Tag Archives: Ann Schwab

Blowing money out their patoot, Part II

18 Feb

I am a woman of many moods. People who’ve known me a long time say they’ve watched me turn from a liberal to a conservative. I hate labels – those feelings have been mixed up inside of me for years, and I’ve followed one party or another because I thought they were expressing the same feelings. Over the years, I’ve realized, you can’t trust any big political party, and the bigger politics get, the less effect the common person will have.

So when Planning Commissioner and long-time gadfly Jon Luvass brought forward a “discussion” of “corporate personhood,” I was conflicted. Yes, I think “corporate personhood,” as explained to me by Ralph Nader about 1993, is bad.

“Corporate personhood” came from a legislative decision made decades ago – about 100 years ago? –  that gave corporations “human rights.”  Boiled down, this means, they can scream “harrassment” if you go after them for say, coloring the stream that runs through your town with toxic waste, or turning the air over your city into soot soup. It gives them all kinds of protections they don’t deserve, and it’s caused us a lot of problems in holding them to the laws that you and I must obey.

If you want a better explanation about this, go to www.nader.org/ – Ralph has been hashing issues like this for years, that’s why I have voted for him in every presidential election ever since 1992. 

Meanwhile, Jon Luvass has supported MoveOn.org and the Democratic Party. Hmmmm.

What Luvass, prodded forward by Ann Schwab and Linda Furr and who knows who else,  brought to the Internal Affairs Committee last week was not a discussion about “corporate personhood” but their own hypocritical diatribe on campaign spending. 

Our election process, he says, are being “swung” by “big big money.”

This is where I find Luvass disingenuous. This is a guy who has supported MoveOn.org since it was created, going to the first MoveOn convention and then holding a party at his co-housing community to spread the word. Luvass has also long been one of the stinking heads of the Esplanade League stinking fish, the Super PAC of the liberals. He’s closely connected to Dave Guzzetti’s “Chico Democrats,” which by the way, has nothing to do with Democracy.

Luvass had the nerve to ramble on about how these evil PACS – not his, see – are ruining Democracy. “This is a matter of money speaking louder than the mouths of human beings…” but, “I’m not talking about corporations in general (like the Esplanade League), but ‘MAJOR’ corporations…”

Well, that’s real pretty Jon, but it doesn’t carry much weight coming from a guy who bought his way onto the Planning Commission with the single largest donation allowed in a Chico City Council race.  Yep, Luvass gave Maureen Kirk $950, just short of the $1000 maximum, in the campaign directly leading to her appointing him as Planning Commissioner. 

Yes Jon, that looks really bad, especially given the fact that you had no qualifications whatsoever and didn’t even read the city code until I pointed that out to you a good eight months into the job.

Luvass acts as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but he and his friends are also quick to call in their big guns when they really need money  – the California nurses union and the SEIU were the biggest contributors to the campaign against Measure A, and they both waited until the last quarter to donate so they wouldn’t have to disclose until AFTER THE ELECTION. Same with the Esplanade League, which also refuses to disclose just  exactly where it’s money comes from.

I saw Nancy Pelosi on PBS’s MacNeil Report the other night, railing about how the Republicans’ Super PACS are just ruining life as we know it. Reporter Judy Woodruff pointed out that Obama will be going with a Super PAC. Pelosi, looking like one of those apple-head puppets, croaked back that Obama’s money is DIFFERENT!  He discloses! Yeah, just like the Chico Democrats and the Esplanade League – we won’t find out whose fist is up Obama’s ass until he’s already made his inaugural address.

So, Jon, Ann, Linda – you can save your bullshit for those ignoramuses who would listen to you.  Nobody believes you are sincere in limiting campaign money, and this “corporate personhood” discussion is just more of your whitewash.

Meanwhile, council turns a deaf ear to my request to agendize a discussion of how a tax increase measure can get on the ballot WITHOUT one shred of support from the community.  Yes, five of them can contrive to shove it on the ballot without a petition. 

Please write to council and ask them to agendize my request for a public discussion of how a tax increase measure gets on our local ballot. I’ve written a formal request to the clerk’s office, and already one member of council has answered back that he won’t discuss it until Lando comes forward with his proposal. I told this council member, I’M NOT ASKING FOR A DISCUSSION OF LANDO’S PROPOSAL. I’m asking for a discussion of HOW ANY TAX INCREASE PROPOSAL CAN GET ON THE LOCAL BALLOT. 

If they can sit around for two hours masturbating themselves with this kind of crap, they can agendize my request.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Oh, come on, you’re NOT THAT DUMB!

8 Feb

Last night I acted on an impulse and went before city council to ask them to agendize a discussion regarding how a tax increase measure is placed on the local ballot.

As I said, our city clerk informed me that a tax increase measure can be placed on a ballot with nothing but a simple majority of council – 4 of 7 members. Or, council can call for the proponents to carry an approved  petition and gather 10 percent of the registered voters.

So I thought I’d get this discussion going by asking council to agendize it for a near future meeting.  This issue was brought up last November, just kind of leaked around, no real details were given about the measure itself or the people who are backing it.  Since then it has been treated like some kind of state secret. I think a tax increase is something that needs the star treatment, lots of publicity, lots of public attention., lots of yap-yap.

So I asked. What I got was surprising. Two of the seven acted as though I was asking for a discussion of the measure itself. That’s not what I said. I made my self point-blank clear – I had written it down on a piece of paper aforehand, and practiced reading it to my family. My husband and teenage son were able to tell me what I was saying, but when I read off that piece of paper at council, I got dumb stares and one councilor’s opinion that  “it might be premature to discuss this proposal…”

I stood back up and  asked council if they understood my request – at this point I was feeling pretty perplexed. They aren’t stupid. They knew I was asking to discuss the procedure by which such a measure is placed on the ballot, not the measure itself. So, why play dumb? Ann Schwab tried to flat ignore my request, while Scott Gruendl said it should be agendized, but immediately launched into his own tour de force rant over the assault at Burger King. I never got an answer.

Well, I think we know why, given this morning’s Enterprise Record:

“City now operating at a loss: Chico to lose millions for redevelopment, thousands more from main fund”

Last night they came right out with it – they’ve been paying salaries with the RDA, and benefits, and pensions.  Not to mention, the bond payments on the RDA debt. Yessiree, they been buying groceries and making the credit card payment WITH  the credit card.

So, I can see why they want the tax increase, oh sure. But I don’t appreciate the way they’re going about it, kinda dishonest, using that dumb act, as if.

I have a very smart dog. Her name is Biscuit.

Yep, that's the blue ball alright.

She has her toys she likes, among them, six lacrosse balls – three white, one red, one yellow, and one blue.  And she’ll play with all of them, but if you ask her for the blue one, that’s the one you get. She’ll search the entire back yard, through brush piles and weeds and gopher holes, under cars and behind sticker bushes. She’ll bring back that blue ball every time.  She never tries to hand me a stick, or a bone, or even a white ball or a yellow ball. She never acts like she doesn’t understand.  If she can’t find the blue ball, she tells me, and we go looking for it together. But she never plays dumb, or refuses to answer.

Maybe we should give her a stint on city council, see if she’s a better listener than Ann Schwab.

 

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , ,

Newer Entries →