There had been a meeting scheduled tonight for those interested in issues surrounding Caper Acres closure, but due to an emergency it’s been postponed until next Monday – Sept. 16 – 6:30 pm, same location – Faith Lutheran Church on East First Ave.
I will try to keep you posted!
I was on my way to the Economic Development committee meeting last week, late afternoon, and as I exited the park onto Vallombrosa Way, getting off my bike to thread my way through a group of fat-assed park walkers standing directly in the gateway, a woman arrived at the locked gate in her car and just sat there, staring.
“Why is this closed?” she demanded.
The other women, all of who seemed to have small credenzas taped onto their behinds, just stared back. I took my opportunity. “It’s closed because they spent all the park money on their $48 million unfunded pension liability…” Before I could finish that, she had shook her head and driven away. I don’t know if I was giving her too much info, or whether it truly disgusted her, but she left. We’ll see what kind of outrage that sparks.
How soon we forget. Caper Acres Volunteers will be having a meeting on Monday at the Faith Lutheran Church on East First, 6:30 pm. They met last week with park management, Dan Efseaf and Ruben Martinez, as well as Lise Smith Peters, the volunteer coordinator, and we’ll see if there’s any fingerprints on their foreheads. I think they were told they could either join the regular Park Volunteers, or they could form a non-profit. Abigail Lopez seems pretty determined, but if I were her, I’d take a harder line with $taff, and join me at City Hall to picket the contract talks. We’ll see.
I asked Dan Efseaf about the park donation fund, he gave me the number of that fund so I could look it up. This is not a task to take lightly – drink seven cups of coffee and load your pockets with bread crumbs to leave you a little trail by which to get yourself out. I haven’t done it yet. But you may remember, when I looked into the Downtown Parking fund, I found they use over half of that to pay salaries and benefits, mostly for workers who don’t have anything to do with Downtown Parking. They pay for an entire police position out of that fund, over $100,000, and no, that cop is not “dedicated” to Downtown. He could very well be sleeping off a good beating over behind the Christian Science Reading Room on Palmetto.
Oh yeah, we get some quality for these salaries, don’t we?
At last week’s Park Commission meeting, Efseaf mentioned repairs and maintenance needed at Caper Acres. Apparently, this is their excuse for closing Caper Acres – it’s “badly in need of repair,” and they don’t have the money to do it. Really? But they had the money to raise Efseaf’s salary by $20,000? And pay all but 4% of his pension?
Efseaf lists some specific projects in his e-mail below, and makes vague references to more repairs. No cost estimates? What the hell does this guy do all day? Any workman could give you a cost estimate, come on Mr. $93,000 a year! Hey, I got an idea – why don’t they contact the contractors and other public volunteer organizations who did the Nico Project, who re-built the Crooked House from the foundation up, who rebuilt the tree house slide, etc. Local contractors like the Ritchie Brothers. I’m wondering if those people, given past experience, would work with city staff again.
Dealing with our city staff is like dealing with a Repo Man – you have to be alert, all eyes and ears, and quick on the grab. “What’s right” doesn’t have anything to do with it – you have to be persistent, and you can’t ever be rude or the slightest bit belligerent, no matter how they treat you, or they’ll use it as an excuse to cut you off. It’s not a game for them, it’s a matter of money. They’re pretty damned ruthless, don’t forget who you’re dealing with. Egg stealers.
The entire park is a disaster. They’re trying to squeeze us, and they’ll do anything. They say they don’t have the staff to open the gates for us, but yesterday a giant garbage truck was trolling through the park. This used to be done by a guy or two guys in a city truck – you have to walk in and manually remove the bag. There’s no use to have a big garbage truck in there, and Nakamura himself has said these truck damage city streets, so what’s he doing sending them in there, with the park closed four days out of seven, to collect garbage sacks?
This is mismanagement, pure and simple. And taking a salary for NOT doing your job is embezzlement as far as I’m concerned.
Park manager Dan Efseaf’s e-mail answers to my questions posted below:
Ms. Sumner,
Sincerely,
Daniel Efseaff | Park and Natural Resource Manager
Public Works Department | City of Chico
I have been so mad about the park closures, I have not been able to blog it. But last night I ran into Erika (sp?), and now I know I’m not even hardly pissed off compared to some people. Erika is ready to march on city hall, and I hope she will do it.
Her husband, as though he was herding a small child, kept reprimanding her. “Erika, calm down!” My husband does that. He gets kind of freaked out when my face turns grey and I start vibrating, but, I had my vet give me a check-up, and he says the old ticker is in good shape!
So, I’m ready for trouble, with a capital ‘T’. I’m done with $taff, they’ve pushed it too far now. This is MUTINY people, and I say, they walk the plank.
We must ask our boy, Mark Sorensen, why we are paying new city manager Brian Nakamura $217,000 a year to close our parks. That’s msorensen@ci.chico.ca.us. Sorensen keeps telling us what a great job Nakamura is doing, but I’m not listening, I’m watching Nakamura. The first thing he did was demand a $50,000 increase in pay over old city manager Dave Burkland’s salary. His first act as city manager was to make a $50,000 “supplemental budget allocation” to cover his own salary. Then he “reorganized” the city departments, firing the hell out of the worker bees and then giving $30,000 salary raises to the remaining department heads – two of whom were friends he’d hired in the interim – new ass city mangler Mark Orme and financial trouble-shooter Chris “I really want to pay my own share but they won’t let me” Constantin.
Watching these three “fix” our city problems is like watching Red Adair put out a flaming oil well – bring in the dynamite! Oh, we’re sorry, did we blow up your little town?
What they’re up to, is exactly what I’ve already seen play out in Stockton and Vallejo. In Stockton, they hired a new city manager about three years ago. He proceeded to “reorganize,” hiring new administrators, at higher salaries. He gutted the police and fire departments in a town that has been a crime problem since the turn of the century. Now, he’s screaming “crime problem!” and telling the city council they need to put a tax increase measure on the ballot to fund crime prevention. If you don’t think that’s funny, you need to take another shot of Wild Turkey.
So now we have Brian Nakamura cut- cut-cutting the hell out of our town. Every day the Enterprise Record runs another propaganda piece about the “increase in crime.” The story this morning, about the cop who had to deal with the drunk Downtown, is absolutely comical. Our police department is a joke, except, they’re not funny. They’re bankrupting our town with their insane pensions, and all they can do is stand there and refuse to serve us unless we give them more money. Ha ha – they have a “no strike” clause in their contracts, but that doesn’t mean, they can’t just drag their feet and do a shitty job.
I predict Nakamura will use the same time line as the manager in Stockton – he’s going to ask for a tax increase measure to be placed on the 2016 ballot. Research tells them that tax measures do better in a gubernatorial election, cause more people come out. I don’t know if that’s true, but I know this – they’ll lie through their teeth to get us to pay. They’ll threaten and twist our arms with NO SERVICE.
Whose ready to take it right back up their ass? Let me know, I got some ideas.
In the meantime, you can tell Brian Nakamura what you think at bnakamura@ci.chico.ca.us. You can reach the council at dpresson@ci.chico.ca.us.
While you’re at it, write to park commissioner Richard Ober at richard.h.ober@gmail.com to let him know what you think of his constant pushing for a sales tax increase. Read the story below.
Volunteers ramp up to save Caper Acres
By ASHLEY GEBB-Staff Writer
Posted: 07/06/2013 12:09:06 AM PDT
The front gate at Caper Acres is seen in this file photo taken Wednesday in Chico. Caper Acres is…
CHICO — Without the ability to guarantee services in the wake of staffing reductions, the city was left with no option but to implement closures in Bidwell Park, Public Works Director Ruben Martinez said Friday.As the divisions adjust to reduced staffing, the city will start by providing services it knows it can guarantee and look for opportunities to restore other services as possible, Martinez said.
The crews want to keep Caper Acres, park bathrooms and gates open but it’s not feasible at this moment.
“Everybody wants to try it but we can’t be there sometimes,” he said. “We have to have that internal capacity to make sure we are there on days we say we are going to be there, rain or shine.”
City staff will now focus on preparing the park and its facilities for peak usage days of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Reductions in services start Monday.
Caper Acres, which has been closed on Mondays, will now be closed Monday through Thursday. If there is an opportunity to reopen the children’s fantasy playground to its old schedule, it will be the highest priority, Martinez said.
Residents are rallying to protest the closures and offering up the idea of volunteers to keep services afloat.
Abigail Lopez created a Facebook page called “Caper Acres Volunteers” in hopes residents would come together to save the fantasy children’s park.
“If the city is really concerned with the budget — and we have a $4.8 million deficit — I think they’d be willing
to provide the training to the volunteers to do what needs to be done,” she said. “I don’t see that in a community like Chico, why that wouldn’t be possible.”She is willing to step up and clean bathrooms, pick up trash, open gates — whatever it takes. It’s well worth the value to her 5-year-old son, Chase, who has autism.
“It’s really helpful for him to be exposed to the regular kids as well as the special-needs kids,” she said. “He loves to run around and be outside.”
When Lopez heard about the park closures, she knew she had to take action.
“That’s a part of the Chico experience. Having it not available so many days a week, it’s just not fair,” she said. “My mom has always told me if you think someone should do something, maybe that someone should be you.”
Other impacts include closure Monday through Thursday of the permanent restrooms on the north side of Sycamore Pool, at Cedar Grove and at Five-Mile Recreation Area. Portable restrooms will be added to Cedar Grove and Five-Mile, and the restroom on the south side of Sycamore Pool will remain open seven days a week.
Reservations will not be available for major group picnic areas in the park Monday through Thursday, and nearly all park gates will also be closed those days, except for the main entrance gate to upper Bidwell Park and the Fourth Street entrance to lower park.
Parks Commissioner Rich Ober wrote in an email that he is “sickened and saddened by what is being done to Chico in the name of short-term fiscal ‘responsibility.'”
If not addressed, the problems from such draconian cuts — declining trees, unrepaired park infrastructure and unpatrolled greenways — will have impacts for years to come, he said.
Ober is encouraged by the community support to step forward as volunteers, but it won’t be enough to prevent inevitable degradation of the park. He sees another totally feasible solution by way of a tax increase to support the park.
“This community is willing to step up in support of our parks and infrastructure,” he wrote. “If our community leaders will have the courage to ask, we’re willing to do the right thing.”
A Facebook page called Save Caper Acres has garnered more than 4,700 “likes” since the closures were announced Tuesday and an online petition had collected more than 2,000 signatures.
Reach Ashley Gebb at 896-7768, agebb@chicoer.com, or on Twitter @AshleyGebb.
Chico Taxpayers Association 