Chico Taxpayers Association

I got my mail-in ballot and it was pretty thrilling to fill in the bubble next to NO on Butte County Measure H, the one-cent sales tax. The next day I got this flyer in the mail. I thought it would be fun to talk about it.

Yeah their claims are weak, the usual threats to cut services if they don’t get the tax. But if you look into the budget, available here:

https://www.buttecounty.net/DocumentCenter/View/13430/Butte-County-Recommended-Budget-Fiscal-Year-2024-25-PDF?bidId=

you’ll see MISMANAGEMENT of a BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET. Look at it folks, a ONE BILLION DOLLAR RECOMMENDED BUDGET. Some items that caught my eye, were mentioned in the flyer.

“Maintain 911 Response Times,” and “attract and maintain qualified firefighters, EMT’s and Sheriff’s deputies,” for example. That’s a direct threat to cut our services. Well, here’s my suggestion – manage your staff better. Let’s just look at one page of Transparent California Butte County salaries and benefits.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/butte-county/

Why does one staff sergeant more than double his regular pay – $114,848 – with $157,467 in overtime? There’s plenty of money in just one man’s compensation package to hire AT LEAST one other staffer. Look further down the page – Control F “sergeant” – just on the first page for Butte County Transparent California, I found five sergeants that make enough in overtime to pay another staffer. And then I noticed other staffers from the sheriff’s office – deputies. They all make enough in overtime to pay another staffer.

Why the hell are we paying these guys to do the work of two officers? How does that help our 911 Response Times?

And all this over-compensation adds up to one hell of a pension deficit. One item you don’t see on the county’s flyer – the amount they pay to service their Pension Obligation Bond – $3,854,000, up from last year by almost $100,000. That’s the amount of money required to pay back the principal and interest on a bond issue. A Pension Obligation Bond is money borrowed to pay money owed to CalPERS. They say they will save money because the bond is at a lower interest rate than the actual CalPERS debt. They also claim to invest the bond proceeds to offset the bond service, but I didn’t find anything about proceeds from those investments. I have to ask – how much are they actually saving? I can’t find a report about that. What I see here, is that those bonds cost upwards of $3 million a year, increasing payments every year, IN ADDITION TO MONEY OWED TO CALPERS. Folks, they just took out a new credit card to pay off their old credit card. Then they went about spending money like they weren’t already in debt, handing out raises every year and creating new positions.

Again, I voted NO on H because these people can’t manage the budget they already gave themselves.

Maybe next time we’ll talk about the $97 MILLION Behavioral Health Department Budget. That’s almost a tenth of the budget to “Address homelessness, mental health and addiction challenges...” A classic case of throwing money at a problem you are not qualified to solve.

Ballots are on their way, I’ve already received my voter pamphlets. This is when the campaigns will ramp up.

So tonight Sheriff Kory Honea will be giving his pitch for the county’s one-cent sales tax Measure H at a local community center. Here’s what I would expect to hear – threats that services will be cut if we do not approve Measure H.

Here’s a good question for Honea – if the county is so broke, how come your salary has gone up over $30,000 between 2021 and 2023?

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Kory%20Honea

Since 2018 Honea’s salary has gone from $181,555.00 to $223,423.00, all the while county officials have been crying that they can’t provide essential services. It always starts with the library, now they’re saying they can’t provide adequate police or fire without a one-cent sales tax.

“Vote Yes on H to maintain our public safety services, fire stations, libraries and way of life in Butte County.”

They’re threatening us, even our “way of life” – what does that mean?

“In recent years we have been hit hard by the Camp and North Complex fires, floods and droughts.” What, no COVID?

What nerve they have to whine about this stuff – they forget to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars they’ve received in fire recovery funding, American Rescue Act funding, and disaster relief for the Oroville dam scare. Where’d that go? Well, for one, the board voted to use millions in Camp Fire funding to pay down their pension deficit, even though Bill Connelly told me they instituted an illegal Pension Obligation Bond in 2008. The pension deficit is still the county’s largest standing debt, and growing exponentially with every pay increase.

Think that was on Honea’s mind when they forced that last $20,000 raise down his throat? Think he tried to turn them down?

These people have plenty of money to work with, they just can’t seem to make very good budget decisions. Including the annual decision they make to raise their own salaries. These people do not give a rat’s ass about the rest of us.

Here’s a common claim they make – Honea will repeat this tonight – “Measure H Requires Strict Accountability“. Excuse me, that is total BULLSHIT. The measure states that the funds will go into the General Fund, which has no accountability and no restrictions on spending.

Yes, this is a “general” measure, meaning it only needs 50%+1 (that’s literally one person more than 50% of registered voters). The reasons they did not ask for a 2/3’s measure are, first, they already lost a simple measure, they know they can’t get 2/3’s. But more important, the funds from a 2/3’s measure would be restricted to a specific use like police or fire, but not just “public safety”. They don’t want restrictions on spending, because they want to use it to pay down their biggest debt – the pension deficit. They know the voters wouldn’t agree to that – the proof there is that they instituted a Pension Obligation Bond without putting it on the ballot. That’s illegal but it would take a lawsuit to overturn it. They knew that.

I think they know they’re in trouble, people have been asking pointy questions about Honea’s visit tonight. Some people are questioning the use of county employees to push a tax measure, others are questioning the county’s spending habits. So, Honea and others are spreading out in the community to bully and threaten the voters to “get on board”.

I’m not a tax-hater – I pay my taxes, thankyouverymuch. I do demand the right to question how they are spent, and there’s too many questions to slide this one through.

Again, NO on Butte County Measure H

Chico Unified has another bond on the November ballot, Measure C. I just want to remind people how they spend money down at the school district. Here’s an excerpt from a post I made in 2021, when four members of Chico Unified School Board were up for recall over a decision to spend COVID relief money on their own bonuses – yes, three of those four board members were also school district employees, two of whom were teachers who benefitted directly from the decision to hand out the bonuses.

https://chicotaxpayers.com/tag/chico-unified-school-district-hands-out-almost-2-5m-in-bonuses/

“I’ve got a few notes lately from anxious parents and even some administrators about a recent school board decision to spend $2,463,606. on bonuses for school district staff, on the heels of a controversial decision to keep schools open only half days for the rest of the term.“

This decision disturbed me because not only had these teachers been fully paid throughout the COVID shutdown but had called numerous times to close the classrooms over their fears of COVID. But they not only kept collecting paychecks, they gleefully accepted bonuses out of money that should have gone to help the kids and their families.

Just in case you think teachers are underpaid, here’s a look at salaries in CUSD – they are only updated to 2022, remember these people get an annual raise, it’s in their contracts.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2022/school-districts/butte/chico-unified/

The salaries go up while the test scores go down – just half of CUSD students are performing up to par in English skills (reading and writing) and less than half are up to par in math skills (‘rithmetic).

https://caaspp.edsource.org/sbac/chico-unified-04614240000000

What are you sending your kids to school for? To have their heads messed around over gender? We need to ask ourselves – what is school there for, and how much should it cost?

Did you know, Superintendent Kelly Staley, a member of the $300K Club, is set to retire this year?

Here’s a report about over $368,000 spent on ONE electric school bus – remember folks, we fund the CEC too.

NO on Measure C.

As my husband and I were driving through Downtown the other day we noticed the Plaza was fenced off (again) and there were workers and wow – pest control trucks – all over the place. I found this newsblurb about it –

City Manager Mark Sorenson said the city was addressing “public health issues and maintenance needs.” He listed the needs as spraying trees with insecticide, conducting pest control for cockroaches, cleaning and decontamination.

The last time they did this, is was about fleas, now cockroaches. That must be some infestation. Chico has a native cockroach – the “American” cockroach. These are natural animals that live mostly outside, I’ve never had one in my house, and rarely even see them in the yard. I’ve seen them a lot in Downtown Chico at night, scurrying along sidewalks. What they’re talking about in the above article are German brown cockroaches, a non-native pest that spreads with people and infests areas of human filth.

https://www.pestworld.org/news-hub/pest-articles/german-cockroaches-101/#:~:text=German%20cockroaches%20prefer%20warm%20and,cardboard%20boxes%20and%20secondhand%20appliances.

“Yes, humans transport German cockroaches through travel and transportation of infested items…” including clothing and shoes. German brown cockroaches also carry little hitchhikers – salmonella bacteria, a common cause of food-bourn illness, especially in the restaurant sector.

The first thing I had to ask was, when they fumigate an outdoor area, do the bugs run and spread out to restaurants all over Downtown?

No they don’t just die and lay there, they run. They’re tough, having been around for millions of years. “… treatments require more time to be effective. Plus, some products take time to kick in. You may see roaches for a week or two for slow-acting treatments until they eventually taper out… Yes, after spraying German cockroaches, they may move elsewhere.” Which begs the question – what about Bidwell Park?

Another thing I noticed was that as the camps and the plaza have been “cleared” the campers are right back in areas that have previously been “cleared”. Right back in Bidwell Park, the trash piles already growing. Will there be more fumigations? Are they using Measure H funds to pay for this?

Suzanne asked, “Upcoming (Nov 2024) ballot will have another Measure H to vote on. So, Chico will have another sales tax increase??? Say it isn’t so“

I emoted on that briefly here –

I asked the question “for what”. Today I read an article in the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association newsletter “Taxing Times” that answered that question.

Tim Bittle, Chief Counsel of HJTA writes, “As local governments demand that voters approve higher taxes, we thought it would be interesting to see how they’re spending the tax dollars you already give them.” He tells the story of a Bay Area Housing Bond (covering nine Bay Area counties) that was dropped from the November ballot because polls showed the measure would lose.

I think a lot of voters would agree that “The greatest need of most local governments is not to build housing, but to balance their budgets – budgets bloated with high employee salary, health insurance and pension costs.” But I wasn’t surprised to read that in the Bay Area’s proposed bond district, “more than 11,000 county and city employees receive $300,000 or more in annual compensation, in fact, a large percentage of that receive more than $400,000/year.”

So here’s Chico already having passed a one-cent sales tax measure, and now Butte County wants to put another cent on top of that. I hear Suzanne asking me right now, how many Chico and Butte County staffers are members of the $300K Club? Good question Suzanne, thank you.

I always check Transparent California because their figures are mostly up-to-date and have compared favorably with the Secretary of States publicpay.gov site.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/butte-county/

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/chico/

There you have 8 county and 6 city employees who are members of the $300K Club. How about the county staff sergeant who turns a $114,000 salary into almost $450,000 in compensation – does he live at the sheriff station? Look at the compensation packages, wow, just imagine going to the hospital with that kind of insurance.

Transparent California also lists the individual’s Pension Debt, meaning, their share of the awesome doom that hangs over our local government finances. The unrealistic employee payroll contribution isn’t spit on the griddle, especially with the compounding interest on the unpaid portion. And they want to stick the taxpayers with the big nasty mess they’ve left. Like that roommate that never kicks in on the groceries. Or the rent. Or the utility bills.

The payments are siphoned out of every department, at the expense of infrastructure and other services. The city of Chico budgeted $18 million toward this year’s “catch-up” payment. Next year it will be over $20 million, and more every year.

Adding gas to the fire are the constant salary increases – after the voters passed the city’s Measure H, our manager and his head secretary took two salary increases adding up to 11% over the next year. Head Secretary will be making $198,000 in salary, which will add her to the $300K Club.

So, do you think we should give them more money? Of course you know my answer – NO on H.

No I don’t go to many meetings anymore – I had to blow off the last Ad Hoc development committee meeting to get some work done in my own life. Frankly, I’m tired of going to meetings and sitting through hours of reports and discussions without any chance to participate. At the development committee, the public was not allowed to raise a hand or participate in the discussion. Questions from the public had to be written down, and then the committee can decide whether or not to ask or answer them. There is no agenda and there are no staffers keeping notes.

Bill Brouhard is using this committee for his own gain, or at least, trying to. He’s a land broker, of course he wants more development. He’s using his bully pulpit to try and convince us we don’t have enough housing. Meanwhile, on next week’s agenda, another new housing subdivision comes up for approval. It’s just plain crazy!

Speaking of crazy, I asked a few questions about CARE Court in my last post, and Scott Kennelly came around to tell me I needed to go to a Butte County Behavioral Health Board Meeting. No, thank you, Mr. Time Vampire. I did my own research, and wow, was I shocked. Here’s an article from last year, where Kennelly explains why CARE Court is a moot issue. “having little or no practical relevance, typically because the subject is too uncertain to allow a decision.” I found this news story from a year ago, when Newsom made the mandate for all counties to implement CARE Court.

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/butte-county-explains-next-steps-towards-mental-health-courts/article_156bab86-34c0-11ed-b6ba-17d6927f029d.html

According to Kennelly, “At any time someone in care court can say they don’t want anything to do with this and walk, there’s no teeth…” And, at the time, Kennelly complained that BCBH did not have the staff or funding to implement it.

But what I found most distressing when I read more into this subject, CARE Court is not an option for drug or alcohol abuse, it only applies to the very mentally ill. Drug abuse will get a person sent to Drug Court, but only “nonviolent offenders whose were charged with a low-level crime such as drug possession.”

Seven counties implemented CARE Court last year, ahead of the state mandate.

https://www.cerescourier.com/news/local/care-court-and-running-so-how-effective-it/

“Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court creates a new civil judicial division that handles petitions to get people with untreated schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders into county treatment programs. These individuals can be housed or unhoused. People with only substance use disorders, depression or other mental health issues do not qualify for CARE Court.“

Of the 30 petitioners, the article cites 12 “taken off the streets” without really explaining what that meant. Stanislaus County Assistant Chief Executive reads my mind – “I think at times people thought it was a silver bullet (for homelessness).” I naively thought it was the beginning of getting people off the street. I’ve dealt with friends, family and their circle of friends living on the street, and I honestly believe most people are on the street because of drugs, alcohol, and the mental and physical health issues related to substance abuse. But Kennelly is right – you can’t force people into drug treatment, that’s still against the law. I know I’ve never had the nerve, as bad as I wanted to, to tie somebody up and hold them against their will, force their meds down their throat, I could never do it. So we’re back to jail and prison, and overcrowding that has them right back on the street. No wonder Kennelly didn’t want to elaborate here, he has no solution.

Why do we even have a Behavioral Health Department?

Yeah, I know – the county has put a sales tax measure on the ballot – again, Measure H, a one cent sales tax. This of course means 2 cents on every dollar for Chico.

This comes as Chico’s retail sector is taking a dump, Downtown is about to undergo a total sewer revamp, and crime is ever on the rise. Oroville is also suffering daily reports of violent crime.

The other day my husband and I made a final decision – we’re not shopping at Safeway anymore, at all. For years we enjoyed the Safeway on Mangrove, walking or biking down to pick up household needs almost every day. But as we’ve watched prices go up, we’ve watched the Safeway near our house fall into decay. We’ve seen shoplifters, even intoxicated people actually opening and drinking liquor inside the store. We’ve watched management escort these people into the parking lot and leave them – leaving customers to deal with them? One guy, two bottles in hand, just walked over to Kwando, laid down on the sidewalk, drank himself sick, and passed out. For the past few years we’ve been reading one story after another about how Safeway management refuse to press charges for increasingly violent shoplifters. We notice there has to be another victim involved before the perpetrator is arrested, and it usually has to be bad.

Wow, when I think, my grandma used to shop at the Safeway on Nord, I get the shivvers. What a dump that place has become, it’s scary, I wouldn’t pull over there to make a 9-1-1 call.

Downtown is starting to look very bad. On that note, Tom Van Overbeek has called for a discussion at next week’s council meeting about abandoned, neglected, and unmaintained buildings – he doesn’t specify a particular part of town but you know he means Downtown and that’s where the focus will be.

There’s another meeting of the Ad Hoc development committee chaired by Van Overbeek and Addison Winslow – 2:30 Tuesday Sept 17. We’ll see what they have to say.

Valley’s Edge is not dead, Bill Brouhard is absolutely determined to shove it right down Chico’s throat, damn the voters. Mr. Brouhard told a gathering of the city’s new Ad Hoc Committee on Growth and Development that he believes developers should lead the conversation. He’s convinced City Council to establish an “Ad Hoc Committee on Growth and Development,” of which he is a member. He’s brought in reinforcement – a team of realtors to drive in his point: Chico doesn’t have enough housing.

At the second meeting of this committee, Chico real estate agents Brent and Derrick took turns trying to convince us that Chico doesn’t have enough housing, and that’s why housing is so expensive right now. But they also explained that people aren’t buying because interest rates are so high – if interest rates weren’t so high, people could afford more expensive houses. Of course, if interest rates go down, buyers come flocking in, and then there’s not enough houses, so prices go up.

Talk about circular reasoning – I hope you left your breadcrumbs, cause we been here before. At least twice in my adult life, City of Chico council, staff, and development community have told us that we needed to “build more housing for starter families” and “more affordable housing“. Followed by benders of annexation and development, government programs to encourage people to borrow more money for houses they couldn’t afford, and finally by the housing crashes of 1990 and 2008. Both causing major recessions that affected the housing market and the general economy for many years thereafter.

The above description is from my memory. Here’s the AI Overview generated by my search — The 2008 recession was caused by a number of factors, including a housing bubble, low interest rates, and government policies that encouraged home ownership:

• Housing bubble (a period when house prices rise beyond what is considered reasonable or sustainable, usually due to demand, speculation, or overzealous investing) – The housing bubble was a major driver of the economy before the recession, leading to record levels of residential construction.  
• Low interest rates – Mortgages were given to unqualified borrowers at low interest rates, which led to asset bubbles and a housing price crash when borrowers were unable to repay.  
• Government policies – Government policies encouraged home ownership, even for those who could not afford it, which led to lax lending standards and unsustainable housing prices.  
• Record household debt – The decades before the crisis saw record levels of household debt, which led to a balance sheet recession when housing prices began to fall.  
• Homebuilding decline – The housing market crash led to a decline in homebuilding, which reduced the supply of new homes.  
• Seller’s market – The lack of supply and increased demand created a seller’s market, which led to increased home prices.  

The 2008 recession was the worst economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression.

Yep, that’s exactly how I remember it, and it’s what I’ve seen again over the last couple of years. First, “record levels of residential construction.” Chico has been building like crazy (unfortunately, not on Brouhard’s land). But you see, prices have not gone down. And here we are, again – “Seller’s market – The lack of supply and increased demand created a seller’s market, which led to increased home prices...” If you put up the For Sale sign, they will come. Brent and Derrick report people are back to bidding right now in Chico, and homes are going for more than asking price.

Our development community, encouraged by our “city leaders”, keeps stepping in the same pile of shit they’ve stepped in again and again. They keep telling us building will bring down the price of housing, and according to Brent and Derrick, that just brings more people and higher prices. This is a case of circular reasoning if I ever saw one.

Believe what you see, and what I see right now is another housing bubble.

I’m sorry to hear about the death of Adam Andrzejewski, head of Open the Books. He’s been quoted as saying, “In God we trust, politicians we must audit…”

You can quote me here – if you voted for them, it’s up to you to hold a candle to their ass, or take what you get. And if you don’t vote, don’t complain. And crapssake – educate yourself, don’t be a sucker!

Don’t take my word for it – look at different sources. This week my husband and I saw total bias – in both directions – in the news regarding the Kamala Harris interview. Various news sites were divided down the middle between those who claimed Harris had done a great job and those who said she didn’t. And then there’s the polls, which are coming in wildly different, depending on which source.

I saw an interview with a guy who does surveys and I’ll never pay attention to another survey as long as I live. What a scam – surveys are used to sway opinion, not to gauge it. Jimmy Stewart and Jane Wyman did a movie back in the 1940’s – when surveys were new – that explains how surveys are done and how they are used – Magic Town. You can find it on Youtube. It’s funny and educational.

I know the issues that are important to me and first among them is my personal economy. It’s not just the grocery store, look at your utility bills – the cost of living has skyrocketed just the last few years. I heard Donald Trump say he would “lower” our utility bills, I’m interested in hearing HOW. I do know that Kamala Harris, who, as state Attorney General, was given the opportunity to clean up the California Public Utilities Commission by bringing CPUC President Michael Peevey up on bribery charges. She had the goods on him, but told us, tough luck Kids, I let the Statute of Limitations expire…

Yes, google Michael Peevey – he was taking bribes from the heads of various utility companies, including PG&E. He was meeting with them in a luxury hotels all over Europe.

Peevey not only approved their constant rate increases but helped them hide information about their blatant and horrific acts of negligence in the San Bruno gas explosions and ratepayers forced to shoulder the enormous cost of mistakes made at San Onofre nuclear power plant. When this all became public, he was forced out of his job – with a pension and a fancy party – but never prosecuted. I found a lot of articles about frustration with Harris’ “malpractice” and “inaction”. This story details what she did, should have done, and didn’t do. Critics accuse her of “Democratic Party loyalty” instead of loyalty to the citizens of California. I believe so too.

https://www.kqed.org/news/10928651/critics-unhappy-with-kamala-harris-approach-to-san-onofre-probe

This article from 2020 says she set the stage for the wildfires that have become commonplace.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/12/consumer-watchdogs-say-kamala-harris-looked-the-other-way-while-utilities-set-stage-for-wildfires/

Yes I believe they are right, our Democratic leaders here in California are so beholden to PG&E – look at this article about PG&E campaign donations.

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/politics/california-politicians-campaigns-2-million-pge/103-4161feb9-1591-4ffc-9fda-d9c49d7173b8

When I was a kid, “Good Old Boy” was a common liberal label for conservatives. Meaning, you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Well, how times have changed – now we have liberal Good Old Girls!

One final thing I’ll say is that if our local leaders want to lower the cost of housing they need to remember that part of the cost of housing is utilities. But they add a Utility Users tax of 5% to our water and PG&E bills and franchise fees on PG&E and Comcast. They also refuse to stand up to Cal Water or PG&E when they make their constant bids for rate hikes. The city can file a formal protest and that would go a long way, but they won’t because they make a lot of money off our utility rate increases.

I’m old, and I don’t know how much longer I can stand here waving my middle finger at The Good Old Boys and Girls, you people need to stand up and start making some noise.