Chico Taxpayers Association

On Thursday, Nov. 29, my husband and I were out in South Chico, shopping locally!  As the weatherman had predicted at least a week in advance, it had been dumping rain all day.

We get whopping storms here – everything from sudden and quickly over gully washers to three day dumpers. I’ll never forget a week of rain, in June of one year, when we watched a giant tree in our neighbor’s yard lean slowly over for days and finally come to rest on the roof of our garage.

And here’s another thing – a few months of Summer, and people seem to forget all about rain. 

For example, our city staff routinely gets caught with their pants down, as if they didn’t watch the news or what? I guess our public works director was on another two weeks paid vacation in Italy? All the expensive street sweeping and drain cleaning equipment the city has accumulated ($$$] and they let streets flood every year. On Thursday I couldn’t believe what I saw – busy streets with a foot or more of water, cars skidding and colliding, roads closing down, right at 2 – 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

It took us an hour and a half to get from our house in midtown to Home Depot and back.

I know, there are a lot more people in town these days. But the problem wasn’t the traffic. It was the leaf pick up program. Not only does the city NOT keep the streets swept of street tree debris, they allow commercial landscapers to dump leaves and debris from their customer’s yards at various “dump sites” around town.

When I reported seeing landscapers dumping piles of tree debris on Mariposa Avenue one afternoon,  I reported it to public works director Erik Gustafson.  According to the city website, only leaves from street trees are supposed to be piled in the street. It specifically states, no commercial landscapers. There is supposed to be a foot clearance for the gutters and drains. No branches or grass cuttings.

What I saw was a sprawling pile of mess, leaves that didn’t match street trees, shrubbery, and large branches, sprawled not only over the gutter but across the sidewalk. Loose leaves covered the street, making a slippery surface.

Gustafson replied,  “I understand the issue and what appears to be a subsidy for landscape contractors [his suggestion, not mine]…the intent of allowing landscapers to dump leaf material at several designated locations was to limit the amount of material in other areas with narrow streets. Prior to the commercial sites, there were many ares around the city where vehicles could barely pass due to the amount of leaf pile build-up.”

So, the city’s answer to illegal dumping by contractors is to give them their own free dump sites, out on the public street? I watched a landscaper do the same thing on Vallombrosa two days ago, a whole trailer full of yard waste from a gated subdivision.

Of course Gustafson knows the law. “Our preference is to have landscape contractors take their material directly to the compost facility and not dump in the street at all…”  Your preference? It’s the law, Mr. Six Figure Salary!

Don’t you just want to put your foot in a public worker’s package sometimes?

Oh but he’s working on it. “In fact, we’ve started to eliminate the commercials [sic]  dump sites and are down to five from ten.””

The leaf pick up program needs to end. Instead, they should have public works crews around town, cleaning gutters and drains days ahead of every storm.

Hey Erik, ever had your soft little hands on the business end of a rake or shovel? Don’t want to mess up your expensive slacks or those nice Italian shoes? We have to many stuffed suits Downtown.

As my husband and I wound our way by one wreck after another, we watched city workers, including the big drain sucker truck ($$$)  moving in to clear accumulated leaf piles out of the gutter in front of the entrance to Cal Park, leaves that had been dumped there by commercial landscape crews. We watch them all the time, blowing leaves out of business parks, as well as private residences, into the street, ignoring the rules about leaving a foot of clearance for water drainage, piling them out into the street, where they blow all over the place waiting for infrequent sweepers from the city. Thursday I  couldn’t help noticing  piles of leaves flopped right on top of drains, on streets all over my neighborhood.

Since I contacted Gustafson the leaf pickup press release on the city website has been changed to acknowledge the commercial dump sites. The website also says streets will only be swept every two weeks.

The leaf pick up subsidy needs to end.

Chico Area Recreation District, for example, tells us they don’t have enough money to properly run programs they’ve run for years. They’ve dropped the Fourth of July pancake breakfast, closed a popular swimming pool, and cut back hundreds of part time employees to 28 hours or less to avoid the healthcare mandate,  complaining they don’t have enough money. But at the same time, they spent over a $1,000,000 buying a rotten old building in Cal Park, then spent 10’s of thousands more in repairs. Meanwhile they took over the Nature Center, $200,000+ in debt to the taxpayers, and  made plans for a grandiose recreation center miles out of town.

They continue to spend 10’s of thousands a year on consultants to help them get a revenue measure on the ballot.

And NOW they want the city of Chico to forgive half the debt for the Nature Center.

According to CARD’s budget, the Nature Center brought in about $250,000 last year, an increase over the previous year of $20,000. Why can’t they pay their debts?

 Most  CARD programs do not support themselves, taxpayers already subsidizing over half their expenses. Here’s a program that actually generates money, but instead of applying the proceeds toward CCNC expenses, they put the money in the general fund and use it to pay their $1.7 million pension deficit, generated years before they began managing CCNC.

That’s stealing, if you ask me.

Save your own money from being spent on more studies and consultants –  contact Ann Willmann and the board now, at annw@chicorec.com.   Tell them Willmann needs to pay more than 2% of her pension out of her $100,000+ salary, and they need to put CCNC proceeds in a separate fund until the ENTIRE loan is paid at the originally agreed terms.

From Chico Enterprise Record:

The other night council and friends divvied up a pot of “extra” money they found in the couch cushions – not really! It’s extra money from all the new housing property tax receipts. You know, they keep saying they need to build affordable housing, but none of the new stuff is going for less than $300,000. I was looking at rentals online the other day and noticed there’s been another subtle but firm increase in rent. Even Paradise is  getting a little pricey. So yeah, property tax revenues are going up, up, up, and staff rubs their hands together and comes up with ways to get it into their pockets.

You can look at their entire wish list, and see how they avoid making street repairs, on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting (10/16/18), and you can watch the video – please do! You won’t believe how frank they are about wanting to tax your ass off. 

They’re stealing our money, wake up and write a letter to the editor, I did.  Don’t just lay there taking a screwing, say something!

This year the city of Chico received nearly $2.5 million in General Fund “net income” – new revenues from increases in property and bed tax receipts.

City policy, dictated by staff and rubber stamped by council, allows staff to subjectively assign this money to various funds.  Staff came up with their own list of priorities, including $250,000 for their Pension Stabilization Trust. Another $25,000 goes to a voter survey, to “engage political consultants to determine the willingness of voters to support a tax measure.” 

None of the money, over half of which came from taxes on our homes, will be used for street repairs. They told us the garbage tax would go to fix our streets, but the city manager has made two attempts to redirect that money to pay salaries and pensions unrelated to street maintenance.

We have over fed Blue Jays running our town. People who make in excess of $200,000 a year, expecting the majority who live on less than $45,000 a year to pay pensions of 70 to 90% of these crazy salaries. Meanwhile our streets go without maintenance and city “leaders” spend another $25,000 to convince us we need to pay more taxes if we actually expect service.

Anyone who has lived in Chico for more than five years should look around themselves and ask the question, what’s wrong with this picture?  I see a greedy, bloated management staff who need to get out in favor of young people who will take rational salaries and pay their own pension freight.