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.
I’m not a lawyer so I had a hard time trying to interpret the seemingly simple rule about using taxpayer money to run a tax measure campaign. I mean, it seems to me that using tax money to hire a consultant who will run a phone survey in your town, targeting certain people by demographics, using leading statements like, “would you like an ice skating rink?” to get voters to agree to a tax would be a prime example of illegal use of taxpayer funds to run a revenue measure.
This is exactly what both Chico Recreation District and the city of Chico have been up to. I’ve sat in meetings – most recently, a city finance committee meeting last month – and listened to one consultant after another tell elected officials that they must convince voters to vote for the measure before they put it on the ballot. It was the consultant who attended the city finance committee meeting that talked about measures he’d pushed in other towns, using a skating rink as bait in one example.
I wasn’t sure all of this is illegal, but after reading Dan Walters’ latest column COMMENTARY, DAN WALTERS I’m guessing the Fair Political Practices Commission might like to hear about it.
He quotes an article from publicceo.com, “a website devoted to governmental management, written by two lawyers well-versed in the subject.”
“There is ‘a fine line public agencies, officials and employees walk between legally disseminating information and illegally advocating for or against a ballot measure or candidate’ under California law.” He continues, “The article, essentially a warning, is timely because, throughout California, officials are at least straddling that line and may be crossing it as they attempt to persuade voters to support billions of dollars in bonds, taxes and fees.”
Like I’ve said, “A big example is Proposition 6, which would repeal last year’s $5-plus billion package of gas taxes and automotive fees. Anti-tax groups that placed Proposition 6 on the ballot complain that the state Department of Transportation has been colluding with other opponents of the repeal and last week, those complaints were bolstered by the Associated Press.”
“The AP reported that official emails it acquired reveal that “the state transportation agency coordinated frequently with the public affairs firm working to block the repeal on behalf of unions, construction companies and local government groups.
“The coordination, the AP said, included, ‘efforts to promote legislation to raise the tax to fund road and bridge repairs (and) after Gov. Jerry Brown signed it, the agency and the firm continued planning events and coordinating social media posts as opponents gathered signatures for repeal.'”
He also brings up the investigation the FPPC is conducting in Los Angeles County. “Two years ago, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors proposed a half-cent sales tax increase for services to the homeless and gave TBWB Strategies, a San Francisco consulting firm, a $1 million contract to work on the tax measure.
“TBWB’s campaign, including television and radio spots that touted the benefits of Proposition H, helped it win passage. However, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association complained to the FPPC and filed a lawsuit challenging the campaign’s legality.”
And get aload of this – “Last month, an FPPC hearing officer found probable cause for a 15-count formal accusation that the county supervisors contributed to the Proposition H campaign without filing a campaign donor report and following other campaign laws.”
So our situation is hardly unique, and I’m beginning to wonder if we need some investigating around here. The stuff I’ve seen at meetings! I agree with Walters, we need to shine a flashlight on these people, before it’s too late.
“The Los Angeles tax measure is one of hundreds of local tax proposals facing voters this year, many of which also are being promoted by “consultants” such as TBWB under lucrative contracts supposedly for information but in reality to influence voters.
“It’s high time the FPPC, local prosecutors and/or Attorney General Xavier Becerra stopped this undemocratic practice before it becomes ingrained.”