Read the CPOA proposal here

11 Dec

On next Tuesday’s agenda we again find the council in closed door conference with Chico Police, but no “sunshine” on the discussion. The last thing we have is the CPOA proposal from the October 21 agenda:

http://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=512&meta_id=42166

Council has been in closed door conference with the CPOA at every meeting since October 21, but that’s all we know. I have not seen any kind of proposal from the city, only the demands listed by the CPOA.

Read it yourself – right off the top, they want 5 percent raises, more holiday and overtime pay, and they want the city to pay benefits recently surrendered by management employees, like FICA. Here we pay 91 percent of their pension and benefits – on a pension worth 90 percent of their highest year’s salary, available at 50 years of age –  but they still expect us to pay their workman’s comp. 

The cops already get about half the budget – over $20 million out of about $43 million total budget. Yes, we have crime here, but Chico Police get paid on par with cities like San Francisco – that hardly seems legitimate. More people have been killed here by the cops than cops have been killed, that’s a brutal fact, Ma’am. 

We hear threats they will leave if we don’t pay them enough – I can’t believe our council folds to that, and expects us to fold too. That is the kind of extortion we can count on from these people – none of them are fit to wear a badge, to serve in a position of trust. The idea that a cop would threaten the citizens – what are you people thinking, putting up with a bag dog?

Bad dog, bad bad dog!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Stockton Chapter 9 proceedings result in retiree’s “giving up” $550 million in benefits

7 Dec

 

I’ve been trying to follow the proceedings in Stockton, where the city is currently negotiating a Chapter 9 bankruptcy with the court.  I found the court reporter’s word-for-word report of the most recent October 30 hearing, it’s really interesting:

http://www.stocktongov.com/files/COS_Chapter9_ConfirmationHearingTranscript_2014_10_30_DRAFT_61pages.pdf

On page 13, the judge acknowledges that significant changes were made to Stockton’s employee contracts, regarding the payment of “employee share”. He doesn’t offer all the details, but on page 16 or so he says it amounts to around $550 million in “unsecured claims” that retirees will now pay themselves. 

As with Vallejo, the cops were the biggest problem, but he says they’ve now reached agreement with the city. We’ll have to keep an eye on that, Chico will very likely be headed in a similar direction within the next two to four years. 

 

 

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Center for Individual Rights: “Collective bargaining is inherently political”

3 Dec

Here is a more recent article – from November 18 – about that lawsuit against the California Teachers Association, from the website of the firm that is representing the teachers:

https://www.cir-usa.org/cases/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-association-et-al/

Again, this lawsuit asks the court to overrule its precedent that allows states to mandate union dues – the law that allows employers and unions to exclude – refuse to hire – workers  who do not wish to be members or pay dues. Simply put, they are suing for the individual’s right to work.  The Center for Individual Rights, representing 10 California teachers, is taking it to the Supreme Court because they say this is the only court that has the authority  to grant them “relief” from involuntary union conscription.

Here’s an excerpt that sort of addresses a question we had on an earlier post:

Collective Bargaining is inherently political

Typically, California teacher union dues cost upwards of a $1,000 per year. Although California law allows teachers to opt-out of the thirty percent or so of their dues devoted to overt political lobbying, they may not opt out of the sixty to seventy percent of their dues the union determines is devoted to collective bargaining. This type of forced-payment scheme assumes that collective bargaining is “non-political.”  But bargaining with local governments is inherently political.  Whether the union is negotiating for specific class sizes or pressing a local government to spend tax dollars on teacher pensions rather than on building parks, the union’s negotiating positions embody political choices that are often controversial.

A reader had mentioned a possible provision for donating to charity – I doubt that’s still in the contracts,  but here they claim they will exempt 30 percent of your dues they say they spend on political causes. 

I agree with the lawyers who are representing the teachers – the union is political and everything they do is political. This 30-60 split is  preposterous – for one thing, I want to see the CTA’s books, all the way around.  They should have to make those public, on an easily accessible website, I’ll have to keep nosing around.

I’m assuming other  unions have the same exemption, am I assuming too much?  Every dime the CPOA PAC gets goes to political causes – where does the money go that is not used for the PAC? I’d like to see that fund  – should I ask CPOA president Peter Durfee? He couldn’t even get his campaign paperwork filed on time, complaining, essentially, “Dammit, I’m a COP, not an accountant!”  So, I have to wonder – who keeps the CPOA’s regular books, and where do I find them? 

I’d say, having to pay dues to an organization that pushes an agenda you don’t agree with is a shakedown. 

A real union is made of a group of people who agree to work together for a common cause, whether it is a temporary or permanent relationship.  You talk and vote among yourselves, with people who have the same gripes or needs, and you have to agree on your action, or it isn’t going to come off. If one person can’t get a big enough group to agree on an action, then that suggestion should die. If you are unhappy in your job, but you can’t get your fellow workers to agree with you, then you should find another job. 

With modern unions, the decisions are made by people who aren’t even employees, full-time “arbitrators” who get salaries bigger than working members, people who use intimidation, harassment and threats to get members to go along with the party line. 

sheesh – sounds like Chico!

Here’s how it works – you’ll be having coffee quietly somewhere, minding your own business, and some person you had considered too good to talk to you suddenly pulls up the chair across the table and makes friendly greetings in a low voice. They have lots of flattery for you – still in a low voice – but they wonder – are you really using your energies/talents to a good purpose? This actually happened to me at an “envelope stuffing party”, where I was sitting folding letters for Maureen Kirk, who was running for city council at the time. A very powerful liberal sat down and told me I should let her and others who know more about what they are doing write my letters!  She thought all I cared about was getting my name in the paper, and I’d be glad to let somebody else do all the onerous work of having the opinion. I can laugh now, but if she sat across the table from me today I’d land my size 8 right in her junk. 

I don’t hang out in coffee shops, so it happens to me more often via e-mail,  when one of them gets ahold of my e-mail under false pretenses. One well known liberal approached me this way, telling me, I had a “charming way with words,” and he loved my “feisty character,”  but by the third e-mail he was telling me I was “pissing into the wind” with my letters to the editor, “nobody listens to you.” 

This is, by the way, cyber bullying.  Like those women who are accusing Bill Cosby – if I told you who this old mummy was, you’d laugh your ass off. But I know he’s done it to other people.  The conservatives do it too – they also have an old mummy they take out of the cotton batting to annoy anybody who tries to raise their head up and say something that doesn’t jibe with  the party line. 

It’s as simple as that – they put you down, make you feel uncomfortable in your ability to express yourself. I’ve got a guy now, a member of the teachers’  union, who just keeps coming around and telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about. 

No, this doesn’t work on me, because my parents  put the mark on me when I was too young to realize – they told me I would be stubborn, they told me I would always think I was right. Your parents just know. 

But other people were raised by bullies, and they fall for bullying. It always blows my mind when I get those anonymous notes from people saying, “please don’t print my outrageous remark, I don’t want to get in trouble…”  But I know what they’re talking about, and I don’t have the heart to poke them about it, I know their fears are warranted.  

No, you do not have the “right” to a job in California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wow, here’s some news we haven’t seen in the Enterprise Record – a group of California teachers have mounted a lawsuit against paying mandatory union dues

1 Dec

A group of 10 California public school teachers is fighting the California Teacher’s Union for the right to work – they currently have the case in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, I don’t have any news more recent than a month ago.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/07/california-teachers-sue-union-over-dues-politics/

Of course the CTA says this is an “anti-union” move. It seems, the only way you can be perceived as “pro-union” is sit down, shut up, and do what you’re told. Oh, and don’t forget to FORK OVER!

 

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People before pensions – do you really have “the right to work”?

29 Nov

My step-dad was a truck driver, he built the freeways we use everyday. He was an owner operator who drove his belly dumps mostly for Lindeman Brothers. He is one of the drivers that dug out “Teichert Ponds,” named after one of his favorite people, “Old Henry” Teichert.

Ironically, Lindeman Brothers was essentially driven out of business about 10 years ago by Teamsters and the California Prevailing Wage Law.  The 160 people left unemployed blamed the company for being “anti-union” – they should have looked in the mirror, they cut their own throats with their outrageous demands. Lindeman Brothers/Yuba Agregate was a family  business.

Mr. Lindeman and his wife, Ethel, used to come to our house, in West Sac, for chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, at our crappy old dinette set. They were regular people, trying to keep a business afloat. My dad was one of their employees but they were never too good to have dinner with us.

My dad did not receive a “substandard” wage – in the 1970’s he was making about $22/hour. He used to say, “Sure, that sounds like a lot of money, but there ain’t much left after union dues.” 

My dad was a member of Teamsters, but he didn’t like it. I’m glad he didn’t live to see what Teamsters did to his old boss. He always told us he was forced to join, but we didn’t get that. He complained that his union dues cost him more per hour than tires for his 18-wheeler.  We thought unions were supposed  to protect the working man,  but coming from my dad it sounded more like a shakedown.

Now I get it. I read about “right to work” legislation. Apparently, Chico PD are not the only ones who are allowed to force employees who don’t want to be members of their union to pay dues anyway. This is the core of “right to work” legislation – how can that be legal? That’s a fucking shakedown. 

According to wikipedia, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law

A “right-to-work” law is a statute in the United States that prohibits union security agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers, that govern the extent to which an established union can require employees’ membership, payment of union dues, or fees as a condition of employment, either before or after hiring. Right-to-work laws do not aim to provide general guarantee of employment to people seeking work, but rather are a government regulation of the contractual agreements between employers and labor unions that prevents them from excluding non-union workers,[1] or requiring employees to pay a fee to unions that have negotiated the labor contract all the employees work under.

How interesting. I think this subject needs more study. 

 

 

 

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Sipple et al v. City of Chico – city of Chico has been accepting illegally collected utility taxes, AGAIN!

26 Nov

I was just looking over next Tuesday’s agenda and saw something interesting in the closed session schedule at  the end – since 2011 the city of Chico has been sued over “taxes erroneously paid and collected in violation of the law” .  Apparently cell phone and internet provider New Cingular has been collecting taxes for internet access and handing the money over to some 134 cities and two counties, including the city of Chico. 

Donald Sipple is the same man who sued to stop cities all over California from illegally collecting a “utility tax” off our cell phones. They’d been doing it for years, without our consent, even after a federal court ruling made it illegal.  That’s the way it is – you sue somebody, maybe you win – then you have to collect. In that case, the city of Chico decided to put a measure on the 2012 ballot, asking us to forgive  them their trespasses, and allow them to keep right on trespassing, offering to lower the tax by a puny half a percent if we’d allow them to keep collecting it. That campaign was low and dishonest, but we beat it, and the city had to hand over refunds to those who went through their ridiculous process to get them. 

Given that, I guess I shouldn’t be shocked to find out, they’ve been collecting an illegal tax on internet access, and now must be sued to comply with a court order to stop doing it and refund the money. Sipple and friends won their suit, and then went about trying to collect on behalf of their consumer clients. Only 40 “defendants” complied with the court order. Chico was among the cities that simply decided not to comply, for whatever reason. In 2011 Sipple and friends mounted another suit to collect the refunds.

http://chwlaw.us/cases/Sipple/First%20Amnd%20Complaint%20recd.pdf

At next weeks’ council meeting, behind closed doors, our new council and our revamped staff will discuss how to handle it. Almost three years after the suit was mounted in 2011. 

Here we go again.

Here’s a little something to think about – city assistant manager and former administrative services director Chris Constantin has proven himself to be a very capable finance man. Is he going to tell us he didn’t know this tax was illegal? Is he going to tell us he didn’t know the city was taking it? What about Sorensen?  

 

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How to qualify an initiative for the ballot

25 Nov

 

I got a big kick out of this skit on Saturday Night Live, now making it’s way around the internet:

I realize there are those who feel this is an inaccurate portrayal of what’s been going on with immigration reform, but I think it’s a pretty accurate as far as how things really work in our government.

I love the part where the Executive Order says, “I didn’t have time to read myself!” Except for the fact that a bill is an inanimate object, not a person, I think that’s pretty accurate.

But we can’t blame President Obama, or this faceless entity known as “The Gub’mint” without turning the mirror on ourselves – we can’t just sit back and throw tomatoes, we have to roll up our sleeves and get in there and try to take more responsibility for governing ourselves.

As we all know,  our government is  still set up to allow us to create our own laws. It’s quite a task, I will say, but not insurmountable for a dedicated group, especially on the local level. In Hemet, the taxpayers association got two measures on the 2010 ballot, and both passed with some 80 percent  of the vote. They spent about $7,000. One measure created term limits for city council members and the other ended the practice of paying for the councilors’ health insurance policies.

I already knew, an “initiative” is a proposal directly from some group of citizens, to be placed on the ballot for general election, given that the proponents can demonstrate enough support by collecting signatures. I wanted to find out more about the actual process so I got online and did some research. When I looked at the city charter to find out more about placing a measure on the local ballot, I found the city defers to the same laws  accepted by the state of California, so I went to the Secretary of State’s website here:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/initiative-guide.htm

It sure sounds simple enough – get a group of 25 or more people willing to sign a petition to request help from the Office of Legislative Counsel in writing a draft of your proposed law. This is free, but you will need at least 25 dedicated people. You could also get a lawyer, and pay for that, or you could write the draft yourself(ves) and take your chances.

Once you have cleared this hurdle, you will need to pony up a refundable (or maybe not) $200 fee to get a title and summary written by the Attorney General to be placed on the petitions. If you collect enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot, you get your $200 back, but that remains to be seen.  Here’s where the going starts to get rugged – I don’t even know what it costs to have a petition printed these days, but it’s not free.  And, there’s all kinds of rules. Of course there’s help with the rules from the elections office, but if you print it wrong and they throw it out for one reason or another, all that money is out the window.

I’m glad this process is not easy. If you can’t get 25 or 30, or even 50 other people interested in an idea for a ballot measure, you should probably let it go. It always boils down to The People.

 

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Turkey makes you sleepy – try to stay vigilant over the holidays!

24 Nov

With the holiday season bearing down on us, it’s hard to think about our city’s problems, but it’s hardly a good time to go to sleep at the wheel. The employee contracts expire in December – I think that’s on purpose, Folks. They have Tom Turkey and Santa Claus running interference, so they try to get away with a lot of stuff behind closed doors.

If you haven’t seen the new employee contract proposals, look here:

http://chico-ca.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=519&meta_id=42694

http://chico-ca.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=512&meta_id=42165

I’ll say, the clerk has gotten a little better at posting this stuff on time, but there’s still discrepancies – some meetings are still missing minutes, some are even missing agendas. I don’t have time to snoop into that, but I’m guessing something happened at those meetings she doesn’t want people to know about? Just asking! 

I don’t go to the meetings anymore because it’s just public theater. The real news is in the documents. I used to think it was important to go to the meetings, participate in the soap opera drama – no, that is how you give your “tacit consent.” Don’t let them hand you a pile of crap – do your own digging. I’ve had some comments lately from people who actually read this stuff, and I’ve seen links getting used to important documents off this blog, so I know SOMEBODY is paying attention. 

Thank you Somebody!

I want to enjoy the holidays like everybody else, and the city tends to shut down anyway, meetings go underground, just get cancelled. But, let’s not forget, George Washington mustered his half-starved and freezing troops to attack on Christmas Eve. The Viet Cong made their most successful attack on US troops over their New Year holiday, supposedly the most important holiday in Vietnam. Tet is probably even more significant now than it was before 1968.

So keep your ears open and your eyes peeled, you don’t want to wake up to a hangover in January. 

 

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White House consultant spills the beans on Obummercare

21 Nov

Here’s one of my favorite local papers, The Territorial Dispatch out of Marysville. Read their front page article on the Obummercare scandal.  I know it’s been in the news, but this article lays it out very clearly. 

http://territorialdispatch.biz/2014/nov/Nov19-2014WEBpdf.pdf

I would compare this directly with what the city is doing to our garbage rates and service with their new franchise mandate.  Sorensen, Orme and Constantin are keeping this subject behind closed doors because they don’t want us to know what they’re doing until it’s done.

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Chico PD’s latest contract proposal is unsustainable

21 Nov

I wrote a letter to the News and Review, I want to keep the city employee contracts in the news. 

Again, Chico Police employees put more money into local campaigns than any other group. In addition to the CPOA, former police chief Mike Maloney formed his own PAC, allowing police employees to get around rules limiting contributions.  

The new council majority will negotiate with a police department asking for 5 percent raises as well as payment of various benefits currently paid by employees. The city already pays over 25 percent of their pensions while most police employees pay 9 percent. Salaries in the police department average over twice the local median income. 

Police employees continue to complain they are understaffed, ignoring practical suggestions to lower their salaries to reasonable amounts and pay a more rational share of their own pensions in order to loosen up money for new hires. 

Despite an obvious conflict of interest, the proposal still includes a provision that the city collect union dues from employees who do not wish to be union members, this money being poured into campaigns at election time. 

The city is currently suffering “liabilities” over $75 million, about $50 million of which are pensions. We’ll soon see how new councilors installed with CPD money will react to the cops’ demands.

Here’s the cops’ proposal – I cut and paste this verbatim from the city agenda, the typos are all theirs. I highlighted stuff in red to show, they’re not only refusing to reign in their salaries and benefits, they’re asking for more stuff!  And they want a three year term, so these contracts would stand for three years with very little chance of review. 

Chico POA
Proposal – September 24, 2014
The following is a proposal for a successor MOU to the one expiring 12/31114 between the
Chico Police Officers’ Association and the City of Chico. This proposal is intended to begin the
bargaining process and introduce several ideas that the POA believes can create a better
environment within the City of Chico Police Department, specifically the Departments ability to
retain and recruit police officers. When possible, the current MOU provision that would be affected is listed. Wording is NOT
final and will be edited to reflect any changes prior to submission to the City in formal
bargaining.
1. Three year term of MOU: 111115-12/31/17. 1.3A
2. Salary. 5% increase effective 1/1/15, 1/1116 and 1/1/17. 5.1 and Exhibit B
3. Longevity. Add four new longevity step increases of 4% at the following length of time
of employment with the city: 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and 25 years. New Article
5.12 “Longevity Pay”
4. Pay Step Addition and Adjustment. 5.1C

a. Add a Step H at 5% salary increase. 

b. Add a “training pay” step equivalent to $18 per hour.
5. Cash out Holiday Time Banlc Reinstate policy of allowing employees to cash out
unused holiday time bank hours each year. 6.2
6. Vacation Cash Out. Allow employees to accrue vacation above the maximum caps and
to cash out any unused vacation accrued above the caps at the end of each calendar
year. 6.5
7. Holiday Hours. City shall provide ten hours of Holiday Time Bank pay for holidays.
6.1A
8. OT Pay for Holidays. City shall pay employees overtime rate for working holidays. 5.2
and 6.1
9. FICA and Dental to be paid by City. 6.3
a. City shall pay the 1.45% of FICA that has been paid by employees since 1/1111.
6.8G
b. City shall pay the entire employee portion of the dental insurance (or allow the
employee to opt out of coverage). 6.3 and Exhibit C.
10. Call Back Pay. Increase the call back minimum pay to four (4) hours. (3 currently). 5.5
11. Shift Differential. 5.9
a. Increase swing and graveyard shift differential pay by 5%.
b. Shift differential to be calculated into base pay for overtime pay rate calculations.
12. Adopt and/or publicize the ability to put OT earnings directly into deferred
compensation. 6.6E

Please write letters to council and the papers, this contract is not sustainable. No matter what Mark Orme tells us, this city is up Shit Creek and nobody can find the paddle. 

The paddle we need right now would be a local Right To Work initiative.

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