Thanks again to Truth Matters – Brian Nakamura Jones and the Raiders of the Cookie Jar

26 Nov

Mary, Quene and Alicia over at Truth Matters have been working really hard to lay out complex issues, I really appreciate the time they are putting into the details of city operations.  If you haven’t already read their post on “Remedial Funding,” take a look here:

http://truthmatterschico.com/2013/11/22/update-remedial-funding/

They have explained how funds are raided, the money jumping from one fund to another faster than a barker’s fingers switching peas under walnut shells. Ah, the electronic age!

I think it’s funny that until Nakamura came along, Mark Sorensen was making big wah-wah about the sewer fund being pilfered, now he’s mum on that subject. What happened to that guy? One of my readers remarked that he never saw anybody go from private citizen to public trough dweller quite as fast as Sorensen.

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Divvying up the city pie

25 Nov
This is a "pie chart" of the city budget.

Imagine this as a “pie chart” of the city budget.

When we went to the Tea Party meeting at Marie Callender’s last month, we picked up a pie heading out the door. I told my husband, make it something decadent, so he got this chocolate cream pie, pictured above. When we got home and divvied up three little pieces among ourselves, I said, “Wow, police and fire get the rest.”

The picture above is a pretty good representation of the “public safety” portion of the City of Chico budget. Last time I looked, the annual expenditures were around $43 million, and the police department was getting over 21 of that, or roughly half. The fire department gets less than the police department, but between the two of them, they eat about 84 percent of our communal pie.  Imagine – all the other departments, I think seven other employee groups in all, get to fight over that last little piece. Give you a little look-see what the contract negotiations are all about, eh?

Tomorrow morning I’m going to try to make it out of here by 7:45 to get to a Finance Committee meeting. I’ve already looked over the agenda and reports, available here:

www.ci.chico.ca.us/document_library/minutes_agendas/finance_committee/11-26-13FinanceCommitteeAgendaPacket.pdf

According to the monthly finance report, the police department is more than $100,000 over budget for overtime.  I’m looking forward to hearing Trostle’s explanation, I’ll keep you posted.

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Time to take back the cop shop

24 Nov

In past I’ve been friendly with Tea Party members, and I still will be. But when I got this notice today, saying Randall Stone should be dismissed from the Police Advisory Board because he made public harassment by a Chico police officer, I had to tell them, we’re 180 degrees apart on this one Folks.

Below is the section of the code pulled out by Tea Party maven Stephanie Taber. It says member of the PAB must sign an agreement promising to lie to the public about what’s going on in the police department. Yep, that’s what it says – PAB members are not allowed to tell the public when there’s a problem in the cop shop. Read it yourself.

219.11 CONFIDENTIALITY
(a) Matters relating to personnel issues are governed by various laws of the State of
California and the City of Chico as well as various labor contracts. Personnel matters
are confidential. No member of the Police Community Advisory Board may divulge
any information regarding a personnel matter that has been deemed confidential by
the Chief of Police.
(b) Every new member of the Police Community Advisory Board, prior to hearing any
personnel matter, must sign an agreement, as prepared by the City Attorney, agreeing
and promising to maintain the confidentiality of any personnel matter.
(c) Only the Chief of Police or City Manager (or City Manager’s representative), with the
advise of the City Attorney, has the authority to determine what information related to
any personnel matter may be made public.

I think I know Stephanie Taber well enough to say this – if she’d found out something she didn’t like in one of those meetings, she’d squeal like a pig.  And of course, that would be legal, because she’s a member of the public. Of course, those meetings were not being properly noticed to the public until I squealed like a pig to city clerk Debbie Presson.  I had to bitch about it a couple of times, but finally she said, “As of yesterday, Police Department staff was asked to include the agenda (as had been past practice) under the “Minutes and Agendas” page as that is where citizens look for such items.  They will be doing so for all future meetings. “

See where she says, “as had been past practice“?  Trostle just dropped the notice from the notice page, apparently he didn’t think it was important to let the public in on these meetings. When I’ve been to these meetings I’ve noticed Trostle is uptight and hates answering questions. I’m sure he’d just drop these meetings if allowed. 

Presson offered to put me on the notice list, but I realized, maybe it’s not so smart to be on that list. I thanked her for getting the notices put back up, that’s enough. 

And, I told Mark Sorensen too, but he didn’t seem to think it was important. He told me, “Police Advisory Board Meeting is on the web site”  and sent me a link to the obscure police page it was listed on. That’s what Sorensen always does when I point out a problem to him – admits I’m right, but gives me private band-aid information instead of getting the problem fixed.  Does he just expect me to disseminate this info? No, here’s what he thinks – the public doesn’t care enough to pay attention, that’s what he thinks.  Sorensen can be a really snotty little prick when you press him, no holds barred. When he wants something, he’s going to get it, and he wants to be credited with “turning the town around.” Instead, I think he’s going to be that kid who knocks the puck into his own goal – Sorensen and Nakamura are going to put the last nail in our coffin.

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Trostle needs to GO!

21 Nov

Sent to Chico PD Chief Kirk Trostle at kirk.trostle@chicoca.g0v

Chief Trostle,

 I think you are making a mistake trying to kick Councilor Stone off the PAB.    We all know this is about Stone’s asking you police officers to pay your own benefits. 

 Boothe should be disciplined for calling a council member “an idiot” because of his stance on employee pensions and benefits.  I believe Boothe has created a “hostile work place.” In fact, from a  citizen’s point of view, you have created a “hostile environment” for all of us, refusing to pay your own benefits when our town is in this kind of situation. Then allowing your subordinate to harass an elected officer publicly? That’s really poor judgement on your part. 

 I think you should also consider stepping down. You are obviously not suited to a management position. 

 

Juanita Sumner

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Butte County Supervisors discuss discussing Cal Water rate hike – pencil it in for December 10

18 Nov

We’re really lucky to live in an area where you can still reach out and touch your elected officials, at least figuratively.  When I wrote a letter to the Butte County Board of Supervisors recently regarding the Cal Water rate hike, I got answers from both Maureen Kirk and Larry Wahl. They’ve asked Paul Hahn to agendize a letter to both Cal Water and the CPUC, and Larry Wahl said it looks like they’ll talk about it December 10th. I’ll keep you posted. 

Ask and ye shall receive. I wish I would have thought to write to the supes earlier. Maybe I’ll rattle off a note to the city council. 

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Nakamura and friends want to sell Bidwell Ranch to pay their pension obligation – NO WAY SAN JOSE!

17 Nov

(Chico Enterprise Record) Letter writer Kathy Moran innocuously suggested we sell Bidwell Ranch. Is this just a thought that skittered across her brain, or is this the beginning of a campaign? 

Twice now I’ve heard Brian Nakamura suggest selling Bidwell Ranch. This is just another indication that Nakamura is incompetent to manage our town. He wants a quick fix – what? $20  million or so? To cover a $48 million pension deficit? $20 million is less than half the city’s operating budget for a year.  The money would be gone before the ink dried on the sale agreement. 

He also fails to mention what 1500 homes built on that constricted property would do to traffic, schools, our water system, etc.  He also fails to mention the environmental restrictions.  Scott Gruendl once opined that houses built on that property would be so expensive only the very wealthy could afford them. 

Nakamura will tell us we need the property taxes – to pay his pension and benefits. Nakamura currently pays only four percent of his pension out of his $212,000/year salary. He wants to sell off our resources to enrich himself. 

When asked if he would demand concessions from city employees during current contract talks, Nakamura professed a fear of the police and fire unions. Instead of fixing the root of the problem – over-compensated employees – he wants to empty our cookie jar to keep making the CalPERS payments. 

 We deserve better leadership. 

 Juanita Sumner, Chico Ca

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There are a lot of questions that need to be asked in this trash franchise deal – starting with, why Waste Management?

16 Nov

Edd Hamilton of Chico wrote an interesting letter to the ER, posted this morning. He seems to be open to the franchise discussion, but at least he’s asking some good questions. Hamilton asks, “For as many years as these companies (Waste Management and Recology) have been servicing Chico, why aren’t they doing a better job at recycling?”

Hamilton cites Chico’s poor 32% “diversion rate”, comparing it to Paradise, at 58%. Paradise went with a franchise agreement six years ago, kicking out Waste Management and Recology in favor of a local company. Some local businessmen got together to turn longtime family-owned Paradise Solid Waste  into Northern Recycling and Waste Services. Hamilton’s not the first person I’ve heard say nice things about NRWS. When that deal first went down, people complained about the mandate that everybody had to have trash service, but apparently people are happy enough with the service after six years to comply. 

I remember when locally owned companies operated in Chico – most notably, Tom’s Dispose-All. We had a guy named Pete who came down our street every week, a real cool dude, a Fonzi among garbage men. He drove nice and slow, he’d get out, put his cigarette in one corner of his mouth, and with his slick looking black leather gloves, pick up our bin and jauntily swing it up into the truck hatch, dump it out with a bonk-bonk, and place it right back at the end of the driveway. My kids were tots then, we got a big kick out of the garbage truck, and every Thursday morning, we appeared in our front window to watch Pete take our cans. He always waved at us as he swung back into the truck. 

When NorCal Waste bought out Tom’s Dispose-All, customers like us were so unhappy, Tom himself came around, door-to-door, to smooth it over. He told us he’d been forced out, there was nothing he could do about it. We didn’t understand, now we get it – the city cut his permit, in favor of the bigger haulers, two companies that over a period of years, name change after name change, became “Waste Management” and “Recology.”  The first time the new hauler came around our house, they immediately trashed our can, ripped the top and part of the back off dumping it into the truck, and just left it sitting there at the end of the driveway, unusable. We complained, loud and clear, said we wanted Pete back. So, Pete came around with a new can the next week, promised us the new guys would be more careful, and bid us a watery-eyed adieu. 

We had Waste Management for years. They sucked. With the new hauler permits, the city required haulers to offer recycling, which was useless for us because we did  and still do our own recycling at Work Training Center. We took our beer, soda and water bottles in for cash, so we didn’t mind taking our yogurt containers and peanut butter jars for donation. But, when recycling became free, we went along with it, carefully sorting our plastics and paper and glass all into separate containers. We did, however, continue to take the cash stuff to WTC. Apparently, this makes the recycling bin worthless to the big haulers – one day, I caught my garbage man tossing the recycling right into the trash truck. When I confronted him, he told he, “oh, we’ll have it sorted out back at the plant…” Right, sure – people are going to go  through garbage that’s been crushed to a pulp in the back of a stinking truck to sort out bits of plastic and glass and whatever. Right. I cancelled my WM service right then and there. 

We went without trash service for years after that. Since we were renovating houses at the time, we were always making trips to the dump.  We just got some good Rubbermaid bins with locking handles on the lids, and were really careful to sort everything. We’ve always composted our food trash, so we didn’t have to worry about pests in our garbage cans. 

We finally came back to trash service when we became landlords. Luckily, Butte Disposal had become Recology, and they’d changed a  lot of their operation. To this day, they have  a lot friendlier drivers and staff, they don’t speed through my neighborhood, and they don’t drive illegally across my property to serve their customers on the other side. Waste Management used to insist they had  the right to use our private driveway to serve their customers. They were destroying the driveway,  made ruts that still look like lakes every winter, and ripped branches off the little tree along our back fence. Once they took out a power pole turning a truck around, and tried to tell us we’d have to pay to replace it. I only got them off my property by taking them to the city of Chico, who backed me up and told them to stay off my property.   A group of six WM representatives came into the meeting, looking like the cast of The Sopranos, and  tried to get the city to force me to allow them to bring their trucks down the gravel driveway running right under my kitchen windows, but the law was on my side. 

When the neighbors switched to Recology, I thought I’d have to go through the whole thing again, but the woman who answered my call told me they’d never come down a private driveway, that was against their policy. 

According to Hamilton’s letter, Waste Management still sucks, apparently illegally charging people for recycling service that is supposed to be free (included in the cost of trash service, anyway). The first thing I thought when I heard they were switching to franchise zones is, I will not have Waste Management again, period. I won’t do business with them again. As far as I’m concerned, they’re all Tony Soprano.  They’re too big to fight, they do what they want. 

Instead of franchise zones, let’s open to more haulers, including Northern Recycling and Waste Services. When have monopolies ever been good for the customer? 

Letter: Keep an eye on your trash bill

Chico Enterprise-Record

POSTED:   11/16/2013 12:14:07 AM PST

At the last City Council meeting, we heard a review by R3 Consulting (contracted by the city) on recommendations on solid waste and recycling permits vs. franchise agreements for the city of Chico.

Reading the R3 review, I was disappointed and a bit shocked that Chico is only at a 32 percent diversion rate. We currently have two companies that present themselves as “green” and “zero waste,” and the lack of recycling at our schools and businesses is not applicable with the image they portray. For as many years as these companies have been servicing Chico, why aren’t we doing a better job at recycling? Paradise has only been recycling for six years and they have had a diversion rate of over 58 percent since the first year they started, which was when they went with another company and removed Waste Management and Recology.

Ann Schwab was nice enough to give praise to both companies at the last meeting. However I was wondering for what exactly? I noticed that Waste Management started charging me for recycling services this last billing cycle, which R3 reported they cannot do under their current permit specifications. When I called to have them change it they did, but do all residents know that this recent billing increase by Waste Management is a direct violation of their permit agreement with the city? To erroneously charge our residents is a huge billing mistake. How many people will continue to be charged without someone letting them know?

— Edd Hamilton, Chico

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You have it BACKWARDS Officer Bartine – YOU pay the 91 percent, we might be willing to chip in the other 9.

16 Nov

Below Chico police officer Kevin Bartine answers a letter I sent to the Enterprise Record. I suggested the cops and fire department pay their own benefits. He obviously doesn’t get my drift.

Neither do I appreciate the editor of the Enterprise Record accusing me of being “ill-informed”. Nothing I said in my letter was untrue, and he knows it. I’m disappointed that Dave Little stoops to such cheap tricks to undermine my credibility.  It will all come out in the wash, no matter what I say. Look at that piece today about Station 5, what a horrible piece of mismanagement that was. When Jennifer Hennessy was still leading us astray with her non-reports, we screamed malfeasance – now Constantin just comes right in and tells people there was malfeasance, and OH MY GOD! MALFEASANCE! It’s hard trying to make people listen, when certain members of the crowd don’t want you to be heard.  

I’ve been screaming my head off about the salaries and benefits since before Constantin came along. The city spends too much money keeping city employees like fine bee-atches.  Mr. Bartine, your offer to pay 9 percent of your $71,000/year salary toward your own generous pension package is not enough. Excuse me – it’s RIDICULOUS.  You have it backwards, Sir. You officers need to pay the 91 percent, and as reward for your loyal service – if you provide any –  I think it’s huge of citizens living on less than half of your salary to offer to pay the other nine. You could always pay out of the $20,000 in overtime you racked up last year. 

I asked Mayor Gruendl, Mark Sorensen and the other councilors to make this offer, but I’m afraid we have a pack of pussies sitting at the dais Folks, and a Chief Chickenshit for a Silly Manager. We have a “hostile atmosphere” between our public safety departments and our overpaid management, with public safety employees who think they are allowed to bully and taunt taxpaying  citizens who object to their downright embezzling of public funds. 

We need a huge turnover in this next election, we need to get rid of Kirk Trostle and weed out the cop shop.  Is that too much Santa? 

Letter: Criticism of police ill-informed

Chico Enterprise-Record

POSTED:   11/14/2013 10:23:19 PM PST

Juanita Summer wrote to the editor in regards to comments made by the city’s administrative services director, Chris Constantin. Reviewing video comments made by Constantin during a local tea party meeting, he stated he could not support a sales tax increase when the “Police don’t pay a dime for their retirements.”

The Chico Police Officers Association, within the last contract negotiation period, offered both a partial and full payment of their 9 percent toward CalPERS. The city rejected the proposal, stating they wanted money now, not in the future.

Constantin did not mention that the CPOA has continued to give concessions for the past five years, while another bargaining group received a total of a 25 percent raise. Additionally, department heads were reclassified and given substantial pay increases (during citywide forced concessions and layoffs).

Constantin stated he “knows the job” of a police officer. Specifically, he works as a reserve officer for another city in California. At 12 hours a month, he might have a minor insight, but I believe he cannot truly grasp the totalities of the profession. That’s like saying one who practices a sport several hours a month is equivalent to a professional athlete.

The city’s “cash-flow” problem is self-created, caused by actions of former management. Payment of a $10 million lawsuit as well as fraud committed by former administration are factors. Sell some of the millions of dollars in assets the city holds before laying off more hard-working people.

— Kevin Bartine, Chico

Thanks to Randall Stone for shedding light on some cockroaches. See how they run!

14 Nov

The funniest thing I’ve heard out of this flap between Randall Stone and Chico Pigs is the assertion made by CPOA president Peter Durfee – identifying somebody as a Chico police officer puts his life in danger?  

Chico PD acts more like a street gang every day. Here they tell us, they wanted to keep their racism/homophobic problem internal? Well, I’m sorry, when you leave stuff like that in a warm dark place, like the brain of a Chico police officer, it starts to fester and mold, it gets bigger and uglier every day, until it just bursts out at somebody.  And that’s what we’ve got here – a Chico cop letting his real feelings all hang out. 

Dave Little seems to be saying, in this morning’s editorial, that feelings like this are better kept private!  Well, I’m certainly glad David Little isn’t running the police department. I’d like to see Kirk Trostle get the boot, because he’s done everything he can to keep Chico PD operations out of the public’s oversight. And this case with Todd Boothe is just the stinking tip of a big floating turd. 

Yes, this incident does color the whole department. How could it not – Peter Durfee has been on TV ever since it happened, making a total ass of himself defending this racist homophobic hate monger, telling everybody it’s okay for a guy who put on a uniform of Public Trust and promised to protect and serve everybody, not just the white heterosexuals, to have feelings like this, at all.

When I brought up racism in the department a year or so ago, a young woman identifying herself as Hmong started bombing my blog with “you’re a racist!” and other really nasty, nonsensical racial slurs and trash talk.  I just didn’t get it – I was complaining that Chico PD had charged the Hmong group that runs the annual New Year’s celebration thousands of dollars for a weekend of “protection,” citing “gang problems.” Those were the words of Chico PD, but this gal attacked me for the better part of a year, with  really ugly remarks about my sex life, etc. Now that I’ve seen the stuff from Boothe’s page,  I believe “she” was a cop or a cop supporter. 

When I made public remarks regarding fire and police salaries a couple of years ago, fire department employee Ken Campbell first accosted my husband and I leaving a meeting, yelling loudly, like a drunk trying to start a fight with my husband.  I know he was trying to get my husband to swing on him. Later he came to my blog a few times, tried to bait me again, denying the facts I’d posted about the salaries and pensions. Then he got himself into real trouble trying the same bully tactics with former city councilman Bob Evans.  Campbell and other Chico FD employees  went door to door in the Chico neighborhoods surrounding Station 5, and told people it was the city council who had made the decision to close the station, when it was the Fire Chief. Evans and other members of council got ugly and even threatening phone calls as a result of LIES spread by Ken Campbell and his co-workers. Campbell came to the podium, admitted it, and was called on the carpet by Evans for a good five minutes. But, he’s still a city employee, which is why I’m not supporting Evans in his bid against Maureen Kirk. Evans is just a show boater – not that I didn’t enjoy the show.   We saw the fire department for what they are  – a bunch of overpaid bullies. 

Same for the cops. I could go on for days with stuff I’ve seen out of Chico PD officers, including a very bizarre incident I witnessed at One Mile one afternoon. Three huge Chico PD officers had two little Mexican boys, about 10 years old, sat on a bench in their dripping wet cut-off shorts. The kids were just cowering on the bench, and the cops were yelling in turn, “WHAT GANG ARE YOU IN!” I wanted to stop and ask them what the hell was going on, but my husband prudently warned me to keep on riding. We had our own kids, and you just don’t know what a Chico cop will do. My husband grew up here, and he’ll tell you – Mark Gordon was the last good cop they had at Chico PD.

Mark Gordon was admittedly gay, never made any bones about it. When my husband was in high school, they called him “Mark the Park Narc,” because he made a point to be friendly to teenagers who looked like they might be doing drugs, telling them to run along, play nice, don’t get in trouble. The kids all knew he was gay, and they snickered a little, but they always did what he said. He became kind of a town pet, a cop everybody knew.  

Back in 1998 a woman cop named  Melody Davidson got into an elevator with Gordon and during the one floor ride she told him, “I can make a man out of you.” At about the same time, Davidson got into trouble because she was supposed to be the ABC bar liaison and she got caught having sexual relations with not one but several bar owners.  Gordon was not impressed, reported the incident, and later sued the department. He got a settlement, which was not detailed to the public, and left the department. If you read back over the minutes for 1999, you will see one appropriation after another, hundreds of thousands of dollars! defending Davidson. Meanwhile, Davidson also sued the city – you will see the notes concurrent with the Gordon matter, as well as the budget appropriations made for her case.

I don’t know what became of Davidson’s case, but after Gordon settled (money paid on top of the hundreds of thousands spent on the case), she continued to work for the department another eight years. I don’t know the details of her departure from 2008, but in her last year here, she took over $30,000 in overtime, for a total annual salary of about $97,000. 

I’m not a cop hater, but I have no use for any member of Chico PD. Good cops don’t put up with the type of stuff that goes on down there as routine. The racism is on the books, but not available to the public – just ask Trostle, or Lori Barker, how many race-related claims have been made against Chico PD, and the city has just rolled over and paid, because they know it’s true. Nobody is willing to take on  Chico PD and do the house cleaning that needs to be done. 

Nobody except Randall Stone, that is. Good for you Randall, thanks for all of us. Stone, who came to our Chico Taxpayers meeting months ago to detail the problems with the contract talks, is being singled out by these creeps because he’s apparently the only council member to question the ridiculous salaries and payment of their benefits packages. The appropriate response from Trostle would have  been suspension, followed by firing. There’s no room for the kind stuff this guy posted on his Facebook, anywhere, in a police department. They tell us they pay these salaries to “attract good employees.” This is just proof that doesn’t work. Trostle needs to go too. 

UPDATE: As if on cue, Ken Campbell comes around to show us the kind of professionalism these salaries bring to town! He baits, he taunts, he eviscerates the English language, but not once does he offer anything intelligent. 

Ken, can you tell us why we should pay the other 96 percent of your benefits? 

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Write to your county supervisors about Cal Water rate increase

12 Nov

 To: LWahl@buttecounty.net, MKirk@buttecounty.net; cc: district4@buttecounty.net, DTeeter@buttecounty.net, BConnelly@buttecounty.net

 Hi Larry, Maureen,

I don’t know what you’ve heard about the Cal Water rate increase, but I found out yesterday – a formal protest from a Marysville group has led to a hearing. The Dept of Ratepayer Assistance has recommended the increase be cut roughly in half. They wanted a 38 percent increase and now the DRA is recommending, I think, about 14 percent.

I also found out, water rates are different in various cities – O’ville, for example, pays about twice our Chico “service charge”, and their tier system starts out at over a dollar.

I’ll ask you Larry and Maureen, when was the last time you gave your water bill a good look? Do you know that the cost of a “ccf” in Chico has doubled over the past 5-6 years? And the “service charge” has gone from around $8 to now $14. For water that is pumped right out from under us, and then they add a bottle of chlorox (I’ve seen them do it) for “sanitation”.   We have a couple of wells on our properties, in fact, we just shared with our neighbors in digging a new well at one property, and it didn’t cost a fraction of what they’re trying to  tell us they spend maintaining a well. And, we can drink our well water right out of the tap – Cal Water tastes like PV Pool, complete with kids.

One notice I have lays it out right there – they want over $500,000 for pensions and benefits. Now they’re saying “to deliver quality water” or something like that, but in the original notice, they had to be straight, and it was for pensions, mostly for management personnel.

So, what can you do for us as our supervisors? City councilors, one a vice mayor, have gotten involved in Marysville and Visalia, written letters to the DRA and the CPUC, called Cal Water on the carpet. I’d like to see some support from you two, as well as Supervisors Teeter, Lambert and Connelly. Not only will this affect your constituents, wait til the cities, the county, and other agencies start getting their increased water bills. Chico Area Rec District has already discussed this issue, and they are expecting their bills to be outrageous.

For your convenience, here’s the contact information:  http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/puc/aboutus/Divisions/CSID/Public+Advisor/

– thanks, Juanita Sumner

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