Time to mau-mau the flakcatchers – trash deal isn’t rolling out the way they promised

13 Oct

Over the last week or so I’ve noticed people have come to my blog with searches for information about the new garbage franchise deal the city of Chico cut with Waste Management. 

You know, I’ve been bitching about this deal, here and in the newspaper, since 2012. But, as I predicted, General Public – the guy who always has something better to do than pay attention – has not heard a word about it until he got a card from Waste Management about a week ago.

Friends of mine just told me, as if they were the first ones to figure it out – did I know the city had changed their waste hauler without their permission?! 

I watch the agendas, available here:

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

I wish more of you would do same, instead of waiting until the bad stuff happens, and then bitching about it after it’s too late  to do anything.

I also got a card from Recology, my old carrier, with whom I have been, rentals and all, since about 2000, when I told Waste Management to stay the hell off my property.   I had never signed up for Waste Management willingly – they took my account forcibly from a guy named Tom – remember Tom’s Dispose-All? For whatever reason, the county showed Tom the door, and gave all his accounts to WM – then known as Butte County Dispose-All.

This whole story stinks of racketeering and cronyism. Ask Butte County Landfill manager Bill Mannell what trash company he ran before he got the job at Neal Road dump. 

My service from Waste Management was horrible, so I switched to Recology, and I never had a single complaint in 17 years. As soon as Waste Management took over two weeks ago, I had problems. 

I could have set my watch by  Recology – they came at almost exactly the same time every week. Especially the garbage truck – every Friday, 11:27 am. At that time I knew my recycling bin had already been emptied and I could go out and get my cans off the street. I also knew I didn’t have to leave my cans out the night before because Recology never came to my house before 7am, I had plenty of time to  take the cans out in the morning.

Why is this important? Well I found out yesterday, when I came home from the grocery store at exactly 2pm to find a  transient, at least 4 full drawstring waste bags  hanging from his shoulders, making a move on my still-full recycling bin.

He had just finished taking stuff out of my neighbor’s bin. I pulled my car alongside my can and told him to “get the fuck out of there NOW!”  He immediately put his hands up and walked.  Smart man – I had my hand on that can of Whoop-Ass, and I was about to open it on him. I’m from Glenn County, where people don’t let their mouth write a check their ass can’t cash.

About 40 minutes later, the WM truck showed up and emptied my bin. 

I had a restless night, wondering what kind of town this was getting tobe. So, this morning I wrote a note to Ryan West at Waste Management – that’s rwest1@wm.com.  I cc’d city manager Mark Orme and my just-for-now county supervisor Maureen “I’m moving to a Del Webb retirement community” Kirk:

Hi Ryan,
 

Yesterday we put our bins out by 6am as instructed by our new hauler, but when I came home from a trip to the store at exactly 2pm yesterday I found my recycling bin had not yet been picked up. And here’s just what I’ve predicted – as I pulled along the street toward my driveway a man came along with at least 4 full drawstring bags over his shoulders, went through my neighbor’s recycling bin pulling items out, and then  walked over to my bin and started to raise the lid.  I pulled my car alongside the bin and told him to “get the ‘f’ out of there!” He held his hands out and left.

The recycling truck didn’t show up until after 2:30.

I’m not a paid law enforcement officer, I shouldn’t have to encounter people like that at the end of my driveway.  My husband was worried that I confronted the guy when I told him about it. He’s afraid this person might have attacked me. My kids  and my tenant’s kids and all my neighbor’s kids play in their front yards – we should not have to worry about people like that in our neighborhood.

I never noticed this kind of brazen behavior in my neighborhood before, and I’m going to lay it on Waste Management.  Recology had both our bins picked up by noon, 1 pm at latest. I’m not willing to accept lesser service because of this deal.  We’ve been told we could expect the same service and more!

I’ll tell you one thing, I won’t be putting my recycling bins out at 6am anymore, and I’ll be cleaning anything of “value” out of them before I put them on the street. I’m going to make sure there’s not so much as a plastic water bottle in there anymore. It’s just an invitation to the bums into our neighborhoods, and then they help themselves to anything that ain’t nailed down. 

Thank you for listening to my complaint, I hope it’s the last. I included Mark and Maureen to keep them up on the bum problem, and because they both advocated for the trash franchises. 

Juanita Sumner

But it doesn’t end there! This morning when  my husband took our dog for the usual walk in the park, he found bins all along the street leading to the park that had been put out for pick-up yesterday morning, but were still full. At exactly 2:38 this afternoon, I heard the trucks picking them up. So, those recycling cans were out there for two days, for the convenience of the little army of the night.

When I heard the trucks, I took out my cell phone (because I was outside doing chores in my tenant’s yard) and I wrote them another note.

Furthermore,  trash and recycling bins left out [in my neighborhood] for collection yesterday morning where still full this morning and I just saw the WM truck coming through to get the recycling bins 5 minutes ago at 2:38. 
 
This is not acceptable. 
Juanita Sumner
 

I’m sorry – am I a harpy? Well that’s what it takes. 

Our public employees have taken our fair market system and played it like a fiddle for their own personal gain. Management promised us they’d use the franchise money to fix the streets, but you saw how quickly city manager Mark Orme tried to talk council into using the money to pay down the pension deficit.  Listen – that didn’t happen because many of you squealed about it, and there’s an election coming next year. 

They promised us we’d get all kinds of new services – according to the WM website, all that extra stuff also costs extra.

They threaten us with fines if our can lids are “propped open” – you mean, left open by bums rifling through for valuables while our cans sit in the street for 12 – 48 hours, waiting for pick-up?

They say we have to pay for damaged cans – given the way the trucks handle the bins, and then leave them standing halfway out in the street? 

They say we are responsible for graffiti on the cans, when we are expected to leave them out before 6 am without any assurance they’ll be picked up quickly?

So, yeah, we’re allowed to complain, please do so. 

 

 

 

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Please stop feeding our bums

8 Oct
thumbnail_1005171400

Chico has a wild life problem

My husband and I went over to the Vallombrosa post office the other day and found the above-pictured mess behind the annex building. There in the background you can see the back of Mangrove Avenue Safeway, where they keep their dumpsters. Look at that mess!

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Donut party?

I’m assuming the donuts were taken from the dumpsters behind Safeway, the only place for blocks and blocks that sells donuts in this quantity. I wonder how much they throw away per day. I wonder how much of it would be welcome at various homeless shelters and food closets. I also wonder – why aren’t their dumpsters secured, why is it possible for somebody to get in there and take out trash and strew it all over the place?

The door to the post office annex was also broken. 

It reminded me of the two years my son spent at Mammoth Lakes California, attending their little community college, Cerro Coso. Mammoth Lakes is high in the Sierra, there are constant reminders of the bears that prowl the town.

dont-feed-our-bears

My son received a sticker like this from the college he attended at Mammoth Lakes California, they gave them to all the students.

Visitors are warned not to leave food in their cars at all. A boy at the college dorms left a half-eaten burrito in his car and came out the next morning to find the car window smashed and the interior of the car torn up.

These incidents are bad for tourism, and bad for the bears, which are an inseparable part of the town’s identity.

The stickers are the brain child of Mammoth Lakes “bear whisperer” Steve Searles. From the Mammoth Lakes Sheet –

“Not only is the message clear and to the point, it’s personal. Don’t feed OUR bears puts the onus on the community, which is always happy to step up to the plate and do what needs to be done to co-exist with bears. It makes people responsible for being part of the solution.“

Here in Chico, we have all kinds of wild animals – opossum, raccoon, turkeys right in my front yard, wild geese shutting down Manzanita Ave, fox in the park, cougar spotted as low as 5 Mile and a bear shot by police in the parking lot of the Enterprise Record.

But, this donut mess is not the work of Rocky Raccoon.  Neither did Rocky break the post office annex door – I saw two different locksmiths trying to fix it over a period of one week. The back door to the city municipal building was broken for weeks, I don’t know if it’s been fixed as of now. I believe those doors were broken by transients, who have free run of our town at night. 

In Chico, our wildlife problem is people who are brought into our community through programs we have for the indigent, including people freshly released from the prisons at Susanville and other incarceration facilities. They are sent here because we have programs – including a network of shelters, medical and psychiatric facilities, and other agencies that provide free services. When a person breaks completely down and is unable to fend for themselves at all, they will get a free stay at Enloe Hospital, possibly followed by a 45 day stint at the Butte County psychiatric facility at Oroville.

These people either make their own way here, or, in many cases, brought by Butte County Behavioral Health, as part of a network of “beds”, meaning spots in shelters.

When I heard about the daytime robbery/murder of a man who had only that day been placed in a housing facility for the indigent, I had to wonder, what was his story? When I checked Butte County Superior Court records,  I found the dead man had an arrest  record – mostly possession of drugs. I wondered what that might have had to do with two men chasing him down a street and shooting him to death – to steal his cell phone?

It’s not that I don’t have compassion for the dead man. But what about our community? What kind of criminals and their cronies is the county bringing in when they, essentially, sell beds in facilities to other cities/counties? Who are these people – are they actually mentally ill? Helpless? Or have they learned how to play the system? To get shelter when they need it, to dodge their enemies, creditors, law enforcement?

Near San Diego, which is currently having a Hepatitis A outbreak credited to the “homeless”, people feel there is an element among the homeless who are out to take advantage.

https://iheartbums.wordpress.com/page/4/

They  believe their problem is professional pan-handlers, and local business owners say these people actually get a little threatening if passers-by don’t give them what they want. I believe this is a problem in Downtown Chico, where the atmosphere gets particularly ugly after 10pm. As people start to hit the bars, they make easier targets. College students, young and on their own for the first time, inexperienced drinkers, are especially vulnerable.

In Mammoth Lakes they are afraid a bear might injure or kill a tourist.  Here we need to be thinking not only what the transient army is doing to our quality of life, but what they will do to the reputation of the university. A riot that temporarily ended our founders’ day celebration, a stint as “Number One Party School” in Playboy Magazine, and a rash of hazing and drinking deaths were treated very seriously by our civic leaders – why not the transient problem?

As a community, we need to stop feeding the transients.  The fund transfers taken by the county for bringing in transients are just salary fodder. The programs offered by the county don’t help these people, and many of them don’t really want that kind of help anyway. They want to continue a lifestyle of roaming the state, taking advantage of these programs and services, meanwhile predating on our community. 

And worse are the public employees who get paid 6 figure salaries to bring more transients in. Worse yet are the elected leaders who keep rubber-stamping the transfers.  

But really, we continue to put up with it – we’re the “enablers” here.

In Ocean Beach they see the problem as it really is.

 

Oroville council, cops, take 10 percent salary cuts in face of bankruptcy – meanwhile, raises all around for Chico management!

6 Oct

We were just talking about Oroville’s financial problems  – here’s their action plan:

http://www.chicoer.com/general-news/20171005/oroville-city-council-takes-voluntary-10-percent-pay-cut

As you know, Chico City Council just approved sweet new raises for city management, more than enough to cover their slightly increased PERS shares. With over $180 million in unfunded pension liabilities, the city’s mandated extra “side fund” payments are now over $500,000 a year and expected to increase to $1.5 million within the next couple of years. And come on – at that  rate, we’ll never get rid of the pension bomb.  

Did you know our city council get salaries? Last I heard, their salaries are roughly the same as reported for O-ville, although, I think, a little more. In the article, it says Oroville councilors can also opt for a health benefits package – in Chico, those packages have cost anywhere between $8,000/year and $21,000/year. When I last checked, Ann Schwab and Mark Sorensen were taking the most expensive packages available. Here’s the scam – they pay 2 percent of their council salaries – less than $1,000 a year, do the math – for these packages. 

What kind of package do you have? How much do you pay for it? 

In Hemet, which was left in ashes by Brian Nakamura, Mark Orme, and Chris Constantin, the local Taxpayers Association put an ordinance on the 2010 ballot that ended health benefits for city council members. The voters passed it with over 75% of the vote. It cost the HTA about $7,000 to float two ordinances – the second, term limits for city councilors, also flew through with about 75% of the vote.

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2014/04/19/hemet-taxpayers-association-eliminated-health-benefits-for-council-members-and-instituted-term-limits/

The city shall not pay for, fund, or otherwise contribute to, the premiums, charges, fees or other costs of health benefits made available by the city to elected city officials either during their term or after their term of office.

Just something to think about, as the city of Chico plunges further into debt and continues to cut services, cut services, cut services…

 

 

O-ville talking bankruptcy? Time for public employees to take a walk in “the real world”

30 Sep

Thanks again Dude, for this link – I’ve been too busy to read the papers lately, get a load of this story from the Oroville Mercury Register – Oroville going bankrupt?

http://www.orovillemr.com/article/NB/20170927/NEWS/170929752

“The city’s finance director Ruth Wright told the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) finance and administration committee last week that the word “bankruptcy” was being thrown around, though not at council meetings.”

Not at council meetings? Council still in denial? Well, here in Chico, we have a $186 million deficit, and council is fully aware. So they handed out raises to top management! Now that’s a plan!

“The city [Oroville] cut down its $1 million deficit to achieve a balanced budget this year but is not exactly thriving financially, operating with low staffing levels and recently negotiating a 10 percent pay cut for police, with more negotiations to come.”

A 10 percent pay cut for police? You could expect Chico PD to walk out on any such negotiations – they threaten to cut service – which is essentially a STRIKE – if they don’t get raises.

Oroville’s finance director Ruth Wright says CalPERS is the problem and CalPERS needs to fix it.

“’All cities and counties cannot keep up with the increases,’ she said. ‘I think it’s up to them (CalPERS). They need to do something. They need to do a better job investing.’ The organization announced in December that discount rates would drop from 7.5 to 7 percent over the next three years in an effort to make the fund more stable, but with impacts to state and local governments.

“’CalPERS has a few levers to pull in dealing with pensions, having to do with discount rates,” said Wayne Davis, head of public affairs for the pension fund. “We’re very much aware of what lowering the discount rate means.’”

Well,  “we all” don’t know what he’s talking about – “lowering the discount rate…”

From CalPERS – straight from the horse’s ass –

https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2016/calpers-lower-dis

“Lowering the discount rate, also known as the assumed rate of return, means employers that contract with CalPERS to administer their pension plans will see increases in their normal costs and unfunded actuarial liabilities. Active members hired after January 1, 2013, under the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act will also see their contribution rates rise. Normal cost is the cost of pension benefits for one year.”

Remember, I asked Chico Unified School District finance chief Kevin Bultema about this, right after the passage of Measure K in last November’s election, and he said the district would need to find more funding to pay pension costs or cut programs for the kids.

So, of course, this means a bigger deficit for Oroville, and don’t forget Chico.

“Oroville’s finance director said the number of city representatives coming to confront CalPERS has been growing. At the meeting last week, officials from cities such as Chico, Santa Rosa, Laguna Hills, Lodi, West Sacramento, Vallejo, Yuba City, Hayward, Manteca and Concord were there. A legislative representative for the League of California Cities also participated.”

Well, that’s funny – this hasn’t come up in the Chico paper, which is edited by the same David Little that edits the Mercury Register. Neither have we talked as a town about the $186 million deficit, or the $500,000/year “side payments” (in addition to the regular premium payments), which will balloon to over $1.5 million/year within the next three years.

And the sky is the limit, since our elected morons – both Chico and Butte County – keep giving out raises as though everything’s just rainbows and lollipops. They’ve acknowledged the mess we’re in – because they want us to pay more taxes.

The reporter finally talked to Chico finance mangler Scott Dowell – formerly with Chico Area Recreation District, which has a $1.7 million deficit for less than 35 employees. Dowell doesn’t think Chico will go into bankruptcy, but has been trying to work with CalPERS.

“Dowell was hoping the pension fund representatives would do some research on the possibility of freezing cost-of-living adjustments, meaning retirees would receive a flat rate every year. They would no longer receive additional money — currently up to 2 percent of their annual salaries — to account for changing inflation.

The other concept was switching all employees onto the same kind of pension plan as employees who started after Jan. 1, 2013. The Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act went into effect then, offering fewer benefits to new employees. That could mean the difference between retiring at 55 and 62, Dowell said.”

Both no-brainers as far as I’m concerned, and “the way it works in the real world”.

 

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Council to confirm $taff appointments – get a load of these salaries! How will we pay for the pensions?

28 Sep

From next week’s council agenda:

http://chico-ca.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=273

CONFIRMATION OF DEPARTMENT HEAD AND DEPUTY DIRECTOR APPOINTMENTS

Section 605 of the City Charter states that the appointment of department heads is subject to confirmation by the City Council.  In order to meet this requirement, City Council is being presented with the employment agreements for Administrative Services Director (Scott Dowell); Assistant City Manager (Chris Constantin); Chief of Police (Michael O’Brien); City Clerk (Deborah Presson); City Manager (Mark Orme); Deputy Director – Finance (Barbara Martin); Public Works Director – Engineering (Brendan Ottoboni); Public Works Director – Operations and Maintenance (Erik Gustafson). (Report – Mark Orme, City Manager)

Recommendation :A. In compliance with Government Code Section 54953(c)(3), the Legislative Body shall first orally report a summary of the recommendation for final action related to the employment agreements for: Administrative Services Director, Assistant City Manager, Chief of Police, City Clerk, City Manager, Deputy Director – Finance, Public Works Director – Engineering, and Public Works Director – Operations and Maintenance: “The City Manager is proposing to modify the employment agreements with Scott Dowell as the Administrative Services Director, Chris Constantin as the Assistant City Manager, Michael O’Brien as the Chief of Police, Barbara Martin as the Deputy Director-Finance, Brendan Ottoboni as the Public Works Director – Engineering, and Erik Gustafson as the Public Works Director – Operations and Maintenance; and The City Council of the City of Chico is proposing to modify the employment agreements with Deborah Presson as City Clerk and Mark Orme as City Manager; and The Legislative Body is proposing to modify the appointment of Scott Dowell with an annual salary of $132,873, Chris Constantin with an annual salary of $185,000, Michael O’Brien with an annual salary of $154,679.99, Deborah Presson with an annual salary of $144,039.67, Mark Orme with an annual salary of $207,500, Barbara Martin with an annual salary of $117,541.49, Brendan Ottoboni with an annual salary of $138,009.37, and Erik Gustafson with an annual salary of $135,397.50.” B. The City Manager recommends Council Confirmation of the modifications as indicated above. C. The Mayor, on behalf of the City Council, recommends Council confirmation of the modifications as indicated above for the City Manager and the City Clerk.

UPDATE: As a friend of mine points out, “So Orme now makes $9,000 more than last year’s contract.  Maybe one block could have been resurfaced and that would last decades. Whereas, in Orme’s wallet — it goes for a 1%er lifestyle.  And Constantin was hired to do 3 jobs: finance, HR and administrative director.  Now he does one and gets more $$ now than he did for a couple of years! “

I’ll add, Debbie Presson has a bigger $taff now, does very little work herself, but has got about $10,000 in raises, just over the past couple of years. When asked to pay more of their pension, management $taff demanded and got raises that more than covered their new portion.

Here’s my prediction – Presson is spiking up and will retire within the next year.

Who is at fault here? Well, us, cause we elected the $heissers on council who keep approving these contracts. 

Mark Yudof on his $360,000 University of California Pension: “This is the way it works in the real world…”

28 Sep

Thanks Dude, for the link you sent regarding outrageous pay and pensions in the University of California system.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-27/six-figure-pensions-university-california-teachers-surge-60-2012

Here’s the source article from the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-uc-pensions-20170924-story.html

These are the kind of people who are bringing down the state, having already gutted our school system. 

 

“Pensions are a promise“?  Who made that promise – most of us were left out of the conversation. The workers made up the rules, saying the taxpayers would be left out of their “closed door” sessions. In fact, through “collective bargaining,” most of the actual workers are left out of the bargain. They have no idea how their pensions will be funded, and they don’t care.

The taxpayers didn’t promise any such thing, and if these people want these pensions they need to come up with a plan among themselves to save their pension systems. 

Remember when Dad would pull the car over, and scream at the top of his lungs, “DON’T MAKE ME COME BACK THERE!”

It’s time to put public pension suckers in the back seat.

City has no financial emergency policy, $taff suggests a policy for revenue measures

25 Sep

The report I got is not cut-and-pastable, you can read it for yourself here.

http://www.chico.ca.us/government/minutes_agendas/documents/FinanceCommitteeAgendaPacket-9-27-17.pdf

I’ve again asked the city clerk’s office to send me a cut-and-pastable copy, there’s stuff in this report that needs to be discussed publicly. 

Those of us who paid attention watched council first deny and then flub their way through near-bankruptcy.  They hired an out-of-town gun to “fix” things, he gutted $taff and walked away having established unprecedented salaries for management and a policy that allowed management to pay less than 10 percent of their own pensions.

So yeah, we need a emergency plan, but what I see here is a plan to pay down their pensions. 

“pay down scheduled debt payments…” 

The city’s biggest debt schedule is the $185 million-plus they owe on the pensions. $taff is currently paying $500,000/year on that debt, but payments will go up to $1.5 million within the next few years. 

How will they find the money?

“This policy authorizes the city manager…to investigate…enhanced revenue sources…including…tax increase proposals…”

I don’t have time to re-type the whole report, and our $100,000-plus clerk $taff screwed up sending me the report – as I’ve established with Presson and Brinkley, the reports are supposed to be loaded in such a way that they cut-and-paste, but Stina Cooley, recently promoted to the position, apparently does not know this. Or is just trying to put one over, I don’t know. 

Read it for yourself. 

UPDATE: Sorry to be so testy when I posted the above from my phone, but I get so sick and tired of $taff. Stina Cooley has been with the city for a while now, recently took on some clerk duties, and ignored me when I asked her to resend the reports in “cut-and-paste” format. 

I know people don’t hit the links – Word Press puts eyes in the back of my head. I know a lot of people read the posts without hitting the links, and I use cut-and-paste to quote sections of the reports so they will see, in exactly so many words, what $taff is up to. 

So today I resent my request, and done as I should have done in the first place – cc’d Cooley’s supervisor Dani Rogers. I cc’d Mark Orme because I want to keep him abreast of his $taff’s performance. 

And of course Rogers responded very quickly that the reports would be converted to text, and then she sent me the link. 

These people get paid a lot of money to have some old landlady tell them how to do their job. 

CARD makes “new” agreement with employees? Nothing really new, Willmann gets a raise but still only pays 2.5 %

24 Sep

Chico Area Recreation District has announced they will pursue a revenue measure in 2018, but continue to get very little scrutiny from the press or the public. Here, Enterprise Record “reporter” Laura Urseny tries to say they are paying more of their own pensions – but she doesn’t mention what they paid previously.

Up until about a year ago, management paid nothing.  The board asked for and got 6.5 percent from regular workers, allowing “classic” management to get away with 2.5 percent.  Do you see that – they ask the lower paid employees for a bigger chunk of their salary for their benefits, allowing management, including Ann Willmann, with salaries in excess of $90,000/year (Willmann makes over $110,000/year), to get away with 2.5 percent.

So now the lower paid employees will pay 8 percent, but Willmann will continue to pay 2.5 percent. 

And we pay the rest. 

Silly rabbits.

 

Enterprise Record, by Laura Urseny

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Chico >> Ann Willmann, general manager for the Chico Area Recreation and Park District, noted good budget news following the conclusion of union negotiations.

Contract negotiations were concluded with different collective bargaining and employee groups, she noted during Thursday board meeting.

According to a staff report, each employee group with receive an annual cost of living increase of 3.5 percent each fiscal year beginning July 1, 2017 and ending July 2019.

Also, employees will be contributing more for their PERS coverage, ranging from a low of 2.5 percent per year to a high of 8 percent until 2020, depending on their collective bargaining unit.

Willmann noted that $1.7 million has been set aside by CARD to cover unfunded PERS liability, the exact amount of which changes.

On Friday, Willmann noted in an email, “The COLA increase is costing the district an extra $63,582.00 in this fiscal year.

“The increase in the percentage the employees are paying for PERS is saving the district $33,256.34 in this fiscal year.”

In addition, the negotiating units also agreed to reduce the salary schedule from the current 10-step configuration to a six-step schedule, which should be reached by July 2020.

City $taff will be as good as we demand

21 Sep

I sent the following letter to the Enterprise Record, regarding a meeting I attended September 11 – the reporter, who I did not see at the meeting, did not post her story until the following week (9/17), and didn’t do any background on Portland Loo. She allows herself to be led by $taff – makes the job easier. 

Committee members Andrew Coolidge and Reanette Fillmer were strangely silent during the meeting, listening to the report. Fillmer asked a couple of questions about Gustafson’s remarks, then left the room right behind me after adjournment. But Coolidge babbled at the reporter – why didn’t he make more comments on the legal record? He told the reporter he thought we needed more public restrooms? This is the guy who told a gathering of Chico Taxpayers that he had taught his own kids to call City Plaza “Bum Park”. When will we get some action out of these idiots? 

When we write letters, make phone calls, show up at meetings. My letter, run in the Enterprise Record today:

Chico Public Works Director Eric Gustafson reported to Chico Internal Affairs Committee (9/11/17)  that Downtown public restrooms are suffering “unsustainable vandalism”.  He suggested the city invest in Portland Loo. 

Portland Loo is a toilet designed to keep criminal activities – including prostitution and drug sales – out of public restrooms. With slats at top and bottom so police (and everybody else) can see inside, they are coated with vandalism resistant paint and made in such a way that they can be routinely hosed out by janitorial staff. They must be connected to water and sewer but can provide  their own lighting. They are supposedly tamper-proof.

The manufacturer lists a price around $250,000, but other cities, including Portland, have found initial costs can exceed $500,000 per unit. Both the city of Portland and the city of San Diego have installed and later removed these devices because of increased crime in the immediate area. In Portland, costs for cleaning the devices were so high – $99,000/year for two units – that water ratepayers successfully sued the city for  $617,588  spent on marketing and maintaining their Loo’s,  the cost attached to city sewer and water bills. 

Why do city staff continue to placate transient criminals? Gustafson is the staffer who told me transients have Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to sleep in Bidwell Park. What about the taxpayers’ rights? 

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More agencies scrambling out of CalPERS

18 Sep

Here’s another interesting article I found regarding cities/agencies leaving CalPERS, from the Sacramento Bee:

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article172960601.html

“Trinity County Waterworks District No. 1 west of Redding and Niland Sanitary District from Imperial County are in line to become the third and fourth government agencies to break with CalPERS over the past 12 months in a manner that shortchanges their retirees.”

“shortchanges their retirees”?  No, I think, maybe the employees expected to get something for nothing, and that’s always a risky proposition.  These deals were cut behind the taxpayers’ backs – pensioneers can take it up with their labor negotiators, their city managers, their CalPERS board, but shouldn’t look at me.

“Trinity Waterworks is not in financial trouble, its district manager said. It voted to leave CalPERS in 2015 as it shifted its business model to one that relied on a contractor, meaning it did not have new public employees.

It has set aside money for CalPERS, but it does not have the full amount the pension fund wants.”

Trinity was wise to get out – CalPERS gambles funds on the market, in high risk investments. When an agency opts out, if they pay their liability, they are put in a “low-risk fund.”

“To fully fund their workers’ pensions, the two districts would have to muster up hefty termination fees. CalPERS asks for that money up front, and then moves the separating agency to a low-risk fund called the terminated agency pool.”

That’s the whole problem, CalPERS has continued to take gambles that have led their agency into near bankruptcy, they’ve had to be bailed out twice by the California legislature, that I know of. 

I don’t blame agencies for not paying their liabilities either – those employee contracts weren’t made on the level.  Let’s the employees come out and ask the rest of us for that kind of deal – they won’t, because they know it’s a rip. They do it behind closed doors, with “collective bargaining” and “binding arbitration.”  They pay their unions to pay off our legislature to uphold the laws keeping the public away from the bargaining table. 

Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of the end – 

“Three other small departments, including the Herald Fire District near Galt, have filed notices to separate from CalPERS.

The Herald Fire District voted unanimously in January to withdraw from the pension fund, citing a preference to expand its volunteer firefighter program. It’s not clear yet how much money it would have to pay CalPERS to find pensions for five former workers.”

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