced infrastructure financing district to finance a project or portion of a project that is located in, or overlaps with, a redevelopment project area or former redevelopment project area, as specified.
This bill would prohibit a city or county that created a redevelopment agency from creating a district until specified conditions related to the wind down of the former redevelopment agency have been satisfied. This bill would provide that any debt or obligation of an enhanced infrastructure financing district is subordinate to an enforceable obligation of a former redevelopment agency. This bill would additionally authorize the legislative body of the city forming an enhanced infrastructure financing district to choose to dedicate any portion of its net available revenue, as defined, to the enhanced infrastructure financing district through the infrastructure financing plan, as specified.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

 

School district hiding “about a million dollar” lawsuit from the public, who knows what else they got rattling around in their closets

23 Nov

I found out so much weird stuff about the school district during the Measure K campaign – what a can of worms! 

For example, when I looked at the Butte County Superior Court website, I saw a lot of lawsuits involving Chico Unified

https://cabutteodyprod.tylerhost.net/Portal/Home/WorkspaceMode?p=0

Wow, on the first  page – “10 of 61 items”

I found one lawsuit the district pressed against Chico  State last year. They sued to stop CSUC from handing over  a batch of e-mails district staff and board members sent through the CSUC server instead of using their own district e-mail accounts. They won, but I’ve heard it cost the taxpayers a pretty penny to protect staffers from the consequences of their illegal activities. 

This scenario should sound familiar, cause  similar actions just took down Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  Clinton sent e-mails through her staff’s accounts, and all we hear is that she was trying to hide something. She’s been investigated by the FBI – why hasn’t the FBI investigated Chico Unified?

Why hasn’t Mike Ramsey done anything? 

What is Kelly Staley trying to hide?  What is the board trying to hide? They spent “about a million dollars” protecting themselves, not the children. Reminds me of the end scene from “Dead  Zone”.

Questions, soooo many questions.

I have asked around and have received a lot of information from past and present school employees, including estimates of the expense of last year’s lawsuit  – “about a million” – “over a million” – “a million dollars” –  but I wanted to get the exact dollar figure from district finance officer Kevin Bultema.  I got a note from Bultema yesterday:

Good afternoon Ms Sumner,

As a follow-up to your email request for the total expense related to the CSUC lawsuit, we have requested a  report from our attorney to make sure all invoices specific to this case are presented.  With the Thanksgiving Holiday, we expect to receive this information early next week and I’ll provide you the information as soon as it is received.  I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving

Well, thank you very much Mr. Bultema. I have to wonder, how much $taff time will go into my request? He could have just given me a dollar figure, I know he knows – he’s supposed to know, he’s the district’s finance superintendent.  

The voters get what the voters demand.  And so far, the voters are too busy trying to stuff a mouse in a teapot to see what’s going on right in front of them. 

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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Yes Virginia – a bond is a tax – a turd by any other name, will still stink

7 Nov

 

I have to laugh when I realize, some people do not consider a bond a tax.  They don’t see how much it adds to their cost of living.

Measure K asks $60 for every $100,000 of property valuation – with today’s home prices and the assessor jacking up evaluations for permitted work, the average house in Chico is valuated at over $300,000.  We put new siding and a new roof on our old crapper and the assessor added about $100,000 to our evaluation. 

So, that’s an average of $240 a year for the homeowner. 

The district will tell you that’s chump change, but at my house, it’s a lot of groceries. For other people, it’s trips to  restaurants and movie theaters, shopping trips to the mall. If there’s 40,000 households in the city of Chico, that would add up to a little over $9 million in discretionary spending that is about to be sponged up by the school district.

https://noonmeasurekchico.wordpress.com/2016/11/06/cato-institute-bonds-dont-magically-make-these-spending-projects-free-are-the-voters-really-dumb-enough-to-think-bonds-arent-taxes/

 

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