Tag Archives: Chico Area Recreation District

Jan Sneed attacked me at today’s CARD finance meeting – this woman is out of control, and isn’t suitable for public office

13 May

I tried to attend the CARD finance meeting today, I had an appointment that ran long, and came in just as the meeting was getting over (wow, less than 25 minutes!)

 As I was apologizing and asking Finance Director Scott Dowell how I could get a paper copy of the finance report that he’d given at the meeting, longtime CARD board member Jan Sneed walked by me and whispered at me, “oh, the woman who’s harassing Maria Rock!” or something to that effect. In shock I turned and said, “Excuse me?” And she just launched at me with a verbal attack, her face got red, she raised her voice and she started poking at me with one finger, actually touching me at one point.
 
I kept telling her to back off, my husband stepped between us and told her to back off – she start pushing and poking him.
 
I kept telling her, if she wanted to  talk to me, she needed to write a letter to the paper. She kept saying, “I AM talking to YOU!” and kept advancing on me.
 
I turned to Dowell and frantically asked him again about the report. I was very polite to all staffers. Dowell held me off for a few moments, he said he wanted to hear what Sneed had to say!  I asked him, why are you holding us here to be attacked by that woman?” but he wouldn’t answer.  
 
She was ranting and raving about my letters, saying I’d accused them (CARD) of “being dishonest.”  I just kept telling her she needed to write a letter to the newspaper.
 
She also mentioned several times that I am “harassing Maria Rock.”  
 
We went to the office and she followed us down the hall, despite my husband telling her to stop following us. At this point I was near tears, shaking, and about ready to throw up – I’m sorry, but I work for a living, I’m tired, I make a lot of arrangements to attend these  meetings, and this crew of publicly paid people allow this woman to verbally attack me when I ask for public records. They all just stood there listening to her as though she was speaking for all of them. 
 
We told desk staff that if she came into the office while we were waiting for Dowell to get the records, we wanted them to call the police. Hearing this she turned and walked the other way down the hall. 
 
Staff never once apologized. Dowell gave us the report and told us it was the report he’d given at the meeting today.  The desk staffed offered to staple the pages together for us, but we politely declined.  We thanked Dowell and Visconti personally for their politeness, we thanked staff, and left with the report. 
 
When we attended the last regular board meeting, she made a similar move leaving the meeting – came up close to me and whispered something at me, but I didn’t make the mistake of saying, “Excuse me, ” so I didn’t get attacked. 
 
This isn’t appropriate behavior for a public official. All I did was tell the public what I’d heard at the last meeting. None of them denied any of the stuff I said in my letters to the papers, it’s all true. They just don’t seem to want people talking about their CalPERS payoff. 
 

Any advice would be  welcome – but what I’d really like, is some other people to attend the meeting Thursday night. 

I sent this above to county supervisor Larry Wahl, David Little over at the Enterprise Record, and some other folks in my mailbox.  Sneed’s behavior is outrageous. I wondered what happened to former director Mary Cahill – now I get it! 

From the Chico News and Review, Sept 15 2005:

Mary Cahill, who was terminated Sept. 6 as general manager of the Chico Area Recreation District, took issue with CARD board and media characterizations of her parting.

While a press release issued by CARD attorney Jeff Carter stated Cahill was “terminated … without cause,” Cahill said she left by “mutual agreement” after much discussion over a period of time. She was given $100,000 in severance pay as required by her contract.

“I was not fired,” Cahill said. “It was a discussion and it was definitely both-sided. … It makes it look like I did something wrong when I didn’t,” she added.

Jan Sneed is the longest running member of the CARD board, having been there since before any of the other standing board members, and before Steve Visconti was promoted to the rank of General Manager. I wonder how much her personality problems had to do with Mary Cahill’s “mutual agreement” to leave CARD, taking $100,000, just in severance.

I’ve long wondered what’s wrong at CARD, and now I’m figuring it out.

UPDATE:  This morning I came in from a few hours of weed pulling and raking to sit down with a cup of coffee and watch a quick episode of “Leave It To Beaver.” 

It seems Wally’s big friend Lumpy has been picking on Beaver. Beaver asks his dad for advice, and Ward tells him a comical story of a prank he himself had pulled on the neighborhood bully when he was a boy. Beaver pulls a similar stunt to get back at Lumpy, but instead, Lumpy’s dad ends up getting into it, and gets really mad. This creates a sticky situation for Ward – Lumpy’s dad Fred is not only his long time friend but a partner in his business. Of course Ward straightens the whole thing out and the boys apologize, and Fred forgives them, admitting that not only Lumpy but he himself had pulled some stunts too.

But the best part of every episode is the private chat between Ward and the boys.   Ward explains to Beaver, there will always be people who bully “to get their way, and you can’t always do anything about it. You just have to learn to live with people like that.” 

Hmmmm – how do you “live with” people like Sneed, without being taken advantage of?

Sneed complained loudly that I had insinuated the board was being dishonest. Well, yes, I am. I still have that survey, posted here:

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Look that over and show me where they mention their nearly $400,000 CalPERS side fund payoff, or their nearly million dollar budget overrun. Instead they make promises they can’t keep – “In order to construct and maintain a new aquatics facility…” AND  “to construct and maintain a new gymnasium…” These are totally unrealistic goals – during the RDA discussion about building an aquatic center, the figure they produced was EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS. Just for construction. And what does a new gymnasium cost? The survey insinuated that an assessment of $130 would pay for that,  adding  suggestions like  “Well maintained and accessible sports fields for sports programs help keep kids off drugs and out of gangs.” 

Right now the capital projects fund that would pay for all that bling is TAPPED OUT. That fund was cleaned out of over $350,000 to make that side fund payoff. 

Yes Jan, I’m accusing you, point blank, of  being dishonest with the public in asking for a bond or assessment to pay for an aquatic center or new gymnasium. Like I said at the meeting, you can answer me in your letter to the editor. 

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Chico Taxpayers Association meets tomorrow, Sunday May 5, Chico Library on Sherman Ave, 9am

4 May

I hope we can get a good discussion going on the local efforts to raise taxes, all inspired by CalPERS recent demands for “side fund payoffs” of pension premiums.

What CalPERS is after, is money to keep their pension payments flowing, so people like Tom Lando don’t sue them. And then there’s the CalPERS salaries – about a dozen top execs, making between $350 – 500,000 a year, plus, yeah, FULL BENEFITS!

How stupid are we? Let’s talk about that – tomorrow, Chico branch library, 9am.  The public is welcome.

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CARD and the income gap: How public agencies perpetuate poverty and disparity in the pay scale

3 May

For a long time now I’ve complained about the disparity in the salaries Downtown and at Oroville. The management make 10’s of thousands more in salary and pay less than half their “share” of benefits and pensions premiums, while the lower paid staffers pay the whole share. You must realize, living in the same town on a $35,000 salary with people making over $100,000 is difficult, and I think that’s an understatement. They drive up the price of everything from housing to daycare to gas to a dozen eggs. 

And then there’s the problems the medical benefits packages cause. Our mayor receives a package valued at about $21,000 a year. That’s more than $1500/month. How much does your health care package cost? My family can’t afford $1500/month, that’s for sure. So, when we go to the doctor, we are competing with these benefits packages we pay for – isn’t that ironic?  You can pay your premiums for years, and then when you need help, you find the ER does not accept your insurance. 

Believe it or not, a lot of public employees are in almost the same boat as their private industry counterparts. Sure, they get a nice package, but they don’t get the same packages their bosses get, and they pay more. 

I know I’ve bitched alot about city salaries and benies, but recently I started taking a hard look at other agencies, “special districts,” “quasi-public” – like the Chico Recreation and Parks District, who is fishing around for a property tax bond or assessment to pay off their CalPERS “side fund payoff”. 

The first thing that gripes me about CARD is how they tried to insinuate they would use the bond proceeds to build a new aquatic center, when they’d just bottomed out their capital projects fund to make that CalPERS payoff. They LIED  to get people to go along with this bond crap.  They knew damned good and well, as board president Ed Seagle admitted at last month’s meeting, an aquatic center is unrealistic at this time. They have ZERO money in their capital projects fund, having spent the $350,000 or so they had on their side fund payoff.  But they went ahead and printed those surveys and sent them out, and Ed didn’t say anything until after the fact. Thanks for nothing, Ed.

Ed Seagle needs to get his story straight. He also told me and my husband, when he accosted us at that CARD meeting, that CARD employees pay their full share. Either he’s an ignoramus or a big stinking liar. Which is it Ed? 

Because when I asked Finance Director Scott Dowell about salaries and employee shares, all I got was a notice that he’s out of his office until May 6. When I asked General Manager Steve Visconti for the information he sent me to the State Controller’s website – no link, no notes, just “go to the State Controller’s website…” So, I did. Here’s the link to the “special district” page for Chico Area Recreation and Parks District:

http://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/SpecialDistricts/SpecialDistrict.aspx?fiscalyear=2011&entityid=1875

You’ll note that General Manager Steve Visconti does not pay his own share.  We pay not only a $12,704 “employer share”, but another $7,462 of his “employee share.” That’s the “EPMC”, or “employer paid member contribution”. That they even bother to call it the “employee share” is insulting to me.   Then another $10,000 plus for vision and dental!  Add that to his $115,000+ salary, and this man is getting over $150,000 a year to run a parks district into the ground. Not only did they tap their capital projects fund making  benefits and pension payments, they went so far over budget they can’t afford to hire enough part timers to do the actual work.  

And let’s talk about the workers. CARD employs about 33 people full time, including Visconti. These people all make over $40,000 a year, with 15 of them making over $50,000/year, four of those making over $70,000/year. Just in salary. These folks all get the same deal as Visconti – we pay the lion’s share of their benefits and pension premiums. Their packages range from Visconti’s $30,000+ down to about a $16,000 package for a maintenance super.

Meanwhile, check out the salaries of the people who actually work in the afterschool programs, supervising our kids, that’s on page 2.  $38,000 for an instructor, $29,000 for a recreation supervisor. Steve Visconti makes over $150,000 a year to sit in meetings, but the people who are in charge of the kids are paid less than $50,000 a year. That’s why I quit taking my kid to CARD programs, it was pretty clear they don’t spend the big bucks to attract talent to hang out all day with your kids. 

That’s the excuse Seagle gave us when we asked him about the pensions and benefits – he said they were trying to attract “quality employees.” Oh sure – $38,000 is enough to pay somebody to spend all day with your kids, but we need the big bucks to get the right kind of stuffed shirt to pilfer and embezzle.

 And don’t forget the lowest paid, non-benefitted, non-pensioned employees – the guys who go out in whatever weather to mow, pick up garbage, clean up vandalism, stripe the ballfields, etc. I see these guys when I go out in the wee morning with my dogs. We like to go out along that levee next to the ball fields, roust some quail, see if we can spot a big rattler in the morning sun. We see young men in their 20’s, wearing poor clothing, looking poorly coiffed and underfed – they do all the real work. They get the ballfields ready for the fee-paying leagues. See, we pay for those ballfields, but we aren’t allowed to use them – I’ve been kicked off with my kids, when there wasn’t a game scheduled THAT DAY. “Field reserved,” we’re told. But we’re still expected to pay those bonds and assessments. 

For what? These salaries? 

$8,592
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$8,584
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—
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$8,573

Yes, that is a year’s salary there. Please note, those columns to the right – that’s where the benefits and pension contributions would be, but these people don’t get benefits or pension.

I wonder if these people can even afford to live in Chico. They’re not high school kids who live at home with mom and dad – I’ve seen them, they’re well over 21. They’re part of our economy.  Like a ball is part of a ball and chain.

CARD and other public agencies create this disparity, and we pay for it, in more ways than you are thinking. 

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CARD board of directors and staff plan “community” letter writing campaign to respond to my comments about their budget, bond campaign

20 Apr

My husband and I have been concerned over all these tax and rate increase proposals lately, so we’ve been attending meetings. Thursday night we attended the regular monthly meeting of the Chico Area Recreation District board of directors to see what we could find out about their plans to put a bond or assessment on our property taxes. They sent a survey out a few weeks ago, testing the waters. Here’s a scanned image of the one my family received:

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I also posted a spreadsheet from their budget report:

http://worldofjuanita.com/2013/03/31/card-2012-13-budget/

I wrote letters to both papers trying to get people to look at the budget because I didn’t feel CARD was being honest about why they are asking for this money. A look at their budget shows, instead of the aquatic center and other fantabulous projects they’re dangling like candied carrots, they really want the money to cover a sudden “side fund pay-out” demanded by CalPERS for their own pensions. You can see they drained the capital projects fund of over $350,000, and went over budget making that $400,000  “side fund pay-out.”

Regular board meetings are held over at the CARD center on Vallombrosa Ave, on a Thursday mid-month, in a little office room off the lobby. They start at 7 pm, pretty good time, gives a person a chance to get home and get some kind of dinner and clear the dishes aside. The agendas are available on the website under “CARD resources”.

I assume these meetings are usually attended by the board members – Ed Seagle, Jan Sneed, Herman Ellis, Michael Worley and Tom Lando – and various staffers, led by Steve Visconti, General Manager.  Lando was absent from this meeting,  but the other board members were present, along with Visconti and about half dozen staffers. Another half dozen folks sat in the audience, including Laura Urseny from the Chico Enterprise Record, and a head umpire from the baseball program, there to give a report.

These meetings are a refreshing change from city council meetings – well run, no dumb ceremonies or proclamations, just straight business. We wanted to be there for the Finance Committee report and the  “New Business” portion of the meeting, hoping to skip the mundane stuff in the beginning. We came in just in time to hear that Ann Willman, senior recreation supervisor for CARD, is leaving for a new job at Feather River Parks and Rec – gooshy best wishes all around – she’s taking the job Lando has been filling, how cozy.  Then we heard the umpire’s report – eight year old girl ejected for cussing out an ump – I was waiting for Amy Poehler to step through the door at this point. The brief and comical veteran’s and dog park memorial conversations were something that could have taken place on NBC”s “Parks and Rec.” But I will say, it has to be handled one way or another, and this group moves right along.

But you have to pay attention at these meetings. I come to find out about one thing, and I always hear some other interesting stuff. Oftentimes, it helps me to make sense of something else. When a Park Division manager got up to make a request for more workers, I found out, many of the people who do the work to maintain our parks are only part-time workers. These workers are limited in the number of hours they can work by CalPERS, because if they work too many hours, they qualify as full-time and therefore must get benefits. The Parks Division is the actual maintenance branch of CARD. They mow the lawns, stripe the ball fields, take away the trash, and fix damage like graffiti. This fellow was saying, the parks are extra busy over those fair weather months of March through October, and that they take a pretty sound beating, with folks leaving picnic tables and garbage cans piled with trash, and vandals regularly targeting spots like the skateboard park. He wants to hire some additional seasonal employees, part timers, whose positions would be “largely customer service and education.”  He added that maintenance like removing trash and cleaning tables was “difficult” to perform while people were in the park, he just wanted employees to direct the public to do the right thing, keep an eye on things. 

He called this “coverage.” What I was hearing from this man was, we need some kind of park supervisors, you know, like RANGERS, duh.  I’ve long felt the neighborhood parks, particularly playgrounds like Caper Acres and the skate board park, should have one or more trained supervisors, like the high school and college age kids who watch over the swimming pools. Even if just to say, “You’re not allowed to do that…” and call 911 when they do it anyway. Would they think of leaving the swimming pool gate open, free access to anybody, no life guards, use at your own risk? Why in the hell would they think that’s okay with a skate board park or a play ground?  Besides, it would provide good jobs for young people coming out of the Butte College and Chico State Recreation management department. Like life guards at Sycamore, Pleasant Valley, and Shapiro pools, these employees would be part-timers with small salaries and little or no health benefits, but they’d be getting good job experience and a solid reference for their resumes. 

Extra workers in Summer, when kids are out of school and a lot of parents are working in other towns,  and on Summer weekends, when more people are bbq’ing and picnic’ing, seems like a no-brainer to me. But the board seemed unconvinced, Ed Seagle asked for more information, and tabled it for the future. Seagle remarked, “With the funds we have, we need to be as judicial as we can.” I think he meant “judicious“, but I’m no editor. 

That was a good segway to the Finance report, which was over in 60 seconds or less – Jan Sneed announced she’d looked over the books and everything looked okay to her and the board accepted that report. I will have to attend the monthly Finance Committee meeting if I’m going to find out anything there. It seemed to me they’d be talking about their budget alot, but I’m new to these meetings. 

Board member Herman Ellis, appointed last year to fill a vacancy, reported on his park tour with staff, and of course had glowing reviews. “Everyone should do it,” he said, but didn’t elaborate much. He’s a pleasant man but not one to ramble on. 

It was just after 8pm. I didn’t have the agenda in front of me, but I thought we were getting pretty near the end of the meeting, so started to put away my notebook and slip into my sweater. That’s when General Manager Steve Visconti brought up the survey – I immediately grabbed my notebook out of my bag, having almost forgotten this was why I had come to the meeting anyway. He said the survey should be ready for the next meeting! Well Great! Good timing! Then Ed Seagle began a discussion about the bond/assessment campaign, saying, “Do we really want to push the aquatic center? It sounds like too much…”  Seeming to feel that an aquatic center is an unrealistic option, Seagle wondered if they should be shooting for more practical projects like fixing a gym floor somewhere.

The other board members muttered it over, and then Visconti announced, “We need to discuss whether we’re going to have some effort to get some community members to respond to Juanita Sumner’s letter to the paper…” 

Of course this caught my ear, I was already scribbling in my notebook as fast as I could. I was floored by Seagle saying, after they’d already planted this aquatic center bullshit in people’s heads, he didn’t think it was really going to happen. Well duh. But to hear Visconti organizing an effort to what? undermine my credibility? dispute the facts in my letter with nonsense?  is just unbelievable to me. We pay these people to sit around plotting against us. 

Not once did they say there was anything untrue in my letters, they just seemed to be as mad as a hive of bees that I had outed their budget to the public. They made that $400,000 side fund pay-off, sure, but wanted everybody to know, “we saved 7% percent by making that payment!” Yeah, 7% off the employees’ pension premiums, for pensions they will collect regardless of what the economy holds for the rest of  us.  Pensions we guarantee with bonds or assessments against our property taxes, no matter what happens.

This after hearing Seagle declare they can’t hire more part time workers to care for our neighborhood parks because “With the funds we have, we need to be as judicial as we can…” Yeah, right Ed.  

They are mad about my letters to both the ER and the N&R, but they can’t respond as a public entity or as individuals because they’re too chickenshit to take a stand that might jeopardize any of their positions. So, they’re cooking up a plot to have their friends, relatives, people in the programs, etc, write letters. We’ve seen this kind of campaign before, it will be interesting to see what they come up with. They already have a management staffer who devotes her time to stuff like setting up Facebook accounts – her report was a hoot – “we went up from 1,000 to 1,300 fans!” 

Laura Urseny sat right through the whole meeting, including the part about the survey,  and all she reported in today’s paper was the conversation about the dog park memorial. 

UPDATE:  Somebody has been searching terms “income for Juanita Sumner Chico Ca” and “Juanita Sumner credit”. Who could be interested in that? How low do you think these people will stoop? How personal do you think they’ll take it? How long do they think they can outlast an old turtle in a mud wrestle? Time will tell. 

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What is a “PAC”?

13 Apr

People have actually asked me, if I’m so crazy about local politics, why don’t I run for office? One read through the Fair Political Practices manual ought to give you your answer – there’s a million damn rules, and nailing candidates for rules is the how the FPPC pays their pensions and benefits. Failure to name a donor who was connected to a discussion Larry Wahl had as a city planning commissioner cost him about $12,000. They’re just waiting for you to put your foot in their trap, then they gotcha!

There’s all kinds of “political action committees”, and the rules and definitions  are confusing. First you better read everything about 20 times, and then you might want to talk it over with a lawyer. For example:

“A general purpose committee is a type of recipient committee – an individual or group that receives contributions totaling $1,000 or more during the calendar year for the purpose of supporting or opposing one or more state or local candidate or ballot measure(s).”   Including “two or more individuals or entities that make separate expenditures for a single product or service (for example a newspaper advertisement)”  

Right away, I notice, you have to decide, what are you forming your committee for? Will you oppose or support a candidate or an issue? There’s all kinds of different rules. You have to decide how much money you think you’ll spend –  the good news is, until you spend $1,000 on one campaign issue, you’re under the wire. The Chico Taxpayers Association is NOT a PAC or any kind of committee. We only spent about $330 on Measure J, so we were not required to file anything anywhere.  

But geez we were lucky – the idiots who wrote and supported Measure J, led by Ann Schwab, Scott Gruendl and Mary Goloff, were too cocky to think anybody would oppose them, so they never mounted ANY campaign.  We won’t get that lucky again. If we mount a Recall against any member or members of the school board, for example, they’re going to fight us. CARD is going to have a war chest too, but I’m not sure what money they will be allowed to use. And, if Lando comes forward with that sales tax increase proposal, he’ll have money and plans. I want to fight, and that’s going to take money. I’m going to spend the next few weeks studying up the situation, I’ll keep you all posted.

Here are some articles from the FPPC site:   http://www.fppc.ca.gov/serp.html?q=+rules+for+political+action+committees&cx=001779225245372747843%3A_7mfpc-fxyk&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&submit.x=12&submit.y=8

Sure, it gets tricky: “If more than 70% of a committee’s contributions and expenditures on candidates or measures are on a single candidate, single measure, a group of specific candidattes in the same local election or two or more measure being voted upon in the same state or local election, the committee is designated as a primarily formed committee rather than a general purpose committee.” Furthermore, “For purposes of determining whether the committee is general purpose or a primarily formed committee, the treasurer must count contributions and expenditures made to support or oppose candidates or measures during: The current two year period, beginning January 1 of the current or previous oddnumbered year and ending with December 31 of the following even-number year; or The immediate preceding 24 months. The committee must use the time period that most accurately reflects its current and upcoming activities.” 

Well, like my dad used to say, sounds like sticking your dick in a noose, but if that’s what we have to do to get our town back, I’m willing to take a shot at it.

 

 

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Letter: Here’s why CARD wants more money

7 Apr

Here’s a letter I sent to the Enterprise Record a full week ago. I don’t know why it took so long for Little to run my letter – I could speculate that he wants the CARD tax to pass. We’ll see when he endorses it in 2014.

My family received the Chico Area Recreation District’s survey regarding their proposed tax hike. We wanted more information, so asked for their 2012-13 budget figures.  

 
CARD says they need a new tax because of falling property tax revenues and a “disappearing RDA.” What they don’t mention is the recent $400,000 “side fund payoff” to the California Public Employees Retirement System. CalPERS has demanded public employers pay more toward their employees’ pension premiums, offering some savings on interest if they pay a certain amount immediately.
 
CARD, employing about 30 people full time, also paid $375,000  in regular pension premiums last year, and $300,000 in healthcare premiums. Salary and benefits totaling about $5 million dollars  eat over half their $7.2 million budget. 
 
They earn about $3.3 million of their annual revenues from their programs and rental of their facilities. The other $3.5 million  comes mostly  from taxpayers –  county taxes ($2,3456,782), homeowner assessments ($162,753), fees on new homes ($23,750), and $924,000 from the RDA credit card. 
 
CARD currently suffers a $420,000 deficit. Their capital projects reserve fund shows a sudden negative balance of $344,500. It appears to me they took money from their capital projects fund to pay their CalPERS “side fund payoff”, and now they want us to replace that money. It seems misleading to offer an aquatic center when what they are really asking for is money to pay for their pensions and benefits. 
 
I’ve posted the budget spreadsheet at chicotaxpayers.wordpress.com
 

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

I know, I said I’d post the budget here – I can’t get it to come up right on this blog, so here’s the link to my other blog:

http://worldofjuanita.com/2013/03/31/card-2012-13-budget/

and here’s the link to the survey:

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This survey is completely loaded – essentially, they tell you, if you don’t pay this tax, your kids will end up on dope. Read it yourself.  They also promise “this measure would include strong fiscal safeguards and oversight, including that less than 5% of the proceeds would be used for administration.” 

CUSD stupe Kelly Staley said that about the school bond voters just extended. Chico Unified said they’d form some kind of citizens’ committee  to “vet” a list of projects, but the administration has already announced projects that have never been vetted in any way. And don’t forget, when the school district originally floated that bond about ten years ago, they said the money would be used exclusively to build a third high school. Then they changed their mind, and we’ve never been shown an actual accounting of how much they’ve raked in over the years or where any of that money has gone. 

In this case, you can see that CARD has taken money out of their capital projects fund and used it to pay their CalPERS obligation. When Steve Visconti sent me that budget,  I could tell from his attached letter he really didn’t expect me to read the budget, or thought I was too stupid to figure it out. I had asked him about revenues. 

“Our funding sources come to us a few different ways. One is a small portion of property taxes from each homeowner in our District. The other main revenue source is from programming fees. Those are also shown on page 6 of the attached budget.”

But the budget says otherwise. Like I said above – they get over half their revenues from property taxes and assessments – including $924,000 in RDA money. That RDA money is about to disappear, that’s just another reason they want this tax. Besides the $400,000 they stole to pay their own pensions.

You can print that survey from that link, fill it out, and send it to Visconti at the CARD center – 545 Vallombrosa Ave, Chico, 95926. You can e-mail him for more information at svisconti@chicorec.com

And here’s the funny thing – guess who’s on the CARD board – Tom Lando, the same guy who’s been proposing a city sales tax increase.

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CARD 2012-13 budget

31 Mar

Sorry I couldn’t figure out how to post a visual of the budget – click on the link below for the information I used in my letter to the Enterprise Record:

2012_2013 Final Budget (4)

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