Chris Constantin is such a considerate fellow. He sent me a note the other day (Sunday!) to tell me, there’d been some changes Downtown, and he wanted to be sure I knew who to direct my questions to in the future. Seems he’s been promoted to Assistant City Mangler, and Frank Fields has been moved up to Administrative Services Mis-Director. Scott Dowell, who ran CARD into the ground as chief finangling officer there, will be sidling into Frank Fields’ position.
And you all heard, we have two new councilors, yippee doo-dah. I’m going to throw out a no-brainer – Mark Sorensen will be our new Mayor, and Sean Morgan will bask in the glory of Vice Mayor – go get ’em Big Boy!
This will be a short hayride for both of them – Ann Schwab and Mary Flynn will get a big laugh when they ride us right into bankruptcy. I know, I’ve been hard on Mary – I hope she learns to laugh again, and not like a crazy lady.
At this time of year, with darkness and my PG&E bill closing in on me, with no hope of jobs here for my kids, looking at higher and higher prices at the grocery stores despite the recent downturn in gas prices – it’s hard for me to muster a “fuck you” about what’s going on Downtown. Especially when I look at tonight’s agenda
I know I’m not a “Human Resources” expert, but I think city employees are overpaid. When you’re paying a guy $80,000 a year to collect change from parking meters, you have to ask yourself, “am I getting a good deal?”
The management employees’ contract proposals have been made available here:
Read it yourself. Yes, it’s true that management employee have taken pay cuts over the last few years – I’d call them “adjustments.” They are still making almost twice the median income, and probably at least twice what they would be making in the private sector, if they could find jobs in the private sector.
They want a step raise system by which their salaries are automatically raised by 2.5 percent a year. Who gets that? Only public employees would have the gall.
And sure, they’re giving up their workman’s comp payments – because we will still pay over 90 percent of their pensions and benefits.
This is not as bad as the cop contracts that ask for 5 percent raises, but this kind of “Me Me Me” is going to sink our ship. According to John Chiang’s new charts, here:
Chico has over $70 million in “liabilities”. Brian Nakamura said our pension liability was over $60 million – I think he said exactly $68 million. When I looked at the chart, it looked like the figure was going down for a couple of years after 2010, but now it’s headed right up again, going from $75 million in 2012 to $75.8 in 2013.
Meanwhile, Mark Sorensen plays his fiddle over our burning ship. I like to make salads with my metaphors, it’s so hard to choose one when they all fit our perfectly disastrous scenario.
Voter turnout was in the dirt last week, look at the numbers. In 2012 we had eleven candidates for four city council seats – the top vote getter got over 15,000 votes. Last week we only had seven candidates running for three positions, Andrew Coolidge winning with just over 11,000. I wonder if he’s asking himself this morning – what happened to 50 people who voted for him in 2012 but didn’t vote for him last week?
Almost 1,000 people left the city council portion of their ballot blank, while almost 4,000 “undervoted,” choosing less than the three requested.
Here, compare with Election 2010 – Sorensen got roughly 3,000 more votes in that race, and there were two more candidates running in that race.
Voter turnout was definitely down folks, and we have to wonder why. I blame the choices – look how many people only voted for two, when both parties ran a slate. Meaning, they voted for part of a slate, but couldn’t stomach the whole team? This does not bode well – our council and our town are divided, but not evenly. The conservatives have the power, and they are backing the police department, because the police department put up the money to get them in there. When the cop contracts come up later in December we will take more steps down the Road to Perdition. In 2016 a frenzied council will place a tax measure on the ballot, let’s see what they decide to flop out.
I’ll be making signs, let me know if you want one.
The last city council meeting was on election day, before the polls closed. The next city council meeting will be the first meeting in December, when the new council members are sworn in. This isthe Lame Duck session (for lack of a better term). We have 2 councilors who know that this is their last chance to get things done, because they’re not coming back next month. This includes Mayor Gruendl. The new council is anticipated to be more conservative, changing the type of items that can be successfully tackled.
So what’s on the agenda? Destroying finance records. Say again?
“2.2. RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CHICO AUTHORIZING DESTRUCTION OF FINANCE AND HUMAN RESOURCES RECORDS IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DEPARTMENT Adopt – In accordance with City of Chico Administrative Procedure and Policy Manual, section 11-9 and Government Code Section 34090, the Administrative Services Director requests permission to destroy historical records maintained by the Finance service area over five years old and by the Human Resources service area over seven years old. (The Administrative Services Director recommends approval of the resolution.)”
(They’re also going to talk about shuffling millions of dollars around between accounts, as recommended by the Administrative Services Director down in item 4.2)
The timing here is lousy, to say the least. I expected some spending to get passed, or some policy to be adjusted by the outgoing council. I didn’t expect this. Why do it in this meeting? Why not wait a month, when it would look far less suspicious?
The city does destroy records from time to time. As near as I can tell, destruction of various records have been on the consent agenda 5 times in the last 6 years (maybe more, but that’s what I’ve found; and not in November of an election year). The odds that it would randomly land on this particular council meeting? Roughly 1 in 30. That’s not impossible, but it is unlikely.
Now, I’m not making any accusations. I’m only observing that this looks suspect. Is this a big deal? Should we be worried about this? Can or ought anything be done? Or am I just overthinking this? I don’t know.
I could easily be overlooking something relatively obvious, so you may know something I don’t. If so, I’m always open to learn.
Thanks so much for saying – I noticed a few years back, they quietly passed a resolution saying they could destroy records after only a year. I think that’s weird, given the stuff I’ve managed to mash into my computer or on disc for years. I also have a stand up filing cabinet in the corner of my garage that has city agendas and documents going back at least 6 or 8 years – why can’t they store stuff?
In fact, I just found some hilarious notes from a morning meeting, I been trying to get around to blogging it. You have to pay attention around here, you have to snoop, you have to call them on their bullshit.
And yes, Orme and Constantin are moving money faster than a pair of New York City street barkers, moving those shells at the speed of light – where’s that dam-ned pea?!
Thanks so much, I have to admit, I was ready for a long winter nap, but yeah, we got to pay attention. Thanks for the wake up. I will have to dust off my chaps and ride into town for the December meeting.
Looking at the election results for Yuba County, I see Marysville just barely turned back a sales tax increase proposal – Measure W. It looks like only 1800 people voted in that race, and almost 900 voted YES. It only seems to have been beaten by only about 60 votes.
I know, Marysville is a small town, but I think they have more than 1800 registered voters.
I’ve been following Dan Walters lately – don’t tell him – and he’s warning that the Democrats might make a rebound in 2016, and bring a lot of tax increase and tax extension proposals along in their little knapsacks. I’m sure Chico will pursue a sales tax increase. Council will vote almost unanimously to put it on the ballot without petitioning the voters.
Randall Stone has contacted me on several occasions to tell me he won’t support a sales tax. We’ll see.
I’ve quit reading the Enterprise Record – I found it is way more worth my time to read other area papers, they have more news. Today I was perusing the Marysville Appeal Democrat, and I see Cal Water is already coming back with another rate increase proposal. They haven’t announced this in Chico, and the Enterprise Record probably won’t be doing any story about it, anytime soon.
The interesting twist in Marysville – Cal Water is going to stop collecting the city’s sewer fees, they say this practice has caused confusion among rates payers over exactly what they are paying for. ATTENTION – BULLSHIT ALERT!
This exact scenario may be playing itself out in Chico before you know it.
Why am I not surprised? Neither is “Publius”, who compares the scenarios from other cities on the list to exactly what Chris Constantin has been doing in Chico:
The supporting documentation for the article is entertaining as well. My favorite quote came from the LA TIMES article used to support the comments about Compton:
“A recent grand jury report found that the High Desert city of Victorville used a series of disparate, possibly illegal measures to stave off insolvency. Those included dipping into sanitation funds to help keep the city’s treasury afloat, loaning water agency funds to bail out the city’s electric utility and siphoning $2 million in airport bond funds to buy land for a city library.”
When they talked about borrowing from the sanitation fund, I felt like I was reading the Enterprise Record from a couple of weeks ago.
Some more entertaining lines:
“In Montebello, state auditors last year said they were troubled to learn that the city regularly used money designed for specific purposes to balance its budget — in apparent violation of the law.
‘It appears that the City moved money wherever it wanted, whenever it wanted, regardless of the law or the intended purpose of those taxpayer dollars,’ Controller John Chiang said in a statement.
Montebello officials said they are not close to bankruptcy but acknowledged that accounting problems were serious. ‘We borrowed money from all over the place, from all sorts of restricted funds. Every type of restricted fund, we have borrowed from it at some point to balance the budget,’ said Councilwoman Christina Cortez.”
It’s good to see we are at least following the Industry Standard when it comes to balancing our budget.
Yes, Publius is correct. If you go to a meeting once in a while, you will hear Constantin report exactly the same stuff. He’s running a shell game out of City Hall, and we’re all standing around watching him like we just fell of the turnip truck yesterday.
Well, that election is good to be done with, one of the worst I’ve ever witnessed. On Tuesday as my husband and I drove into town we were greeted with a regular Christmas string of illegally posted signs, most of them Scott Gruendl. Downtown, somebody had posted big, ugly, hand-scrawled signs on prominent phone poles, asking people to vote for Jerry Brown – illegal. I haven’t been out around town again, I hope the candidates have gone out and taken all that garbage down.
I got a call the day after the 2012 election – Larry Wahl asking me when I was going to go out and take down the Measure J signs. He’d already taken down about a dozen and asked me to pick them up at his office. I have most of those signs, still in great condition, to re-use in 2016. With those ugly hand-made signs in mind, I will do a more professional job on my makeover.
Like a good boat, this organization made it through the election, somewhat dinged up, ready for a stint in dry dock. Government meetings will slow down this time of year, and the contract negotiations will go on behind closed doors. I will keep checking the agendas and announcements, post anything important, but otherwise I’m going to put on my ‘kerchief and take a long winter nap.
Walters says we set a record for low turnout in June – 25 percent. He then predicted that less than 50 percent would turn out for yesterday’s election. Candace Grubbs warned us too – and they were right, it looks like less than 50 percent turned out.
When I saw the numbers on our city council election last night, I knew right away something was weird. Last night they were reporting totals for the leading candidates around 5,000 votes a piece, when in past, the top candidates have pulled in more than 10,000 votes each. In 2010 the losers were getting more than 5,000 votes – Bob Evans lost with over 10,000 votes. And there were more candidates to spread the votes between in 2010, but they still came out with more votes. That’s because over 20,000 more people voted in 2010.
Another interesting factor is the number of “blank” and “under” votes, defined here:
From Florida State Division of Elections:
Under Votes: If total votes is less than or equal to the number to vote for, then subtract he total votes from the number to vote for. If the system counts blank votes (as defined below) then under votes are recorded only when there is a vote for more than one contest and at least one vote is cast but les than the required number to vote for.
Blank Votes (optional): If there is no vote selection at all for a contest, then it is counted as one blank vote.
Apparently, just over 8 percent of the people who bothered to vote at all filled in less than the three requested bubbles for Chico city council. I didn’t vote for any of the candidates, but I wrote in Joe Montes, so I don’t know whether I counted as an “under” or a “blank”. This was my “protest” vote, and I know they heard it. That’s a pretty sad turnout, hardly an endorsement of the people. I hate to do the math – how much did Coolidge spend per vote?
At one point Coolidge tried to take me to task for not endorsing him, asking me what I thought he was up to:
“I know you like to think we all have dreams of power, but really, seriously? what is this tremendous power? The $400 a month?? Are all the past council members in Chico rich and powerful and living in big homes because of their time on the council. Andre Grieco? Shelton Enochs? Ronald Stewart? James Evans? Maragaret Worley?
Really?? Is this the fortune 500 of Chico? Are they living in Mansions off Keifer Road? Have you ever even heard of them in the last five years?? Please stop, it is so wrong to pretend everyone who wants to make their town better is evil…”
Andrew, your actions would be suspicious to anyone. You make fun of me for wondering – why would you spend nearly $30,000 (and that’s the most recent total) to get a $400/month job? Helloooo? This election has made it clear – Chico City Council is now closed to the average citizen/taxpayer, only the high-rollers can run for this local position.
Like Dan Walters said, our lives are being run by wealthy white men over 50 years of age.
This article discusses the implications behind campaign donations made for Props 1 and 2 by Aera Energy, “one of California’s largest oil and gas producers…”, owned by Shell and Exxon.
The author wonders, ” is the oil industry backing the bond so that the taxpayers will foot the bill, rather than Big Oil, for the clean up of water in aquifers contaminated by fracking wastewater filled with toxic chemicals?”
“The documents also reveal that Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board testing found high levels of arsenic, thallium and nitrates, contaminants sometimes found in oil industry wastewater, in water-supply wells near these waste-disposal operations. (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/fracking-10-06-2014.html)”
I found this article when I was looking into Sean Parker, and why he had donated so much money and time to the Props 1 & 2 campaigns. Instead I found this stuff about Big Oil. Ironically, while I sat posting this I was watching Matt Groening kick the shit out of fracking on The Simpsons.
Chico Taxpayers Association 