Commercial air service is dead in Chico – when will the city start paying attention to the real airport users, the tenants?

15 Nov

Laura Urseny’s story on the airport in today’s ER was no surprise for anybody. While she tried to insert “a glimmer of hope”, she had to admit, it looks like the end for commercial service in Chico. 

I have to give her some credit – she actually sought out a couple of airline executives and put the question to them, and the second guy took her seriously enough to give her a good answer.

“Last week I chatted with Jude Bricker, senior vice president of planning for Allegiant.

He said there’s not much interest in Chico. Actually, none.

Bricker went through issue after issue that Chico faces. Airlines are flying bigger planes, roughly in the 150- seat capacity, for cost efficiency. Chico would be hard pressed to fill that, even once a week, he said. Chico had issues filling the 30- seater that SkyWest flew in three times a week. “ We’re not in active negotiations (with Chico) and have no plans for service,” he told me.

What could we do to interest an airlines, I asked. A subsidy program or other incentive was the first thing he mentioned, and then some way to assure the airlines that passengers would come.

He mentioned Sacramento’s closeness as a hefty black mark against Chico.”

There it is – they’re using bigger planes now, just like I’ve said. Those planes not only need 150 passengers to fill them, they need a bigger runway to fly out of here. Chico has not updated their runway like Redding did only a few years ago. That’s how Redding stayed in the game. Chico was busy pilfering the now-red airport fund to pay down the pension deficit. 

And then there it is, these giant corporations want a subsidy to locate here.  Yes, the taxpayers would have to pay these airlines to come here to serve less than 20 percent of the population.  Even then, they only offer service once a week, and there we are again – if they don’t meet the needs of the public the public will go to Sacramento. 

Yes, there is an international airport an hour and a half down the road – Hellllloooooo!

Why Urseny or anybody would continue to pursue commercial air service out of Chico is beyond me. Selfish? Just plain stubborn? Desperate?  Yes, there is an elite little crowd here who expect the taxpayers to foot their luxury bills. 

Urseny keeps trying to prop up this horse cadaver, at first telling the reader about “a glimmer of hope”. In the end she admits, “wouldn’t it have made a great column for me to announce some positive airline news?”  So, now she’s making up news to make herself happy? How about reporting on what’s really going on at the airport – the tenants are complaining that the city is giving them poor leases. These are the people who keep the airport there at all, and the city has treated them poorly for years, giving them crap buildings, forcing them to make their own repairs, but giving them no assurance they won’t be kicked out for higher-paying tenants or have rent raised on themselves when they undertake those repairs. 

How many people would rent a house that needs a new roof, when the landlord told them they’d need to fix the roof themselves? I don’t think that’s legal. But the city let the Aero Union building fall to complete crap – one reason they left – and now the city will have the museum people raising the $200,000 necessary to fix the roof. 

Hey, have a good time out at the Air Museum, but I wouldn’t linger in there too long. 

 

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Consultant report: if we stopped subsidizing new development, we could get a whole ‘nother cop!

14 Nov

Next Wednesday the city has scheduled two concurrent meetings – a Finance Committee workshop starting at 8:30 am and an Internal Affairs Commission meeting starting at 9am.

http://www.ci.chico.ca.us/document_library/minutes_agendas/finance_committee/11-18-15FinanceCommitteeAgendaPacket.pdf

http://www.ci.chico.ca.us/document_library/minutes_agendas/internal_affairs_committee/11-18-15IACAgendaPacket.pdf

You might recall councilwoman Tami Ritter changed the time of the IA meeting from 8am to 9am because she can’t get her big ass out of bed, through the shower and coffee shop drive-thru before 8:45 am. 

Both of these meetings hold items of interest to me. I question their scheduling these meetings concurrently but where’s that going to get me?  At the Finance Committee workshop they will discuss how developers have been getting away without paying fees for years, putting the Development Fund as much as  $9 million in the red for years. I had to print that figure in red, I mean, $9 million dollar deficit? How does that happen? 

Well, it happens when you don’t collect the fees, but you continue to pay city employees to do work for developers. There’s a whole department full of salaries up in that building devoted to for-profit developers. 

This problem was highlighted about 10 years ago when Cal Trans threatened a lawsuit against the city for not “dedicating” funds for widening of Hwy’s 99 and 32 while they permitted subdivisions all over town that were obviously going to strain our roadways. Tom Lando, then city manager, argued that the state should  pay for the widening, but Cal Trans showed without effort that the strain was coming from five specific subdivisions the city had approved, including Meriam Park – “a city within a city…”

I sat in a meeting where former city employees told us  these “planned communities,” like Westside Green over on Nord, were going to take the quality of life in our town on a one way ride. At that time most of our major roads had an ‘A’ or ‘B’ rating for travelability,   $taff said they were moving quickly toward ‘C’ and would never return. 

Ultimately Chico was ordered to dedicate funds, but in a conversation I had with Mark Sorensen about a year ago, he said the city had never collected the funds from any of the developers named in the suit. It looks like they still haven’t. Read the report I cut-and-paste from the agenda:

Specific Fee Category Results.   The analysis revealed that 70% (412 I 590) of the current fees for New Construction (a count of plan check and inspection fees combined) are less than the full cost of providing the services, thus providing a subsidy to fee payers. The remaining fees (30 %) are currently set equal to or higher than full cost. In other words, if the City elects to set all fees to recover full cost (and no more), some of the current fees would increase, and others would be reduced.

Read on – “new construction” means new homes and commercial buildings – 70 % of building activity going without paying fees!  “The remaining fees” are homeowners doing remodels, etc to their existing homes – we’ve been paying fees “set equal to or higher than full cost…”  It says there, “some of the current fees would increase, and others would be reduced.”  

Well, let me add a suggestion – they ought to have to give us our fucking money back, homeowners have been ripped off to pay for the big boys.

Read on:

Overall, since the annual volume of new construction permit activity applies more heavily to those fees that are currently under-charged (subsidized), the City would experience an overall increase in annual revenue in New Construction fees of approximately $ 260,000. A pattern of over- and under-charging for individual fees is very common for building studies. Wohlford Consulting normally finds that New Construction fees under-recover the cost of services for smaller project sizes and over-recover for larger project sizesparticularly at the extremes of the range. The existence of an overall deficit or surplus in New Construction fees depends on the mix of projects among sizes, but it most commonly results in an overall deficit or potential increase in revenues if fees are set at full cost for all project types and sizes. This latter result is evident in the Chico Building analysis. The results for the Miscellaneous Commercial fee category also show a mix of subsidized and surplus fees, but the overall revenue result is different. Although a large majority of fees by tally (71% or 132/185) are currently under-charged and subsidized, enough volume of activity occurs in the over-charged fees that the net result is an annual surplus of $48,000 and a cost-recovery rate of 114%. In particular, overcharges in the group of fees for small remodels or renovations (Fees# 12-17 in the Building results) offset all of the subsidized fees in the Miscellaneous Commercial fee category. In other words, the fees for small remodels and renovations are partially funding a variety of other fee services. As a result, if the City sets fees at 100% of full cost in this category, some fees would increase and others would decrease, but the net revenue would decrease by approximately $48,000 per year. A slight majority (53% or 45/85) of fees in the Miscellaneous Residential fee categories are currently set at or above full cost. The annual fee activity volumes for those categories result in a net surplus of $ 44,000 and a cost-recovery rate of 131% when compared to full-cost-recovery fee levels. Even though two of the three general Building fee categories present a revenue surplus, the funding deficit in New Construction is large enough that the net effect of all of the categories combined (New Construction, Miscellaneous Commercial, and Miscellaneous Residential) is an overall subsidy of $169,000. This subsidy also represents a potential annual revenue increase of $169,000 if the City sets fees at the full-cost-recovery levels. 

And let me remind you, Franklin Paving, one of the “big boys”, was probably the biggest single contributor to Mark Sorensen’s recent campaign. Look at the reports for Mike Maloney’s PAC, I ain’t got time to school you again on that.

Meanwhile, in the room next door, the Internal Affairs committee will be discussing an ordinance written almost specifically for the protection of our adorable City Clerk, Badge Bunny, and Best Pinner Ever!, Debbie Presson – a new Code of Conduct Policy that does not allow council members to go to the public with their concerns about staff. 

So there you are, I know you can’t make it. I’ll keep you posted.

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Why CARD isn’t going to fix Shapiro Pool

11 Nov

Two weeks ago CARD had a “public meeting” to start discussion on their proposed aquatic center. They didn’t notice the meeting ahead, so only about 25 people showed up. They were given a short presentation by a couple of consultants and then asked to break into groups and write down their own wants for such a project. They were encouraged to dream big – water slides, 50 foot competitive pool, therapy pool – you name it!

I had attended the committee meeting earlier that day, and had a different kind of report from the consultants. At the committee meeting they made it clear the public would have to agree to a tax, not only to build this thing, but to maintain it in perpetuity. The consultants both made it clear this facility would be used by a very small portion of the public but would have to be supported by every home owner, renter, business owner and citizen of Butte County.

Consultant Lauren Livingston made it clear – if you  try to charge “users” based on the true cost of this thing, they couldn’t pay. But make it too cheap, and everybody would want to use it, and then it would be too small. “These things are not the cash cow people believe they are…” she said.

David Little, who did not attend the committee meeting, wrote an editorial blaming the consultants for pitching this big dream. I wasn’t at the public meeting, I don’t know what went on there. But at the committee meeting, both of those consultants told the committee they needed to plan something the community would use and could afford. But, committee members, especially Haley Cope and Jackie Santos, kept demanding all the bells and whistles. Cope was really insulting, saying in so many words the community doesn’t know anything and shouldn’t be taken very seriously in the decision making process.  She reminded us she was an Olympic medalist, but I don’t know what kind of grasp she has on the constitution.

Cope kept saying this thing would drag in people for “therapy”. The consultant told them no, there are already therapy pools in town, including a new pool at Enloe. And, he added, insurance companies won’t pay for therapy unless it’s done in a “dedicated therapy pool,” meaning they’d have to build a separate facility up to medical code.

Tom Lando, champing at the bit, declared such a facility would bring in hundreds and hundreds of people from our surrounding areas.  Redding has a pool. Durham has a pool. Willows has a pool. Exactly who does he think is going to drive to Chico to pay a membership at our aquatic center?

The entire time, the consultants kept shooting them down, telling them these facilities never pay for themselves, and they’d have to get some sort of commitment out of the taxpayers before they made any real plans. Certain committee members just wouldn’t understand – they want to bait the public with flashy drawings, without telling them about the cost. They kept demanding that the consultant come up with some sort of plans to show the public, and he kept telling them that’s not what he was hired for.  He was hired to find out what kind of center the public is willing to pay for, and like Little also noted – that’s not coming into the public conversation.

So, reading Little’s editorial, I had to write the following letter:

I attended an Aquatic Facility Advisory Committee meeting held before the public meeting October 28 to hear their consultant’s suggestions. 

 

Dennis Berkshire of Aquatic Design Group and Lauren Livingston of The Sports Management Group made it clear that CARD will need to put a tax measure on the ballot to fund the kind of project AFAC is encouraging. “You can find a bazillion partners who want to use it,” said Livingston, “but none of them bring anything of value.”  Berkshire added we could expect, at best,  “40 – 45 percent annual operating cost recovery” from user fees, the rest would have to be “subsidized” by the taxpayers.  

The cheapest plan I have seen presented so far is $10 million, and the rainbow visions go as high as $28 million.  

 

Former CARD director and board member Ed Seagle reminded the committee that in 2012 they ran a survey which indicated the public is not willing to be taxed for this project. Since 2012 CARD has spent almost $100,000 on out-of-town consultants, trying to convince the public to pay for an aquatic center which might be used by a projected 15 percent of our population. 

 

Meanwhile, a local consultant recently reported we can remodel Shapiro Pool for about $550,000. 

Yes, we could have Shapiro better than it was before, for less than $600,000. But we have to remind ourselves what this is really about – it’s about the pension liability CARD has piled up – over $1.7 million –  and how they will pay it.

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Council to discuss taking over parts of the local groundwater basin – Nov 17, 6:30 pm, council chambers

7 Nov

The city of Chico is making plans to take over sections of our groundwater basin.  While  I might like more control  over our water supply, I have to question people who place a 2 x 4 inch notice of a very important public discussion on  page B6 of the daily paper. Plus, this doesn’t give me more control, it gives the city of Chico more control, and that’s always cause for concern.

At a regular council meeting in city chambers at 6:30pm on November 17, council and staff will discuss “whether the city should elect to become a Groundwater Sustainability Agency under the Sustainable Water Management Act for the portions of the Vina and West Butte groundwater basins within the boundaries of the Chico City limits.” 

But no explanation as to what that means. I found more here:

http://www.water.ca.gov/groundwater/sgm/gsa.cfm

I see the words “joint power authority” – that means, this “agency” will be able to raise taxes with the same kind of “special” election the Butte County Mosquito District used to put a bond on  your house – an election of “stakeholders” where people who own more property get “more weighted” votes.

I assume this agency will make the city the recipient of more state and federal grants for salaries and pensions, as well.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to attend this meeting, since it’s not safe to  be out on a bicycle after dark in  Chico anymore.  I hope to hear from some of you.

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Butte County Behavioral Health director describes process by which more homeless are attracted to Chico to provide salaries for public workers

5 Nov

I attended the Local Government Committee yesterday afternoon, and after listening to the Butte County Behavioral Health Director Dorian Kittrell talk about his departments’ efforts to administer to the homeless, I’m depressed.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this discrepancy between what I’m hearing from Chico PD about their spending hours at Enloe with “street people” and what I have been hearing from Kittrell about all the staffing and programs the county offers to administer to the same people. 

According to County Administrative Officer Paul Hahn, over half our county resources – employees and budget – go to programs to administer to the homeless and poor. 

This item was agendized by Chico council member Reanette Fillmer, who said “people” don’t think the city is doing enough to administer to the homeless, and she wanted to hear what the other various agencies were doing. 

Here’s what they’re doing – they’re bringing homeless people to Chico every day, providing millions and millions of dollars in housing and “programs” to facilitate their dysfunction. Some of these programs, according to Kittrell, are intended to house these people only for a couple of days, get these people cleaned up, sometimes “back on their meds,” and then back out into the community to go back to being a problem.  He even mentioned one program for which patients are being brought in from outside the county to fill the beds.He acted as though that was great! Yeah, it means more money for him and the rest of the hogs. 

Kittrell is even trying to enlist private landlords to house these people. This, he answered Reanette Fillmer, is “the gap” in local homeless services, we aren’t providing enough housing for these people. Even after he listed the various types of transitional, temporary, and “emergency” housing the county and other agencies offer, and the millions that go into these programs. 

You know what that means – instead of having to get a use permit and deal with public hearings, they just sneak what amounts to a group home into your neighborhood without having to even tell anybody. This is the kind of thing that makes neighbors hostile toward landlords and rentals. 

Kittrell says they actually spend about $2 million a year on employees who are supposed to be contacting local landlords, asking for housing for these people, openly described as having “mental problems” and even substance abuse problems.  Not just housing, he says, but people who care enough to babysit their tenants, make sure they pay their rent on time, mow their lawn, and take their meds. 

Excuse me for saying this, but that’s nuts.  They spend millions on buildings that only house 9, or 11, or 16 people at a time, millions more on staff to run these programs, and then turn to the public and tell us, we need to be our brother’s keeper.  We’re all qualified to provide care for mentally ill people? But Kittrell gets a package worth over $200,000? 

Kittrell and others tried to tell us, 80 percent of our “homeless population come from Chico.” What does that mean in a transplant town like this? Where do their parents live? That’s where “they come from”. Where was the last place they served time? That’s where “they come from.” For every one of these people who was born in Butte County, I’ll show you somebody that followed the Grateful Dead out here, or came here because we have a college campus, or came here because we have “good” social programs. 

What does “local” or “townie” even mean around here anymore? Nothing. Kittrell lives in Yuba City, his last job was in Sacramento. What we’re talking about, are the two kinds of people that take advantage. The first kind are creeps who have learned to live a life that doesn’t have any  rules or boundaries, just blend in with the local scene and don’t get caught red-handed. If you do get caught, your crazy, and that includes your drug problem, and you must be taken care of like a new baby.  

The other kind of take advantage types are the public workers who make a very sweet lifestyle out of administering to these creeps.  The first kind might break into your car, or sell drugs to the kids at the high school, but the second kind gets into your purse, into your bank account, attaches themselves to your property taxes.

It’s like being eaten alive from both ends.

At one point Kittrell said he wants to get to people “before they are in crisis.” Well, I’ll say, Kittrell and these others are creating crisis in our community. They’re ripping us off of money we need to pay our bills, send our kids to school, money we could  be spreading more around this community. While our streets and other public facilities are in ruin, these people manage to get a bigger budget every year, telling us they’re looking out for our interests. They’re just feathering their own nests.

Here’s why they don’t go into the park, or “under the bridges”, as Kittrell says – they’ve cut the funding for that kind of outreach in favor of paying $100,000 + salaries and $25,000 + compensation packages. They don’t have enough money for outreach workers – one man blamed it on Arnold Swarzenegger. No, it’s mismanagement. It’s managers eating all the money for themselves and leaving nothing to hire people who actually work “hands-on” with the patients. 

Why are Chico  PD spending so much time at Enloe with “street people”? Because even with all these agencies and staff who are supposed to be equipped to deal with the mentally ill, I was told, law enforcement can’t tell when a person is drunk or on drugs or has schizophrenia, so they have to take them to Enloe ER to be evaluated. Kittrell insisted that Butte County BH has plenty of staff to take these people, but I’m still told that a police officer has to be present. I’m just not getting it.

What I am getting, is that with these people in charge, we will soon be living in the most expensive mental hospital north of San Francisco. 

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

3 Nov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tough Guy, eh? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

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Local Governments Committee to discuss “Homeless Support and Prevention Initiatives” – Wednesday (Nov 4) at 3:30, conference room 2

2 Nov

I’ve been busy – getting ready for rain, re-learning how to function in rain,  etc. But, there’s a meeting Wednesday I just can’t pass up – the Local Governments Committee, made up of members of various elected boards. This committee is supposed to meet quarterly to talk about issues that involve county, city and various local public agencies, kind of a “Hey, Left Hand, look and see what the Right Hand is doing…”

But they aren’t held that regularly, the last one I attended was in May. It’s funny to read the minutes from that meeting,  attached to Wednesday’s agenda. I remember the discussion about library funding was a lot more lively than reported here!

Click to access LGC-11-4-15-AgendaandMinutes.pdf

Sean Morgan called the library supporters “nazis” and that pissed Larry Wahl off. Mark Sorenson waded in like Daddy come home from the office to find squabbling. It was kind of tense – Maureen Kirk actually apologized for asking, she’s such a nice lady. She had wanted to know the process by which the Community Development Block Grant money was divvied out – that’s all explained in the minutes. But nothing about Sean Morgan’s behavior, or how Larry Wahl or Mark Sorensen reacted to him. Meetings, People, you got to attend the meetings.

The item that is of interest to me is the first up, “Homeless Support and Prevention Initiatives.” We will get a report from the county’s Behavioral Health Director regarding various programs he has been working on to get people “off the street,” whatever that might mean to you and me.

I have met BH Director Dorian Kittrell  via e-mail, through my supervisor, Maureen Kirk, when I made inquiries about stories the cops are passing around town. Chico Police Department Business Support Team leader Jack Van Rossum said in an interview on Alan Chamberlains’ podcast talk show that Chico PD spends so much time with street people down at Enloe Hospital that they need what amounts to –  his words – a substation.  Van Rossum said Enloe was willing to give them the space but Chico PD needs money to equip this space with phones because they can’t use their cellphones from inside the hospital. They also need, Van Rossum says, a place to go to work on reports, instead of sitting in the ER or the hallway. 

When I asked Kirk and later Kittrell about this situation neither had heard anything of the sort. Kittrell said he’d check into it, so I’ll have to ask him if he found out anything.

As you can read in the minutes from that last meeting, Behavioral Health has received grants to purchase and staff a building over near the old Community Hospital.  These staffers are supposed to be available, 24-7, to meet Chico PD at Enloe and take these people off Chico PD’s hands. The only time a cop is required  is when “patients are uncooperative…” or they’ve committed some crime.  So I wondered – why would Chico PD employees be spending so much time at Enloe? 

I keep asking myself – I know you are – why do I care about this stuff? It’s all part of the continuing conversation about crime getting worse in our town all the time. I’m not just hearing about it on the news – we’ve had a break-in within doors of our own home and all our rentals here in town. All had this in common – a window was broken out of a locked car and items were removed from the car. All happened right in front of the victims’ front doors, within ten yards of their home. They happened within sight of my windows, and other people’s windows, and one happened in the broad daylight. None have been “solved.” 

When I looked at the police log in the paper yesterday same thing – of five vehicle burglaries four involved windows broken out of locked cars. They are happening at all times of day, in all neighborhoods, most of them right out on the street. 

While Chico PD are sitting in the hallway at Enloe filling out their reports? 

Whenever we have something like this in our hood, it makes me so suspicious of every Tom, Dick and Harriet I don’t recognize anywhere near my property. There are so many transients in our town, we can’t recognize them anymore. It seems like new faces turn up next to the front door at Safeway on Mangrove every day. We hear conversations where the ones who’ve been here for a while tutor the newbies – “get a bike, it’s good to have a dog, don’t camp below One Mile,” we overheard one woman and her boyfriend telling another dirt-smeared young couple sitting on their pile of belongings next to the water machine. 

I want to know, what Behavioral Health is doing to separate out the truly helpless and needy so the cops can start enforcing the laws on the ones who are taking advantage of the situation.  I think the root problem is the camping in the park and along waterways like Lindo Channel, and I’m not convinced, aside from that high-profile and short-lived sweep of One Mile, that the police are doing everything they can to end it. They use the mental health issue as a shield, they insinuate we’re going to denigrate them if they arrest these people. I think there also might be a problem with the district attorney’s office not charging these people with anything – apparently they have to be in possession of more than $900 in stolen goods before Mike Ramsey will turn a hairy eyeball on them. Is that true? I’ll try to find out. 

That meeting is Wednesday, 3:30, at City Muni Bldg, conference room 2. 

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If you attended the dog and pony show without attending the AFAC meeting, you are being misled

29 Oct

Ann Willmann dropped a little bomb yesterday as she started the Aquatic Facility committee meeting – she announced there would be a public meeting at 7pm last night!   She had noticed me of the AFAC meeting, yesterday, 4pm, but didn’t think I’d be interested in the public meeting held later that evening? Apparently she advertised it somewhere, I’m guessing, about a 4 x 4 ad buried in the back pages of the ER. She announced she’d had 12 e-mail responses – I’m going to throw out another guess here – those were from the people she personally noticed, none of which was me.

Willmann is doing everything she can to shove this aquatic center past the voter’s nose and down our throats. Of course, in the mindless chatter that accompanies all these meetings, she said her son is on a swim team that hopes to use the facility. That’s what this is all about – a pack of dogs making demands for a bigger share of meat for themselves.

If you were not at yesterday’s AFAC meeting, you are being misled. The consultants are here to try and make us believe we need to build a pool for Chico Swim Association.  But, I notice, they are also trying to reel this committee into a more reasonable project – I believe Dennis from Aquatics Design Group was trying to tell them it would be more reasonable and rational to repair the two existing pools. Of course, he is all about getting the taxpayers to float some sort of bond or sales tax increase, but at least he’s trying to calm these people into accepting a more rational end figure.

He told a story about a group he worked with in Walnut Grove. When they handed him a Christmas list of goodies, he handed them back a $29 million price tag. They were shocked. He told them, like he was trying  to tell this group of dummies yesterday, “why don’t you find out what you can afford and give me a call…” They came up with $12 million. 

This group wants all the bells and whistles. At one point, members were discussing the different pool temperatures required for different activities – toddler swim lessons and therapy activities need about 10 degrees warmer water than competition practice. Tom Lando asked, exasperated, “is there no innovative technology to heat water?!”  The sky is the limit for Lando, who makes almost $150,000/year IN PENSION. Both the consultant and committee member Haley Cope rolled their eyes and said “yes, but it’s reeeeeaaaaallllly expensive.”  

Lando is really pushing this project, but I don’t believe he is sincere when he says it’s for the good of the community. He has to keep the money rolling into CalPERS to pay his own pension, I think that’s his biggest motivator. $150,000/year – that’s more than $10,000/month! Where does it all go Tom? Care to throw down $100,000 to pay for the consultants we’ve had in on this thing?

Former CARD directors, past board members, and current pension obligations Ed Seagle and Jerry Hughes both reminded us that CARD ran a survey a couple of years ago that came back negative – Jerry said  it – Chico taxpayers are not willing to pay for this project. Seagle also reminded everybody, these projects never pay for themselves, ever. The consultants told them again and again – at best, they could hope for a “35 – 45% return” from users of this facility, they kept repeating – this pig will have to be subsidized by the voters.

Loren from “Sports Management Group” said the taxpayers have to pay for it – “the community has to make a decision about things worth having…” She said, “you can find a bazillion partners who want to use it, but they don’t bring anything of material value…” Meaning, they don’t want to raise money for funding, and then they don’t want to pay fees based on actual cost. She reminded the group – it’s about “price sensitivity…if you make it cheap enough, everybody will want to use it, and then it’s not big enough…” 

So, let’s face it, this project is a money pit, and here she’s admitting, the users will never pay for it. At one point, citing a job they did in the city of El Paso, Texas, Dennis reported, it was determined that only about 15 percent of the total population would even use the facility. 

Yes, we need swimming pools here. We have two that have been steadily used for years, while meeting the needs of the community, that have been neglected into dysfunction. I used those pools for about 10 years when my kids were small, they were always well attended, but never so crowded that we had to wait in line for anything. Sometimes Shapiro would get kind of hoppin’, and the diving board would get backed up.

In the beginning the pools were clean, the staff was nice and eager to please, they knew the kids by name, played games, mandated “Time Outs”. But, by the time my younger son was in lessons, snot hung in the pool (now we find out the filter at Shapiro has not functioned properly for years), the decks were littered with trash from forbidden food, and the staff would stand around in a circle with their backs to the swimmers and chatter gossip. If you asked them for something they acted like you were standing on their junk. 

When I read the report given by a local pool company, I was shocked to see that CARD, who has been responsible for the pools and their finances for years, had not even kept the pools up to code. Nevermind the ADA – that’s the Americans With Disabilities Act – I’m talking about the health and safety code.

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2015/09/27/why-has-card-neglected-shapiro-pool-why-would-laura-urseny-say-theres-not-much-hope-when-it-can-be-rebuilt-for-less-than-a-million-dollars/

There are trip hazards on the deck at Shapiro, for example – some created by the improper removal of the popular diving board.  

Chico is a city of over 80,000. I can’t believe CARD would so badly mismanage our pools. In the meantime, they’ve continued to pay 100 percent of their management pensions, with a $1.7 million pension liability hanging like a wrecking ball. As I sat in that room yesterday, I looked around at four pension liabilities sitting right in front of me – Seagle, Hughes, Lando and Willman – none of whom pay or paid a penny toward their own retirement.

Just imagine getting a check for $10,000/month, for nothing.  Wow, wouldn’t you think a guy like Tom Lando, who is so quick to put a sales tax increase to the rest of us, would yank out his checkbook and cut a quick one for $10,000? Hey, how about $100,000 Tom? 

The whole meeting yesterday was insulting and outrageous. Yes, Aqua Jets was the only organization represented – none of the other “users”, as Loren speculated, are bringing anything to the table. Aqua Jets has done no fundraising for this project. Yes, they expect all the bells and whistles and the public to pay for it. 

When I get a chance, I’ll sit down and work off my notes, but right now I’m afraid having to hash it all over again would ruin my day. Committee members Haley Cope and Jackie Santos made some really insulting remarks – they wouldn’t have made those remarks in a public meeting, I’ll tell you that right now. 

UPDATE: Here’s the “public notice” Willmann ran with help from her pet news reporter Laura Urseny – notice the date and time this article was posted – 11am, the day of. No wonder only 25 participants – Willmann needs to go. 

CARD seeking pool-related comments at Oct. 28 meeting

By Laura Urseny, Chico Enterprise-Record

POSTED: 10/28/15, 11:41 AM PDT | UPDATED: 1 DAY AGO

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Chico >> Chico residents will have a chance to comment about a proposed aquatics facility through the Chico Area Recreation and Park District.

A consultant hired by CARD will be taking input starting at 7 p.m. Oct. 28 at the Chico Community Center, 545 Vallombrosa Ave.

There is no specific design in mind, but this workshop will help CARD decide what the facility should look like and what activities need to be considered.

CARD’s board has agreed to pay Aquatics Design Group of Carlsbad $50,000, plus $10,000 contingent for the feasibility study.

Willmann says there will be a short program, and then people will be asked to offer their ideas and desires.

CARD hopes to have preliminary information and a broad — not defined — design before Christmas. It will take from five to six months for a finished product to come from the consultants, Willmann said.

During the two-day visit this month, the consultants will also be sitting down one-on-one with stakeholders like competitive and recreational swim groups to get a feel for the swim and water communities, as well as CARD’s aquatics subcommittee.

But the open house is especially designed for the general public.

“It would be nice to have people like parents or grandparents, and to hear what the community wants,” Willmann said.

Willmann said she would ask the community “If there was a different type of pool, what would encourage me to use it?”

Information gathered from previous meetings will be shared with the consultant as well, she said.

The consultants will also be weighing-in on the existing pools CARD uses, which are the ones by Bidwell and Chico junior highs.

At its last board meeting, CARD directors agreed to keep Chico Junior’s Shapiro Pool open through March. Because of its age and amount of maintenance it takes, CARD was going to discontinue its lease of the pool. Both public pools are owned by the Chico Unified School District, which has not been interested in taking over their operation from CARD.

Willmann said one benefit the consultant will bring is the ability to see how much revenue will be brought to CARD depending on the design and size of the proposed facility.

There is no designated budget for the project yet, other than what the consultant will be getting.

Those who can’t make the meeting can write emails or letters to Willmann through annw@chicorec.com or CARD, 545 Vallombrosa Ave., Chico 95926.

Contact reporter Laura Urseny at 896-7756.

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Airport Commission will not recommend AVPorts; CARD committee will hear from $60,000 swimming pool consultant tonight

28 Oct

At last, good news to report.  The Airport Commission will not recommend hiring AVPorts to manage the airport – just when I thought these guys would trade a cow for a bag of magic beans.

And, here’s the refreshing part – 13 people lined up in the council chambers to tell the commission not to recommend this deal. That’s actually a lot of people to attend one of these commission meetings. They all said they thought AVPorts’ proposal was too expensive and many felt AVPorts was making promises they could never keep. For one thing, somebody pointed out, AVPorts has never successfully brought commercial service back to any airport they’ve worked for, and that was the carrot they’ve been dangling for months now. 

Some people opined that “there’s no hope” for regaining commercial service.  I’m glad to hear that – why we need commercial service with Sacramento International Airport less than a two hour drive up a road we’ve spent millions of tax dollars improving is beyond me. The commercial service conversation is being kept afloat by a very small group of self-servers, who, as my grandma used to say, can’t see past the end of their own nose. They want commercial air service, for themselves, for their puffed up visions of what Chico is “supposed to be“, so they don’t have to feel as though they come from a podunk town when they are hobnobbing with their expensive friends in the Bay Area and LA. They’re embarrassed of our town because we don’t have big, stinking jets flying over our homes, dropping space peanuts through our roofs?

It’s hard to relate to this crowd – maybe because they don’t really live in Chico, they live on the road and in the air between their “homes” – storage units – in the Bay Area and Hawaii and other wonderful places. Chico is just one of the places they temporarily hang their hat, sticking their johnson into our business here for their personal gain and then hitting the road for better prospects. I’ve met these people through these meetings Downtown, I get to know their faces just about the time they pack up their carpet bag and head for some other little burg that still has a few loose bucks to grease their palms. 

AVPorts got about $200,000, just for coming to Chico and entertaining us at a couple of meetings. I’m still laughing about the idea of putting city staffers in pilot’s and stewardess uniforms, having them walk around City Plaza during functions, acting like, “Flying is FUN!”  Brings back memories of a, uh, simpler time…

The real simpletons here are the council who agreed to this deal. AVPorts actually mentioned hiring a specific person – Rod Dinger, who has run Redding Airport. What’s wrong with our council and staff? Why can’t they just hire an airport manager?  We need a $200,000 consultant to hire a person? 

The same thing is going on at Chico Area Recreation District this afternoon, 4pm, CARD Center on Vallombrosa. A consultant will report on the $60,000 “feasibility study” being run to get the voters to put a bond on their homes to pay, not really for an aquatic center, but for the $1.7 million pension deficit currently hanging over CARD, and CalPERS, like a time bomb. I’d sure like to think 13 members of the public would come in to express their concerns about CARD’s spending policies – especially now that they are thinking of taking over the Nature Center, including another management salary, and promising money for projects like the recent pump track and improvements at the skate park. In 2012 they laid off employees and cut hours so they could avoid paying Obamacare for their hourly workers, opting instead to make a $400,000 “side fund pay-off” to CalPERS toward salaried management pensions. Current CARD management pay NOTHING toward their own pensions out of salaries over $100,000.

They also ran a survey a couple of years ago that came back negative – the taxpayers do not support a bond for a facility that will primarily be used for private clubs.  But the CARD board recently voted to spend another $60,000 trying to tell us we do! Helloooooo? 

Meetings People, you got to attend the meetings.

 

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Noise ordinance causes conflict of tenant rights

20 Oct

Chico Mayor Mark Sorensen agendized a discussion of the noise ordinance at tonight’s council meeting – they want to hold landlords responsible, without a written complaint, and expect to be able to use mail as “proof of service.” 

This is an obvious revenue grab by the cops. When I saw an article about a similar situation in Yuba County, I sent Mayor Sorensen a note – it took me less than 15 minutes to write, send, and post this note on this blog:

Mayor Sorensen,

Regarding the discussion of the noise ordinance provision to fine landlords – please read Yuba County Superior Court judge’s decision below regarding fines on landlord for tenant’s illegal activities.  “Property owners have argued the county’s actions violates their property rights and places them in direct conflict with state law that protects tenant’s rights. They have claimed county code provides for exceptions to the owners responsibility and that is being ignored by the BOS. In his order, Barrier concurred saying there are exceptions to an owners responsibility if the owner did not cause, permit, or otherwise allow the existence of the violation and cannot legally abate said violation…” 

 

 I believe this rings true of noise violations as well. I don’t know what our county or city code says about tenant’s rights but I don’t think it matters in the face of state law.

Holding landlords liable for tenant’s  illegal activities causes a conflict of tenant’s rights.  I am limited in my rights to regulate my tenants’ behavior and can be held legally liable for anything resembling harassment. I have a tenant’s/landlord’s rights attorney – what’s Vince’s specialty? 

Notice of landlords by mail is unacceptable. That’s not “proof”, and USPS turnaround is not adequate to avoid the second offense.  You will have to make an ordinance that says rentals  must be registered with contact information provided. Good luck with that. 

It is very obvious this is just a revenue grab by Chico PD. Please tell them they need to pay their own pensions, or go get a job in the private sector.

Thanks for your ear, Juanita Sumner

From Territorial Dispatch, http://territorialdispatch.biz/2015/oct/Oct14-2015WEB.pdf

The Cost of Justice in Yuba County – Judge Overturns Fine on Property Owners –  By Elden Fowler 

Yuba County Superior Court Judge Stephen W. Barrier has ruled in a lawsuit filed by Jon and Amy Messick against Yuba County and the decision does not bode well for the Board of Supervisors’ (BOS) plan to fund code enforcement by levying fines against property owners where marijuana is being cultivated by renters. The Messicks own a property where a tenant illegally cultivated marijuana. The County claimed administrative costs, abatement costs, and penalties in the amount of $18,774.51. Subsequent to an administrative hearing before the Yuba County Board of Supervisors (BOS), for which property owners are now required to pay $4,118, a lien was placed on their property in the amount of $15,974. While it now costs $4,118 to have an administrative hearing or appeal before the BOS, it also is expensive to proceed to have the matter settled in the courts. The costs associated with the Messick’s legal challenge were approximately $7,500, for a total in excess of $11,600 by today’s standard. If the county decides to appeal, those costs will undoubtedly climb higher. The administrative hearing process is similar to being in court for a trial. However, an administrative hearing involves disputes under the authority of governmental agencies. The courts have held that the hearings must be fair and administrative decision makers must be impartial. It is difficult to believe the decision makers, the BOS, are impartial when it is they that wrote the law that is being challenged, It was estimated the county would need more than $700,000 to fund an enhanced Code Enforcement Department with several new officers being hired. The BOS was counting on marijuana cultivation permit fees, fines, and penalty assessments to provide the funding. Collecting fees from landlords made good sense to this BOS. Barrier’s decision apparently places that program in question. Property owners have argued the county’s actions violates their property rights and places them in direct conflict with state law that protects tenant’s rights. They have claimed county code provides for exceptions to the owners responsibility and that is being ignored by the BOS. In his order, Barrier concurred saying there are exceptions to an owners responsibility “if the owner did not cause, permit, or otherwise allow the existence of the violation and cannot legally abate said violation…” With a host of assessments already approved by the BOS and more being prepared, this will undoubtedly not be the last case to go to court leaving the county with little choice but to change tactics or appeal the decisions in hopes of a more favourable ruling. In the meantime, property owners, without the financial resources to defend themselves against a county that holds them responsible for the actions of their tenants, face continued code enforcement actions and liens. 

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