Tag Archives: Andrew Coolidge Chico Ca

Stop a train wreck before it happens – email Chico City Council and tell them you won’t support a new tax measure until we have a conversation about the employee contributions

12 Oct

I was actually surprised to see this letter from former city councilor Karl Ory. I’m not surprised that Ory is still active with the local Democrats, but I’m kind of surprised he’d attack a sales tax increase measure that he himself proposed while on council. Sure, it’s partisanship – whenever we have a change in the council majority the losers sit along the sidelines throwing eggs.

Letter: Conservatives have bled the city dry

The council proposal for a general sales tax increase is DOA. Conservatives have bled the city dry for a decade and will oppose any tax increase. Just ask Juanita Sumner and the Chico Taxpayers Assoc. But worse, this council has alienated nearly every moderate voice in the city. On their agenda is denying climate change, steamrolling a 1,448 acre development, doing away with the Greenline, and generally kowtowing to their developer benefactors.

Councilmember Morgan’s KPAY broadcasts show he intends to ride liberal bashing all the way to Sacramento. Tax revenues will be used for salaries and benefits; no assurances any will go for roads and creekways. This is just a sham to make them look good.  Afterward they’ll wring their hands and say they tried. Maybe blame the loss on the previous council.

Karl Ory, Chico

Yeah, we all know, the liberals have done plenty of bleeding in their day. They’ve voted right along with the conservatives to approve every new subdivision that’s come before them. They’ve also unanimously approved the employee contracts with overgenerous salary and benefits and unrealistic employee contributions toward the UAL. They all get money from the unions at election time, and many of them continue to take donations from power players like PG&E and Franklin Construction. But Ory is spot on when he says, “Tax revenues will be used for salaries and benefits; no assurances any will go for roads and creekways. This is just a sham to make them look good.  Afterward they’ll wring their hands and say they tried.“

Of course the liberals would do same if they had the majority, Ory himself proposed a 1-cent general sales tax increase when he was on council. If you haven’t noticed this pattern before, you just moved here, or you’re deaf, dumb and blind. But I’m not going to squabble over that – when the liberals get the majority again I’ll criticize their poor management. The common thread here is that the money is not going to the roads or any public services, it’s going to service a bond(s). Remember this bit from the 9/21/21 council staff report:

“General Obligation Bond
If the City were to pass a general sales tax, the Council could also consider issuing bonds to fund infrastructure, facilities, and equipment. The debt would be repaid over time with anticipated increased
revenues. A general obligation bond would require a two-thirds vote of the electorate to pass.
If the electorate were to pass a bond for infrastructure in the amount of $180,000,000 with interest at a
rate of 3.5 percent over a twenty (20) year period, the annual payment would be $12,664,994.”

They want to use the sales tax increase revenues to get us deeper into debt. Think about that – not only will they NOT be using the sales tax money toward infrastructure as Coolidge keeps saying, they will be taking another 12 and a half million dollars away from infrastructure to pay off the bonds.

And yes, “bonds”, plural. They want money to pay the pension deficit, having failed in their attempt to make an end-run around the voters with their proposed Pension Obligation Bond.

Read the reports people, don’t just allow yourself to be mesmerized by their moving lips. They are liars, and they will lie to get what they want. Coolidge is one of the most bald-faced liars I’ve ever heard. And the local media just eats it up without question.

I can’t just sit by and watch the insanity, I had to respond to Ory’s letter.

Karl Ory is right, (10/9/21) “Tax revenues will be used for salaries and benefits; no assurances any will go for roads and creekways.” Correct, council has approved a general sales tax increase measure, meaning revenues will go to the General Fund and be spent as council determines.

Ory, a two-time council member, knows that the pension deficit (Unfunded Actuarial Liability) is the city’s only real debt, created by unrealistically high salaries/benefits and unreasonably low employee contributions. He knows that council directed staff to establish a “Pension Stabilization Trust,” into which money is purloined from each department – money that should go toward city services – to pay down the UAL. Recently, council and Staff tried to establish a “Pension Obligation Bond” without voter approval, only the threat of a lawsuit from Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association stopped them. They told us they’d spend the garbage tax on the roads, but as Ory has also pointed out, the money has gone to the General Fund every year, spent on salaries, benefits, and new positions.

Look at the city budget – the city’s biggest expense is staff, taking almost the entire budget. Where are the services? Last year over $11.5 million went to the pension deficit. But the deficit keeps going up, because council keeps approving unsustainable contracts. Mark Orme created three new positions last year, at salaries over $100,000.

Until we have a real conversation about who owns the UAL, Chico Taxpayers Association will definitely oppose any new tax increases.

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

Here’s another blurb from that 9/21 report:

  • there will be costs associated with educating the public on the proposed measure (hiring a consultant to conduct such work) and costs associated with placing the measure on the 2022 ballot (such costs will be estimated by the City Clerk in working with the County Elections Office)

    • Yes, the rules for using taxpayer money to run political campaigns are foggy, the FPPC seems to be standing down on this. So, they will be going up your ass with your own money. Let’s try to stop this taxpayer-funded train wreck before it gets out of the station – email your district rep, and tell them not only will you not support this tax measure, but you might just be voting for somebody else when the time comes.

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    Congratulations Yvonne Johnson, Teri Dubose, Rob Berry, and all you Chico “Fisters” – you got what you deserved for endorsing Andrew Coolidge!

    4 Feb

    Well, you know I can’t resist saying “I told you so.” Especially when some bully has come and twisted my arm to do what they want. No, I won’t get over Yvonne Johnson’s ugly threat – “you’ll get what you deserve for this endorsement...” That endorsement was Randall Stone over Andrew Coolidge in District 5. 

    “I would say the same about your stupid endorsement of Stone! You will get what you deserve for this endorsement. As I understand things, Coolidge was trying to compromise on one particular issue that you didn’t agree with. Stone and his wife make bank on the public dollar. She gets buyback on health insurance, PERS, and a lot of other perks due to Stone’s political position.”

    One particular issue? He approved the Shelter Crisis Designation, that was hardly a “compromise,” it was a complete sell-out, and the conservatives, including Rob Berry, were pissed about it. That designation is WHY we are where we are today.  When Coolidge announced his candidacy for the 2020 race, Rob Berry acknowledged that Coolidge had voted with the liberals to institute a “Shelter Crisis Designation.” But endorsed him anyway?  Well, how did you feel Yvonne, at exactly that moment when Coolidge threw his hat in with Huber and Brown to forward that plan to put nearly a million dollars of General Fund money into a hobo camp on the kids’ BMX track at the fairgrounds? 

    And let’s not forget Lttle Miss “Clean Up the Camps” Deepika Tandon, who also voted with the liberals.   She actually littered my computer with ads showing hobos and her own picture, face filled with disgust. Now she expects us to give them our Park and Ride? What? 

    So, excuse me if I’m laughing instead of crying this morning – the image of Rob Berry and Teri Dubose and the rest of you ugly little fascists with a big splatter of egg on all your faces is just too amusing. You bullies ran an ugly campaign, Dubose funneled 10’s of thousands from the unions into funding Coolidge’s campaign – and now? Neither Dubose nor Berry will fess up to this huge blunder. 

    I’m old now, and I don’t really give a  flying fuck at a rolling donut what people think, so cover your ears if you don’t like profanity – FUCK YOU CHICO FIRST AND CITIZENS FOR A SAFE CHICO. You people are a giant joke. Unfortunately you’ve put that joke right onto the rest of us. 

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    Shasta County opens Supervisor meetings – Chico council, still hiding under cover of COnVid, pushes Pension Obligation Bond forward

    9 Jan

    On Tuesday, as Chicoans got ready for another “virtual” (closed) city council meeting, two Shasta County Supervisors held an open meeting, allowing citizens to come into the chambers and speak freely about how they’ve suffered under the COnVID shut down.

    https://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/news/Crowd-of-people-speak-inside-Shasta-County-Board-of-Supervisors-chambers-573536611.html

    REDDING, Calif. – On Tuesday, a crowd of people gathered inside the Shasta County Board of Supervisors chambers. People passionately pleading to county leaders lift coronavirus restrictions and resume in-person meetings.

    Inside the chambers, many people stood together, with only very few wearing masks.

    The virtual meeting opened to the crowd that gathered outside, demanding to have their voices heard in person.

    One by one each person spoke their three minutes.

    Thank you Les Baugh and Pat Jones for doing the right thing, while the rest of the board cowered at their keyboards.

    Supervisor Les Baugh and Jones were the only two to sit inside the chambers with the crowd. While Supervisors Rickert, Chimenti, Moty, and other county staff remained online.

    Here in Chico, council and staff are trying to use the shut-down to shove as many tax measures through the system as they can, hand over fist. In addition to the Pension Obligation Bond already on the table, our new mayor Andrew Coolidge has proposed another bond, “for streets”, and a sales tax increase measure. 

    The Pension Obligation Bond presentation, same as the presentation given in September 2020, elicited almost no discussion from council, who voted unanimously to give the consultant more money to set up the “validation process“. In September, the consultant told the Finance Committee one of the best things about a POB is that it “does not require validation...” He meant, by the voters. This bond, he explained, requires only “judicial validation“, a purely administrative process, with absolutely no input from the public.  

    The consultant assured council, “they all get approved, it’s just a matter of time.” 

    After the presentation, Coolidge asked Scott Dowell for a list of costs, and then Kasey Reynolds asked the consultant if there would be any “public informational meetings”. The consultant told her that is up to council, that they could do “small groups” if that was what council would like. And, I’m guessing, that would cost extra. 

    It’s obvious Reynolds just wants to be able to say the public was informed about this bomb before it got dropped. What a bitch.

    I was also shocked to see so few comments on Chico Engaged, but I noticed, all nine, including mine, were negative.  The clerk referred council to the comments without reading names. The clerk already quit reading the comments because they became abusive, and now she’s quit reading the names because nobody should have to read fakes names like “Harry Gonads.” Council spent less than a minute reading before they advised staff and the consultant to bring more information.  

    Meanwhile, I wanted people to know how much money flows through this city, directly out of the pockets of city residents. You know you pay a gas tax, right? Got any idea how much of that the city of Chico  gets? Or what they use it for? Have you seen $5,997,251 going into the streets or roads near your house? How about the garbage tax, cleverly titled, “Waste Hauler Franchise Fee” – $1,980,318 added to our garbage bills. And if you get cable tv, you paid into a total of $969,124, received as of June 30, 2020. 

    Here’s a double whammy – you not only pay a franchise on your PG&E bill, you pay “Utility Tax”. You also pay UT on your water bill, and if you have a landline you pay UT on that too. 

    Of course, I assume everybody knows about property taxes and sales tax, but I’m probably wrong – a lot of people have their property taxes paid by their mortgage company, so they can sail through life without a care in the world?

    Here’s the totals for those revenues, as of June 2020. Roughly $60 million in revenues, just from these sources. But our fair city never seems to have enough money to fix or maintain anything? I don’t think it’s a no-brainer that these funds should be available for street/road maintenance. The city used almost half a million in cable tv fees to remodel council chambers a couple of years back, with Andrew Coolidge telling me those funds “had to be used for that…they couldn’t be used for street maintenance…”

    Gas Tax $5,997,251 
    Waste Hauler franchise fees $1,980,313 
    Cable tv franchise fees $969,124
    PG&E franchise fees $787,861
    utility tax $7,317,103
    prop tax $18,621,070
    sales tax  $24,434,686

    During the same period, over $11,000,000 was paid to CalPERS through the Pensions Stabilization Trust and another fund called the “CalPERS Liability Reserve”. Both of these funds are filled by siphoning money out of all the other funds on a percentage of payroll. Most of the budgets of all these departments consists of salaries and monthly benefits payments, and many are in the red because of the further allocations for the UAL payments.

    Scott Dowell reported our UAL has grown 43% over the last 5 years, but he didn’t say why. The reason is the unrealistically low employee contributions of 9 – 15%. In fact, management and public safety only started paying ANYTHING  in 2012, when the UAL  was already over $125,000,000.  When City Manager Mark Orme and other management agreed to pay an additional 3% share, council gave them a raise to cover that percentage. Furthermore, Orme got himself a 457 Plan – a special 401K for public management. We pay over $20,000 a year into that 457, while Orme brags again and again that he has not received a raise for almost 5 years. That’s bullshit, what a stinking liar.

    All this shoved through under the guise of public health and safety. Are we just stupid, lame, weak? Before you condemn the rioters in DC, take a look at yourself, and then read the US Constitution again. 

    And Best Wishes to Shasta County, I hope this is the beginning of the end. 

     

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    Latest numbers posted for election night – attendance still falls miserably short

    15 Nov

    Look here – 

    http://clerk-recorder.buttecounty.net/elections/archives/eln31/update-2.pdf

    and then compare here –

    http://www.smartvoter.org/2012/11/06/ca/bt/city.html

    Voter turnout was in the dirt last week, look at the numbers. In 2012 we had eleven candidates for four city council seats – the top vote getter got over 15,000 votes. Last week we only had seven candidates running for three positions, Andrew Coolidge winning with just over 11,000. I wonder if he’s asking himself this morning – what happened to 50 people who voted for him in 2012 but didn’t vote for him last week?

    Almost 1,000 people left the city council portion of their ballot blank, while almost 4,000 “undervoted,” choosing less than the three requested.

    Here, compare with Election 2010 – Sorensen got roughly 3,000 more votes in that race, and there were two more candidates running in that race.

    http://clerk-recorder.buttecounty.net/elections/archives/eln22/22_official_results.html

    Voter turnout was definitely down folks, and we have to wonder why. I blame the choices – look how many people only voted for two, when both parties ran a slate. Meaning, they voted for part of a slate,  but couldn’t stomach the whole team?  This does not bode well – our council and our town are divided, but not evenly. The conservatives have the power, and they are backing the police department, because the police department put up the money to get them in there. When the cop contracts come up later in December we will take more steps down the Road to Perdition. In 2016 a frenzied council will place a tax measure on the ballot, let’s see what they decide to flop out.

    I’ll be making signs, let me know if you want one.  

     

     

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    Well, maybe not ANYBODY but Gruendl… council candidates look so bad this year, I’m writing in Joe Montes

    19 Oct

    This is a very unpleasant election, not as fun as usual – there aren’t any good candidates. City Council is an avalanche of crap. Look at our choices here – I already discussed why I’m not voting for Gruendl, now I’ll tell you why I’m not voting for ANY of them.

    Mark Sorensen says it’s too hard to cut the salaries and perks because he gets the same package as city manager of Biggs. He won’t rock the CalPERS boat. Did you see his campaign flier?

    I know, the same picture he's used for the past two or three elections.

    I know, the same picture he’s used for the past two or three elections, Mark and The Super Vixens.  

    What I see in this picture is five people on the public dole – we pay for a $21,000+ package for Mark Sorensen and his tribe there. He also gets a package from city of Biggs. Our contracts are written so that if an employee gets another package from another job, they can choose a package from the city and then accept a cash payout instead of the insurance policy. What do you think Sorensen does – does he take two policies at the public expense or does he take the better policy and then take cash for the lesser? 

    What I  don’t see in this picture is the grandkid he was bragging about a couple of years back, or any son-in-law to go along with said grandkid, so I’m guessing grandkid is also on the public dole. 

    No, this man will never take any kind of stand against public overcompensation, he’s never going to go after the conflict of interest in the cop and fire contracts (the city collects their unions dues, even from employees who don’t want to be in the union, and they use the money for elections). An endorsement for this man is an endorsement for bankruptcy and a life in chains for the private sector worker.

    And then there’s little Reanette Fillmer – when Michael Jones asked her if she will get a public pension for her work in Tehama County, she said she didn’t know. How cute – playing dumb? She works as a human resources consultant for a law group that works out of  CalPERS, doing CalPERS bidding in public entities all over the state. Now she’s here to make sure we pay our pension premiums so CalPERS doesn’t go bust and  take all those phat pensions with it.

    http://publiclawgroup.com/people/reanette-fillmer/

    I’ll just lump Forough Molina and  Lupe Arim-Law along with Gruendl because they won’t say anything that Gruendl and the Democrats haven’t pre-approved. In fact, in our conversation about the PG&E rate increase, Molina came off as an idiot.

    I am interested in this discussion. I am one of those people who keeps my bills forever and fume over the changing charges. I remember in college physics, my prof told us that a group of Yale students could not figure out how the heck PG&E charged customers. Not sure if that was true, or just getting us fired up to solve some problems, but it sounded right to me. It’s pretty crazy, really, that people don’t seem to notice these increases. I guess on a single income, I do notice.

    I work during the day, and have a pretty full calendar now, but do have some evenings I could find an hour or so for something important like this.

    Let me know.
    Forough

    She can’t look at her bill and see what’s happening? She also excuses herself out of participating because of her job – will she have time to perform her duties on council? Probably – her duties would just be rubber stamping whatever Gruendl says. Same for Arim-Law – neither of them will discuss anything in depth, because they’re afraid to make any statement that is out of step with Gruendl and Mulhullond. They’re just a couple of fist-puppets.

    Andrew Coolidge has lied right to me, he’s said things to me and then denied them later – I predict this guy will win, and then we’re going to be up Shit Creek without a paddle.  He’s the cops’ boy, and along with Fillmer and Sorensen, he’s going to take us down the road to Perdition.

    The only candidate I can say I have an ounce of respect for is Rodney Willis. He’s the only one with the balls to say he’ll favor a tax. You know they all will, but they’re lying right now to get elected.  Still, I couldn’t vote for this guy, he didn’t have anything else, just honestly admitting he wanted to give the cops more money. Honesty isn’t enough Rodney, you have to have more brains than that. 

    I wrote in Joe Montes. Joe is the only one who would discuss anything pertinent. He’s also very qualified to work on employee relations – he’s an administrative law judge, the same kind of judge that sat on our CPUC hearing like an old hooker holding down a popular corner. But he seems to be more concerned with the public welfare – he’s the one that opined it is a conflict of interest for city councilors to vote on contracts that include a clause that the city collects union dues that are funneled into councilors’ campaigns. That was enough for me, the rest of them are a pile of shit – I wrote in Joe Montes.

     

     

     

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    CPOA MOU – cops asking for 5 percent raise, other cherries

    17 Oct

    I received the agenda for the next city council meeting yesterday, and there at  the bottom is a discussion of the cops latest contract proposal. Here’s the report summary – I’ll admit, I edited in the slashes in that first date, they’d been left out and it looked like nonsense:

    Chico POA
    Proposal – September 24, 2014
    The following is a proposal for a successor MOU to the one expiring 12/31114 between the
    Chico Police Officers’ Association and the City of Chico. This proposal is intended to begin the
    bargaining process and introduce several ideas that the POA believes can create a better
    environment within the City of Chico Police Department, specifically the Departments ability to
    retain and recruit police officers.
    When possible, the current MOU provision that would be affected is listed. Wording is NOT
    final and will be edited to reflect any changes prior to submission to the City in formal
    bargaining.

    1. Three year term ofMOU: 11/11/15-12/31/17. 1.3A 

    2. Salary. 5% increase effective 1/1/15, 1/1116 and 1/1/17. 5.1 and Exhibit B
    3. Longevity. Add four new longevity step increases of 4% at the following length of time
    of employment with the city: 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and 25 years. New Article
    5.12 “Longevity Pay”
    4. Pay Step Addition and Adjustment. 5.1C
    a. Add a Step H at 5% salary increase.
    b. Add a “training pay” step equivalent to $18 per hour.
    5. Cash out Holiday Time Banlc Reinstate policy of allowing employees to cash out
    unused holiday time bank hours each year. 6.2
    6. Vacation Cash Out. Allow employees to accrue vacation above the maximum caps and
    to cash out any unused vacation accrued above the caps at the end of each calendar
    year. 6.5
    7. Holiday Hours. City shall provide ten hours of Holiday Time Bank pay for holidays.
    6.1A
    8. OT Pay for Holidays. City shall pay employees overtime rate for working holidays. 5.2
    and 6.1
    9. FICA and Dental to be paid by City. 6.3

    I had to ask Debbie Presson to reload the reports yesterday, because she’d “accidentally” loaded them so that they could not be cut and paste. She complained that it would “take hours” to reload the reports properly, but she did it. I think they are required by law to do that, even though she tried to avoid doing it for years, telling me, she was afraid I’d edit them if they were available in cut and paste. I swear to God, she told me that. All the sudden Chris Constantin showed up and now she has to load them the way I ask. Every now and then I catch her loading them wrong and all I have to do is ask – she reloads them. She claims it’s a matter of a little button being switched. If a private sector worker made that mistake constantly I think they’d be out of a job, but Debbie not only stays hired,  she gets over $135,000 a year in salary and only pays 9 percent of her loaded benefits package.  I know it seems petty – but just think, what does “hours” of her time cost, to load reports into a computer? 

    Of course when I cc’d Chris Constantin, he sent me the whole MOU, in cut-and-pastable format.  The summary only highlighted stuff the cops want to change – they want a 5 percent raise (bust a snicker!), they want their holiday and sick leave banks restored, they want, they want, they want. They  remind me of the bums on the street corners, hand out, mouth open, ass slackened.

    Michael Jones provides a good commentary on the summary here,

    http://chicopolitics.com/2014/10/16/police-staffing/

    but doesn’t discuss what I found in the whole MOU – the city will still collect union dues, including those  officers who don’t want to join the union (they call that a “service fee”), and then handing the money over to the same union that dumps money into every election. And, Jones reports, the CPOA has missed the filing deadline for their campaign report.  It was due October 6, but still is not posted. Jones dug into the muni code and found this to be a misdemeanor. Wow, let’s call the cops!  Jones was the one who busted the news that such an agreement, according to administrative law judge and ex-city council candidate Joe Montes, is a blatant conflict of interest. 

    Here’s our dilemma: these contracts will not come up for discussion on council until AFTER THE ELECTION. And, I will remind Jones, they spend and collect late, so they don’t post their biggest report until AFTER THE ELECTION.  I hope he’s not too disappointed when his candidates, Mark Sorensen, Reanette Fillmer and Andrew Coolidge, are shown to be the biggest recipients of the cops’ attentions, and then all turn around and sign this contract with very little editing. They will also be first on board for the sales tax increase, that’s my next prediction. 

     NOTE – I didn’t catch all the weird typos in the summary, but it’s readable

     

     

     

     

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    Chico City Council race kicks off next Sunday, April 27, with Andrew Coolidge, Chico library, noon to one pm

    19 Apr

    Next Friday we have our first city council candidate coming in to the library for a chit-chat – Andrew Coolidge. You may remember Coolidge from 2012.

    As I scan over my drafts file, I see plenty of city of Chico  issues I haven’t had time to talk about – a back page story about California’s looming pension liability, a letter from a Chico man suggesting we set another tax on ourselves to fund more cops, a chart showing that Cal Water gives public agencies like cities a flat water rate while the rest of us are on meters, an article about a pile of bad home loans recently written off by the city, BK Brook’s letter about the problems at Chico’s long neglected sewer plant, an editorial from a man who has never attended an airport commission saying we need to “get better commercial service at the airport…” , and then an interesting report about how claims against the city – for stuff like falling tree limbs and injuries/tire damage due to broken sidewalks and potholes – are UP.  Have you looked at Bidwell Park lately? You are taking your life in your hands walking into Bidwell Park – the trees need to be trimmed along the driveway, or somebody is going to be seriously injured.

    We need to make sure these candidates are not riding on a cloud of air. What do they know about the real issues? Has Coolidge read the employee contracts? What does he think about paying benefits and pensions on people that make three, four, five times the median income? Months ago Coolidge made a public statement about the water rate increase – what has he done since?  Has he contacted the Ratepayer Advocate or the CPUC, does he have any news of our rate case, has he written a letter of protest? Has he attended an airport commission meeting – how many? Has he attended any meetings Downtown, which ones? Does he know how much money has been taken from the sewer fund to pay pensions and benefits? Does he understand that our sewer has reached capacity, and there are concerns about our water table falling, but our city keeps handing out building permits?

    So far we have two city council candidates lined up, Coolidge and Joe Montes.  I don’t know who else is running because Debbie Presson won’t post the filings – she’s waiting until after the June primary, because she’s just plain lazy and incompetent. I’m curious about measures or initiatives that might be on the city ballot, so if I get a chance I’ll go down to her office and ask to look at them. In the meantime, let’s give Coolidge a good vetting, that’s next Sunday, April 27, from noon to one pm, Chico Library at First and Sherman Aves.

     

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    Get a convoluted answer.

    4 Dec

    I won’t pretend to understand what goes on Downtown. Sometimes I am afraid to ask questions, because they just lead to more questions. When I asked Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy how much the city spends on employee pensions a year, I didn’t know what I was getting into.

    First there’s the “employer share,” and that’s a gob-stopper – over $9 million a year. And then there’s the “employee share” – and we pay that too. There’s the terminology – “employer paid member contribution.” And there’s never a straight answer to anything.

    When I asked, “how much the city spends,” I meant, in total, all of it. But Hennessy “only recalled” the portion that comes out of the General Fund – about $7 million, she says. She forgot about all the other walnut shells she moves to pay these employee costs.

    Ms. Sumner~

     
    At last week’s Finance Committee, I stated that the cost of the City’s pension was $7M, however I was recalling the approximate General Fund portion only.  The estimated cost across all funds is budgeted at $10.1M for FY12-13.
     
    Sorry for the confusion.  Please let me know if you have any further questions.
     
    Thanks,
    Jennifer
    Jennifer Hennessy, Finance Director

    website: www.ci.chico.ca.us

    “Across all funds“? See what I mean about the walnut shells? They have over 50 funds now, I can’t remember how many, and I can’t remember where I put the blog where I talked about it before. That’s a lot of confusion, and that’s why they do it that way. They can shift money from one fund to the other to pay for stuff they couldn’t pay out of the first fund. That’s like saying, “now that this money is in my purse instead of my 401K, I can’t spend it without consequences!”

    Tonight they are installing a new council. I can only predict a darker picture for Chico. Randall Stone and Tami Ritter are two of the biggest pigs who have ever hit the trough.

    When I was a kid I lived in the community of Glenn, where my grandparents belonged to various social organizations. We had “feeds” over at the Glenn Pheasant Hall, where everybody would bring a covered dish. With food in it, you know? Except for this one family of enormous fatties – I won’t say their name, they were nice enough people – but they would walk into a pot luck party carrying empty casserole dishes covered with fresh tin foil. They would walk straight over to the table and load their plates with food, several times, and then when everybody else had their fill, both the man and the woman would totter over to the table with those casserole dishes and load them full of whatever was left. The adults wouldn’t say anything as these pigs chatted their way up and down that table, filling those dishes with whatever they wanted, but we kids couldn’t believe it. We weren’t allowed to make pigs of ourselves that way, seconds were for really good children whose mom had brought a contribution to the table.  We’d follow these two up to the table, wide-eyed and gape-mouthed, marveling aloud at the amounts they were able to stuff into those dishes.  In fact, my sister and I used to bolt our food just so we could go and sit across the table from them to watch them eat! It was a-MAY-zing.  Then we’d file along with the rest, watching them load their take-out containers.  The bolder among us would ask, “whatcha gonna do with all that food?” Some kids thought they might have dogs. But the man would just laugh and say, “Eat it!” As if he had nothing to be ashamed of. The adults would all stand off, some of them would cover their mouths and giggle, and they’d all have something to say later, after this couple made their way out to their enormous station wagon with those piled high dishes of other people’s hard work. But nobody wanted to rock the community boat. No, these people were not particularly good neighbors or hard workers, their house was a disheveled eyesore and they never came around in times of need. But in a small community, you “have to get along,” and we did. 

    But Chico is NOT a small friendly community anymore,  so  I’m going to say it. Randall Stone is a worthless, soft-handed leech who should not be allowed on council unless he is willing to divest himself from his development business which bamboozled the city out of millions in RDA money to build clap-trap low-income housing that will never contribute anything to the community but another eyesore. He’s wangled the city out of so much money it’s inappropriate for him to sit at the dais. In past when I’ve criticized this guy, he’s tried to smear me on Topix. He’s a cheap, nasty little pinhead, and having him on the dais, while it might have some entertainment value, is going to be a disaster for the city. 

    And then there’s Tami Ritter, who has been in one trough position after another ever since she trolled into Chico, with complaints from everybody involved.   She left the Torres shelter under accusations from homeless people who were complaining she ran the place like her own home, picking and choosing who got to stay based on whim. She got FIRED from Chico Green School when she complained she wasn’t getting a big enough salary. From Chico News and Review, September 2012:

    Ritter, a well-known Chico resident who quickly won the support of the teaching staff when she assumed her position in July, described some chaotic weeks that led up to the school’s opening.

    Tami Ritter lost her job as the school’s part-time principal during the upheaval.

    PHOTO BY LESLIE LAYTON

    Ritter, a former director of the Torres Shelter, had been hired in May while she completed work in Philadelphia on a second master’s degree. When she returned to Chico in July, she found that no site had yet been selected for the Green School, creating a lot of “organizational tension.” She said she and a few others worked out of the Chico State teaching office of Sandoe, a computer science professor.

    The group decided on the Cohasset Road site, set up the school and recruited the students. But Ritter said she soon found herself working 45 hours a week in a position that paid for 20 hours a week. She took the issue to the board of directors, and the board suggested she limit her unpaid overtime to five to 10 hours a week. She and the board often disagreed on how she could be most effective with so few hours.

    Then, Ritter said, she defied board instructions to withhold information—specifically the school’s student roster—from CUSD. The Green School board placed her on administrative leave and asked her to show up for a second mediation session.

    She said she refused to go through mediation for a second time without a representative, and she then received e-mail notification that she was fired.

    There is so much impropriety about the Chico Green School mess,  I don’t know where to start.  Did you get that part where she told them 20 hours wasn’t enough and they gave her 10? That’s because she’s a bitch to work with.   Is this the kind of performance we’ll get from Ritter on council? When I encountered her at an envelope-stuffing party I got talked into  by Maureen Kirk, she was totally weird. Instead of walking over to the main table and getting a pile of letters and envelopes for herself, she just walked right over to my table and sat down next to me without a word, abruptly snatching up my little piles of letters and envelopes  and placing them in front of herself! Then she let everybody at the table know she was in a bad mood and didn’t want to talk. Silence! How can you possibly be productive with a person like that? I predict she will not get along with Schwab, who is quick to let other women know when she feels they are being “too pushy”.   And to top it all off, at her age,  Ritter’s got a new baby – that will make you bitchy alright.  Let’s see how many meetings she excuses herself from because of the baby. That’s why I feel she ran in the first place – she is currently unemployed, and uninsured, and that’s kind of tough with a new kid.  She’s like a pigeon looking for a roost.

    Ritter and Stone are snout-nosed trough dwellers. This is a council we really need to keep an eye on. We need citizens to attend meetings, and ask the right questions. We need to get together to compare notes, because as you’ve seen, they’ll FLAT LIE to get  their way Downtown.

    And that’s what I’m looking for in a candidate for 2014. Coolidge is still eager to be on council – he needs to make his presence more known. We haven’t heard a peep out of the guy since he got himself on the local news protesting Measure J. Then he posted that blurb on youtube, and never said another word about it. He raised weird non-issues on his website – “Andrew will oppose any elimination of the leaf pick-up program…” ?  There is not one word about the budget or Measure J – just pseudo problems with no specific solutions. He has shown no real knowledge of city affairs.  I have yet to see him at a meeting aside from a couple of council meetings – standing silently and noticeably at the back of the room, just so he could say he was there. He really should have been at that Finance Committee meeting last week. There’s no excuse for not making meetings if you want to be on council. 

    I don’t know if Toby Schindelbeck is interested in running again. I can’t help but admire Toby for being himself, but some people didn’t like him for the same reason they don’t like me – he doesn’t eat shit with a smile, he tends to tell people what he thinks. That won’t make you any friends, but it will get you my respect.  The kind of people who voted for Schwab, Stone and Ritter want to hear lies, they don’t have the courage to hear the truth, and they’re too lazy and stupid to do anything about it anyway.

    I won’t forget – Toby actually accomplished something really important at the expense of his council campaign – he forced the Finance Director to give the monthly reports she’s required to give under Section 908 of the city code.  That is huge people. Now it’s time for all of us to pay attention. I think Toby has what it takes to turn this city around, whereas the rest of them seem to be worried more about keeping their butts in the chair than anything else. By going to the mat and risking the election – you realize how many city workers vote, don’t you? – he has actually accomplished a monumental task. Now, if the rest of the citizens would only pay attention, we might be able to get our city turned around, back on track. 

    Toby Schindelbeck proved that old saying – “If the people will lead, the leaders will follow…” 

    Right now, the candidate I’m looking for is willing to say NO to the police and fire employees, and make them pay their own pensions. Hellllloooo?

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    Thankyou City Council Candidate Andrew Coolidge for taking on Ann Schwab’s Phone Tax Plan

    7 Aug

    You may have seen the following bit on the news:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeE2xJfFiUM&feature=youtube_gdata

    Andrew Coolidge, candidate for Chico City Council, has got the issue onto the news, good for him.   This is the kind of candidate I can support in November – a regular citizen who’s actually out there DOING SOMETHING! 

    Coolidge points out that Ann Schwab is out of touch with the reality most of her constituents live – she thinks the average phone bill is only about 50 bucks.  No, Pollyanna Schwab, that’s about the lowest cell phone bill you can get – is she talking about pre-paid cards?  Those will also be taxed. My family gets the cheapest package available, and for the four of us it’s just about exactly $98 a month. And that’s the strip-down package. I know plenty of people who pay more, and Coolidge estimated high bills of $200 plus. I believe it. 

    So, under Ann’s phone tax, my family will pay almost $4.50 more, a tax that goes into the General Fund, which can be used for ANYTHING, including the “employee share” of benefit and pension premiums.

    That’s the other problem I had with the story. When Alan Marsden ran this story, he quoted Ann as saying the money would go to “public safety”. In the ballot argument she wrote in favor of raising your taxes, she says the money will go to public safety. Well, that’s all nice and everything, but that’s not what the measure says. The measure doesn’t promise anything of the sort. The measure only promises to place a 4 and a half cent tax on your cell phone. 

    There’s alot that’s wrong with this phone tax, and I’ll be posting more information as the days go by.

    And tonight, don’t forget, Toby Schindelbeck will be making his request for more disclosure from Finance Mis-Director Jennifer Hennessy. He will need support at the dais. This request is scheduled for the end of the meeting, under “Reports and Communications.” 

     

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