Why PAC’s are BAD

17 Feb

There’s not much surprising in the reports that were just posted from former police chief Mike Maloney’s PAC – Chico Citizens for Accountability. Shocking, yes, disturbing, yes – surprising? No. 

Maloney raised around $50,000 – I didn’t do a formal tally – and spent it on mailers, billboards, radio ads and other support of candidates  Sorensen, Coolidge and Fillmer, as well as a pretty damning mailer with a picture of Scott Gruendl with the UNIVERSAL NO! over his face. I already knew that. I already knew alot of his donors – mostly realtors and construction people. 

What really disgusts me about these reports, beyond the fact that Maloney was allowed to be five days late in filing without being fined, is the amounts single donors are allowed to contribute to PAC’s – way beyond the city’s $900 limit for a single person.  For example, local realtor and developer Doug Guillon gave at least $5,000 in this last campaign. As an individual, like you and me, he would have been limited to $900.

Guillon has always been a big donor to the conservatives, and always gets a lot of consideration from them when he has a project. Years ago, conservatives led by realtor Dan Herbert were going to push forward an extension of Otterson Drive, in Guillon’s business park, meaning, put it ahead of other slated public projects, do it with public money, instead of making Guillon pay for it. People gathered signatures against it, and the council had to reconsider – the project ended up being scrapped. It was so obviously a spoils project for a big donor. 

You got to wonder, what will they try to give Guillon now? 

PACs are bad. We either need a resolution that severely limits PACs, or we need to kick them out of local elections. 

We do have a city clerk, Debbie Presson, who is supposed to keep these PAC’s honest – she has the discretion to fine them when they turn their paperwork in late – $5 a day – but has chosen not to do so, even though the CPOA has been late for a number of filings. It’s a pattern with those guys, and Presson lets them get away with it. The CCAG was five days late, according to the date stamp – I guess that’s  why she wasn’t posting that filing on line, she didn’t want people bitching about it. Well, I am. And the CPOA has yet to file, but she hasn’t fined them either.

We need to change the city charter to elect the city clerk. I know this hasn’t worked out perfect at the county, but I think it helps keep Candy Grubbs honest.  Presson is supposed to be an officer of the public, but she seems to work for the police union instead.

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CCAG filings posted today (date-stamped when?); CPOA filings still missing from city website

16 Feb

I sent the letter below to the Enterprise Record, it ran about two days ago. I don’t know if letters to the editor do any good anymore, but I want to keep the contract talks up in front of the public. 

As of today, the clerk has posted the filings for CCAG, date stamped February 5 – you can put whatever date you want on a date stamp. But, the CPOA final filings are still missing.

http://www.chico.ca.us/city_clerk/campaign_disclosure_files/currentyearcds.asp

The January 31 deadline for filing the post-election campaign reports has come and gone and, as of February 6, neither the Chico Police Officers Association nor former police chief Mike Maloney’s  Chico Citizens for Accountable Government’s reports are available on the city website. The CPOA was also late in filing their 3rd Pre-election reports.  The clerk has discretion to fine these PAC’s but instead gave them an extension until February 2, which they also missed. For some reason she has taken past campaign filings off the website, requiring interested parties to come to her office during business hours to request viewing. It would be interesting to see how much the CPOA spent installing Morgan in 2012. 

According to their pre-election reports, the CCAG spent over $10,000 on mailers for newly elected council members Fillmer and Coolidge as well as re-elected Sorensen. Those council members are in contract negotiations with the CPOA, but they are not posting proposals on the website as they promised in their “Sunshine” ordinance. 

I don’t know how the police department, council, city staff, public pensioners, or their families can expect the voter’s respect or trust when they behave so secretly, holding information from the public who pay their salaries and benefits. 

Excessive public compensation is destroying our community. 

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

CARD Aquatic Center Design Cost Estimates

14 Feb

CARD Aquatic Center Cost Estimates (1)

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CARD responds! with updates

12 Feb

Hi Juanita,

 

I just wanted to let you know that based upon your conversation with our General Manager last week, you have already been placed on the notification list for upcoming Aquatic Facility Advisory Committee meetings.  At this time, there are no meetings scheduled.

 

If you have any questions, please let me know.

 

Thank you,

 

Jennifer Marciales
Executive Assistant
(530) 895-4711
Chico Area Recreation and Park District
545 Vallombrosa Avenue
Chico, CA 95926

Well, that’s funny, I hadn’t given Mr. Haynes my e-mail, I’d told him I’d send it. I sent it that day, in the automatic form they give you on the CARD website, because Mr. Haynes had not given me his e-mail either. It took this gal almost two weeks to get back to me – funny thing, after my letter had run in the paper, and on the very day I’d posted it on the blog. But oh well, at least she responded.

I did have a couple of questions, so sent her the following response:

Thank You,

I didn’t give Mr. Haynes my e-mail, thanks for the follow-up.  I’ve been asking to be on this committee notification list since it was formed, and reports have been given of meetings but I never received notices of those meetings. Now you’re saying, despite designs having been made for this proposed center and talk of an assessment on property owners, there are no more meetings scheduled? I’ll be looking forward to notification of any future meetings, but I’ll be watching the board agenda too.

One question I have right now is, I would like to ask you for an exact figure on the designs presented for the aquatic center by Melton Design Group – the newspaper gave a ballpark figure of “$30,000 to $60,000”, but I’m sure you can give me a more specific figure. 

I had originally called to ask Mr. Haynes about the assessment process, which he refused to discuss with me. Since that call I have found a copy of the engineers report dated fiscal year 2013-14, in which SCI Consultant Group give a detailed report regarding assessment of property owners. If I have any questions about that I’ll be sure to get back to you. 

I’ve cc-d the news editors because I have either spoken to them about this issue or sent letters to the papers about it.

Thanks again for your anticipated cooperation, Juanita Sumner

UPDATE 2/14/15

Did I not make myself clear in my request? “I would like to ask you for an exact figure on the designs presented for the aquatic center by Melton Design Group – the newspaper gave a ballpark figure of ‘$30,000 to $60,000’, but I’m sure you can give me a more specific figure…”

She sent me the actual design proposals, with price tags, but did not answer my question about the cost of the proposal. I had to write back to her. I try to be nice, but sometimes I feel like these people are just messing with me. 

UPDATE 2/18/15

Well, sometimes people aren’t messing with me! Although it took her several business days to respond, Jennifer Marciales finally got back to explain to me the figures I had seen in an article in the Enterprise Record. The $30-60,000 figure I saw was an estimate for the full designs, not the price for the proposals. She says the proposals were simply submitted by Melton Design Group, with prices tags for each proposal ranging from $30 – 60,000. I’m sorry, that makes sense now, but it didn’t make sense when the folks at CARD were acting so weird about sharing public  information.

Thanks Jennifer! 

 There is a CARD meeting tomorrow night, with some interesting items on the agenda:

http://www.chicorec.com/documents/Board%20Agendas/2015/February%2019%202015%20Agenda.pdf

You find these agendas at the CARD website, under “CARD resources”, “board of directors”.  I will not be able to attend tomorrow night, I have another meeting that is a one-shot, so I’m attending that. These CARD meetings are easy to attend, held at the CARD center on Vallombrosa, they start and  end very promptly, I’d say, over by 8:30, tops. Everybody who pays taxes in the greater Chico area should attend these meetings once in a while. 

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Almost two weeks and no response to my request to be added to CARD aquatic center committee notification list

10 Feb

Contact CARD

 
Chico Area Recreation and Parks District (no-reply@wufoo.com)
Add to contacts
1/29/15
To: my e-mail
 
no-reply@wufoo.com
 
 
 
 

Thanks for your submission.

Contact CARD
Name * juanita sumner
Email *  my e-mail
Comments or Questions *
I would like to be included on the notice list for the Aquatic Center Advisory Ad-hoc committee. Please contact me at the e-mail address listed above.

The public needs to press CARD about how they plan to fund the proposed aquatic center

8 Feb

I was so shocked by the response I got from CARD General Manager Jerry Haynes when I called to ask about the assessment process, I wrote a letter to the Enterprise Record. I’m glad they ran it, but I’m wondering if anything will come of it. I had filled out a website contact form, asking to be added to the Aquatic Center Advisory Ad-hoc Committee notice list, but haven’t had any response. I’m not surprised, actually – when I’ve made other requests via that website contact form, it’s taken weeks for a staffer to get back to me. I’m guessing nobody checks it very often.

I wish other people would call CARD, or attend a CARD board meetings sometime, and ask about this committee. Here’s the link:

http://www.chicorec.com/CARD-Resources/Board-of-Directors/index.html

Here’s my letter sent to the ER, run a couple of days ago:

On December 18, ER reporter Laura Urseny wrote, “A proposed aquatic center is part of CARD’s (Chico Area Recreation District’s) master plan and has been discussed for more than a year.”  

“A CARD subcommittee of board members and the public hoped to trigger large contributions from the community, but it looks like CARD will have to take the issue to the voters for a tax measure to pay for the facility.”  

“General Manager Jerry Haynes suggested and the board agreed to bring in consultants to talk to the board about ways to proceed financially with a center’s development.” 

I called the CARD center recently to find out more about this proposed tax measure. A man identifying himself as General Manager Jerry Haynes denied any mention of any assessment or tax in any news article. He further denied that the CARD board had any such plans, or had  even discussed it. 

When I asked him if I could be placed on the notice list for the Aquatic Center Advisory Ad-hoc committee mentioned in the January 21 board agenda, he first denied the existence of such a committee and said there were no such meetings planned. He finally admitted that new board member Bob Malowney had been named to this committee, but still denied there were any meetings planned.  

I am simply trying to learn more about the process by which CARD will “take the issue to the voters.” 

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San Jose Mercury News: Fix CPUC NOW!

4 Feb

Read this story at 

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_27451750/mercury-news-editorial-puc-may-require-legislatures-intervention

The links below work – click on “MORE: PG&E, OTHER PUBLIC UTILITIES” and get more up-to-date stories regarding the San Bruno investigation and other utility news.

Mercury News editorial: PUC may require Legislature’s intervention

Mercury News Editorial

POSTED:   02/03/2015 03:27:00 PM PST

2 COMMENTS|

UPDATED:   ABOUT 15 HOURS AGO

 

The California Public Utilities Commission has not come clean on the extent of its improper relationship with PG&E. Not even close.

 The 65,000 emails released last week by the utility it purports to regulate make this painfully clear — and make it all the more important to fully disclose everything that has gone on in the past to assess what to do moving forward.
Perhaps none of the three current PUC members who were involved in regulating PG&E after the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion should remain. To determine that, PUC members should voluntarily release all of their emails to or about PG&E to show the extent of their relationships.

So should former PUC President Michael Peevey, who is under investigation by the attorney general’s office — but we’ve given up expecting him to do the right thing. Same for Gov. Jerry Brown, who continues to defend Peevey despite his unethical conduct.

Fortunately, the Legislature can step in. Lawmakers can remove a commissioner with a two-thirds vote. They should exercise that power on any PUC members who do not release all emails to prove they’re up to the job.
 
And they should remove Commissioner Michael Florio now.
 
We called for his resignation in 2014 after emails disclosed he intervened on behalf of PG&E in the debate over allowable pressure for a gas pipeline in San Carlos. Florio warned PG&E that the governor’s office might try to broker a compromise. Then he wrote, “Amazing how I’ve become an apologist for PG&E in just three short years, isn’t it.”It sure was. So are the latest disclosures such as the November 2012 email from Florio to former PG&E Vice President Brian Cherry, who later was fired for inappropriate interactions with the PUC. Florio shows off just how chummy he is with the folks at PG&E by whining to Cherry about being assigned to supervise a PG&E rate hike proposal, writing: “I did NOT ask for this! Fortunately, for all concerned, we have good experienced administrative law judge in Tom Pulsifer. Can’t you protest or something???”

Florio admits to inappropriate conduct but maintains that “any objective review of my voting record at this commission will demonstrate that I have shown no partiality to PG&E or any other regulated utility.” Not really. What did he do to influence what showed up on agendas for a public vote?

In January, new PUC President Michael Picker said he wanted the agency to be more transparent, accessible and responsive to the public. Even though he hasn’t been president for long, releasing his own email interactions with all California utilities would demonstrate the type of leadership that’s been lacking for a decade.

Evidence of improper and unethical conduct continues to ooze out of the PUC, email by email, like seepage from a cracked pipeline. Let’s not wait for an explosion. Fix the agency now. If members can’t prove themselves worthy of public trust, clean house. If the PUC itself or the governor won’t do it, the Legislature needs to step in.

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Houston, we got a problem…

1 Feb
This letter from former planning commissioner and past city council candidate Dave Kelley shows we haven’t solved our problems by electing new faces:
Chico Enterprise Record
Letter: Donors are winners on Chico commissions
POSTED: 01/30/15, 8:41 PM PST |0 COMMENTS
Donors are winners on Chico commissions
At the Sept. 16, 2014, Chico City Council meeting, Mardi Worley, myself and others spoke up against the council’s desire to change the process of selecting citizens who apply to serve on city boards and commissions.Instead of selecting all applicants at a public hearing, in a 4-3 vote they permitted themselves to directly chose their own favorites for the Planning Commission and the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission.That night, I said changing this city policy could result in applicants believing they would have to be a friend and/or a donor to be considered for a board or commission position.Sure enough, recently two councilors appointed campaign donors. Mayor Mark Sorensen received $150 and Reanette Fillmer received $50 from their appointees. No public disclosure of the donations occurred before the appointees were seated.

These campaign dollars are petty amounts. But now, the perception of patronage is real. Now donors are winners. Now the door has been opened for future councilors to follow this dubious example.

The issue at stake is about principles, and principles are not petty.

— Dave Kelley, Chico

Why is CARD being so secretive about the aquatics center?

29 Jan

Today I called CARD, and simply asked, what is the process for putting an assessment on property taxes. The woman who answered the phone handed me over to new CARD director Jerry Haynes. Haynes replaces Steve Visconti.

Haynes immediately asked me where I’d heard about an assessment. Well, I’d been going to meetings the last couple of years, I told him, and they’d been talking about it in the Enterprise Record. 

Haynes doesn’t waste time – he got right in my face, telling me there was no such mention in any newspaper article. This guy is very aggressive.

So, I asked him about a consultant that had been discussed – he said the consultant was to help them update their general plan (see in the ER story below, he says the consultant will tell them how to proceed with financing the aquatic  center). 

Then I told him, I’d seen an item on last week’s agenda about appointing board members to the various committees – the first listed was the Aquatic Center Advisory Ad-hoc Committee. First he denied the existence of this committee, then he denied that they had been having or planned to have any meetings in future. I repeated my questions about the agenda item to him at least three times before he interrupted me, blurting out “Bob Malowney!” 

This is why I don’t make phone calls, but I get nowhere with CARD via e-mail. Steve Visconti told me again and again he’d put me on the notifications list, but later he also denied there were any meetings, even when there were reports of such meetings listed in the agendas. This whole thing is surreal.

Haynes got really agitated at this point. I told him I was also frustrated, it is so hard to get information about this aquatic center, but whenever I write letters to the paper about it I am accused of passing misinformation, even lying.  I told him, “but you see here how hard it is for me to get the right information…”  He started raising his voice, he said, “Please listen to me!” but his tone didn’t say “please,” it said, “look you little so-and-so!”. I responded that I’d e-mail him.  As I was saying Thank You, he flat hung up. 

If you don’t believe me, call CARD yourself and ask about the Aquatic Center Advisory Ad-hoc Committee. Be nice! Record your conversation, I wish I had. 

UPDATE:  Here’s an excerpt from a story the ER ran in December, full story here – look at the headline in the link. When I quoted this story to Jerry Haynes he denied everything in it:

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2014/12/22/card-finally-announces-plans-to-pursue-a-tax-measure-to-pay-for-aqua-jets-swim-center/

A proposed aquatic center is part of CARD’s master plan and has been discussed for more than a year. For this meeting, several plans with different attributes were going to be discussed, with costs ranging from $10.8 million to $18 million.

A CARD subcommittee of board members and the public hoped to trigger large contributions from the community, but it looks like CARD will have to take the issue to the voters for a tax measure to pay for the facility.

The board happily accepted an offer from members of the subcommittee, including a swim association, to pay for a feasibility study on the center.

General Manager Jerry Haynes suggested and the board agreed to bring in consultants to talk to the board about ways to proceed financially with a center’s development. As far as mounting a successful public education campaign, that should be up to the swim group and its supporters, the board agreed.

In a phone call yesterday, CARD director Jerry Haynes denied everything in that article. Maybe Laura Urseny needs to check her notes. 

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Campaign reports: Chico citizens for responsible government – what do Mark Sorensen, Andrew Coolidge, and Reanette Fillmer have to hide?

28 Jan

http://www.chico.ca.us/city_clerk/campaign_disclosure_files/currentyearcds.asp

 

The only person listed behind this is an Elk Grove lawyer.  Only a few big-money donors. This is what you people elected! Enjoy!

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