Latest news from Chula Vista – these people are fighting a battle for everybody

25 Jan

The citizens of Chula Vista are set to take their case to court February 8, asking a Superior Court judge to make the city stop taking a utility tax on their cell phones, and refund money the city has been collecting illegally for years. 

When my dad was working on the San Diego freeway, we visited him in his motel in Chula Vista – it wasn’t a bad town at all, we had a pretty nice weekend there.  I’m wishing them all the best. 

 

From the website of Casey,Perry, Schenk, Francavilla, Blatt and Penfield, LLP – the firm representing the people of Chula Vista:

http://www.caseygerry.com/news/chula-vista-fights-cell-phone-taxes-update

Chula Vista Fights Cell Phone Taxes: Update

DECEMBER 13, 2012

Chula Vista’s Cell Phone Tax Woes: Checking Up

By Will Carless

In the latest of our posts checking up on past stories, I’m taking a quick look at the legal fight over taxes on cell phone calls in Chula Vista.

The tax, introduced in 1970, charges a small fee on users of telephones, electricity and other utilities within the South Bay city. As cell phones came into popular use, Chula Vista started allowing phone companies to tax cell phone calls too, and for years it collected and spent that tax money.

The tax on cell phone calls was always on rather shaky ground. It was loosely based on Internal Revenue Service rules governing what can and can’t be taxed. But in the mid-2000s, the IRS lost a number of court cases over whether it could tax cell phone calls and, in 2006, a cell phone carrier wrote to the city of Chula Vista saying it didn’t think it still needed to collect the taxes.

But Chula Vista didn’t stop taking the tax money. The city argues that the tax is legal, though in recent years it’s been carefully stashing away the proceeds from the cell phone taxes in case it loses in court one day.

That day might be coming soon. Let’s take a look at how this has played out:

Where we left it:

The last time we wrote about this was back in June 2011. A pair of law firms had just filed suit against the city of Chula Vista over the tax.
It was a tough time for the city to get slammed with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. Chula Vista had just gone through a couple of years of financial misery, laying off staff and closing down city services.

The city had about $5.6 million stashed away in case in was ever sued on the tax, but attorneyThomas Penfield, who is suing the district, told me at the time that he would be seeking far more in damages.

What’s happened since?

The lawsuit was certified as a class action on Sept. 14. That basically means that a judge has

ruled that the plaintiffs in the case are the members of a class of people who have a claim against the city.

The city had originally challenged the lawsuit, arguing that a class action suit couldn’t legally be used to seek a tax refund. That challenge was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Richard E. Strauss in January.

Since the case was certified, the lawyers challenging the tax have been preparing to give notice to all the Chula Vista residents who might be a member of the class action. That involves sending out postcards to residents and setting up a website on the lawsuit. If any member of the class doesn’t believe he or she is being adequately represented in the suit, that person can choose to file a separate lawsuit, Penfield said.

Chula Vista’s city attorney and outside attorneys did not respond to calls for comment. The city’s finance director, Maria Kachadoorian said via email that the city’s financial situation has improved since the dark days of 2011.

“We are seeing modest improvements in our major revenue streams and the housing market seems to be settling down,” Kachadoorian wrote. “We anticipate that we will continue to see some challenges but nothing like what we experienced over the past four years.”

What happens next?

The case is set to go to trial on Feb. 8, 2013, before Strauss. Both sides of the lawsuit have proposed a two-stage hearing process, Penfield said. First, the judge will hear arguments as to whether the tax violates the law, and if so, whether damages should be awarded. The second stage, if necessary, will deal with how much the city will have to pay in damages.

As long as the city has continued to stash away the taxes and not spend them, the overall impact to Chula Vista’s bottom line shouldn’t be too damaging. If the city wins, it could potentially have a sorely needed windfall after years of cuts.

Penfield’s firm, CaseyGerry, partnered on the lawsuit with Orange County-based Capretz & Associates. The firm’s lawyers will be paid a contingency fee if the lawsuit is successful, and Chula Vistans who have paid the taxes will be entitled to damages.

Penfield said the amount of damages, and the method by which they will be paid, will have to be worked out in court.

In this case, the payoff amount per resident is pretty small. Cell phone users were likely taxed a few dollars a month by the city and they may have to go back through their bills to establish how much they are owed.

Penfield said the city is liable for the taxes for up to one year before the lawsuit was filed. That means Chula Vista is potentially on the hook for taxes it collected going back to April 2010.

I’ll write another update when there’s a verdict.

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I walked in on a Pig Party!

25 Jan

January is a tough month, dark and cold. It’s hard to fight that compulsion to hibernate.  I don’t like to leave my house, I like to be in my comfort zone in January. But, for some dumb reason, I fight it. 

So, yesterday I planned all day to go to the Economic Development meeting Downtown. There was an interesting item on the agenda – some folks from Glenn County are proposing a “solid waste converter” – simply put – a giant incinerator that turns trash of all kinds into electricity. The burning trash heats water, creates steam, and turns the turbines that run the generator. It’s been done in Europe and Asia for years. In fact, I read an article from Jennifer Arbuckle of Northern Recycling and Waste Services saying that alot of our trash, including recyclables, goes to China to be burned for electricity. Whether they buy it, or we pay them to take it, I don’t know.

NRWS is out of the Bay Area. A couple of years ago, they entered into a garbage franchise with the town of Paradise. They are in the business of sorting and diverting trash from the landfill. Here’s an interesting article on that:

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/northernrecycling-waste-services-reduces-waste-stream/content?oid=1932112

I don’t know why this option has never been discussed for Chico. All I’ve ever heard at the STF meetings is that Neal Road Dump is starving because our haulers have been driving to Yuba City for cheaper “tipping fees.” The city is considering “franchise zones” – meaning, town will be split up like a pie between Waste Management and Recology. This will mean guaranteed revenues for both companies, but they have to sign an agreement to bring all their trash to Neal Road. This will not be good for customers – rates will raise to meet Neal Roads’ higher tipping fees  and we will have no choice of hauler.

Bringing in an outside company with a different plan is sure to make this conversation waaaay more interesting. Right now, we are in the stone age of trash.

So, a gal named Kara Baker from KVB Inc was going to give the Economic Development Committee a little presentation, and I had really wanted to hear it, but last week Mayor Goloff had the meeting changed to Wednesday. 

Of course this was in the agenda, but these meetings have been on the same day at the same time for over 4 years now, without change, so I haven’t looked at the day on the agenda for at least that many years. I used to be on the notice list, but they drop you from those if you don’t keep asking to be added. So, I asked to be added again so I won’t miss out. 

It was an interesting trip anyway. Turns out, instead of the ED meeting, I walked into the city employee contract talks. Wow, ever walk into a barn full of brood sows? You know – momma pigs. Momma pigs are nasty creatures, with nasty sharp little teeth. They’ll attack you alright, and they’re omnivores – remember,  never trust a man who keeps pigs!

When I walked into that little room, as I fumbled around trying to get my notebook out of my bag, scarf off neck, etc, I noticed all this food on the table. I thought, “since when do they have food at these meetings? Little trays with bread or something – sandwiches? Before I could get a good look, Chico PD officer Linda Dye turned at me from her chair, like a momma pig, and said, very unfriendly, “There’s a meeting going on in here right now!” I was struck dumb – all I knew at that moment was, the room was hostile. I apologized, and she softened a little, then I left. Outside, in the breezeway between City Hall and the muni building, I encountered city clerk staff Debbie Presson and Dani Brinkley, clattering across the sidewalk and up that ramp with a wheeled catering cart, full of MORE FOOD. 

I have to go now, so I won’t speculate on this. But the word TROUGH keeps popping into my mind. 

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Write those letters! Sustainability Task Force needs to GO!

23 Jan

I have finally given up trying to attend city council meetings. It finally hit me that all the real business goes on in the daytime meetings, by the time it gets to council, it’s pretty done.  As if I’m going to sit through another plastic bag discussion when I know the votes are already there.  Or, if it’s an especially contentious issue, or too complicated for their tiny minds, they kick it down the road. Right now, service fees, for stuff like, monopolizing a city parking lot for five hours every Saturday morning, have not been reviewed since “2005 or 2006, not sure…”  According to Scott Gruendl, the city is losing money hand over fist as long as we don’t update, or raise, those fees.  But our Finance Director won’t have any reports on that until March or April – she waiting for her paid consultant to get back to her.

This is how they milk us for money, they just take FOR-EV-ER to do anything. 

All the real important stuff is done behind closed doors anyway. The employee contracts are being discussed tomorrow night behind closed doors. We are not allowed in there. They are supposed to bring us some contracts to look over, but according to one council member I asked, they have NOTHING right now, they’re still hashing it out. I’ll never forget Steve Bertagna’s answer when I asked why the public is not allowed in those discussions – it would put the city at a disadvantage he said, to have the discussion public. He explained how they play the various groups against each other, and secrecy is a big part of that. 

Yeah, just like the mafia, eh? Don’t worry about it! Just like Bronco Bama’s Chicago gang-style politics. Just like Richard Daley and the Chicago cops at the 1968 Democratic Convention. 

As long as the public is held out of the conversations we will continue to have problems with our public safety salaries and benefits. It was the public safety departments that forced Vallejo and Stockton into bankruptcy. 

The contracts are the only important discussion on the agenda. The “work plan” discussion is just more crap, they keep mouthing the same things over and over and doing absolutely nothing. Right now, the only important issue we’re facing is what these salaries and the refusal of the management and public safety staff to pay more of their own benefits is doing to our local economy.  

I’m not putting aside my family dinner for one more of these meetings. I might watch on the box once in a while, but the daytime meetings are where it’s at.  If you want to have any effect, you need to watch the morning meetings and write letters ahead of the council discussion. 

In February the council will discuss the future of the Sustainability Task Force. City manager Brian Nakamura has been meeting  behind closed doors with members of the STF, who are desperate to keep their little trolley on the tracks. He and Linda Herman assure me nothing illegal or inappropriate has gone on at these closed meetings, but that’s what they say.  How are we supposed to know when we aren’t allowed in? 

We need to write letters to Nakamura and council now, telling them the STF is a giant waste of staff time.  Read the old reports available on the city website, and look at the waste of staff time – how many meetings were cancelled because members didn’t care enough to show up.   I have the e-mail conversations – Linda Herman, at $85,000 plus benefits, e-mailing for days, trying to get up a quorum. Some of the original members have quit – either frustrated with the lack of real action, or because they just got bored, I don’t know. One original member told me it didn’t take him long to figure that Ann Schwab wasn’t going to do anything “real,” like squash the college parking structure, or force people into new urban housing. He agreed with me – this is just about Ann Schwab’s resume, feel-good gestures with regulations that end up affecting private citizens without really fixing anything. 

Look along the highway next time you’re out – she’s banned certain plastic bags, what about all the other garbage you see piling up out there? 

The STF needs to go. We finally have a city manager who is trying to clean house – let’s help him! Write to Brian Nakamura and council and tell them the STF needs to go. 

That’s bnakamura@ci.chico.ca.us, and you can reach the council at dpresson@ci.chico.ca.us

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Segregating your phone bill – a sample Sprint bill

19 Jan

Sprint is another cellphone carrier I’ve found to collect Utility User’s Tax.  Notice, on page 5 of 5 of this sample bill, “Denver State-Community Service Taxes,” “Denver County 9-1-1,” and “Denver County-Comm Sales Tax.”  I’m assuming, if this bill were made out for a person living in the  city of Chico, it would say “City Utility User’s Tax.” 

This bill specifically refers to “mobile” service, with no reference to a landline.  

UPDATE:  Looking over these bills later, I couldn’t help but note – reread the arguments that Ann Schwab and Scott Gruendl made in favor of Measure J – they insinuate that the “average” cell bill is $50! Look at these “average” bills I’ve posted – these are based on real bills, for two to three users – $150 a month! 

Scott Gruendl is up for re-election in 2014. We need to call that little prick on his bullshit. 

Also, city manager Brian Nakamura keeps repeating, we “lost” $900,000 with the defeat of Measure J. But at last month’s Finance Committee meeting, Hennessy reported the loss for fiscal year 2011-12 was only $500,000, after  the N&R quoted her office boy Frank Fields as estimating it at $600,000 back in November.

Is our city manager just making stuff up?

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Segregating your phone bill – a sample AT&T bill

19 Jan

Here below is a sample AT&T bill I found online – looks exactly like my AT&T  bills, but it’s from Texas.

Notice, on pages 2 and 3, you see various amounts attributed to  “City District telecom tax”, “City Telecom Tax”, and “Texas Telecom Tax.”   Here in California we call that “Utility Tax,”  or “Utility User’s Tax”.   City of Chico residents will see, “City” or “Local” or even “City of Chico Utility User’s Tax.”  A turd, by any other name, will still stick to your shoe.

I know, it’s seems like such a mess – but notice this bill makes it very clear that these charges are for “wireless” or cellular phones. All the charges are scrupulously separated, or “segregated”,  out.

Wireless Statement Sample

Wireless Statement Sample

Wireless Statement Sample

Wireless Statement Sample

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Cell phone tax refunds now available, back to February 2012. Get ’em before the city runs out of money!

17 Jan

Before I head out to take the laundry down, I wanted to say, I got a note from Frank Fields over in the Finance Department that the cell phone tax refund info and applications have been put on the city website.  Here’s the application with all the information you need:

Click to access CellPhoneRefundApplication_011713.pdf

Yes, I had to bitch at him for it, and he put it up so fast I really don’t understand why it wasn’t up Wednesday by noon.

He also mentioned, they’re still trying to figure out how to notice it publicly. At what these people get paid,  they have to make everything they do look like rocket science.  I asked him to let me know, and I’ll keep watching it. 

That’s what it takes folks – gotta stay on it! 

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Time to chatter up 2014

13 Jan
Butte County Public Library, Chico Branch. Yes, it's humble, but public libraries are the silent guardians of Democracy.

Butte County Public Library, Chico Branch. Yes, it’s humble, but public libraries are the silent guardians of Democracy.

Today I think we had one of our most productive Chico Taxpayer’s meetings ever – thanks a lot to Bob Best for coming down to lead a very productive discussion about priorities for Election 2014.

A heavy frost greeted us at the library this morning, but thank goodness, the heater was on.

A heavy frost greeted us at the library this morning, but thank goodness, the heater was on.

We had a good turnout and everybody was up for a good discussion. We started with a brief update on Measure J – not much to talk about there, until the city gets around to allowing us to apply for our refunds. First they actually have to amend something in the charter to allow us to apply for our refunds directly from the city – the current ordinance says we have to try to get the money out of the cell phone carriers first. Yeah, that stinks, and all I can say is, they better slam-dunk that Tuesday night. I’m expecting a reply to that inquiry I sent to the Finance Dept. by Thursday.  I’ll keep you posted.

We spent the rest of the morning discussion the city’s “unfunded pension liabilities,”  comparing notes, and trying to come up with a plan of action.

‘unfunded pension liabilities,” is the money our council promised to pay our city employees in retirement but the city doesn’t  really have it. Council got talked into these crazy pensions (70 – 90% of highest year’s earnings, as early as age 50) by the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), who promised that most of the money would come from the stock market.  In the beginning they let the city pay 18 percent of the total cost  (based on actual payroll).   Nine percent of that was deemed the “employer share,” and the other nine was supposed to be the employees’ share. In reality, the city pays most or all of the employee share. And now, CalPERS is raising the amount they want – currently the city is paying 26% and it’s going to go up to 31% within the next couple of years. Meanwhile, management (including $212,000/yr city manager Brian Nakamura) only pay 4%, the fire employees pay 2%,  and the POLICE PAY NOTHING. Only the classified staff – those making less than $100,000/yr, some of them in the $35,000 range, pay most or all of their share, at 8% – 9%.

The “employees’ share” paid by the city (“employer paid member contribution”) adds up to about $1.9 million a year.  Brian Nakamura has complained that the city lost about $900,000/yr with the defeat of Measure J.  He said that amounted to several cops, or a fire station. Just imagine (or get out your calculator) how many cops or firefighters you could hire with $1.9 million.

Bob Best reminded us that this budget deficit conversation has been going on for about ten years. I remember taking my son, now 17, to the morning meetings when he was about six years old. After one discussion he had asked me, if the city was in so much financial trouble, what was with all those brand new multi-colored Sharpie markers and that giant doodle pad Finance Committee member Scott Gruendl was waving around? Gruendl was trying to scribble his way through an explanation why a once-financially healthy city, with a budget surplus when Tom Lando took the helm back in the 90’s, had come teetering to the brink of bankruptcy. This conversation has gone on for all these years, and we are still poised on the brink of bankruptcy, with the same elected leaders who haven’t listened to us before. 

Today we talked about getting more people involved. So many times, people don’t hear about issues like the bag ban until they come before the council, and they’re already a done deal, one way or the other. The bag ban was in committee for a couple of years. The same tiny handful of people came time and time again, urging the committee members to forward a ban to council for approval, with the same little handful, including myself, knowing we represented a much larger group that was unable to attend these daytime meetings, but who weren’t going to like this ridiculous ban.  The meetings weren’t noticed, they weren’t covered by the newspapers, and they’re held at 8am on work days. So,  a lot of people, like the checker and bagger I talked to recently at Safeway, are only just now hearing anything about it. 

Jim mentioned today that a friend of his, hearing of the bag ban recently, asked how something like that could go by without a public vote. He had to remind his friend, she’d voted for the council members who’d said they would support the ban – hadn’t she done her homework?

Chico continues to elect leaders and then complain about the direction they are taking us, and then elect them again anyway. 

What motivates people to vote for a candidate? What issues are important to people? What are the issues that are important to you? We shouldn’t wait until Spring 2014 to sort our priorities out – we need to start thinking about this now. Bob also suggested we start finding the issues in which we share the strongest common interest,  try to focus our energy behind those goals, and get others to help us, spread the word.

What are your priorities for the 2014 election? What issues would you like to hear from the candidates on? Are you a candidate who is interested in running? Well, let’s hear about it. If you don’t want to use your real name or e-mail, don’t worry about it, just try to stay constructive.

Let’s start the chatter.

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California is Business Hostile

12 Jan

The KIST! thermometer says, “get your ass in the house before your feet stick to the patio – it’s 23 degrees out here!” 

The dog dish is frozen pretty solid, I had to take a little hammer to it so Biscuit could wet her whistle. Then she pees for like 10 minutes, having held out all night, while Max makes the rounds of all the shrubberies. He’s got a funny jingle in his step on mornings like this – if only he could fly, so his feet would not have to touch the frozen ground!

I watch my breath form a cloud while they have a quick snack, and then we all head back in the house – too cold and dark to stay outside, too cold to even light the chimenea. 

Sometimes I wonder if I should go back to bed on mornings like this, save PG&E, but instead, I make myself a cup of coffee and sit down in front of the computer to read the papers.  I don’t like to get all my news from the very limited Chico Enterprise Record, I like to scan a lot of the area papers – Redding Record Searchlight, Red Bluff Sentinel, Auburn Journal, Grass Valley Union, Orland Press Register, etc.  This morning I was looking over my hometown paper – The Willows Journal – and  read a story about a bunch of kids I grew up with in Glenn county donating $16,000 in rice receipts to the Willows High athletic program:

http://www.willows-journal.com/news/school-9579-rice-donated.html

I also read this interesting article in the Orland Press Register:

http://www.orland-press-register.com/news/labor-10515-brown-meeting.html

The ex-mayor of Orland and a couple of local business owners were granted an audience with Governor Moonbeam, given a chance to air their beefs with the state labor board. 

The owner of a small Orland business was nailed for $3,000 for hiring a high school kid through a school program – 4 years ago, and the case is still “in litigation.” I can only imagine the lawyer bill this man is toting after four years of dicking around with the state of California – that would be like swimming in a leech-infested swamp! This man met with state labor commissioner Julie Su back in July, said that was a positive meeting, but his case is STILL IN LITIGATION after four years and a meeting with the state labor commissioner? Please – you people are TOO EASY! No wonder you’re getting screwed over a barrel, Mr. Nunez. 

And now, Orland’s ex-mayor is saying of his meeting with Jerry Brown, “”The meeting with the governor was the most productive meeting I’ve ever been to in my life.” What an ass-kissing slut he is! 

Scuse my language, I get so sick of the liberals and their blood-sucking, I can’t keep it clean anymore. 

Like a business owner I know says about the city of Chico, “They think just because you own a business, you’re some kind of $ugar Daddy.”

The State of California is business hostile. Look at the deal they just made with Amazon.com, just to get more sales tax revenues. They paved the way for Amazon to take more business away from local California businesses, while further enriching themselves. They get to KEEP  sales tax they generate! 

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/amazon-com-taxes/content?oid=6231231

Sure, I love online shopping, but this deal, whereby Amazon gets to keep a giant portion of the sales taxes they generate while taking business away from local retailers is pretty lame. The state doesn’t care about small businesses, they just want ANY tax revenues to feed their salary and benefits machine.

Try starting a small business in Chico – take a look at this first:

http://www.chico.ca.us/finance/business_in_chico.asp

Don’t forget to pay that $48 fee for working out of your house! 

Yes, California is business hostile.  

This weekend we’re having a late “First Sunday” meeting, on “Second Sunday” instead. The CTA will meet at the library tomorrow, Sunday, at 9am. We’ll talk about the latest news on Measure J (still waiting for the Finance Dept to get back to me regarding the cell phone tax refunds), the “unfunded pension liabilities”, and we’ll also hear from Bob Best, who has been getting together with various local groups to discuss priorities for the 2014 election.

Hope to have a great conversation, everybody is welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It never ceases to amaze me the petty maneuvers they go through Downtown to drag as much $taff time out of the process as they can

10 Jan
Look what’s on next Tuesday’s council agenda:
 
2.1. ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CHICO AMENDING SECTION 3.56.150 OF
THE CHICO MUNICIPAL CODE REGARDING REFUNDS FOR OVERPAYMENTS AND
ERRONEOUS PAYMENTS OF UTILITY USERS’ TAXES – Final reading and adoption
Adopt –  On December 18, 2012, the Council introduced an ordinance to amend the City’s claims
procedures regarding requests for refunds of overpayments or erroneous payments of utility users’
taxes. The ordinance is now being presented for final reading and adoption by the reading of its title
only.  
 
Unfortunately, the clerk purposely loads these reports in such a manner that I can’t cut and paste from them (she says she’s afraid I’ll edit it, I swear to God, that’s what she told me), so here’s that link –
All they’re doing here is changing the charter to allow people to get a refund without having to first try to get it from the cell phone carrier – that’s what the old law said. I guess we should be glad they’re taking it up at all, but it never ceases to amaze me the petty maneuvers they go through to drag as much staff time out of this process as they can. Look at the number of documents it took just to change this minor little thing. See how many $taffers were involved!
 
There’s no information about actually collecting your rebate, I’m still waiting for staff to get back to me on that. 

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Don’t forget about those cell phone tax refunds!

9 Jan

At the December 26 Finance Committee meeting, Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy and City Attorney Lori Barker reported on their efforts to notify cell phone carriers that they no longer need to collect Utility Tax on cell phone bills, given the defeat of Measure J. You might be sick of hearing this but I never tire of telling it – they’ve been collecting the tax illegally for years now, knowingly, and when they noticed that other cities around the state were being sued for perpetrating this fraud, they wrote a measure legalizing it and plopped it on last November’s ballot. As you may recall, WE KICKED THE CRAP OUT OF IT, thankyouverymuch. 

So, what’s the big hold up with telling these companies to stop collecting, you might ask. Any intelligent person might ask that. Any intelligent person might run screaming out of these meetings. I prefer to think of myself as not quite intelligent, maybe just “dog smart.” I may not understand exactly what’s going on, but I got a very suspicious nose. So I go to these damned meetings and ask these persistently annoying questions – if you think I’m  annoying, just try being  me! 

It was asked at the meeting, I don’t remember by who or in exactly what words, but something like this –  well, Jennifer, since you receive these payments from these companies, wouldn’t you know which companies are collecting the tax? 

I’m so glad somebody asks questions besides me – you only get so many pointy questions before certain people get all pissy on you. When that question was asked, all I could do was yell  “You GO girl!” in my head. 

The answer – they are having a hard time segregating (their word) the land line taxes from the cell phone taxes. 

Okay, I thought, that sounds reasonable. You know me, at 8:15 in the am,  “hand me your purse” sounds reasonable to me.  I’m not really awake until about 9:15, three or four cups of coffee down the gullet and a couple of loads of laundry. I come home from these meetings and realize I let all kinds of weird stuff go by without so much as a squawk. 

Have you looked at your cell phone bill? They not only “segregate” your cell phone charges from your land line charges, they segregate all your calls and the amount of time you talked and everything. I could track my husband around the city for the better part of a month using that phone bill.  

The measure was defeated in November and they’re still grappling with, as the News and Review put it, “the daunting task of how to repay local cell phone users the utility tax that is has been collecting under an outdated ordinance.“

They can’t even answer questions about it yet. I sent an e-mail to the Finance Department today:

Hi,  I understand the city will be refunding cell phone taxes taken as a result of the defeat of Measure J – could I get the details on that? When and where can we get it, what documentation would we need, etc.    I assume this information will be posted on the front page of the city website eventually, but I’m writing a letter to the editor about it, and I wanted to get the  facts right.  

 Thanks, Juanita Sumner

I received this response:

 

Hello Juanita, thank you for your request for information on refunding cell phone taxes as a result of Measure J.  We will be responding to your request soon.  Thank you!

 

Well, we can make it easier for them – sing out people – who among you has been taxed on your cell phone bill within the last year? Bring those bills forward, e-mail the Finance Department – that’s jhenness@ci.chico.ca.us or ltheisen@ci.chico.ca.us – and tell them you have your bills, and you’re wondering how to get your refund. Simple as that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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