CARD propaganda blitz amounts to a lot of false claims

15 Aug

Chico Area Recreation District is hosting a series of informational meetings about their tax proposal over the next month. The first meeting was held this past Tuesday evening. It was short and very informative, I hope more people will take 45 minutes or an hour to attend one or more of these meetings.  It’s a perfect opportunity to ask questions. All meetings are scheduled at the CARD Center on Vallombrosa.

  • August 21, noon
  • August 28, 7pm
  • September 5, noon
  • September 10, 8am

Tuesday’s meeting started at 6 pm and was over shortly before 7pm.   CARD manager Ann Willmann gave a power point presentation. It was a good look at the coming propaganda blitz CARD is about to unleash.

Willmann shared some interesting general information.

• Created in 1948 (71 years ago)
• Encompasses over 250 square miles, beyond City of Chico city limits
• Population served is 121,000
• Operated separately from the City of Chico
• Oversight by an elected 5-member board of directors

I didn’t know those first three things, so here already I learned something by going to a public meeting. But it didn’t take long for Willmann to get into the full-on pitch.

What CARD Does  –  Provide parks & recreation facilities. Enrich our residents’ quality of life. Promote health, wellness, learning and fun. CARD is one of the most utilized agencies in our area,with our parks, facilities, and programs serving thousands of people annually.”

Beyond, “provide parks & recreation facilities,” none of that can be proven. Frankly, I’d liked to have seen a number besides “thousands” of people served annually. “one of the most utililized agencies in our area…” Well, prove it. There are no attendance numbers in the budget reports either. Are they including agencies like law enforcement and public safety, the road department?

I think a common misconception about CARD is that they are responsible for all the parks in town, not true. The city owns all of Bidwell Park. CARD leases the Nature Center from the city, and is responsible for maintenance on that specific property. I don’t know whether they own or lease the ball fields under the same type of agreement. But, I found the following claims to be a stretch.

Our parks:
Reflect the quality of our community.  Oh, that’s not good. Many of our parks are in pretty disgusting condition.

Improve property values.  I think this is highly disputable. When you look at real estate listings, parks and other public attractions like schools and churches are considered problematic. Especially when security and lighting are lacking, as has been one of the main complaints about CARD  facilities. Another complaint has been lack of upkeep, which damages curb appeal for any home.

Contribute to education.   I do notice,  since they took over the Nature Center, “day camps” have been their biggest source of income.

Reduce crime.   That’s funny – Terry Cleland said transients were stealing out of the dugout at ball games. CARD will have to keep working on this one.

Attract businesses and create jobs  Attracts businesses? CARD uses tax dollars to subsidize programs that drive local businesses out of the market. For example, Off the Wall Soccer, a longtime popular indoor sports facility, went out of business last year after CARD renegged on a promise not to compete with OTW’s special 7 man teams. CARD already had an outdoor program, why move in on a local business? Because they can undercut anybody with the guarantee of tax dollars. CARD is a very big competitor for private daycare facilities, and even the local wedding industry.

Creates jobs? CARD provides poverty positions, in fact, most of their workers earn less than $30,000/year, get no benefits, and rely on AFDC and Medi-Cal to fill in the gaps. A few years ago, they cut their part-time workers to 28 hours or less to get out of paying Obamacare.

Willmann shared the results of CARD’s recent survey, here are the “priorities” listed by respondents:

• Reducing crime and homelessness in parks by
providing security guards to patrol parks
• Providing clean, safe parks and recreational
programs for all Chico area residents
• Upgrading parks with lighting, security,
parking, and other safety features
• Improving and maintaining park bathrooms

• Repairing/updating aging recreation centers,
playgrounds, sports fields, swimming pools,
and facilities that promote active and healthy
living and maintain recreational programs for
seniors and youth
• Ensuring accessibility of parks and recreation
for persons with disabilities
• Renovating/expanding parks, trails, and
recreation areas, and completing parks under
construction

Here Willmann went on the defensive, listing “challenges”

• Aging Facilities + Reduced Funding =
Deferred Maintenance
• Continue to address safety needs
• Upgrades needed to aging parks and
facilities
• Create and maintain health-related
programs for all-youth to our seniors
• Discussions and studies have been
conducted
• Financial impacts out of our control
• Fees collected are not enough

Aging facilities? Willmann said most of our  facilities are over 35 years old, that’s not true.  DeGarmo Park, Humboldt Skateboard Park, the Disc Golf Course at 5 Mile, Oak Way Park – these are just some of the facilities that have been built recently. Wildwood Park is only about 25 years old. Reduced funding? Look at the budgets, available here, and tell me they haven’t been getting more money every year:

https://www.chicorec.com/district-budget

What’s true there is “deferred maintenance.” They’ve allowed facilities that should have been easy to keep in good working condition while they’ve paid more and more into their pension deficit, raised management salaries, and  taken on costly new liabilities like the rotten and aging Lakeside Pavillion and Nature Center. One of the top complaints listed in the survey was dirty bathrooms. But look at the budget, do some serious reading – they pay more for pensions every year, with employees only now being asked to contribute anything, and it’s still less than 10%. 

I was really shocked when she listed the Camp Fire as a challenge. 

“Reduced property tax base for the County means a reduction in property taxes for all public agencies. In 2019, CARD lost over $200,000 in revenue”

This was reported immediately after the Camp Fire, by city of Chico mismanager Mark Orme. But, as Orme reported, the state immediately announced they would “backfill” these lost revenues up to three years after the anniversary of the fire. So, CARD didn’t really lose $200,000 as Willmann tried to claim Tuesday night. Private homes within the Camp Fire burn area are already being rebuilt, some of them beyond their original footprint, which means they will be assessed for more within three years than they were assessed before the fire. 

Willman also claims that “Future tax reductions are expected, and plans are being made to adjust expenses.” What future tax reductions?  I’m calling bullshit on this one. There is currently a building boom going on in Chico, with more houses approved for the immediate future. That means more, more, more property taxes to maintain and upgrade current facilities,, not to mention, developer impact fees that pay for new parks. 

And finally she claims “We have seen an increase in participation in already impacted programs due to the increase in our local population.”

Oh, not this one again. Look around you  folks – the college students are back in town, families are getting  ready for school to start, but have you been held up  in any of the hellish traffic  jams that occurred in the weeks following the fire? Have you waited more than 5 minutes at a grocery store check-out? No.

When a woman asked from the back of the room if Willmann had any statistics to back up this claim, Willmann quickly answered, “No.” Furthermore, “we just noticed this increase…” 

I’ll have to stop here, I’ll pick up the rest of the meeting tomorrow. Things got kinda hot when the guy next to me brought up the pension liability. 

 

Is CARD trying to get me kicked off the letters page?

9 Aug

I read Terry Cleland’s letter in response to my complaints about the CARD survey, and their siphoning of money out of facilities and programs to pay  their pensions. The first version the paper printed Wednesday was 500 words, and kind of rude, referring to me as “Sumner”, insinuating I’m just some naysayer who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Then that version disappeared – in the time it took me to feed my dogs and  get my own breakfast it was gone. 

The next day (yesterday), a new version appeared, a lot shorter, and even a little more polite, but still insinuating I don’t know what I’m talking about. That was weird, but here’s what I’m guessing – Cleland didn’t intend that first letter for print, it was a complaint to the editor. He was trying to get the ER to stop printing my letters, was what I  was reading. In past, David Little has told me about complaints he received about my letters, including requests to “ban” me from the letters section. 

One night a few years back, when Steve Visconti was CARD general manager, my husband and I attended a board meeting at which Visconti asked the board, “what are we going to do about Juanita Sumner’s letters?” I was sitting right there, they all knew me, so the board sat silent while Visconti wandered along trying to convince them that they needed to get “somebody” to respond to me.  Nobody ever has, until now. Cleland made an unsuccessful bid for CARD board last fall, maybe this is his way of keeping his foot in the door. 

When I emailed editor Mike Wolcott Wednesday about the disappearance, he said he’d been out of the office and didn’t know anything, but he’d check the next day (yesterday). He never got back to me, but there was the new letter yesterday morning. 

If I were a petty bitch, like Terry Cleland, I’d email Wolcott and say something about the fact that Cleland was allowed to pull one letter and get a new letter posted at the top of the heap the next day. I’d complain about the weeks it has taken these people to run some of my  letters,  which I’ve had to resend and resend. But I know it does no good to complain to these people – so I just wrote a response to Cleland. Yep, I’ll resend it if I have to!

In response to Terry Cleland’s letter (8/8/19):

Over half of Chico Area Recreation District’s $8,900,000  budget comes from property taxes and vehicle license fees. Over half the budget goes to salaries and benefits. Less than 35 fulltime employees have managed to accrue over $2,500,000 in pension liability because they pay less than 10% toward their own pensions. That liability has grown by almost a million dollars since 2015. 

CARD has spent more than $100,000 on surveys, proposing new facilities, but each consultant has told the board there was not support for a tax measure. The respondents made it clear in this last survey that they just want the existing facilities to be better maintained and safer.

I have the 2015 consultant’s report that suggested basic repairs for Shapiro Pool – repairs necessitated by years of neglect, including replacement of a dysfunctional sanitary filter pump.  The total cost would have been about $550,000. Instead, Staff recommended and the board agreed to close the pool and make a $400,000 payment toward their pension liability.  As of 2016, Shapiro Pool, once a popular summer destination for hundreds of children, is “non-operational until further notice”.

Right now Chico is undergoing another building boom, generating millions in new, permanent revenues. If CARD were not so management top-heavy they would have more than enough funding to fulfill their mission. Instead, I have sat at meetings watching them cut workers’ hours to avoid paying for healthcare.  I watched as they cut a popular children’s program while approving a “side fund payoff” to CalPERS. That’s self-service, greed and mismanagement.

 

 

Tags:

Pension Tsunami, Part 1: How we got here…

7 Aug

In the late 1990’s, Governor Gray Davis and other union-friendly legislators set up the current pension system, agreeing to “defined benefits”.  Public employees had previously been given a “defined contribution” system. The difference being, with a “defined contribution” system, the employer agrees to pay a certain amount, with a “defined benefit” system, the employer agrees to provide specific benefits, no matter the cost.

About 2006 an “MOU” – memo of understanding – was approved by the sitting Chico City Council, with the recommendation of then-city manager Tom Lando, to “attach salaries to revenue increases but not decreases…”  Read that again – “but not decreases…”

Does that sound right to you?  Think about that – give them raises when we’re flush, but no “adjustments” when we’re bust, just lay people off and cut services. That’s been the pattern in Chico for 15 years now. After Lando floated that turd, his salary went from about $65,000 a year to over $150,000 within a couple of  years. His successor came in at $190,000/year.

Council handed out raises of 14%, 19%, 22%, until that memo was outed to the public and the taxpayers started to howl about it. But too late –  City of Chico salaries had progressed well over $100,000  for management and public safety, and other salaries were not far behind. Council approves automatic raises in the contracts so the salaries just keep going up. Even though former city manager Dave Burkland agreed to take a lesser salary than his predecessor, our current city manager now makes over $200,000/year. Add his benefits package and he is taking almost $300,000.

When the public found out about this scheme the city dumped that revenue-based raises mechanism, but came up with something better – “the employer paid member contribution.” That meant, the city not only paid a share of the employee’s benefits, but paid a portion – in some cases the entire portion – of the employee’s share as well.

This finally ended a couple of years ago, when, under intense criticism, those staffers – public safety and city management – agreed to pay their whole portion. And, hold onto your hats – about a year ago, these people even agreed to pay 3% of the “employer share.” 

Excuse me, my hat didn’t even jitter on that, because that makes the employee’s total share less than 10 percent. Anybody who has been a member of CalPERS for 15 years is a “classic member” and pays only 6%, plus that extra 3% – 9%, for a pension of 70 – 90 percent of their highest year’s salary is absolutely RIDICULOUS.

Meanwhile, the employer share has increased and increased, not to mention, the employer is making altogether separate payments toward the deficit, by way of the newly established “Pension Stabilization Trust.”

So, I imagine you saw this article in the paper recently.

Number of California public retirees in $100K Club skyrockets, but they’re just part of the burden on state pension system

This article gives a good historic overview of how the pension deficit has grown. I call it “rabbit math” – first they based the contributions on the employees’ salaries, and then they jacked up employee salaries.

I wonder how many other cities in California used Tom Lando’s ploy of attaching salaries to city revenue increases and then going on a development binge. When overdevelopment finally tanked the local market a few years later and revenues plunged, the salaries, benefits, and automatic raises, stayed in place. Salaries got higher no matter how revenues dipped for Chico. And the pensions and city contributions are based on the salaries. 

Getting dizzy yet? Maybe a little pissed off? Well this is where we’ll close and pick it up again tomorrow. 

 

Tags:

Assistant city manager takes his tax “offering” to the commissions – these unelected boards have too much influence on city policy

3 Aug

I just heard bad news – the Chico Planning Commission has rejected Payless Building Supply owner Frank Solinsky’s appeal of Simplicity Village. SV is a “tiny home community” for transients, “senior citizens”, that is to be placed  adjacent to the PBS yard. Solinsky is partly concerned for his own interest – rampant thefts by transients to build their shanties at neighboring camps has always been a problemfor PBS.

As landlords my husband and I depend on PBS to keep our rentals affordable. We’ve long-realized that Salinsky’s problems are our problems, because the cost of enhanced security is passed along to the consumer. But my biggest concern is that Solinsky, given this latest turn, might just decide to throw in the towel and sell the property. That would leave my husband and I paying a lot higher prices at the box stores, and that pressure would matter-of-factly be passed along to our tenants. I’m not Mother Theresa,  neither is my mortgage lender, nor is the Butte County Tax Collector.

I don’t know what happens now. But I think it’s time to have a long overdue conversation about the amount of influence these unelected boards, commissions, task forces and ad hoc committees have on local public policy.

Look at the city of Chico agendas page here:

http://www.chico.ca.us/government/minutes_agendas.asp

There are 20 listings. Some are “interagency”, meaning they have representatives from all the local agencies, including the county, CARD and the school district. Some of these people are elected, some are agency employees, but many are appointed. The city boards, commissions, and the task force are  made up entirely of members of the public who’ve been appointed one way or another.

Don’t ask me to explain the appointments process, it’s all over the place. Each new city council decides how they are going to make appointments, and I’ve lost track of how they are doing it now. Some commissions have requirements for the make up of the group. The rules might specify that at least some of the members have certain qualifications, such as professional expertise.  It’s gotten complicated since the days when each council member got to appoint a member, for nothing more than campaign donations.  All I know for sure is they are not elected by the voters.

I don’t think the Planning Commission should exist – it’s always been way too political. We have a planning department, made up of professional planners, we pay them a good chunk of money, why we need a bunch of political sycophants sticking their foot in the process is beyond me. We have public hearings at the council level, but it’s a fact – the commissions have more sway with the council than the public. And, these commissions require dedicated staffers, more $$$$$. The airport manager position is really just a glorified secretary to the airport commission, and she’s not even very good at that.

Right now Assistant City Manager Chris Constantin is using the influence the commissions have to rubberstamp his sales-tax-to-secure bonds scheme. He’s been reporting to each commission in turn, leading them to believe the money would benefit their particular interests.

Monday I attended the Park Commission monthly meeting. You just have to go to one of these commission meetings to believe it. The lack of professionalism is astounding. These commissioners are appointed, not elected, but they act as though they’ve been given the keys to the town.

Here’s something I’ve seen at just about every meeting I’ve attended over the last 15 or so years – council, committee, commission – there’s always somebody who doesn’t read the staff reports. Oftentimes, several of them. At the BPPC meeting the other night one commissioner asked questions that were answered directly in the reports, and I could tell Constantin was  getting kind of testy when he told her that. These people add hours to meetings, and that means $taff Time (=$$$,$$$.00)

In Constantin’s case it’s over $100/hour to sit in a room waiting through other agenda items, including the time it takes each commissioner in turn to make the same stupid observations. They seem to think every thought skittering across their brain like a jack rabbit in the headlights is SO IMPORTANT! Even if it’s completely off topic. At that same meeting I had to sit there while they thanked staff, each commissioner in turn, and told them what a FABULOUS! job they do. They thanked Constantin twice. That’s all nice and stuff, but even Constantin seems to get sick of it.

Nevertheless, he takes full advantage of their helplessness, leading them the way he wants. It was amazing to watch. One minute he’s convincing them they should recommend forgiveness of the $169,000 Nature Center loan balance, and by the end of the meeting he’s telling them if the city doesn’t pass a sales tax increase measure we’ll be laying off cops and fire by 2021.

This guy also negotiated himself a special type of retirement account available only to public workers, a 457 plan, IN ADDITION to his CalPERS pension. City Manager Mark Orme gets the same plan.

“Effective from the first pay period in January 2017 considered in calculating the maximum IRC 457 plan limit and annually, City agrees to contribute nine thousand dollars ($9,000) , to Employee’s IRC 457 plan. Additionally, effective October 5, 2017 the City agrees to contribute four and fifty-two hundredths percent (4.52%) of base salary to Employee’s IRC 45 plan.”

These guys have a vested interest in this tax proposal, they’re determined that we will pay their outrageous pensions. They need to go, in fact, every “classic” employee needs to go. We need young people who are willing to pay at least 50 percent. Which sucks, because they will just be paying for the old farts to live in luxury.

 

 

 

 

Gas tax REPEAL proponent, Reform California leader Carl Demaio may run for San Diego congressional seat

2 Aug
I received the announcement below from Reform California founder Carl Demaio. Demaio led the fight to overturn SB 1, with Prop 6. He campaigned and raised funding for that measure, which was narrowly defeated, I feel, because California Attorney General Xavier Becerra wrote a misleading ballot title and description of the measure. People have told me, they didn’t understand the measure. Becerra made it sound like all road funding was going to be pulled if 6 passed. Frankly, I believe that was a true threat – I think the Democrats will punish any district who actually passed the measure by withholding road funding. Yes, Gavin Newsome is that crazy. 

Part of our problem here in California is a Democratic party run amok, and the Republicans are not doing a very convincing job of turning the state back around.  Here Demaio tells us, a “once-reliably conservative” district is in jeopardy. Looks like the Republican who has been in that seat has been accused of misusing campaign funds, and the seat may be lost to the Democratic challenger. This would be another jewel in Newsome’s crown – just imagine, full liberal control in the legislature.

So Demaio is thinking of running for the seat, which encompasses his home town of San Diego. Why would we care? Read paragraphs 1 and 2 again. 

Demaio is asking for money, I don’t have any. But I know there’s some pretty deep conservative pockets in Chico, if you’re out there, you might want to start digging. 

You can contact Demaio at Reform California, reformcalifornia.org

I’ve just been briefed on a poll that shows Republicans may lose yet another seat in Congress in California. Yes, it is the once-reliably conservative CA50 District seat. Worse, the party expects a Special Election will be called this Fall and the Democrats have millions to spend to flip the seat.Here’s the catch.The reason why I was briefed on the poll was because it shows that I can lock it up by running. The district’s voters have a 4:1 favorable view of me and and know me well from my work as a taxpayer advocate and government reformer.

I enjoy the freedom that my radio show gives me and with your help and thousands of other supporters, we’ve become the voice of the opposition across the state through our Reform California campaigns.

That being said, the old guard of California Republican leaders have shown they aren’t willing or able to lead the fight to take back our state from the Democrats – or worse, like the incumbent in this Congressional seat, they are tied up in court facing criminal charges. If we don’t run, we probably lose another seat.

I think a BIG WIN this fall in a hotly contested Congressional seat in California could change people’s perceptions that California is a lost cause. Plus, I simply do not want the Democrats to use their millions to harvest ballots to win another seat to advance their socialist agenda.

The good news is I’ll still be able to pursue our initiatives through Reform California. The bad news is this will be a lot more work! Winning a Congressional seat will also bring us more resources to fund our fight in California.

My questions for you are: Should I run? If I run, will you help me?

I need to make the decision this week. Let me know!

Thanks,

-Carl Demaio, Reform California

Half of California private sector has no retirement savings – is this a surprise?

1 Aug

Sitting in the tire shop this morning, I picked up a dog-eared copy of the Enterprise Record and saw the headline, “Half of California workers have no retirement savings, says UC Berkeley report”.

I didn’t have time to read it, so I jotted down the source – the Center for Labor Research and Education. 

http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/california-retirement-savings/

The report did not surprise me –  “It turns out that California private sector workers are not merely behind on saving for retirement; half do not own retirement assets and most are currently not saving for retirement at all.“

Nor did the “why” surprise me – “About 7.4 million California private sector employees age 25-64, or 61%, do not have access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.”

That’s so funny, isn’t it? We pay for public employees to have defined benefit plans, but in the private sector we’re fending  for ourselves.

The real story here is “the State of California is launching a large-scale effort to help fill the retirement savings void: CalSavers, an automatic retirement savings program for private sector workers in firms with five or more employees that do not offer a pension or 401(k).”

‘Scuse me, but BIG WHOOPEE.  It certainly isn’t 70 – 90 percent of your highest year’s earnings at age 50. The employer doesn’t contribute, and it’s only 5% of your paycheck unless you can afford more.

“Employers serve a limited role: facilitate the program and submit participating employees’ contributions via simple payroll deduction… Employers cannot make contributions”  An employer registers his employees, and unless they opt out, 5% of their pay will be automatically directed into a “savings account”. The employee is allowed to contribute more if they’d like, sure, but the people who need this program the most are the ones who can’t afford to contribute much. 

This illustrates the economic divide between public sector employees – The New One Percent – and the rest of us. Public employees get defined benefits, we get whatever we can afford after we pay for their defined benefits. We are paying higher and higher taxes to provide for them, and their spouse who lives beyond them, out of our shrinking salaries. We have to pay for our own healthcare, while providing healthcare for public employees and their families. These people make in excess of twice the medium income, but expect us to pay their freight.

That’s just funny, and I mean funny weird, not funny ha-ha.

 

 

 

Will the taxpayers be left holding the Pension Deficit Bag?

31 Jul

Have you been “left holding the bag“?  This expression is generally used to describe a situation wherein a person or persons create a problem and then leave others to deal with it.  According to Grammar Girl,  there are different shades of meaning – “this idiom grew out of an earlier expression from about 1600: to give one the bag. That expression referred to someone being left with an empty bag after everyone else removed the good stuff.”

We all know what it’s like to be left holding the bag – empty or full – but I wonder, how do you all feel about the bag being handed to your children? This is what City of Chico staff are trying to do – hand their pension deficit bag to our kids.

The other night I took in a Chico Parks and Playgrounds Commission meeting to hear a pitch for a sales-tax-to-secure-bonds scheme that Ass City Mangler Chris Constantin has been pitching for months. Constantin describes a trick by which he can use the additional sales tax revenue to secure bonded debt. What it amounts to is trying to convince us that it won’t be that painful to pay this tax, because it will be stretched out over years. But when I looked into this scheme I found, that means our kids and their kids will be paying this debt, and it’s very unlikely they will see any benefit.  The bag we will be leaving for our children will be full of debt, crapped out infrastructure, and public salaries and benefits still spiraling out of control.

From the Tax Policy Center –

“State and local governments issue bonds to pay for large, expensive, and long-lived capital projects, such as roads, bridges, airports, schools, hospitals, water treatment facilities, power plants, courthouses, and other public buildings. Although states and localities can and sometimes do pay for capital investments with current revenues, borrowing allows them to spread the costs across multiple generations. Future project users bear some of the cost through higher taxes or tolls, fares, and other charges that help service the debts.”

At a meeting I attended earlier this year, Mark Orme admitted that the city had “kicked the can down the road” on street maintenance for many years, instead paying millions toward their pensions. This included payments toward the actual deficit, instituting a “Pension Stabilization Trust” that siphons money from every fund, even funds “dedicated” to capital maintenance. Through the PST, staff has tricked us into believing we only pay a certain “employer share” of the pensions, in reality, we pay most of their pension cost. This has created what I’m going  to call “the Pension Deficit Bag“.

If we  don’t get a handle on the public employee compensation now, we are handing our kids a disaster. This is the dilemma – the public employees want crazy salaries of as much as 4 and 5 times the median income, AND they want 70 – 90% of those outrageously inflated salaries in retirement,  BUT they don’t want to pay for it.  Years ago CalPERS promised they would make up the difference with investments in the stock market – but their investment strategies, including a bribery scandal, have only deepened the divide.  Now they want the taxpayers to take the bag. In fact, Constantin is trying to convince us that it’s okay to let our kids pay for his ridiculous lifestyle demands.

With groups like Pension Tracker shining a light on this grab, CalPERS and the unions have agreed that “new hires” (our kids) be asked to pay 50%. But top heavy management employees, “classic employees“, are only paying 11%. That is not sustainable. Sounds like a classic Ponzi scheme to me!

“Future project users bear some of the cost through higher taxes or tolls, fares, and other charges that help service the debts.”  But will they receive any benefits? That’s uncertain, in fact, I’d say it’s not going to happen. According to Constantin, we need hundreds of millions to bring existing streets up to safe standards, but the sales tax increase will only bring in a couple million a year. He explains enthusiastically that’s why we will use those proceeds to borrow money (bonds). That sounds nuts to me.

At that Finance Committee meeting earlier this year, Constantin also warned us that the economy is about to tank. If you’ve been paying attention over the last 35 years, as I have, you’ve seen that pattern of boom and bust.  Chico just enjoyed a giant BOOM, despite the poormouth complaining about the Camp Fire refugees. Contrary to the city’s claims, those refugees not only caused a short term blip in the price of housing, meaning MORE PROPERTY TAXES, but those who have remained are still providing a boost to our local sales tax revenues. This will dry up as the retail sector in Paradise recovers, and people start moving back to the Camp Fire burn area. The resulting correction will be tough times for Chico.

Constantin admitted there is such a downturn on the horizon, telling the Finance Committee that his scheme will “shore us up“. What? Who would borrow money in the  face of economic downturn?  The bonds he’s proposing have to be paid no matter what happens in the economy – just like Constantin’s “defined benefits“.

Throwing a sales tax increase onto people who are already experiencing uncertainty is another nail in our coffin. Studies suggest that when people find out there’s a sales tax increase on the agenda, they start hoarding, buying the bigger ticket items ahead of the sales tax increase. This of course creates a bubble. The same studies show that people develop different shopping habits, such as buying online.

Here’s my anecdote – when Tom Lando first suggested a sales tax increase in 2012, I started shopping out of town and online. Of course these purchases are still taxed, but here’s the message – local businesses lost my money, and they won’t get it back. Local businesses need to realize what they stand to lose. It’s not the box stores that are stealing your business, it’s the sales tax rhetoric coming out of the city of Chico.

 

 

 

 

Excessive taxation ruins the economy – time to act to reverse this trend

26 Jul

I saw Patrick Newman’s letter calling (jokingly I assume) for a limit on letters about President Trump. I had to laugh –  there have been letter writers, and probably requests made to the editor, to limit Newman’s letters. People have contacted the editors of both the ER and the N&R asking them to stop printing my letters. Some people only want to hear stuff they agree with, that’s nothing new. 

I have to agree with Newman’s assertion that people need to pay more attention to what’s going on locally. Not that federal matters are not important, but I feel a person can have more effect locally. And, as citizens become more powerful in local affairs, those localities become more powerful and have a bigger effect statewide, and eventually nationwide. 

I think excessive taxation is becoming a huge problem in Butte County, and the state of California, I wish more people would wake up and act. In the city of Sacramento, taxpayer groups who supported their sales tax Measure H quickly realized the funds weren’t being used as promised – too late, they’ve already approved the tax, and Mayor Darrell Steinberg has proposed even more taxes as a result. 

I think the root of excessive taxation is incompetent, insubordinate public employees who have fostered a negative and hostile environment for the rest of us. Their salaries and perks not only raise our taxes, but the salary imbalance makes a normal middle class lifestyle unaffordable for the rest of us.  These public salaries raise the price of everything from housing to groceries to healthcare. How can the family living on $43,000/year compete with public employees making in excess of $100,000/year? Especially when we are on the hook for their outrageous healthcare and pension packages.

Here’s an irony – most of us get by with catastrophic care, with huge co-pays, packages that won’t get us into a lot of hospitals. Hospitals and doctors can actually refuse our insurance.  Meanwhile we fund “defined benefit” health packages for public employees that guarantee them the best of care at top hospitals. 

What’s your retirement plan? Die? Well, as long as you live, you’ll be paying pensions of 70 -90% of $100,000+ public salaries. Our city manager, in his 50’s, is already making over $220,000 a year – do the math – if he retired tomorrow we’d be paying him $154,000/year, plus cost-of-living-adjustments, for the rest of his life. Unfortunately I’m afraid he has quite a few more years of self-service left in him, especially since he has what amounts to automatic annual pay raises based on a percentage of his salary. 

Currently more than 100 city employees receive salaries of $100 – 225,000/year. Another 25 make $90 – 99,000/year. These folks pay less than 10% of their pension cost, they want us to pay the rest in the form of a 1 cent sales tax increase. They say the money will be dedicated toward streets and safety, but even if they are sincere here, that just loosens up other money to be transferred into the Pension Stabilization Trust. And who can believe what they say when they promised to fix the streets with the trash tax but have instead transferred it into the General Fund? 

So we have a sales tax increase measure from the city of Chico and a parcel tax coming from the Chico Area Recreation District. Two regressive taxes aimed at the same population, neither agency having any concern for the economy.

Newman is right – get involved locally. There are a lot of meetings, scheduled at different times, at which you can not only learn more about how these agencies operate, but you can get into the conversation. Check out the schedules and agendas at these links:

http://www.chico.ca.us/government/minutes_agendas.asp

https://www.chicorec.com/board-meetings

 

Chico Area Recreation District lawyer tells the board what $taff wants them to hear – don’t buy it

24 Jul

I don’t know how many of you read the Chico Enterprise Record, but I only recently  found out – in a town of over 85,000 the ER has a circulation of less than 10,000.  Wow, that was a shock – especially since that would include readers all over Butte, Glenn, and other nearby counties. I grew up reading the ER out in Glenn County, most people had a subscription to both the Sacramento Bee and the ER.  As Chico’s population has almost tripled since my childhood, you’d think the ER would have at least 50,000 subscribers. 

10,000? And that includes people who only subscribe to the Sunday paper.  But, it’s the local daily, so I continue to read it, and send letters to the editor.  It’s better than nothing, and I mean that quite literally.

So yes, I saw the article ER shill Laura Urseny wrote about  a letter I had written to the CARD board. I told them I believe they are spending taxpayer money illegally to promote a tax measure.   District General Manager Ann Willmann had put my letter on the July 18 agenda for discussion, and also asked the district lawyer, Jeff Carter, for his opinion. That’s all a lawyer can give you, his opinion. 

Urseny reported, as I would expect, “Thursday night, CARD attorney Jeff Carter said outside the board meeting that CARD has not violated rules in dealing with EMC because it was a survey of the community and nothing more. The survey did question whether citizens would support any kind of revenue measure.”

Of course Carter says they haven’t done anything illegal – for one thing, they haven’t, yet. That’s correct – after I wrote the letter I finally received a response from Howard Jarvis Association counsel Tim Bittle, who said, “Unfortunately, it is not illegal.  Government Code section 54964 provides, ‘An officer, employee, or consultant of a local agency may not expend or authorize the expenditure of any of the funds of the local agency to support or oppose the approval or rejection of a ballot measure.’ “

He explained, ” Notice two things about that statute. First, it contemplates that the local agency may lawfully hire a ‘consultant.’ Second, the statute cannot be violated before the existence of ‘a ballot measure.’”

Apparently, they can’t violate the law until they have actually written and handed the measure over to the county clerk. But, as soon as that measure is given approval and a ballot title, the district is not allowed to spend any more money on it.

Well, what’s “legal” isn’t always “right”, and I still think this is an important detail when considering passage of a revenue measure. The district couldn’t get support from the citizens, who would have had to put it on the ballot by way of petition, which would have meant there was some support in the community. But that’s not what happened. So CARD has spent over a hundred thousand in taxpayer money putting this measure on the ballot themselves, that is a fact.

They’ve hired consultant after consultant – EMC has been hired twice. The district originally tried to get Aqua Jets swim team to front this measure – for a new “aquatic center.” Then they got a group called Every Body Healthy Body to propose a “megacility” sports center south of town. But a recent survey done by EMC blew up in their faces. It seems the 400 respondents were more concerned about transients camping on their kids’ soccer fields and stealing their wallets, laptops and cell phones from the dugout at ball games. 

According to a report from Ch 7 news,

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/news/CARD-survey-shows-park-safety-a-top-concern–510232051.html

“Rather than new facilities, the majority of people said they just want to feel safe.”

Here’s an interesting quote from that story, because this is what I have seen for over two years now –  “CARD is working on what to put into a possible tax measure.”  They are ready to promise us anything to get us to raise our own taxes.

This is exactly what EMC has been hired to do by  both CARD and the city of Chico – figure out what to tell people to get them to increase their own taxes. EMC blatantly claims to “offer a full suite of political research and predictive analytics to help your candidates, organizations and ballot measures succeed.” 

Their questions lead the respondents to think the sky is the limit if they pass a tax on themselves.  Tom Lando’s 2012 survey offered a sports stadium, CARD has offered various sports facilities – what they don’t tell us publicly is they are getting deeper into pension deficit because employees aren’t paying nearly enough to support their own demands for these unsustainable pensions. 

You have to read the budgets to see that CARD employees are paying less than 10% for pensions of 70% of their highest year’s salary. General Manager Ann Willman makes roughly $110,000 a year, paying less than $10,000 to  receive a $70,000/year pension for the rest of her life. That is unsustainable unless you get a gullible, lazy and poorly educated public to agree to pay for it. 

In my letter below I said Willmann pays less than $2,000, because that’s what she’s been paying, as a “classic member” of CalPERS. Reading her latest budget message, I see she’s been asked to pay 6% by next year, eventually 7%. Let me be  the first to say, “Big Fucking Whoopee Mrs. Potato Head.” 

These people are like chiggers – they attach themselves to taxpayers, and then they suck you dry, providing you no benefit whatsoever.  

I am not going to let them lie their way to the bank this time, so I wrote the following letter and sent it to the ER yesterday. Let them know how you feel about this grab – maybe you can convince  them to stop spending money on this endeavor, and start using those funds for proper upkeep of facilities we’ve entrusted to them. 

I beg to differ with Chico Area Recreation District attorney Jeff Carter. CARD’s consultant is up to more than a simple survey.  Read EMC’s claims at their website – “Great campaigns don’t just happen. That’s why we offer a full suite of political research and predictive analytics to help your candidates, organizations and ballot measures succeed.”

CARD has spent over $100,000 on consultants to help them push a tax measure, money that would have been better spent maintaining now closed Shapiro Pool.

In 2017, a survey concluded there was not enough support for the proposed aquatic center to go forward with a tax measure. The most recent survey showed the majority of the 400 respondents are more concerned with safety and lack of maintenance at the facilities CARD already operates.

In 2015 a consultant hired by CARD told them they could bring long-neglected Shapiro Pool back up to code with about $500,000 in repairs. For instance, the filter pump had not been working for years, and the diving board had  been torn out, leaving obvious trip hazards. Instead of doing the necessary repairs to keep the popular facility open, CARD made a $400,000 “side fund” payment toward their pension deficit.

CARD gets over $3,000,000 in property and vehicle taxes, another $2,000,000 in RDA funding. They spend $5,700,000 on salaries, benefits and pensions. Management pays less than 10% toward their own pensions, the manager paying less than $2,000 a year toward 70% of her $100,000+ salary in retirement.

 Join Chico Taxpayers in saying NO to self-service, greed and mismanagement.

Tags: ,

Do you know the rules about parcel taxes? Better get schooled

18 Jul
  1.      What is a parcel tax?  a) a fee charged for delivery of packages  from out of state   b) same as a bond   c) a form of property tax   d) a, b, and c
  2.      What is a parcel?  a) a commercial property   b)  a single family home  c) an apartment complex  d)  a, b, and c
  3.      A parcel tax is assessed   a)  based on the assessed value of the property   b) based on the characteristics of the parcel  c) neither  d) both
  4.      A parcel tax may be imposed by a) a city/county  b)  a special district  c)  a school district d) a, b, and c
  5.      True or False: Parcel tax revenues can be used for any type of spending, including salaries, benefits and pensions.

 

I’ll post the answers tomorrow.

ANSWERS:

  1. c) a form of property tax, very different from a bond. They are assessed differently, and bonds are actually tax deductible, while parcel taxes are not.
  2. d) a, b, and c – a parcel tax covers any privately owned property. But, according to Ballotpedia, different types of parcels can be assessed differently. ”  A parcel tax rate can differ based on the type of property. For instance, improved and unimproved properties may have different rates, and residential and commercial properties may also have different rates.”
  3.  b) based on the characteristics of the parcel –  parcel taxes are “assessed at a rate based on the characteristics of a parcel—or unit of property—rather than a rate based on the assessed value of the property, which is the standard method of levying property taxes,”  such as bonds. 
  4. d) a, b, and c – any special district, including Chico Area Recreation District. Look at your Butte County prop tax bill – did you know you’re already paying an assessment for the mosquito district? 
  5. True: Parcel tax revenues can be used for any type of spending, including salaries, benefits and pensions.

If you got less than three of these right you should probably study up, a good place to start is wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_tax

 

 

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →