Tag Archives: Chico Airport

Nakamura “reorganizes” city departments, still no full-time management at the airport

7 May

I didn’t get to the Airport Commission meeting last week. I want to attend these, but the time is bad for me. I missed the meeting where Maria Rock stood up and blamed the loss of 130 planes (with owners who paid to park at the airport) over  the last year on “aging pilots.” And, I missed the conversation over allowing the hanger that used to house the airport’s biggest client, Aero Union, to be leased to a group for a museum, for free.

Aero Union left a few years ago, lured away by MacClellan in Sacramento. And then, as a result of policies they practiced while operating in Chico, they were involved in a huge scandal and subsequently went out of business. But not before relocating to MacClellan. They made the usual excuses that tenants make – we need a bigger place! But from what I heard, they got some kind of sweetheart offer from MacClellan that Chico Airport wastn’ offering.

Apparently, MacClellan, once a huge US Air Force base and giant employer and ginormous chunk of Sacramento’s economy, having been declared a Superfund clean-up site and closed in the 1990’s, is trying to transform itself into a business park.  It’s still an “uncontrolled airfield,” meaning,  n0 control tower, but navigational infrastructure for small aircraft. In order to revitalize an entire part of Sacramento, MacClellan Park is offering all kinds of perks and benies to any business that will locate there. The key words I heard are “build ready.”  This means, the landlord/property owner provides all the infrastructure – streets, sidewalks, sewer hook-ups, electric lines, etc.

The Chico Airport, owned by the city of Chico,  doesn’t do anything for you. Instead they roll out a list of stuff you have to do in order to locate there. As a friend of mine who owns an airport business told me, “they think anybody who wants to start a business must be some kind of Sugar Daddy.”

It doesn’t take much to see that there’s no management at the airport. “Airport Manager” is one of the “hats” left by Dave Burkland to Brian Nakamura. That’s all it is to them – a side job.  And it’s obvious – look at the aerial map of Chico Airport – it screams “BLIGHT!”  Empty lots scattered among the crappy old buildings, never having been cleaned up since the last business – what? burned down? Entire sections of the airport look abandoned.

I had to laugh when I read the conversation with the museum people. They want the hulking old Aero Union building. Now we find out what kind of landlord the city of Chico is – the building is condemnable. Only about two years since Aero Union vacated, and the roof is about ready to fall in. That’s just for starters. The whole building is a mess.  See what you get if you let your residential rentals get into that kind of condition – a tenant can withhold rent over a leaky faucet.  But when the city of Chico rents a building, they walk away – “it’s your baby now!”

The building needs about $200,000 worth of work on the roof, just the roof. Nakamura remarked that they might not have the money to do the roof right now – but at tonight’s council meeting, he’s asking for a supplemental budget allocation of over $500,000 to cover the new salaries approved for his departmental reorganization.

Now we know why Aero Union left, but that’s old history. Another large business tenant that has relocated more recently is Build.com, which was moved to Otterson Drive lock, stock and barrel. They said they wanted a bigger building, having had to use two separate buildings at the airport to accommodate their phone bank. I’m not really sure, but the new building they’re in at 402 Otterson is shared with other businesses, I’m not sure how much more space they’re getting.   Nor could I get any info on how much they’re paying.

Chances are, given the business properties available right now, Build.com is paying more per square foot in their new location. It looks like the average in the real world is about $1/sq ft.  The airport is offering Build.com’s old space for 75 cents a sq ft. I was at a meeting where $taff discussed renting space in the old Municipal building, and I remember, they offered that space below market too.

First of all, I see this as using taxpayer subsidized property to undercut the rental market, and that’s bad. Second, I see what they’re doing. They rent cheap, so they can be slumlords. They don’t do anything for their tenants, even maintain the building. They’re letting a group move into the old Muni building right now at a really cheap rent, giving them carte blanche to remodel. Sure, that seems great, but when they move out, we are stuck with whatever they do.

I don’t think the city should be in the real estate business. I don’t think the city should be in the airport business either. At the very least, we need a full-time manager out there. But, look at Nakamura’s reorganization – the airport is left within the city manager’s department. Just an extra hat?

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New urban builder wants high-density housing on public-owned Downtown parking lots – you pay! Sounds like Chico!

12 Feb

 

This week I will hit the ground running in my attempt to keep my New Year’s resolutions – two meetings in two days.  

Tonight at dinnertime I will go to the Airport Commission meeting. I had so much trouble getting on the notification list for this committee, I just have to find out why. These meetings are only held four times a year, which I find odd, for something as important to the economic vitality of your town as an airport. I’ve heard bad things about how our airport is run, I’ve heard the airports at O-ville, Willows and Redding are fun far better, and I’ve read reports about the workings of those airports that leave me wondering, “why not Chico?”

While Redding is looking into providing more aircraft parking for private jet owners who are able and willing to pay, Chico looks into raising car parking fees for people who have to leave their cars at the airport while they fly out of town. 

Are you tired of being treated like a cash cow? Poke, prod, yank, squuuueeeeezzzze!” Me too. I’m going to try to find out what the heck is going wrong at the airport. 

And then, the next morning, I’m going Downtown to the 8am Internal Affairs meeting. There’s an item on that agenda that I have been watching float around town like a bad turd for years – Tom DiGiovanni wants a “public/private partnership,” which he managed to worm into the General Plan, to develop Downtown parking lots into high-density “live-work units.”  This guy is a leech – he doesn’t really build anything, he just goes about getting the plans approved and selling them to other developers. He got Meriam Park, a “city within a city” approved, then sold the low-income portion to a Fresno based developer for $7 million. The $7 million came from our RDA fund, given to the Fresno developer to route to DiGiovanni. 

Have you seen a shovel of dirt turned over at Merriam Park? No, but you’re looking at a gazillion dollar freeway widening that was necessitated by the approval of Meriam Park, forced by the threat of a lawsuit from CalTrans.  That freeway widening was also paid for out of the RDA – it was part of the lawsuit, Cal Trans demanded that Chico “dedicate” money for that widening, so Tom Lando handed them some cookies out of his RDA cookie jar.  Now we, well, really, our grandchildren, will pay $3 for every dollar spent on that low-income housing and on that freeway widening.

Not to mention, DiGiovanni and his high-density new urban spree have bottomed out the new housing and rental markets, and you see the results. And now DiGiovanni wants public money again, so he can sell the plans and walk away with his pockets full of money? 

Oh, and by the way, whatever happened to that parking crisis that caused a $1 million…oh, excuse me, $3 million Downtown makeover? This whole thing just stinks to high heaven.

So, I will be there at 8:00 in the morning, and I’ll keep you posted. 

 

 

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Something funny going on out at the airport again?

6 Feb

This year I’ve made a New Years Resolution to stay on top of the committees Downtown and try to attend more meetings.   And this year, instead of focusing on the Sustainability Task Force – which had so many ad hoc committees I could hardly keep up – I am going to try to get to some other meetings.  So, about three weeks ago, I started e-mailing the city clerk, requesting to be put on notifications lists for the various committees – Finance, Economic Development, Internal Affairs and Airport – so I don’t have to worry about missing meetings that I was interested in attending. I can’t always attend anyway, but it’s nice to have a three day heads up to think about it.

In past I’ve been on these lists, but for some reason, I’ve just been dropped after a while. I thought at first it was just because Lynda Cameron, the staffer who had been sending the notifications, was retired. Then I thought it was because I didn’t attend every single meeting. See, it’s not an onerous task to type in an e-mail address on a list-serve, but  it takes a physical act to remove somebody from one of those lists after they’ve been placed on it. I just don’t get why they keep dumping me from these lists.

And, this time, I don’t understand why it took me three weeks and a trail of e-mails to get put back on. In fact, I had to rattle chains down there constantly to get any response, and while I’ve finally managed to get confirmation on the Finance, Economic, and Internal Affairs lists, I’m still waiting to get on the Airport Commission list.

I originally asked to be put on that list January 17. I had to ask twice, and the second time, Debbie Presson tried to tell me she hadn’t received my first request . I let that one pass – I didn’t say, “Sorry Debbie Baby, the computer doesn’t lie!” She said she was forwarding my request to Debbie Collins, the staffer attached to the Airport Commission. I had to ask Presson because Collin’s contact info is not available on the city website.

Well, I have yet to get anything back on that. Since I made that request, the meeting scheduled for January 29 has been cancelled and rescheduled for February 12. I should be receiving some sort of notice of the Feb 12 meeting by Feb 8, but I’m not holding my breath.

Yes, I know, I could get up every morning and faithfully check the agendas schedule. That takes my time, people, and as you know, I don’t get paid for that time nor do I get it refunded at the end of the fiscal year. 

They have a notifications process, I’m asking to participate, somebody’s holding me out by the forehead.

Word press blogs come with stats pages. They tell you how many visitors you have every day and what they looked at.  Somebody, or bodies,  have been hitting the heck out of those posts I made about the airport, how badly it’s run, etc. And, the same somebodies? have also been searching the heck out of BT Chapman. BT was a member of the Sustainability Task Force, and I’ve criticized his actions on that committee. Now he’s been named to the Airport Commission. Is he trying to keep me out of those Airport Commission meetings because I’ve criticized him, or because I’ve criticized the airport? I’m just asking.

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Chico Taxpayers Association landed a house on Ann Schwab – how will she run our town without stealing from our phone bill?

7 Nov

Thanks to a group of hardworking individuals who came together to stop an illegal taking by an incompetent government.

I didn’t know what to expect when we started this fight, I just knew, we had to fight.  I felt like Henny Penny at first, but my Gramma always told me, “when you’re in trouble, don’t be afraid to ask for help.” She was right – I was joined by a core group of wonderful people who worked hard to defeat this ill-conceived measure. Frankly, all it took was TELLING PEOPLE. The usual response, in exactly these words, “NO WAY!”  

Given the balance in this town of publicly employed people to working people, I was almost sure this Measure would pass.  But, I also noticed – even Ann treated Measure J like a hot potato – once she penned the ‘argument in favor,” she dropped that hot wad and never picked it up again.  She was a lot more worried about keeping her butt in that chair than how she would pay for it. 

And how is she going to pay?   How is she going to pay for this? 

http://www.buttecourt.ca.gov/online_index/CMSSearchProcess.cfm?sx=640527085888910

I’m sorry, I’m just going to kick back in my bunker and enjoy the next four years of “Fat Lady Flounders on Rocks” .   

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Airport Lawsuit: $300,000+, and ticking…

8 Mar

I’ve had a lot of interest and questions about the post I made about the airport lawsuit:

https://chicotaxpayers.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/hostile-city-of-chico-mismanages-the-airport/

Alot of people I’ve spoken to have asked how much this whole thing is costing the taxpayers. Stephanie Taber actually went to the trouble of putting that question into writing and handing it to $taff. When you give them a written question, they have to give you some kind of response. 

Here’s their response:

“Through the end of December 2011, the City has spent approximately $130,000 on
outside attorneys since the lawsuit was filed. The Assistant City Attorney has spent more than 1500 hours on the matter, plus additional hours spent by the City Attorney. Additionally, approximately $38,000 has been spent on non-attorney/salary costs (i.e. depositions).”

I don’t feel this is a particularly straight answer – notice how they just give us the amount of hours on the assistant city attorney, no mention of actual money, and then “additional hours spent” on the part of the city attorney, Lori Barker. Barker’s time is worth about $126 an hour. So, let’s make a ballpark shot – the assistant city attorney is making at least $90 an hour, maybe more, so we’ve paid him over $100,000, just to work on this case. Plus, he can’t litigate, so they have to hire the outside attorneys at $130,000. And that’s just so far.

My source has told me that Mr. Jay has a pretty big “Sue-sue-sue Ya!” budget, he’s not sweating this thing. And a little bird told me, he’s probably going to win, eventually. That’s what all the stalling is about, apparently. That, and two city attorneys lining their nest with the green stuff, and a third city attorney illegally and inappropriately using her position to help her parents also line their pockets. 

 While Alicia Rock is not working directly on the case, she is a member of $taff, and in my opinion, something stinks here. The whole thing is outrageous. 

Old Yiddish proverb: When the fish stinks, it’s the head of the fish that stinks. In this case, as in all cases before the city of Chico, the stinking head would be our mayor, Ann Schwab. 


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“Hostile” City of Chico mismanages the airport

20 Feb

For a few years now (since 2008) an item has popped up so regularly on the city council “closed session” agendas that I have come to recognize it without knowing anything about it.

2.1. CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL — EXISTING LITIGATION: The City Attorney will review
the following: Danford A. Jay and Sandra R. Jay v. City of Chico, et al., Butte County Superior Court
Cases 145202 and 145203, pursuant to Government Code §54956.9(a).

It started to pique my curiosity, but I didn’t know how to find out about it. I figured, since it’s on the closed session item, they wouldn’t be exactly eager to discuss it with me, and you know, I get tired of being led a merry chase down at the City of Chico.

So, I finally stumbled onto the info, you know, casual conversation with some parent at a playground, that’s how I find out stuff around town.  I mean, it’s just amazing the people you find yourself chatting with, about what.

It seems this all relates to Chico’s abysmal reputation for being “hostile” toward business.

I’ve sat in at least two different Economic Development meetings in which the main topic of discussion was the airport. At one meeting, a couple of consultants complained that the airport does not offer consistent enough “service” for corporate types to fly to Chico to snoop out our job-ability. They didn’t explain it, they just said, these big-wigs want to be able to fly in and out at their convenience, and that’s not doable at Chico airport.

At another more recent meeting, a spokesman from Build.com said the airport needs a big commercial carrier. He seems to think we can turn our airport into the same kind of behemoth  as the Sacramento Airport, bring in TWA – wowsers! He mentioned regular flights to Disneyland as his main concern – what does Disneyland have to do with bringing job-makers into Chico?

No, no, no. It’s not lack of a commercial carrier, it’s lack of somewhere for really important people to land their own jets. I got news for Mr. Build.com – real employers don’t stand in lines to take a commercial carrier, they fly in with their own plane at 10 am and they fly out at 4pm. The don’t use giant, overrun airports, they use little executive airports unconstrained by heavy traffic and avoiding major accidents involving housing tracts. Chico Airport should be perfect for exactly this use.

Yes, it should be. Chico Airport is equipped with a special landing strip with a gated terminal, just for really important people. You might remember, Oprah landed at that gate. She was whisked away to Oroville to meet and interview a local beauty queen, and then within a couple of hours, there she went.

But, for some reason, when Governor Schwarzenegger came to town a few years ago, nobody came to open the gate to the terminal. Schwarzenegger was left outside a locked gate. This was sufficient to  make a laughingstock out of Chico Airport.  It’s happened more than once, and it’s apparently turned away big execs looking for prime employment territory.

The special terminal is owned by a local couple, Chris and Maria Rock, who have a special contract with the city of Chico to operate the terminal and an airplane fueling station. When a “special” visitor is headed for the airport, they are supposed to contact the Rocks, who are supposed to have that terminal open and functioning. Apparently the Rocks are pretty lackadaisical about their duties and more than one person has arrived to find a gate locked.

Enter Danford Jay.  Mr. Jay wants to be licensed to operate such a terminal himself. He operates a business out of the airport and his livelihood depends on the airport running efficiently. Apparently Mr. Jay is tired of watching the Rocks run business away from Chico.

But the City of Chico protects the Rocks’ contract for some reason, they won’t let Mr. Jay have a permit to operate his own terminal and fueling station. According to my source, this drives people to the airports at Redding and Oroville. My friend is himself considering moving his business and the 25 people it employs to the Redding airport.

This friend has been to meeting after meeting, in Chico, in Oroville, in Redding. He uses the word “hostile” to describe the city of Chico, and particularly, Dave Burkland.

Dave Burkland is not only our city manager, he’s the airport manager.  That’s why his salary is so  high – I’ve seen the breakdown – he gets separate salaries for all these jobs that should just be handed to different, hopefully more competent people. This is how the city “saves money.” And this is how Burkland will retire at over $120,000 a year soon.

And this is why our airport drives jobs away from Chico.

Meanwhile the city’s little protection racket racks up the bucks in court:

http://www.buttecourt.ca.gov/online_index/CMSCaseDisplay.cfm?ucn=145202&sx=1088450740381968

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