The Good Old Boy Network is alive and well in Chico

6 Nov

This afternoon I attended a meeting I had never attended before – the Local Government C0mmittee, made up of representatives from county and city elected officials and staffers. This was easily one of the worst meetings I have ever attended.   I sat there looking at a group of trough slickers, people who’ve grown comfortable getting paid to sit  in meetings  for endless hours, their mushroom-shaped asses molded right into those chairs. They don’t have any sense of time anymore, they just sit in these rooms breathing their own gas until they’ve all dissolved into a slurry of communal back-scratching.

That would include the ones we may or may not have voted for – Randall Stone, Scott Gruendl,  City of Chico;  Maureen Kirk, Larry Wahl, County board of Stupes; Cory Honea, Butte County Sheriff. Excuse me if watching these morons in meetings has left me without an ounce of respect for any of them. They’ve all completely lost touch with what they’re supposed to be doing, and WHO they’re supposed to be serving. Then there’s the usual collection of ass-sucking bureaucrats who go whichever way the wind blows – Chico City Manager Brian Nakamura, representatives from the police department, and then those drip-lickers from agencies like Butte Environmental Council and “park volunteer” Susan Mason, of Fiends of Bidwell Park.

Again, I’ll say, these people have made a life of sitting in meetings on our dime. While we’re out hustling to survive, these soft-handed help-themselvers are sitting in a gorgeously appointed room with a brand new H/A system and fancy furniture, pretending to work for a living. They’re no better than the freaks who hang around the outside of the building. 

The meeting didn’t start until 3:45. That sucks for me, I’m not a professional mushroom ass, I have other responsibilities. And, I like to use my bike to get around – it sure beats the hell out of going everywhere in a conga line of cars – but that limits me to daylight hours. It now starts to get dark at 5 pm, and I don’t feel too secure running around alone in what this council has done to my town after that hour. Lights don’t help, unless we’re talking about a Maglite 6 cell D, or how about a set of nunchucks strung with LED’s?

I also notice, the afternoon and evening meetings are not that productive. I’m not the only person who’s been up all day. Jennifer Macarthy, the county Economic and Community Development Manager  who was supposed to be running this meeting, seemed to forget what she was doing, and let the first topic run off subject a number of times. This was particularly annoying when people insisted on addressing the next topic on the agenda, and then expected to make the same remarks during that conversation as well. Every now and then, sometimes with a nudge from Mo Kirk, Jennifer seemed to remember that she was supposed to be keeping people on subject. This discussion of cleaning up homeless camps ran at least 20 minutes long, at least, with people asking to make just one more off-subject remark after another, and Jennifer allowing them. When one woman’s off-subject comment was ignored, gadfly Emily Alma raised her pudgy little mitt to insist somebody answer the woman. At this point, I wanted to re-enact these old bits from “All in the Family”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkue1ns4XvU

I went to hear the report on the garbage franchise contract now being stitched together in a cooperative effort between Butte County and the city of Chico. This deal will give either Waste Management or Recology,  or both, exclusive franchise zones in Butte County and in Chico. This means you no longer pick your own hauler, and there’ll be no more incentive for these companies to keep our costs down. There will also be admitted but as yet undisclosed increases in costs for the city of Chico, as well as liability issues. 

Given remarks I’ve heard lately and again at today’s meeting, this is already a done deal in both the county and the city. Right now they’re playing the haulers against each other, nudging them into giving up as much as possible. Today I again heard mentioned the idea that whoever gets the permit should be willing to do all kinds of free services for the city of Chico, like pick up trash in city parks for free, provide free dumpsters for community clean-ups, free street sweeping, etc.

Brian Nakamura has also been running around town saying that we need some kind of prod to make our haulers abide by the laws – during last night’s City Council meeting,  Recology manager Joe Matz finally took exception to this trash talk Nakamura has been spewing. Nakamura said to a Tea Party gathering recently that the garbage companies would use Butte County as a dumping place for their old substandard trucks, that they’d cut recycling services to save money, and all kinds of other fear mongering if we don’t have this franchise to hold over them. Matz reminded everybody last night that all of California has the same air quality laws and vehicle standards. What is Nakamura trying to pull here?

Well, that’s a rhetorical question, you know the answer, I know the answer – he wants the hugely increased fees to pay down the UNFUNDED PENSION LIABILITY. What does he think, that like Herman Goering, he can just keep repeating his Big Lies until they become the truth?

I didn’t have to stay for the rest of the meeting to  tell you what when on – Good Old Boy network. They allow women in now, but it’s all the same stuff that’s always gone on. Our county and city are run by the talking heads, and they run things to their advantage. Your elected officials are just as bad as staff  – city councilors get a small stipend and a big health insurance policy, and last time I checked, county supervisors were being paid almost $60,000 in salary, plus benefits. None of these people are going to rock their little boat. You have to rock it for them every four years, and it’s time for Gruendl, Wahl and Kirk to take a little swim.

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Ground Hog Day predictions

5 Nov

Here we are, Second Tuesday – council meeting tonight. I keep getting the weirdest sense of Deja-vu – am I using that correctly? I mean, I feel like this town just keeps circling around the same carcass – “Sit and Lie”.

Everybody loved that movie with Bill Murray, Ground Hog Day, where he wakes up every day, stuck in time, doomed to repeat the same day over and over again. You thought that was just a movie, didn’t you?

The news stories they’ve done, both print and broadcast, have been almost word for word repeats of stories run in August. The council hashed over this ordinance in a well-attended meeting and threw it out, too many problems. I thought it was weird at the time that Chief Trostle seemed kinda wishy-washy. The police department had been asking for the ordinance, but Trostle wasn’t very enthusiastic about presenting it. I realize now, he didn’t like the ordinance as written.

This newer version adds specifics regarding “sitting”, and drops the provision requiring a warning before arrest. That’s what they wanted for the Disorderly Events ordinance, permission to cite people for disturbing the peace without the usual number of complaints, without any signed complaint, and without any warning.  The cops are also pushing a “Social Host” ordinance that likewise circumvents due process, allowing cops, fire or hospitals, etc, to bill the owner of a property who didn’t even know his tenants were having a party. Now they want to be able to arrest people for sitting on any sidewalk for any reason short of a medical emergency or a parade without giving them any sort of head’s up before they start slapping the cuffs on. Hmmmm.

First of all, like Randall Stone says, why have another ordinance when you can’t enforce the laws that are on the books? I wonder if Stone read the same article I saw in the News and Review, describing the citing of a man for sitting on a sidewalk  too close to the crosswalk.  

http://worldofjuanita.com/2013/10/20/wow-headline-news-cop-does-his-job/

The city code includes very specific rules about where panhandlers are allowed to ask the public for money, as well as where anyone is allowed to sit. The “aggressive panhandling” ordinance has been on the books for almost exactly 10 years, but until now,  it’s rarely been enforced. The N&R article covered officer Peter Durfee’s recent attempts to enforce this law, and I had to wonder, “why just now?”

Last week, as I was doing some errands,  I saw officers in various parts of town rousting people who looked like transients – shopping carts, bed rolls, blue tarps and blankets.  First I encountered a team of Chico PD rounding up belongings and throwing away trash from a parking lot Downtown, right near Christian Michaels.  Then I saw a few squad cars rousting people over on the 20th Street overpass. I realized, they been camping in those bushes in the medians around the off-ramps, behind Petco.  I always wondered about that, having seen the kind of trash that indicates Hobo Camp.  Once I even saw one bold fellow camping, bright blue tarp staked out for a tent,  with his shopping cart full of bagged recyclables siting next to it, in a field laying along the west side of 99.

Camping is prohibited pretty much anywhere but registered camp grounds.  Neither the police or park employees have enforced the camping law for a year or so now.  I watched the Mangrove Plaza turn into some kind of homeless center, with the US Post Office buildings serving as a make-shift outdoor shelter area. People who live along the freeway have told me they see transients camping along the freeway at night, even with the widening going on.

But now suddenly the cops are rousting them? This is because of pressure they are feeling from the public complaints, and now the private security force that’s been hired Downtown. The cops are negotiating their contracts right now, which are up in January. They are finally realizing, their critics are starting to outweigh their supporters.

I don’t know why they need a more aggressive law to get rid of this bad case of fleas. We already have laws that allow these folks to be cited for the very offenses that citizens are complaining about.  If they fail to appear or pay the penalty, the cops can arrest them without warning and they go to jail. Sit/Lie seems like a quicker rout to incarceration, but is that really the answer? Take them off the streets and stuff them into our over-crowded jails? Wake up – it will happen here just like it happens in San Francisco, where the bum that was arrested two hours ago, swearing at your customers while seated in a puddle of his own urine, is right back in front of your store, swearing at your customers while seated in a puddle of his own urine.

At least Phil the Weatherman finds his way out of his Ground Hog Day. Here’s my prediction for Chico: Whether or not they pass Sit/Lie, this idiot council will sign the cop contracts, giving them raises as well as leaving completely untouched their fully paid benefits and pension.

And around and around she goes, where she stops, noooooobody knows!

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CTA discusses impacts of Obamacare, changes meeting schedule

4 Nov

At yesterday’s Chico Taxpayer’s meeting we decided to take a short hiatus  until January, and then in January we will try a new schedule – instead of meeting the First Sunday, we’ll try Third Sunday. I finally realized, the city committee meetings are mostly at the beginning of the month. In past I’ve almost forgotten about them by the time we’ve got to the library.

We also talked about Obamacare – one of our members admitted, he will actually get a pretty good  deal, we’ll keep an eye on that. I hadn’t wanted to discuss national issues, but we can see all around us how Obamacare is negatively affecting the local economy and screwing up people’s lives.  The most concrete example I have is a public agency – Chico Area Recreation District. Obamacare is a topic at every monthly board meeting, and management long ago made the decision to cut all part time workers – which is most of their work force – down to 27 hours or less. These aren’t kids, many of these people have their own kids – imagine trying to get along in this town on 27 hours at minimum wage.   And they’ve had to cut services to the public as a result. They get more in tax revenues every year with the incremental increase on our homes, but every year they offer less in the way of programs, this past summer cutting over 300 children from just one understaffed program. (I think she said 500 but I don’t have time to look).

So, we continue to discuss Obamacare even though it’s a federal mandate and there’s not much we can do on the local level. Write your legislators, write John Boehner a thank you note – 

http://www.speaker.gov/general/boehner-problem-obamacare-isn-t-just-website-it-s-whole-law

No, I’m not crazy about Boehner, I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, but we’re copacetic on Obamacare.  I will keep an eye on as many public meetings as I can catch and post my reports here. If you have something you’ve written about a meeting you’ve attended, please contact me via “Contact us here!” and I’ll get back to you.  If you have a topic for a special meeting. let me know. Otherwise I will be down at the library January 19, time to be announced. 

The analysis is in – proposed garbage franchise will NOT be good for rate payers or taxpayers!

1 Nov

Here are some excerpts from an analysis by city-paid consultants R3 Consulting Group, available in next week’s city council agenda:

http://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?meta_id=36629&view=&showpdf=1

The only clear advantage of the City’s existing system over the alternatives is the
potential for lower rates and lower administrative burden. If the potential for lower rates
and lower administrative burden are of primary importance to the City, it should maintain
and enforce its current regulated open-market permit system. If increasing
diversion/environmental services and generating fees to cover expenses incurred by the
City related to the impacts of solid waste collection are of primary importance, the City
should implement an enhanced permit or closed-market system.

Potential Impact on Ratepayers

Rate comparisons between exclusive and non-exclusive systems are complex. Customer rates
are affected by many factors, including the competitiveness of the marketplace, the services
required, the lines of business included in the franchise or open-market system (e.g., residential
versus commercial or roll-off/debris box), and many other factors. Perhaps the most important
of these factors is the competitiveness of the marketplace. If there are several haulers
competing for business in the same marketplace, rates will tend to be driven lower. However,
the competitive nature of the marketplace also puts pressure on some companies to save
money by reducing truck and bin maintenance, reducing recycling services and/or
underreporting required franchise fees.
Alternatively, exclusive agreements are often initiated through a competitive bidding process,
whereby the City releases a request for proposals (RFP) and a selection is made based on a
range of criteria. One of those criteria is customer rates, which the City can weigh heavily as
part of the evaluation process to ensure the City’s residents and businesses receive competitive
rates. In addition, the City has the option of freezing rates for an initial period and establishing a
specific rate setting process (e.g., rates escalated by the Consumer Price Index or Refuse Rate
Index). Finally, it is important to note that rates can be driven lower in an exclusive system with
one or multiple haulers due to a guaranteed revenue base and a guaranteed market share,
respectively.

Administrative Burden
With respect to the structure of the solid waste collection system, one consideration is the level
of City staff time required to administer the system. In the case of a regulated open-market
permit system with limited permit requirements, regulatory requirements are minimal. Enhanced
open-market system and closed-market system options, on the other hand, can have greater
administrative requirements that commensurate with the requirements of the enhanced permit
or franchise agreement (e.g., confirming reported diversion, managing franchise fee payments
etc.). However, language can be included in a franchise agreement to require the franchisee to
compensate the City for cost incurred for performing certain contract obligations, such as rate
reviews and hauler audits.
Time and Costs Associated with Implementation
As discussed earlier, current unrestricted permits will not expire until June 30, 2016. While this
allows for ample time to plan for enhanced permit requirements or a closed-market system, it
restricts the City from actually implementing a new system prior to the expiration of the permits.
However, the City could consider exploring opportunities to implement an exclusive franchise
system prior to current permit expiration by evaluating whether the current haulers are in
compliance with all permit requirements (i.e., reporting requirements). If the haulers are found to
be in non-compliance with any of the permit requirements, the City could pursue an exclusive
franchise system immediately.

Chico Taxpayers Association regular meeting this Sunday, November 3, Chico library, 9am

1 Nov

This Sunday November 3 we will have our regular Chico Taxpayers meeting, 9am, Chico library on Sherman Avenue.

I will bring my little computer and we’ll see if we can pick up the tape of the Tea Party meeting on the free wifi.  

I’d like to talk about the constitutional amendments that are still kicking around (ACA 3, SCA 4) in our state legislature, and hear what other people have been hearing around town. 

Looking forward to some productive chitter-chatter, see you there.

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cell phone tax update – almost $300,000 accumulated, only about $10,000 refunded

1 Nov

Back in August, the ER did an update on cell phone tax rebates, saying applications were starting to slow down. At that time they reported a rebate total of $9,550, to 191 customers. Frank Fields told me at one point, most of the applicants were residential, but a few businesses had come in.

Since the beginning, Chico taxpayer Jim Matthews has been suggesting an electronic application, so that victims of the illegal tax could claim their stolen money without having to carry a pile of dead trees down to City Hall during their work day. I personally forwarded that suggestion to Brian Nakamura and staff, who oftentimes answered the e-mail but wouldn’t discuss our suggestion.

For weeks now, I’ve been getting searches here – the cell phone thing is the top search right now, even with all the cops in a titter over other stuff I’ve said about them. It’s even a top search on worldofjuanita.  So, I e-mailed the finance department to ask for an update. I got this reply from Chris Constantin.

“I’ve cc’d Frank to provide the latest numbers.  From the last report I received, unfortunately, not many took advantage of it.  The totals are pretty low.”

I like Constantin, he’s an honest guy – but you know me, I’m an honest gal, Compulsively honest. I found his e-mail offensive, and I had to tell him so. See, the city kept collecting cell phone taxes beyond the November 2012 election wherein we told them to STOP IT! They amassed a tidy $286,450, according to the ER. They will keep this money when a full year passes after the last taxes were collected, which was Spring 2013 (NOTE: meaning, it took them about six months to stop taking it!)   So, you have a few months to make your application, or tell your friends, co-workers, anybody you see standing there holding a cell phone – go Downtown and get your stolen money back!

Constantin purported surprise that more people had not come to claim their stolen money, but I had to call him on that. They made the process so onerous – come down to City Hall, during your work day, don’t forget every cell phone bill you ever got…   I won’t directly blame Constantin but I won’t stand for his pretending to be sorry. He could still change the process to make it electronic, make the phone companies send people their bills electronically, or just send them an annual total for their cell phone tax. That’s all in the records, but Constantin stands by while we are forced to bring a stack of paper Downtown on our lunch break if we want our stolen money back.

Let me repeat that – our stolen money.  $286,450, ill-gotten gain.

I’ll get back to you with that update, and watch for it in the ER, they’ll probably send it there too. 

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Mau mauing the Flak Catchers – it’s just not as fun as you’d think!

30 Oct

I get frustrated dealing with bureaucracy and bureaucrats. I just spent a couple of days, during breaks from my job, to check over that list of tax-related amendments that have been circulating the legislature like a bunch of flies over a carcass, It was a pain in the ass, okay?  I’ve been all over that stupid legislative website – like most public websites, you know it costs a zillion bucks to run the damned thing, and it’s just not what it could be.  Sometimes it pops right up with info, other times you’d think the elves who were running it had gone out on strike. 

It’s not just the website, it’s the ridiculous complexity they’ve manufactured to make it look like legislators and their $taffers earn their money.  Here’s one reason it’s so confusing – I went in search of an amendment titled “SCA3” –  “introduced by Senator Mark Leno on December 3, 2012 to authorize school districts, community college districts, and county offices of education to impose a parcel tax on real property by a 55% vote of the voters in the district or county under specified circumstances…” I could not find it on the California Legislature’s website, but I found it analyzed on other sites, including “Legislative Intent Services” at http://www.legintent.com/california-legislative-and-administrative-research/?gclid=CJX3tNm_v7oCFQZyQgod5A4AFw

So, I contacted Legislative Services, asking about “SCA3, which lowers the voter threshold for tax measures from 2/3’s to 55%.” I don’t know if the gal who responded had read my simple e-mail. She came back with another SCA3 – “This measure would require each local agency to comply with the CPRA and the Brown Act, and with any subsequent statutory enactment amending either act, enacting a successor act, or amending any successor act which contains findings demonstrating that the statutory enactment furthers the purposes of the people’s right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business. “

So, how do I respond to her? “Sorry Hon, that’s real interesting, but where does it say anything about lowering the voter threshold?” I don’t know how to respond, so instead I’ll assume – the SCA 3 I was looking for has died and been reincarnated as another amendment. 

That is pretty interesting though – read the new SCA 3 here – http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SCA3  –    something about providing records of meetings!  “ access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business. “

But, the gal from Legintent did send send me this good link – telling us what has been approved for the next ballot, at this point, June 2014  – including the new SCA 3 – take a look, and keep this link handy:

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

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Re-read my last post – I finished updating. Then get mad and write a letter.

30 Oct

I’ve finished flopping out what I could find on those seven deadly amendments.

Remember, complaining is really a lot more satisfying when you’ve actually got off your dead ass and tried to do something about it.

See what your California Legislature is up to – don’t turn your backs on these slop suckers! Seven legislative amendments that lower the votes required for raising your property and sales taxes.

27 Oct

I’ve been trying to track a group of constitutional amendments currently slithering their way through California Senate and Assembly committees. What these seven amendments have in common is they will lower the number of votes needed to raise taxes. They need two/thirds approval to make it through the legislature. Unfortunately the California legislature is infested with tax and spend morons, all of whom are hooked up to CalPERS pensions. Yeah, that’s right – even your “representatives” are in the trough!

Don’t let that stop you from arming yourself with knowledge and writing letters – to your California legislators, the newspapers, your friends, and even to those legislators who support these bills – tell them, you’re not so poor you can’t send a check to their competitor in the next election.  Tell them you belong to Chico Taxpayers Association – the only group that BEAT a tax measure in Election 2012!

Stephanie Taber gave me a list of the amendments, below I’ve begun compiling the current data from the California Legislative website, as well as the Assembly and Senate websites. Every body should make a point of checking these websites regularly. This is a real civics lesson for me – this is how you learn about your government after your school teachers told you a bunch of shit about Democracy. Read up below, I’ll be adding to this info as I get  time. Right now I got to roll out some noodles and get some chicken in a pot for some soup for dinner. 

ACA3 – Lowers Vote Requirements for Tax Increases

Synopsis from California Legislative Counsel’s Digest:  

(1) The California Constitution prohibits the general ad valorem tax rate on real property from exceeding 1% of the full cash value of the property, subject to certain exceptions. This measure would create an additional exception to the 1% limit for a rate imposed by a city, county, or special district to service bonded indebtedness incurred to fund certain fire, emergency response, police, or sheriff buildings or facilities, and equipment, that is approved by 55% of the voters of the city, county, or special district, as applicable.

(2) The California Constitution conditions the imposition of a special tax by a city, county, or special district upon the approval of 2/3 of the voters of the city, county, or special district voting on that tax, and prohibits these entities from imposing an ad valorem tax on real property or a transactions or sales tax on the sale of real property.

This measure would authorize the imposition, extension, or increase of a special tax by a city, county, or special district for the purpose of providing supplemental funding fire, emergency response, police, or sheriff services, upon the approval of 55% of the voters voting on the proposition, and would prohibit the revenues derived from such a tax from being expended to supplant any other funding source for the provision of these services. This measure would also make conforming changes to related provisions.

(3) The California Constitution prohibits specified local government agencies from incurring any indebtedness exceeding in any year the income and revenue provided in that year, without the assent of 2/3 of the voters and subject to other conditions. In the case of a school district, community college district, or county office of education, the California Constitution permits a proposition for the incurrence of indebtedness in the form of general obligation bonds for the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or replacement of school facilities, including the furnishing and equipping of school facilities, or the acquisition or lease of real property for school facilities, to be adopted upon the approval of 55% of the voters of the district or county, as appropriate, voting on the proposition at an election.

This measure would similarly lower to 55% the voter-approval threshold for a city or county to incur bonded indebtedness, exceeding in any year the income and revenue provided in that year, that is in the form of general obligation bonds issued to fund certain fire, emergency response, police, or sheriff buildings or facilities, and equipment.

Status –  this bill was introduced in January 2013. In April 2013 it was sent to the committee on Local Government, after which it will head to the committee on Appropriations. The Local Government committee is made up of nine legislators, six of them Democrats. 

SCA 4  – Lowers Vote Requirements for Tax Increases

Synopsis from California Legislative Counsel’s Digest:

The California Constitution conditions the imposition of a special tax by a city, county, or special district upon the approval of 2/3 of the voters of the city, county, or special district voting on that tax, except that certain school entities may levy an ad valorem property tax for specified purposes with the approval of 55% of the voters within the jurisdiction of these entities.

This measure would provide that the imposition, extension, or increase of a special tax by a local government for the purpose of providing funding for local transportation projects requires the approval of 55% of its voters voting on the proposition, if the proposition proposing the tax includes certain requirements. This measure would prohibit a local government from expending any revenues derived from a special transportation tax approved by 55% of the voters at any time prior to the completion of a statutorily identified capital project funded by revenues derived from another special tax of the same local government that was approved by a 2/3 vote. The measure would also make conforming and technical, nonsubstantive changes.

Status – This bill was introduced in December of 2012 and approved by a Democrat-controlled Governance and Finance committee in May. From there it went to the committee on Transportation and Housing, also stacked with Democrats, who approved it in August. T&H sent it to the Rules committee for some amendments, then on to Appropriations.

SCA 7 – Lowers Vote Requirements for Tax Increases

Synopsis: This measure would lower from 2/3’s to 55% the voter-approval threshold for a city, county, or city and county to incur bonded indebtedness, exceeding in any year the income and revenue provided in that year, that is in the form of general obligation bonds issued to fund public libraries.

Status – I’m not sure, but it looks like this bill died in various committees –  Vote [required in committee] : 2⁄3. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no. 

 SCA 8 – Lowers Vote Requirements for Tax Increases

Synopsis – This measure would provide that the imposition, extension, or increase of a special tax by a local government for the purpose of providing funding for transportation projects requires the approval of 55% of its voters voting on the proposition. The measure would also make conforming and technical, nonsubstantive changes.

Status – It looks like this one was tossed out by the Appropriations, Fiscal, and State Mandated Local Program Committees.

SCA 9 –  Lowers Vote Requirements for Tax Increases

Synopsis – This measure would provide that the imposition, extension, or increase of a special tax by a local government for the purpose of providing funding for community and economic development projects, as specified, requires the approval of 55% of its voters voting on the proposition. The measure would also make conforming and technical, nonsubstantive changes.

Status – this one also looks dead, having been refused in the same committees as #8

SCA 11 – Lowers Vote Requirements for Tax Increases

Synopsis – This measure would  condition the imposition, extension, or increase of a special tax by a local government upon the approval of 55% of the voters voting on the proposition, instead of the 2/3’s now required,  if the proposition proposing the tax contains specified requirements. The measure would also make conforming and technical, nonsubstantive changes.

Status – Again, it looks dead – Vote: 2⁄3. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.  State-mandated local program: no.

SCA 3 – Lowers Vote Requirements for Tax Increases

Synopsis – This measure would alternatively condition the imposition, extension, or increase of a parcel tax, as defined, by a school district, community college district, or county office of education upon the approval of 55% of its voters voting on the proposition, if the proposition meets specified requirements. This measure would also make conforming changes to related provisions.

Status –  Another one that appears to be dead – Vote: 2/3. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no.  They’re already using this number for a new, unrelated bill. 

I’m not sure I understand how it works – could it be true that all but two of these amendments – those highlighted above in red – have already died in committee? I’ve sent off an e-mail to a legislative information site, I’ll see what I get.

Meanwhile, you may want to take another look at ACA 3 and SCA 4 – these are sufficient to load our pants full of tax bonds and hikes in sales tax by any “special district” like the city, county, schools, CARD, you name it. 

I don’t know if we can stop these amendments. The legislature is controlled by the tax and spend loonies right now, including “RINOS” who call themselves Republicans but spend like Democrats. We’ve got a taskmaster as Governor who treats us like bad children because we don’t earn enough money to cover his lavish lifestyle and that of his cronies. They ALL drink the CalPERS Kool Aid – every one of them is awaiting a pension, licking their chops. 

We can still stop these efforts locally.  We know the public sector is rattling chains to get a sales tax increase here, starting with ex-city manager and pensioneer Tom Lando, who used his own money to float a survey of the public a year or so ago. Lando is still chomping for somebody to sponsor a measure on an upcoming local ballot, saying his survey, which he won’t disclose to the public, indicated support.  But not 2/3’s support, is what I’m guessing, so he’s waiting for those amendments.  We know CARD is pursuing a bond to pay their CalPERS, no matter what kind of carrot they hold up to the public. They also ran a survey, using a long-debated aquatic center as a carrot, but that survey told them they could not get 2/3 support.  We need to let CARD and the city of Chico know, we’ll fight. We beat Measure J, and it only required 55 %. 

CARD has actually mentioned these amendments, telling a group who met to discuss a proposed aquatic center that they needed to contact their legislators. I’m telling you the same thing.  Ask for status information, and tell them why you are concerned. I don’t know if they know about these local tax increase efforts. I’m not that thrilled with either of these guys – I’m going to tell them my vote depends on their action in heading off these amendments. 

Dan Logue – http://arc.asm.ca.gov/member/AD3/?p=addresses

Jim Nielsen – http://district4.cssrc.us/content/my-offices

 

Camden New Jersey throws out their cop contracts – Chico needs to look into this

27 Oct

People think I hate all cops – no, I just hate cop, or any public employee, who abuses the public trust to enrich themselves. This is how I see Kirk Trostle and most of our police force – greedy pigs who threaten us with increasing crime unless we meet their demands for pay increases, extra overtime, and more officers. They refuse to pay ANYTHING toward their generous health benefits and retirement packages.   Asked along with other city departments to cut 10% of their budget, they came back with demands for raises and promotions.  Recently Trostle said they need more money for Halloween overtime, their continual foot in the door being a threat of Chico State and Butte College students and their “friends from out of town” having a “riot”. 

Here’s what a “riot” looks like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD_amsSsg78

I realize, these holidays bring people into town, whether they are registered to attend college, I do not know. But I think the cops’ hype is overblown, and poor advertising for our town. I think they bring in as many problem visitors as they keep away, maybe more, with their taunting, baiting, threatening attitude. They’ve taken a children’s holiday and turned it into a dirty word with continuous threats of Anarchy to frighten and mislead the public into giving in to their demands.  

Trostle went on and on about the consequences of drinking in our town at the Community Alcohol Workshop last week. There was plenty of talk about instituting fees for bars and restaurants, mainly Downtown, but not one word about holding the actual perpetrators – the people who choose to over-consume alcohol – responsible for their actions. Chico PD tells us again and again, registered college students, in disproportionate numbers,  are getting drunk, drinking underage or providing alcohol to underage persons,  getting in fights, getting alcohol poisoning,  being both the victim and perpetrator of sexual assaults, and other dangerous and just plain annoying – oh and did I mention ILLEGAL – behaviors related to alcohol intoxication. They tell us this group is causing a disproportionate drain on resources, both public and private. So, why don’t they prosecute these kids, and better yet, get them in trouble over at the college?  

 I’ve been told Mike Ramsey won’t prosecute these cases – not enough time he says. I think he means, there’s not enough money in them.   I wonder if it also has anything to do with the college being afraid parents will get mad and the college will get a bad reputation. I think the “Party School” image works more positively for a sausage school like Chico State than a reputation for putting kids in jail and squeezing them for money. As for Chico PD, I look forward to a chief that will take on the DA and the Chancellor, but Trostle isn’t that chief.

Instead Trostle is trying to demonize not only bar and restaurant owners but landlords.  Seeking to bill property owners for problems arising out of  their tenants’ house parties, he’s asking council to put a  “civil response cost” ordinance on the ballot.  This will allow Chico PD and Fire, as well as ambulance companies and hospitals, to bill landlords instead of the actual party hosts, without due process of law. This ordinance gives Chico PD the right to attach a landlord for expenses occurred under police discretion without proving the landlord had any knowledge of the party. Here again, we have a blatant money grab by a chief who does not want to go the proper route through court because it means actual police work.   In typical style, he tries to use statistics about underage drinking, alcohol deaths, and sexual assault as an excuse to shake down landlords and property owners. 

Chico PD also uses the street people to flame the public’s fears,  using the failure of the “sit/lie” ordinance as their excuse for not dealing with the increasingly bad atmosphere Downtown and the proliferation of transient hot spots all over Chico. An employee at Rite Aid on Mangrove says they don’t call the police anymore because they’ve refused to come, saying they don’t have the personnel to deal with “code issues.” They tell us they can’t arrest them without “sit/lie.”  A guy standing in front of the automatic door of a store, filthy, waving a bottle of booze and screaming at the top of his lungs, stepping back and forth into the sensor beam on the automatic door, causing the door to open and shut itself into a fit, is a “code issue.”  Standing in the middle of a walkway, hostile to passerby, finally staggering out into the parking lot to confront a man in a Blazer is a “code issue.” 

As Peter Durfee demonstrated recently, there are already many reasons for Chico PD to interact with street people, ticketing them for a variety of violations that have been a part of the Chico code for over 10 years now, a response to people who saw the writing on the wall that long ago.  We’ve also had State Parks employees in Bidwell Park, citing campers and removing illegal campsites. The city, both the police department and the park department, have allowed Bidwell Park to become infested with illegal campers, supposed “homeless” folks. I’ll tell you what, I see them when I traverse the park in the morning out to do my errands, I see them when I’m doing business up and down Mangrove Avenue, and I see them when I cross Lindo Channel to head over to the North side of town. I don’t feel safe. There’s been too many incidents lately, with transients attacking each other, attacking other people, knifings, and strong arm robberies. Chico PD has allowed this army of the night to take over various areas linked up by the creeks and the convenience stores by simply not enforcing basic laws of loitering, trespassing, public intoxication, camping and urination/defecation.  I don’t know what law covers it, but I’m pretty sure these people are not allowed to harass others either.  These things have always been illegal, and there’s also rules about where they can panhandle that are blatantly violated, but only lately has anybody been enforcing them. Just Durfee? Just long enough to get his fat puss in the News and Review? 

Is it only clear to me Chico PD has long ago stopped serving the public? 

I know there’s other ways to solve our problem.  Thanks Jim in Chico for this story from Camden, New Jersey. I did some research, and you will also find an article about how they did it by getting rid of things out of the contracts, like paying employees for unused vacation and sick time!

From National Public Radio, reporter Elizabeth Fielder:

Last year the city [of Camden, New Jersey] set a new record with 67 homicides, the worst since 1995. To combat crime, [Camden County Police Chief Scott] Thomson says the department is trying a blend of old school policing, getting officers out of their cars and on to foot patrols, and newer technology using microphones to record gunshots and cameras to capture license plate numbers and remotely keep an eye on the streets. Camden’s made some inroads. Since the new police force took over, the long ailing city’s crime rate has fallen 15 percent. Homicides are down 22 percent and burglaries dropped nearly 30 percent. In one tough neighborhood, a bunch of little kids are playing football in a patch of grass.

[According to Camden County Commissioner Louis Cappelli Jr.,] “We will have 401 police officers, 100 civilians at the same cost that Camden was paying to employ 260 police officers and the salaries for the police officers that we brought over are the same as the salaries that they were being paid before. What we were able to do is to eliminate some of the frivolous financial terms that were developed over decades through labor negotiations.”

From NBC News, April 30, 2013

The last remaining members of the 141-year-old police department in Camden, N.J., will retire their badges Tuesday as the city — stricken by brutal murders and crippling poverty — yields its streets to a new metro division of the county police force.

Gov. Chris Christie and other advocates hope that the transition to a county-run force will help drag the city of 77,000 out of a half century of post-industrial decline and decay, its annals pockmarked by open-air drug markets and sky-high murder rates. Union leaders called the new policing model, which was approved by local and state officials in August 2011, “untested” and said the move amounts to union busting.

Officials have struggled for years to reduce crime in a city where more than 42 percent of people are thought to live below the poverty line. Budget cuts forced the city to lay off 168 officers in January 2011 — 46 percent of the entire department. A spike in crime ensued

Even after some of the laid-off officers trickled back with the help of federal funds, crime rates never fully leveled off. Camden had about 270 cops to rely on as the streets turned into killing zones last year, with absentee rates reported as high as 30 percent, said Jose Cordero, a consultant with 21 years of New York City Police Department experience.

Police union contracts had gotten too expensive for the city, said Cordero, who helped design the new force. Officers could earn an 11 percent bump in their pay by working an anti-crime patrol, or 10 percent more for working a nighttime shift.

“The primary purpose of this was the city could not afford to staff up its police department to the number of officers required to have a fighting chance in what is one of the deadliest cities in America,” Cordero said.

Officers in what will be a 400-strong metro division, to be backed by 100 civilian employees, have trained on the streets of Camden alongside city police since March. About half of the regional force is expected to be comprised of members of the old Camden Police Department.

“I’m looking to see a partnership form between the metro division officers and the citizens of Camden; that partnership is crucial to prevent future crimes,” said Freeholder director Louis Capelli, Jr., who helped develop the new force.  “For the first time in decades they’ll have officers walking the beat and in their neighborhoods on bicycles.”

Camden is so far the only town or city to make use of the regional police department, which will be paid for by city property tax revenues and state municipal aid funds, Capelli said.

Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson will take control of the new force on Wednesday after retiring his city post. The force will cost Camden an estimated $62 million, the same amount the city use to pay for the smaller previous force.

Some city residents and business owners said they were pleased with the change as the new force began to roll out on streets in April.

From nj.com, March 13, 2013 –

By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal 

on March 13, 2013 at 9:42 PM

Jersey City has come to an agreement with three labor unions representing fire and police officials and rank-and-file police officers that give the employees a 2.5 percent salary hike for the second half of this year.

The three new contracts, which also provide a roughly 2 percent pay increase for each of the next three years, were approved unanimously tonight by the nine-member City Council.

The new labor agreements address some issues that have caused headaches for city finance officials for years, including terminal leave. New employees will not be eligible for this perk thanks to the new contracts.

“We’ve all seen some of the larger payouts, and the union representatives were willing to work with us to address that growing concern,” Assistant Business Adminstrator Robert J. Kakoleski told the council on Monday. “All three deals make significant impacts on that benefit.”

The new contracts apply to workers in the Jersey City Fire Officers Association, the Jersey City Police Superiors Officers Association and the Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association.

Workers in the three unions hired after Jan. 1, 2013 will not be eligible for “terminal leave” payouts, which cost the city roughly $10 million last year.

Longevity pay, which amount to bonuses tied to the number of years an employee works for the city, will be capped at 12 percent for new employees, down from 16 percent for current workers.

Members of the three unions will also have to pay increased co-pays on prescription drugs.

 

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