Surprise Surprise! City’s not really laying off 53 people – get ready for a major sales tax pitch

14 Jun

Oh gee, isn’t that just ginchee! The city won’t have to lay off these folks after all – they “care so much about this community” that they will be given lesser positions. At lesser wages? That isn’t spelled out, I wouldn’t assume anything. It looks to me like they were really after only 18, and now that  they got rid of those, the others will take little or no pay cut. And, they’ll still get their EPMC, just watch.

This was just a ploy to make all of us feel bad about these poor employees – pobrecitos! – who’ve sacrificed so much!  I’m sorry, stop shoveling bullshit onto my plate, I’m not eating it.

Get ready for an intensive sales tax increase pitch, and get ready to be surprised who else is behind it.

 

 

Many pink-slipped employees to stay with city of Chico

By ASHLEY GEBB-Staff Writer

Posted:   06/14/2013 12:06:27 AM PDT

CHICO — All but three employees issued pink slips last week by the city of Chico who have bumping rights have elected to use them to retain jobs.

Assistant City Manager Mark Orme said Thursday that of the 53 employees who received layoff notices last week, 35 had the option of using displacement rights to continue working for the city in a different capacity. Of those, one person elected to retire and two others will accept the layoff.

Employees had until Wednesday to notify the city of their decision.

“What is going to happen is we are going to go through the process of determining where these people can bump to and where they will end up,” Orme said.

To close a $4.8 million budget deficit, at least 40 full-time equivalent positions are slated for elimination in next year’s budget proposal, with cuts affecting every city department. Some positions are already vacant or upcoming retirements.

Any employees who could have potentially been affected by a bump were also issued layoff notices as a precaution, to be “comprehensive and fair with everybody from the start,” Orme said.

The city brought in the Employment Development Department and Unemployment Insurance for career counseling Thursday, and a presentation on the employee assistance program was Wednesday.

“They’ve had the opportunity to sit down and listen to these folks, they can ask questions, they can receive help if they need it and understand the entirety of the situation they are facing,”

Orme said.

“It was the most compassionate approach the city could take to make sure employees had every option available at this time.”

The number of employees who wish to stay with the city is a positive indicator, Orme said.

“What we’ve seen is the employees that care so much about this community and have dedicated so much time to the city of Chico that regardless of the position they find themselves in as this progresses forward, they are still ready and willing to serve the public in whatever capacity that might be,” he said.

Eighteen people who were issued pink slips did not have bumping rights. Any layoffs are contingent upon approval by the City Council, which will be discussing the 2013-14 budget Tuesday during an all-day study session.

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My guess: Mary Goloff is kicking the farmers off the parking lot so she can sell a parking lot to Tom DiGiovanni

13 Jun

I got some freaked out e-mails, and then I read the story in the paper this morning – Mary Gol0ff is calling for an end to the Farmer’s Market agreement? Wow, what got up her ass? 

At first I thought she was just desperate to raise revenues, desperate enough to nickel and dime the Farmer’s Market? 

No, that’s not it – compared to our current deficit, the annual fees for every Saturday morning at the plaza wouldn’t amount to a drop in the bucket. I’m going to throw this out there – they want to surplus a parking lot – maybe even THAT parking lot – and they want the CCFM offa there.   Whether they are planning to sell that lot the farmers are on now, or whether they just want to free up Saturday morning parking on paper so they can surplus that other lot over on Salem, I don’t know. I do know, Tom DiGiovanni has proposed major developments –  “live-work” units –  for both of those sites, as well as other Downtown lots. 

The Downtown parking discussion has been, like the farmer’s market discussion, a political football. The Friends of Downtown and many people from the Certified Farmer’s Market have added nothing to the discussion, raising an hysterical howl that blots out any intelligent conversation on the matter. I’m tired of hearing about the merits of the farmer’s market – that’s not the real issue here.   It’s been impossible to get anybody Downtown, except ex-mayor Carl Ory, to admit there are plans being discussed to put residential development on city-owned parking lots. Tom DiGiovanni has been pushing this plan for years.

A view of the creekside promenade envisioned as part of New Urban Builders’ proposed East First Street project, circa 2005.IMAGE COURTESY OF ENVISION DESIGN, BERKELEY

This picture above is the plan for the old Wascomat building currently occupied by businesses like Solutions Cubed and the Little Red Hen. Retail on the bottom, offices on the second floor, small high-end apartments on top. And cement right up to the creek, with a small public walkway. The plan includes NO PARKING. None of New Urban’s plans call for parking.  They will bring residents Downtown without providing for their cars. 

I know, I’ve said, there is currently no lack of parking Downtown. I mean, there are plenty of spaces to accommodate the folks who currently go Downtown, even if they can’t expect to pull right up to the  front door of the business they are patronizing.  

But I realize, that’s during the week day.  At night, when restaurants are busy, or when the Thursday Market has streets shut down, and on weekends when people drive in, those precious out-of-town shopper we are losing hand-over-fist, there is a parking shortage. Try patronizing a restaurant – you have to drop the family off on the curb at go look for a spot. Try picking up to-go food – thank god my kids have gotten old enough to drive, that’s another two man job – drop one person off at the curb and circle the block waiting for them to appear with the bag. 

No, I don’t feel any need at present for a parking structure – not unless Downtown property owners will pay for it. I won’t have a bond put on my property taxes to pay for something that benefits a small portion of the city. They need to come up with the money from assessments of Downtown  property owners. Why should Raley’s pay property taxes on their parking lot to subsidize Downtown businesses? 

But neither am I interested in surplussing lots. That’s desperation on Goloff’s part. She’s freaking out. She’s just realized why they let her be the mayor. 

When we had the surplus parking lot discussion Downtown a month or so ago, Brian Nakamura put the kybosh on any talk of what the parking lots would be used for when they are surplussed. He’s no dummy, he knows the idea of live-work units is not going over good, and he doesn’t want it to muck up the conversation about selling the lots. He’s just desperate to raise revenues right now, he doesn’t want some community roaring up his ass. 

Well, back to work, I want to get my dinner made by noon, so I don’t have to work in a hot kitchen later. 

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City Manager Brian Nakamura has agreed to come down to our July 7 meeting to discuss the budget.

12 Jun

I didn’t get to attend last week’s “Budget 101” session with Chico Chamber and city staff, but I found Ashley Gebb’s write up pretty interesting. 

I really can’t wait to hear just what Jovanni Triceri wants citizens to “stand up” and do!

Gebb doesn’t identify the person who asked about sales tax, but Brian Nakamura’s answer doesn’t give me any comfort. ““We have to live within our means first.”  First, he says. Before what? 

While I was happy to hear Nakamura and his assistant Orme recently refuse the cops’ pay raise proposal, I’m still worried. They seem to be asking the employees to make little gestures, to improve ” the public’s  perception of public employees.” So what? So we’ll approve a sales tax increase? 

We will have to ask Brian Nakamura about that – he will be coming in to our next First Sunday meeting to discuss this and other city issues. We’re looking forward to a good discussion, hope you can make it. 

 

 

 

Budget 101′ forum details city finances to Chico citizens

By ASHLEY GEBB-Staff Writer

Posted:   06/10/2013 12:00:00 AM PDT

CHICO — With questions about solving the city’s financial problems through a tax or aid of businesses, citizens took a course in “Budget 101” Friday from city officials.About 80 people gathered in the City Council Chambers to hear about how the city budget works, how millions of dollars in deficits accumulated and what will happen unless immediate action is taken.

Two days earlier, the city issued 53 layoff notices to employees in every city department as it attempts to close a $4.8 million general fund gap.

“People just really aren’t clear at what the challenges are, why they are impacting us now and where we go from here,” said Katie Simmons of the Chico Chamber of Commerce.

She helped organize the forum in hopes it would provide transparency, answer community questions and give city staff an opportunity to clarify some “gray areas,” she said.

In recent weeks, she has heard numerous questions from business owners and residents, many wanting real answers to rumors about what the impacts will be and what can be done. “Knowledge is power,” Simmons said.

After an hour-long presentation, several residents had questions. Some asked about where certain funding sources come from, what unfunded liabilities exist, and the potential of getting more help from the corporate community.

Jovanni Tricerri of the Chico Stewardship Network answered the latter question. “This is an opportunity for the citizens to stand up,” he said. “Citizens partnering with the

institution. Let’s find these solutions together. We are going to have to push citizens to take a bigger role in the governance of the city.”A final question inquired about the viability of implementing a tax to offset cuts.

“I’m not sure we have the trust to assure the public money will be spent as intended,” said City Manager Brian Nakamura. “We have to live within our means first.”

The City Council will have an all-day budget study session starting at 8:30 a.m. June 18 in the Council Chambers.

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CARD took $400,000 from the “Long Term Debt Principal Repayment reserve” to pay for their pensions – that’s supposed to be for paying off OUR debts, not THEIRS

12 Jun

At last week’s CARD budget meeting, finance manager Scott Dowell said they didn’t use the capital projects money to pay off the CalPERS side fund, so I asked him where the money came from, and exactly what happened to the capital projects money:

Mr. Dowell,

At yesterday’s meeting, you said the CalPERS side fund payoff was not made with money from the capital projects fund.

The paper work you sent me earlier this year shows a balance of over $385,000 (note: this was a mistake on my part, it was actually just $345,000!) in the capital projects fund, now that fund shows a negative balance.  Can you please show me documentation of where that money went?

Also, you said yesterday the money for the side fund payoff had been “set aside” – from where and when? Could I also see the paper work from CalPERS regarding that side-fund payoff?

If you can’t send me these documents, I can come down to the office at our mutual convenience to look them over.

Thanks for your anticipated cooperation, Juanita Sumner

Dowell responded:

Ms. Sumner:

 

I have attached the CalPERS side fund payoff letter from July 2012.

 

In answer to your questions, I would like to refer you to the tab in the budget worksheet called “Fund Balance.”

This tab reflects the projected fund balance activity.  Please note the category of Spendable:  Assigned reserves.

 

The Accumulated Capital Reserve  is where the $344,500 for capital projects was taken from.  As noted in the projected ending balance on the Fund Balance tab, the positive ending balance was $45,132 after utilizing the $344,500 for projects.  The reserve is not in the negative.

 

The CalPERS side fund payment budgeted at $400,000 is noted on the Fund Balance tab as coming from the Long Term Debt Principal Repayment reserve.  As noted, the ending projected balance in that reserve was $928,968 after the $400,000 side fund payoff. 

 

Items noted on the Executive Summary tab under the sub title FUND BALANCE ACTIVITY actually flow back to the Fund Balance tab in point of reference.

But, Mr. Dowell, where do the “assigned reserves” come from? And I never found the exact “projects” the projects money was spent on. 

It doesn’t matter, I realized later. All that matters is, these people, including Dowell at $96,000/year, and Visconti at $112,000/year, are taking money off the top to pay their own benefits. They took $400,000, just plain took it out of a fund that’s intended to pay off  property debts, and spent it on themselves – they pay NOTHING  toward their own pensions. 

And  now they’re whining for more money, so they can actually provide service, imagine that!

I’m getting sick of these kind of leeches.  

Mr. Dowell, please get off my back, get your family off my back. I don’t want to carry you. 

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Park Commissioner Ober takes up sales tax pitch

9 Jun

I have had my ear to the railroad tracks, listening for the rumblings of a sales tax increase campaign, and I think the first train has come in – Park Commissioner Richard Ober wrote the opinion piece below for the Chico News and Review.

It’s a threat – pay an increased sales tax or we close Bidwell Park road, stop cleaning bathrooms, stop pruning trees, etc, etc. Funny thing is, a lot of his threats have already happened. The park is already dirty and disheveled, trash all over the place, invasive non-native plants covering the ground, choking out native species and leaving native animals without proper habitat.   Caper Acres is a trash pit, never know who will be hanging around there, when the gate’s open, that is. 

And he’s so out of touch with most people’s every day reality – a dollar for a cup of coffee? He’s trying to make it sound like we only pay sales tax on things we don’t need, like we’re all just dripping with discretionary cash. This reminds me of the time somebody asked George Senior, how much is a gallon of milk? Ober forgets all the household items we use everyday – soap, toilet paper, all those non-food items we buy at the grocery store are TAXED. 

Ober needs a reality check – but you apparently need to be a city insider to have his public e-mail.  The contact mechanism on the BPPC page doesn’t work.  You will have to contact him through $taffer Lise Smith-Peters, LSPeters@ci.chico.ca.us   Notice how she set up her e-mail with the first three letters capitalized, and leaves out the “Smith” in her hyphenated last name. These addresses are supposed to be set up so you can just use the first initial and last name, but it’s funny how many $taffers use these tricks to keep their publicly-paid e-mail address a secret from the public. Let Smith-Peters know too – she will just have to manage to drive that brand new city pickup truck around the park all day doing nothing on her current $56,000/year salary. 

If you don’t want to write to the papers, send your letters here, keep them factual and in somewhat good taste, and I’ll run them here. 

This article was published on 06.06.13.

The author is a longtime resident of Chico who has served on the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission for eight years.
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Ask anyone here what makes Chico special and the answers at the top of the list will always include “Bidwell Park.” The park is more than one of the largest municipal parks in the country hosting nearly 2 million visits every year. It is at the core of who we are. It is the heart and lungs of a landscape that is unique in its combination of urban charm and thrilling wildness.

Ask yourself: Whatever the reason you and your family came to Chico, is the park part of the reason you stayed? And then ask yourself: What is that worth?

We know that the city is under budgetary siege. Are we ready to endure the pain of draconian cuts? Or are we willing to step in and pay for that which defines us as a community?

Picture this: Upper Park Road is closed. The trails to Monkey Face are washed out. A fire has denuded all sides of Ten Mile House Road. There are no lifeguards at Sycamore Pool. Restrooms go uncleaned. And the trees are un-pruned and declining. Valley-oak seedlings choke under tangles of invasive blackberry vines. A chain locks the gate at Caper Acres.

Are we willing to accept this?

How much is Bidwell Park worth to us? We take pride in saying, “We’re from Chico, the town with Bidwell Park.” As the stewards of this place for a short while, it is our duty to do better.

How much is your park worth? When you spend a dollar at the coffee shop, is the park worth a penny? When you lounge in your back yard and know that you live in a town with a park like Bidwell (and your house is worth more because of it), is it worth a few dollars?

Let’s tell the leadership of our city that it is worth our pennies and dollars, and that we’ll do what we need to preserve it. Because we’re willing to add a few dollars in taxes in order to pass along to our grandchildren that which makes us who we are.

If you’re new to Chico, Bidwell Park might seem like just another place behind a gate, and so, why not leave the gate closed? But Bidwell Park is more than that. It’s who we are and we need to do the right things to keep that gate open.

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Chief Beery needs to go, maybe Trostle too

9 Jun

I sent the letter below to the Enterprise Record last Sunday, Dave Little responded bright and early Monday that he’d run it, but hasn’t.   So, here it is, I won’t wait for him next time.

People have already forgotten Beery’s threats to close the airport station – guess why – because people don’t care unless something crawls right up their ass.   If he’d threatened Station 5, all those little yupsters over there in the subdivision that used to be North Valley Swim School would have their panties in a knot. If you don’t hold the stinking fish right up to their noses, they don’t give a shit. That’s the kind of people that have moved here over the Boom Years – stupid lemmings. If I have to read one more letter about the cops being cut, I’m going to barf – the cops have people like ex-chief Maloney’s wife writing in, spreading bullshit. Laurie Maloney is a fed pig. She sits with her husband on his $150,000+ pension and benefits, and she’s afraid the public is going to turn her apple cart over. Mrs. Piggy is going to get pushed out of the slops trough, oh no!

We need better chiefs. We need LEADERS, not mule drivers who threaten and whip. We may need to turn an apple cart over, get your gloves.

Who needs Dave Little – this is our newspaper!  Here’s my letter, if you send me something that’s not creepy or obscene, I’ll print it. 

Whenever we ask the public safety departments to curtail spending, they threaten to cut positions and close stations. This time Chief Beery is threatening to close the airport fire station, which will put the city afoul of federal air safety restrictions.  We ask the chief for leadership – instead he threatens public safety and the viability of the airport to protect his department. 
 
Our Finance Director has revealed  the city is losing about $70,000/month with the defeat of Measure J, the cell phone tax initiative. Meanwhile, the city spends over twice that amount – over $158,000 a month – paying the employee’s share of pension premiums. 
 
The police and fire departments, having the biggest budgets at about $22 million and $18 million, also pay nothing toward their pensions, so their pensions comprise the lion’s share of the ominous unfunded pension obligation.  
 
These pension agreements are a threat to public safety. During this last round of contract talks, it became very clear that most public safety employees will see their co-workers laid-off and positions go empty before they will step up and pay their own shares, for pensions of 90 percent of their highest year’s pay, available at age 50. 
 
Council signs these contracts because the public safety employees routinely make the biggest expenditure in every council campaign. If council was really working for us, they’d refuse to sign these contracts until the employees came back with a better deal.  
 

Juanita Sumner, Chico

UPDATE:  The ER finally ran my letter, over a week after I sent it. The cops made an offer to pay their own share the other  day, but they also wanted a raise to cover it!    They say they got a pay cut – no, they just didn’t get a raise. They call that a pay cut. 

We don’t need yer stinkin’ deals, Coppers!  

 

How dare they tell us, they don’t make enough money to pay their own pension premiums! They’ve made “sacrifices”?  Look at these salaries – this is just a sampling from one page, with regular pay and overtime:

  • Anthony Ferreira, Police Officer – $71,219.20 in reg pay, total $97,473.35 with overtime
  • Donald Finkbiner, Police Officer  – $71,219.20 reg pay, total $83,070.98
  • Daniel Fonseca, Police Sergeant – $87,913.76 reg pay, tot $121.145.91
  • Scott Franssen, PS – $95,638.40 reg pay, tot $126,657.16

You can see more salaries at the Enterprise Record. You’ll see “compaction” on page 2 – Lieutenant Jennifer Gonazales, at a regular salary of $101,000 year, is not allowed overtime, being an “at will” employee – she’s just supposed to be available for whatever comes up?  From what I’ve seen, she spends most of her overtime in meetings, like the Police Advisory Board meetings, making high school style reports on subjects like mental illness among the homeless population. She did receive about $15,000 in “special” and “other” pay, without any details beyond that description. But, down at the bottom of the page it says that for CSU  Chico, “Other pay includes police training, uniform, holiday OT and special assignment stipends; summer stipends or pay; and payments for indirect instruction, educational achievement, and misc. incentives.”

But, Gonzalez and the other lieutenants pitched a bitch because many sergeants, who are supposed to be subordinate to the lieutenants, were jacking up their $80 – 95,000 a year salaries with overtime, to waaaay more than the lieutenants were getting paid. So, despite the bullshit storm being stirred up by Peter Durfee of Chico Police Officers Assoc, they did so get raises in their new contracts. it makes me sick to have to listen to even Channel 7 perpetuating this horseshit campaign, letting Durfee shoot his mouth off on the news without any opposing viewpoints.

Durfee, by the way, padded on more than $30,000 to his seemingly innocuous-looking $63,000 salary, taking home more than $95,000 in 2012.

Here’s a response my letter got from a cop groupie, sitting next to her scanner in a negligee:

Linda Hinchcliff Rouland · Clear Lake High

Chico PD is the only city bargaining group that has come forward offering concessions to contribute toward their retirements in an effort to offer savings and keep their department operating. No one else has, and the city managers rejected the offer.

Yes, they certainly did reject it, and good for that. I wish people would try harder to be informed before they accuse ME of spreading misinformation – but this woman is obviously going to support the cops no matter what they do.  

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What about Lando’s sales tax increase?

7 Jun

I left off with Monya Jameson’s report from yesterday’s CARD meeting, but I know most people are really curious about Tom Lando’s plans to foist a local sales tax increase.

Well, he ain’t talkin’! Not straight anyway. Yesterday, before the meeting, he and Enterprise Record “reporter” Laura Urseny engaged in a little tease for my benefit, Lando declaring with a shit-eating grin that he would seek a two cent increase in the local sales tax. “I thought half a cent?” asked a smiling Urseny. Laura’s always cooperative, that girl knows who butters her bread, and which side the  butter’s on. 

Lando also claimed  he had nothing to do with the city’s current financial morass. He says the newspaper declared the problem “started” in 2007-08, after he’d retired.

Well, I have some questions I’d like to ask Mr. Lando about that MOU that linked salaries, including his, to revenue increases but not decreases.  That was The Killer, The Last Nail, the Paddle That Fell Out of the Boat Just as We Reached Shit Creek.  I believe that MOU was signed in 2003. 

I would also like to ask Scott Gruendl about that, because, as far as I know, he’s the only current council member who signed it. 

We may ask these two to come in and address this topic at a future meeting, if we get the interest. The meeting with Randall Stone was really productive, Stone was able to explain a lot of things. I think we could get a good meeting out of one or both of these guys, we’ll have to see if we can get them to come on down. 

Of course, I’m still hoping somebody can make that meeting Downtown today, noon to 1:30 pm, during which Brian Nakamura and $taff will again be explaining our situation, and I’m wondering what kind of “solutions” they will come up with. 

But, I’m outta here, got to see my hillbilly relatives. Juanita’s coming back to town, get that rope ready. 

 

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Monya Jameson, CARD Rec Superintendent: “We need more ‘worker bees’!”

6 Jun

Today I attended the CARD budget work session to find out that a balanced budget is not necessarily a good thing, not when you balance it by carving your expenditures with an ax. 

Like CARD board member Tom Lando, I was left asking myself, “why would they cut the programs that are actually bringing in revenue?”  Because none of the management are willing to give up their fat salaries and benefits to hire more of the part timers that actually do the work. 

For me the hour and twenty minute meeting boiled down to the last half hour or so.   After Finance Manager Scott Dowell explained the ax-carving that brought the budget back from Outer Space, and the horrors of a flat economy that waited ahead, Monya Jameson, Superintendent of Recreation and Community Services, painted an even bleaker picture. She described the shaving down of the programs for which CARD is supposed to exist, then ended her report by asking the board to re-fill the Senior Recreation Supervisor position they’d left open in order to balance the budget, saying, “I cannot continue to teach a program and manage a department.” 

Jameson started out talking about how various programs under her supervision had grown in the last seven to eight years, bringing in more participants and revenues. In 2005 the “net” program revenue was $210,110, with 27,512 participants in the programs. By 2012, participants had more than doubled, to 58,240, with revenues increasing to $324,540. All this time, staff hours only increased from 14,120 to 21,230.  So, participation more than doubled, and staff hours didn’t double – that is a little out of whack.

Now, due to a new federal law lowering the number of hours worked to qualify for health benefits from 40 to 30, CARD General Manager Steve Visconti is not allowing part time staffers more than 27 hours without approval. Part timers are the bulk of CARD’s work force. They not only mow lawns and stripe ball fields, empty trash cans and clean up vandalism, they supervise after school programs, teach swim lessons, and other activities with hands-on involvement with our children. So, Jameson says, she having to cut the participation in the more popular programs – programs that have “just exploded” over the past year. The “Junior Giants” program, for instance, grew from 300 kids signed up last year to 575 this year. Jameson only has two staffers, one full-time, and one part time to supervise that many kids? She will have to cut that program, and others, “looking at impacting about 555 kids”. 

“We need more ‘worker bees’!” she complained.

I don’t entirely sympathize with Jameson. She gets a $79,900 salary, with pension and benefits paid, while her part time “recreation leaders” and “recreation directors” – the people who actually work with the kids – make less than $10,000 – some less than $1,000 a year – with no pension or benefits. If Jameson would pay her own $5477 share of her pension premium, she could hire another part timer. The employer’s share is over $9,000, and she gets another $10,000 + in “health, dental and vision.” 

In fact, something Jameson didn’t discuss that showed plainly in her Power Point Presentation, was that management positions, just in the recreation department, more than doubled over those years between 2005 and 2012. Of course she didn’t have the figures for salaries and benefits over the same period. 

Dowell and Jameson, along with Superintendent of Parks and Facilities Jake Preston, were doing their best to paint a bleak picture for CARD, with property tax takings, their mainstay, flat-lining.  $112,000/year General Manager Steve Visconti howled about the $350,000 they’d been promised out of the dissolution of the RDA – they were lucky to instead received $80,000, and he wasn’t going to bite the hand by complaining about that, he said. In past years they’ve gotten $90,000 – after the RDA rabbit math, that’s $270,000 to be paid by our grandchildren at a date later announced. 

But nobody wanted to talk about Employer Paid Member Contribution. CARD employees do not pay any of their own share.  The funny thing is, most of their employees are part timers  making less than $5,000/year with no benefits. CARD spends about $4.7 million of it’s reported $6.5 million in revenues on salaries and benefits, most of it for only 30 employees. 

Well, I’d like to talk about this meeting further later, I’ll get back to it. 

 

 

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What is Tom Lando up to?

5 Jun

Last night we reached a new low with the council’s decision to move forward on the eminent domain of a private property for a bike lane. The worst part is, the owners say they’d go along with these plans if there was adequate compensation being offered, but the city stands by it’s ridiculous offer and holds a club up to the Douglas’ if they don’t agree.

Again, I’ll remind everybody – Tom Varga has admitted this acquisition will allow the city to apply for grants.  Mark Sorensen has said, “As far as the Grant revenue to fuel capital projects salaries… I believe that has at times been too much of a motivating factor.”  And the city is greedy – if they paid for the Douglas’ sewer hook-up, that would probably eat a good deal of the grant they’re after. 

I’m glad Sorensen voted NO on this item, but I don’t know if he sincerely didn’t want to eminent domain this family’s private property or whether he knew it would carry anyway so voted NO for the pleasure of his peanut gallery.  He had expressed a desire for the bike trail to be completed. Like Stephanie Taber said, they should have had all the properties secured BEFORE they started the trail. I believe Varga did it this way on purpose, to pressure any of those hold-outs who didn’t want to go along.  

But I’m not going to get distracted with that item right now. I feel like we need to be looking ahead. This bike trail fiasco went through the approval process years back, I don’t feel like going back through that process, or the bag ban. Let’s just remember who voted which way in a year and a half, when these people are up for re-election.  

What worries me now, is our finances, and what our city “leaders” are planning to do about the lack there-of.  Brian Nakamura and the New Kids on the Chopping Block – Mark Orme on bass, and Chris Constantin on drums –  are on the “Your City’s Up Shit Creek” Tour, with an appearance at City Chambers, this Friday, noon to 1:30. This event is being hosted by the city, as well as the Chamber, the DCBA, and the Chico Stewardship Council.

Yeah, I’d like to be there, but my family has already moved our plans to accommodate a financial opportunity for my son and a CARD budget meeting.  I hope somebody will go down there and fill us in. 

I will be at CARD’s budget meeting Thursday, 3pm, at the CARD center on Vallombrosa. The story in today’s ER says they have a balanced budget, with expenditures actually falling short of revenues – HOLY SHIT! Stop the press!  I’ll try to get photos of he momentous occasion.

Although, I am perplexed – if they can stay within their budget, why this panhandling lately? First they try to get us to agree to some sort of assessment or parcel tax, and when that doesn’t go over, board member Tom Lando tries to shove a SALES TAX HIKE onto the agenda. That’s what he said at the last meeting, that he wanted to discuss a sales tax initiative. The agendas aren’t very descriptive, there’s no report, so I’m going to the meeting to see exactly what comes up in the discussion. 

I could see a link here, excuse me for having a rubber brain. Lando has his fingers in several pies – he is a board member and past president at the Chico Chamber, and also a board member at CARD. As past city of Chico manager, he also consults extensively Downtown. This meeting Friday, sponsored by the city, the Chamber, the DCBA, and Bob Lincheid’s friends at the Chico Stewardship Council, just reeks of a campaign to get us to raise our own taxes. We need to pay attention to these people, because I’ve found, leeches do not like sunshine.

 

 

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Thanks Randall Stone for one of our best meetings ever!

3 Jun

Yesterday’s meeting with Randall Stone was one of our most productive yet. Even though I don’t agree with Stone on everything, we found common ground – we would both like to see the employees pay their own share.

I had booked the library room for a long meeting, and glad I did. We spent the entire two hours talking about budgetary problems,  from superficially low developer fees to employee contracts.

Randall reported that he had agreed with lowering developer fees during the last few years, in hopes of stimulating development and new businesses moving here. But, he says he realizes, fees here are some of the lowest in the state, a lot less than other cities of the same size, and it’s time to raise them back to levels sufficient for the development services department to pay for itself. Can’t argue there.

We talked about Measure J, which Randall feels should have been passed. I tried to get him to explain why we should pay more taxes,  given the report we’d both heard last Tuesday morning at the Finance Committee meeting, but we never got past the “agree to disagree” phase.

But the questions I had for Randall involved the employee contracts and employee share. I reminded Randall that Chris Constantin had told us at the Fin Comm meeting that he’s willing to pay his own share, but “they” won’t let him.  Randall explained this very well – “they” would be Constantin’s union fellows.  He may vote to pay the full share, but the others in his union all vote to take the E(mployer)P(aid)M(ember)C(ontribution). The majority rules, and that’s the package they hand over to our labor negotiators – city manager Brian Nakamura and a contractor who comes in to help.

The negotiators deal with the union representatives behind closed doors, and then make a closed door presentation to the council. It is up to the council, all seven of them, to decide whether to accept the offer or not. If there is no offer accepted by a certain deadline, the contract already in place rolls over and the employees just have to take it or leave it.

Instead of taking the hard line that a lot of us would like to see, council recently unanimously approved a contract that gave the cops raises and kept the EPMC  intact for another year.  Instead of telling the sergeants to cut their overtime, they gave police lieutenants a raise to solve the “compaction problem.” They gave police employees $330 a month toward a kind of HSA, in addition to their paid benefits. The cops even get paid for the time it takes them to get in and out of their uniforms every day.

I have asked Mark Sorensen and now Randall, why approve this contract? They both tell me, this contract only lasts a year, at which time they feel they will be in a better position to negotiate a new contract.  Sorensen won’t say anything beyond that, but Stone insinuated that after Nakamura gets done making cuts in both those departments, both public safety groups will be more reasonable. He mentioned, “naming names” of people who will actually be laid off – this is apparently what it takes to get the fire department to do the right thing.

Now we can only wait until talks begin next fall. Wait and see!  

But in the meantime, I hope people will start to turn up the heat on both public safety management and council to come up with better agreements. Randall Stone agrees – he wants everybody to know, the city is in trouble, and the EMPC is a large part of the problem. We need to “press” our city employees, particularly the public safety employees, to pay their own share of their benefits and pensions.

Stone said a few times, he doesn’t want “vitriol,” but he expects it, asking at one point that we “please don’t let the fire department pit the people against the council.” Last Summer, faced with the same request to cut his department budget, Chief Beery closed Station 5. Then fire department employee Ken Campbell and some others actually went door-to-door in the neighborhood surrounding Station 5,  telling people council had closed the station. They told folks to call the council members at home and tell them what they thought. Boy, Bob Evans was so mad – he got some pretty hot calls! This is the kind of “vitriol” the fire department likes to stir up.

Ha ha – that didn’t end up well for the Fire Department, Ken Campbell being made to stand at the podium like a whipping boy tied to a post, while Bob Evans got him to admit he had essentially lied, knowingly, to the public, to get his way – a bigger budget for the Fire Department. You must be careful when you throw a rock at a bee hive there, Ken, you better be all knees and elbows, that’s for sure, or you will get a pantsful of mad bees. 

So this time, when Brian Nakamura asked each department to make a 10 percent cut, rather than take a chance with the fickle public (bees), Chief Beery decided to threaten closure of the airport fire station. The public might not care – out in the “middle of nowhere,” the airport station only really serves a legal requirement for a fire engine to be available some 15 minutes before and after a commercial airplane lands (or takes off?). But, that brings the Federal Aviation Administration into it, like a water buffalo in a kiddie pool. I’m going to assume that Chief Beery has already drafted, if not sent, a letter informing the FAA of his decision to close that station. 

So, that’s the game they play, both of them. I say, play your hand Chief Beery – we can give that contract to Cal Fire/Butte County Station 42, right up the road. I’m betting they wouldn’t mind making a run to and from the airport three or four time a day.  

We’ll have to keep up the pressure, they’ll be discussing the contracts again in the fall. Write to your council members, tell them to get tough.  Getting the employees to pay their own share would eliminate a lot of our burden. 

Thanks again to Randall Stone for frank conversation. I hope he’ll come back in. We’d like to get some other council members to come in, maybe some staffers. This discussion was so much better than the council meetings, where you are limited in what you can say and how long you can talk. This was a table top discussion, with members jumping in as they had something to add.  It got a little push and shove at times, but we self-regulated really well, and everybody got to add their two cents. 

We also decided to start studying the employee contracts, get the public to read them, and get some public dialog going between now and next September. Let’s do it! 

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