I read in the Enterprise Record that CARD was taking their paid consultant’s advice and embarking on a public relations campaign. Sounded stupid, and turned out to be exactly that. The gal who was supposed to be out in the park yakking at visitors and handing out taxpayer-purchased “free” bling did not show up. Wow, some campaign!
I had been out running some errands so asked my husband to drive me over to her first campaign stop – Hooker Oak Rec Area. She was supposed to be there from 10am to 1pm. Uh-huh. I thought that sounded feasible – that’s a popular playground, close to the creek, nice and cool. Parents with small kids don’t always have a nice house with air conditioning and a big yard full of playground equipment. Alot of people depend on the park to get their kids and themselves out of the house, somewhere free and safe to go. When the temps get up over 100, people flock to the parks along the creek. There are also the kids’ camps and daycare groups. My husband and I ride that trail up through the park to Five Mile Rec Area all the time, and the playgrounds at Hooker Oak, especially over by the creek, are always busy.
When we got there about 10:50, the maintenance workers were spread out over the ball fields, doing the day’s maintenance, in near 100 degree heat. These guys get paid, on average, less than $10,000 a year – temporary workers, they also get no benefits.
Lisa Almaguer, CARD marketing coordinator, is also considered a temporary employee, but gets a considerably better wage than the maintenance workers – over $15,000/year. Not bad, considering her occupation, which seems to be, deciding when and where she will come to work. I wrote her a note, asking her, had the newspaper got the time wrong?
Hi,
Here’s her response:
Due to the extreme heat, we had to cancel the Hooker Oak park visit. I will be at the other listed parks (barring its not 105+ degrees!).
Thanks for your interest, I hope to see you next week at DeGarmo Park.
Lisa
I had kind of expected this to be the case, but I had to hear it from her. “Extreme heat“? Oh, it’s okay for people to be out mowing lawns in the sun, striping ball fields, taking bags of trash out of cans, but this gal doesn’t do her job at more than 105 degrees? Well, la tee dah – let me know when you got that silver spoon out of your mouth Honey, I’d like to stick my foot in it.
This is the kind of crap that we pay people for down at CARD.
And, it’s not even their own idea. It’s a statewide campaign by the State Parks Department. You may recall how mad people got a year or so back when it was discovered that the State Parks had been maintaining a “slush fund” illegally, without the knowledge of the state controller, etc, out of which they paid themselves for unused vacation and sick time. People got so mad, apparently, the Parks Department decided to print up a bunch of “flying discs”, water bottles, and other bling,
again, with tax dollars, to hand out to the stupid masses to buy us off and get our love back.
I thought this was a dumb plan, but they’d already spent the money, so I’ll admit, I wanted a couple of those flying discs for Biscuit. And then she wasn’t even there – some CAMPAIGN Honey!
One of my errands was to a motor shop over on Park Avenue. They were in there working away with NO air conditioning, at all. That’s the private sector for you!
Well, chalk one up for the Chico Area Parks and Rec District – a public relation campaign that gives them NEGATIVE publicity.
Chico Taxpayers Association 