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Too many managers leads to gross mismanagement of Bidwell Park – but watch Staff use it as an excuse for a revenue measure

A few weeks ago we were all so outraged over the cutting of 31 healthy oak trees near Chico Creek Nature Center. The chicken feathers hit the fan. I was glad to see some outrage over a long-time pattern of neglect and mismanagement of Bidwell Park. But, here again, city staff is using this as another pitch for a revenue measure.

This week city public works director Eric Gustafson admitted he didn’t make a work plan for that job – how would the crews know what to cut? Furthermore, he didn’t properly mark the trees. In fact, the city had no standardized system for marking trees, even though an arborist has been on staff for a couple of years now. And the staffer who was supposed to be supervising the crews “had been called away…” Called away to what? Lunch? The bathroom? What other “emergency” would prompt a supervisor to leave a crew with no work plan and no standardized tree markings? Cutting trees over a foot in diameter? This is incompetence.

This incident is just another example of how badly the city manages Bidwell Park. And Chico Area Recreation District took over the Nature Center several years ago – all these managers, but no management?

Gustafson has the nerve, again, to cry about his “staff shortage“. Didn’t he read this post I made at the time?

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2019/03/31/keep-rattling-your-chains-write-letters-to-both-papers-tell-them-we-know-where-the-money-is-going/

Gustafson continues to repeat The Big Lie – staff shortage. But he admitted to the Park Commission ” there were ‘a lot of assumptions made,’ and gaps in communications became obvious.” Assumptions? Gaps in communication? That’s not caused by a staff shortage, it’s caused by a lack of attention to your job. In fact, early reports of the incident said that Gustafson was notified of the cutting at about 11am but did not come out to the job site – less than 5 miles from his office – until about 2 in the afternoon. I think that’s dereliction of duty.

The Big Truth – they’ve deferred maintenance and cut the working staff in the park because they’ve been siphoning money out of the park fund to pay their pensions. Looking at the 2018-19 budget, under “expenditures” on line 996, I found $287,396 in “indirect cost allocation”. As explained by city assistant manager Chris Constantin, that’s money taken from the park fund to pay salaries and benefits of non-park department employees.

Constantin explained it one day in a meeting – as we sat discussing a certain issue, all the employees in the room, from the council members on the board to the city manager to the finance director to the clerk, and including any staffers who came in to give a report, or just because they might be asked a question, were being paid out of the pertinent fund. So when the Finance Committee takes up the subject of putting a revenue measure on the ballots for “road maintenance,” the road fund is billed for the time of every employee in that room, their salaries, benefits and pensions are taken out of that fund. That includes a percentage for the “Pension Stabilization Trust,” out of which is paid the “Unfunded Accrued Liability” (Pension Deficit).

So don’t buy this story about “staff shortage” – tell the truth. It’s time to trim management, in fact, get rid of “classic” employees who are only required to pay 11 percent of their benefits. New hires are required to pay 50 percent. Get rid of the bloated bureaucrats who refuse to do any work, and hire some young people with better attitudes who are willing to pay their own freight.

Tags: Bidwell Park, Chico Creek Nature Center, Eric Gustafson Chico Dept. of Public Works, Oaks Massacre Bidwell Park Chico CA

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Categories CARD revenue measure, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, Uncategorized

Keep rattling your chains – write letters to both papers, tell them we know where the money is going

31 Mar

Dave Howell wrote a great letter to the News and Review, taking on the pensions. Thanks for going to the trouble to write these letters Dave, I know it’s not easy to get a letter in the N&R.

The problem is pensions

Re “Taxes and police” (Letters, by Martine Stillwell, March 14):

Martine Stillwell is justifiably outraged that our city’s politicians are pushing a tax increase to fix the roads after letting them fall into disrepair thus increasing the cost to repair them.

I wonder how much more outraged she would be if she knew that tens of thousands of our tax dollars are being paid to an opinion research firm to sell us that tax increase. And that doesn’t include the cost of the city bureaucracy’s staff time.

The reason for the awful condition of our infrastructure and the reason for this tax increase are the unsustainable cost of government employee compensation, especially pensions. For many years money for infrastructure repair has been siphoned off for raises and unsustainable pensions. Does she know our bureaucrats have pensions worth millions?

Yet instead of pension reform, our politicians believe that in a county with low wages, very high living expenses and a 21 percent poverty rate, the answer is to pass a tax increase that hits the poor the hardest.

I wonder if Martine and others will be outraged enough to vote in the next election against the tax increase and the politicians who push it and encourage others to do the same.

Dave Howell, Chico

In the same issue this letter appeared, editor Melissa Daugherty bitched about the park budget being shorted these last few years – but she didn’t mention why? So I wrote a letter about it.

Melissa Daugherty is correct (3/28), Bidwell Park has suffered deferred maintenance since massive layoff of park staffers over the last six years. The park department was absorbed into Public Works, where director Eric Gustafson oversees not only the park, but the airport, city buildings, street trees, right of way zones, street cleaning, traffic safety, city vehicles, and the sewer plant.

Like Dave Howell said (3/28), the problem is “the unsustainable cost of government employee compensation, especially pensions.” I’ll add, management top-heavy. Twelve management positions overseeing the park, including Gustafson, cost over $1 million in total compensation. The park division only has five “maintenance workers”, amounting to less than $300,000 in total compensation.

While staff defers maintenance in the park and other infrastructure all over town, they continue to pay almost $20 million a year toward their pensions, about $8 million of that toward the pension deficit. At the April 2 council meeting, staff recommends renewal of the CalPERS agreement, requiring employees to pay only 11% of the cost of their pensions, the taxpayers expected to pick up the deficit.

As long as council and staff continue to place the pensions ahead of the public, infrastructure will continue to be short changed, including Bidwell Park.

Juanita Sumner, Chico

I got my information from publicpay.gov (GCC, secretary of state)

https://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Cities/City.aspx?entityid=79&year=2017

and the city website – management contracts are available on the Human Resources page.

http://www.chico.ca.us/human_resources_and_risk_management/labor_agreements_home.asp

At the GCC website, you’ll see, the park budget also pays for several police/traffic officers, interns, and two “administrative assistants”. The city has to bring in Salt Creek inmates because they don’t have enough workers. And management is without a clue.

Eric Gustafson spends most of his time in meetings, same for “Resources Manager” Linda Herman. I’d bet my last $5 they don’t even own an appropriate pair of shoes to walk in the park. Both are clinically obese, and neither has any kind of credentials suggesting they are qualified to run a park.

The city continues to use the park and other sagging infrastructure to press for a revenue measure – I think we need to press for some firings Downtown. Starting at the top, with Mark Orme, followed by Chris Constantin, Scott Dowell, and every department head. It’s time for a tick dip.

Tags: Bidwell Park, Bidwell Park Nature Center, Bidwell Park oaks massacre, Chico News and Review

Comments 10 Comments
Categories Chico bankruptcy, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, public employee contracts, revenue measures Chico CA, Uncategorized

You can’t always count on the cops – know your neighborhood, and keep an eye on it

8 Jan

My husband takes our dog Biscuit out every morning for a walk around the neighborhood. She’s diabetic and needs the exercise to keep her blood sugar down, and my husband is on alert ever since a car was broken into across the street last year. We both feel it’s a good idea to walk the neighborhood regularly, different times of day, keep in touch with our surroundings.

No matter what the weather, they take their morning constitutional over to the park. After she came home soaking wet a couple of times, my husband decided to make her a raincoat from a garbage bag.

She was not thrilled about the raincoat. That’s not a happy face, and the tail is all wrong.

Of course she cowered and tried to shake it off at first, but as soon as she realized it meant WALK, she was on board. Now I put it on her anytime I want to take her outside.

Taking Fashion Maven Biscuit out to the mail box. There’s the correct tail posture.

Of course, Badges has to have everything Biscuit has, so we fitted him with his own little jacket.

Marshall Badges and Deputy Ding-Dong during a rare moment in between dumpers.

Badges wasn’t too sure either, but like Biscuit, he now identifies the raincoat with WALK, and he actually holds his head up to have it pulled on.

Don’t let the weather keep you from being active. Get out there and keep an eye on your hood.

Tags: Bidwell Park, crime in Chico CA, illegal homeless camps, neighborhood security

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Categories Chico homeless problem, crime in Chico, public safety issues

Park Commissioner Ober takes up sales tax pitch

9 Jun

I have had my ear to the railroad tracks, listening for the rumblings of a sales tax increase campaign, and I think the first train has come in – Park Commissioner Richard Ober wrote the opinion piece below for the Chico News and Review.

It’s a threat – pay an increased sales tax or we close Bidwell Park road, stop cleaning bathrooms, stop pruning trees, etc, etc. Funny thing is, a lot of his threats have already happened. The park is already dirty and disheveled, trash all over the place, invasive non-native plants covering the ground, choking out native species and leaving native animals without proper habitat. Caper Acres is a trash pit, never know who will be hanging around there, when the gate’s open, that is.

And he’s so out of touch with most people’s every day reality – a dollar for a cup of coffee? He’s trying to make it sound like we only pay sales tax on things we don’t need, like we’re all just dripping with discretionary cash. This reminds me of the time somebody asked George Senior, how much is a gallon of milk? Ober forgets all the household items we use everyday – soap, toilet paper, all those non-food items we buy at the grocery store are TAXED.

Ober needs a reality check – but you apparently need to be a city insider to have his public e-mail. The contact mechanism on the BPPC page doesn’t work. You will have to contact him through $taffer Lise Smith-Peters, LSPeters@ci.chico.ca.us Notice how she set up her e-mail with the first three letters capitalized, and leaves out the “Smith” in her hyphenated last name. These addresses are supposed to be set up so you can just use the first initial and last name, but it’s funny how many $taffers use these tricks to keep their publicly-paid e-mail address a secret from the public. Let Smith-Peters know too – she will just have to manage to drive that brand new city pickup truck around the park all day doing nothing on her current $56,000/year salary.

If you don’t want to write to the papers, send your letters here, keep them factual and in somewhat good taste, and I’ll run them here.

This article was published on 06.06.13.

The author is a longtime resident of Chico who has served on the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission for eight years.

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Ask anyone here what makes Chico special and the answers at the top of the list will always include “Bidwell Park.” The park is more than one of the largest municipal parks in the country hosting nearly 2 million visits every year. It is at the core of who we are. It is the heart and lungs of a landscape that is unique in its combination of urban charm and thrilling wildness.

Ask yourself: Whatever the reason you and your family came to Chico, is the park part of the reason you stayed? And then ask yourself: What is that worth?

We know that the city is under budgetary siege. Are we ready to endure the pain of draconian cuts? Or are we willing to step in and pay for that which defines us as a community?

Picture this: Upper Park Road is closed. The trails to Monkey Face are washed out. A fire has denuded all sides of Ten Mile House Road. There are no lifeguards at Sycamore Pool. Restrooms go uncleaned. And the trees are un-pruned and declining. Valley-oak seedlings choke under tangles of invasive blackberry vines. A chain locks the gate at Caper Acres.

Are we willing to accept this?

How much is Bidwell Park worth to us? We take pride in saying, “We’re from Chico, the town with Bidwell Park.” As the stewards of this place for a short while, it is our duty to do better.

How much is your park worth? When you spend a dollar at the coffee shop, is the park worth a penny? When you lounge in your back yard and know that you live in a town with a park like Bidwell (and your house is worth more because of it), is it worth a few dollars?

Let’s tell the leadership of our city that it is worth our pennies and dollars, and that we’ll do what we need to preserve it. Because we’re willing to add a few dollars in taxes in order to pass along to our grandchildren that which makes us who we are.

If you’re new to Chico, Bidwell Park might seem like just another place behind a gate, and so, why not leave the gate closed? But Bidwell Park is more than that. It’s who we are and we need to do the right things to keep that gate open.

Tags: Bidwell Park, Bidwell Parks and Playgrounds Commission, Chico Ca, Richard Ober Chico Ca

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Chico Taxpayers Association

Too many managers leads to gross mismanagement of Bidwell Park – but watch Staff use it as an excuse for a revenue measure

Keep rattling your chains – write letters to both papers, tell them we know where the money is going

You can’t always count on the cops – know your neighborhood, and keep an eye on it

Park Commissioner Ober takes up sales tax pitch

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