Tag Archives: Chico Enterprise Record

Ask a stupid question…

23 Jul

The other day the Enterprise Record ran a pretty stupid editorial about the airport fire station closure. “Our view: In the best of a bunch of bad options, closing the Chico fire station at the airport makes the most sense.” 

Spoken by a person who obviously has no clue to the economic importance of the airport or how mismanagement out there is killing us financially.

Later in this piece, the editor mentions, almost as though he doesn’t really mean it, ” If he (or the future chief) is looking for other places to save money, perhaps firefighters can pay their own share of their pensions, rather than having the city pay the employee share. “

Today Editor asks, “Can the public have a voice in city budget?”,  suggesting, “The city could ask before it cuts. It might be surprised by the answers.”   Editor implies that we’d be okay with some of these cuts if we knew how much these services “cost”. What he fails to figure into “cost”, is the “employer paid member contribution,” aka, “the employee’s share.” 

What a dumb question – “Can the public have a voice in city budget?”   Better to ask, “WILL the public have a voice in city budget?” The next question would be, “Will the council listen?” 

The answer to both of those questions lies with the public.

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Denial, Anger – is this Bargaining?

15 Jun

I noticed people are reading an almost year-old old post, “Mary Goloff and Jim Walker gang jump Mark Sorensen on the dias”, and I gave it a read myself. How funny – Mark Sorensen trying, very gently I thought, to tell the rest of the nit-wits on council how he thought we’d overspent on salaries for various  programs and over-priced land for  housing projects, and Mary Goloff coming at him like a bull at a toreador.  Jim Walker was nasty too, showing his true personality – catty, insulting, trash talking.  They took turns sparring at Sorensen, pelting him with questions only to interrupt him as soon as he started giving an intelligent answer. It was like a junior high gang jump – “hey Bitch, whatchoo doin’ hangin’ round Jimmee? Whatchoo mean, you don’t like Jimmee? What the helz wrong with Jimmee you stuck up Bitch?!”

But now, look at Mary Goloff – she’s stepping and fetching to show us how fiscally responsible she is. See her playing all hard-ass with the Chico Certified Farmer’s Market, kicking them out of their almost-free location on Second Street and moving them to Downtown Plaza, where they will pay more for one day than they currently pay for a year at the parking lot on Second Street.   And, in the same agenda, renting Bidwell Park out to a for-profit outfit for an obstacle course foot race that is supposed to attract some 950 or more people to the neighborhoods along Lower Bidwell Park. 

What next – I’m afraid to say anything, even tongue in cheek. But I won’t forget how she kicked and screamed to throw the conversation off the tracks every time it got down to brass tacks. She denied we had any financial problems, getting angry whenever somebody tried to broach the subject of  trimming some fat.  

Now she’s the first one in line with a plate when it comes to BBQ’ing sacred cows like the Saturday Market and Bidwell Park. 

We need to come up with something better for 2014.

FROM JULY 3 2012 – “Mary Goloff and Jim Walker gang jump Mark Sorensen on the dais…”

I’m sitting here in disbelief of the attack I just watched Mary Goloff and Jim Walker wage on Mark Sorensen at city council tonight. I couldn’t make the meeting, so I have been watching it via computer. 

Sorensen had been challenged by a smarmy Jim Walker to list what changes he would make to balance the budget. Sorensen carefully began to explain that city funds had been depleted by millions over the last few years, with escalating costs leaving revenues in the dirt. He also explained that the lion’s share of our expenses are “operating costs,” meaning, salaries. He also carefully explained that there were programs we simply could not afford anymore, meaning, salaries. 

Mary Goloff could be heard heckling him off microphone. If you or I did what she was doing we’d be asked to leave the room, possibly with police escort. But Mayor Schwab just sat there looking at Goloff, saying nothing.  Goloff  finally got on mike, interrupted Sorensen, and asked him to be specific. So, Sorensen offered housing, saying it had been a mistake to undertake so many housing projects, and he also specified the arts programs – such as the requirement that any capital project include one percent of the total cost of that project be added for art. 

At this point Goloff began to interrupt Sorensen. She started heckling him about how “we all agree” that the arts are important, yadda, yadda. She just kept at Sorensen, not allowing him to answer any of her out-there questions, until Sorensen asked her to stop interrupting him. 

After a quick exchange Walker butted in to attack Sorensen. Out of nowhere, Walker bashed Sorensen about wanting to spend more money on the police department, asking Sorensen where he would get the money to hire more police. This question was off base, Sorensen hadn’t even gotten that far before Goloff had completely derailed him.

 Jim  Walker is just sitting out his time, he seems to be enjoying himself at all of our expense. He, like so many “public servants,” seems to think he is elected to do what he wants, what seems like “the right thing” in his fairy tale mind,  instead of carry out the law. 

Mary Goloff seems to think she has been anointed Queen in some farcical aquatic ceremony to lead us all in the light of her cough syrup-induced wisdom.  She seems to love the sound of her own voice, while here at my house, it sets off the hounds for blocks. 

My computer started failing at this point, and I was unable to watch the rest of the meeting. I am going on vacation tomorrow, I’ll see you folks on the flip flop.  

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Chief Beery needs to go, maybe Trostle too

9 Jun

I sent the letter below to the Enterprise Record last Sunday, Dave Little responded bright and early Monday that he’d run it, but hasn’t.   So, here it is, I won’t wait for him next time.

People have already forgotten Beery’s threats to close the airport station – guess why – because people don’t care unless something crawls right up their ass.   If he’d threatened Station 5, all those little yupsters over there in the subdivision that used to be North Valley Swim School would have their panties in a knot. If you don’t hold the stinking fish right up to their noses, they don’t give a shit. That’s the kind of people that have moved here over the Boom Years – stupid lemmings. If I have to read one more letter about the cops being cut, I’m going to barf – the cops have people like ex-chief Maloney’s wife writing in, spreading bullshit. Laurie Maloney is a fed pig. She sits with her husband on his $150,000+ pension and benefits, and she’s afraid the public is going to turn her apple cart over. Mrs. Piggy is going to get pushed out of the slops trough, oh no!

We need better chiefs. We need LEADERS, not mule drivers who threaten and whip. We may need to turn an apple cart over, get your gloves.

Who needs Dave Little – this is our newspaper!  Here’s my letter, if you send me something that’s not creepy or obscene, I’ll print it. 

Whenever we ask the public safety departments to curtail spending, they threaten to cut positions and close stations. This time Chief Beery is threatening to close the airport fire station, which will put the city afoul of federal air safety restrictions.  We ask the chief for leadership – instead he threatens public safety and the viability of the airport to protect his department. 
 
Our Finance Director has revealed  the city is losing about $70,000/month with the defeat of Measure J, the cell phone tax initiative. Meanwhile, the city spends over twice that amount – over $158,000 a month – paying the employee’s share of pension premiums. 
 
The police and fire departments, having the biggest budgets at about $22 million and $18 million, also pay nothing toward their pensions, so their pensions comprise the lion’s share of the ominous unfunded pension obligation.  
 
These pension agreements are a threat to public safety. During this last round of contract talks, it became very clear that most public safety employees will see their co-workers laid-off and positions go empty before they will step up and pay their own shares, for pensions of 90 percent of their highest year’s pay, available at age 50. 
 
Council signs these contracts because the public safety employees routinely make the biggest expenditure in every council campaign. If council was really working for us, they’d refuse to sign these contracts until the employees came back with a better deal.  
 

Juanita Sumner, Chico

UPDATE:  The ER finally ran my letter, over a week after I sent it. The cops made an offer to pay their own share the other  day, but they also wanted a raise to cover it!    They say they got a pay cut – no, they just didn’t get a raise. They call that a pay cut. 

We don’t need yer stinkin’ deals, Coppers!  

 

How dare they tell us, they don’t make enough money to pay their own pension premiums! They’ve made “sacrifices”?  Look at these salaries – this is just a sampling from one page, with regular pay and overtime:

  • Anthony Ferreira, Police Officer – $71,219.20 in reg pay, total $97,473.35 with overtime
  • Donald Finkbiner, Police Officer  – $71,219.20 reg pay, total $83,070.98
  • Daniel Fonseca, Police Sergeant – $87,913.76 reg pay, tot $121.145.91
  • Scott Franssen, PS – $95,638.40 reg pay, tot $126,657.16

You can see more salaries at the Enterprise Record. You’ll see “compaction” on page 2 – Lieutenant Jennifer Gonazales, at a regular salary of $101,000 year, is not allowed overtime, being an “at will” employee – she’s just supposed to be available for whatever comes up?  From what I’ve seen, she spends most of her overtime in meetings, like the Police Advisory Board meetings, making high school style reports on subjects like mental illness among the homeless population. She did receive about $15,000 in “special” and “other” pay, without any details beyond that description. But, down at the bottom of the page it says that for CSU  Chico, “Other pay includes police training, uniform, holiday OT and special assignment stipends; summer stipends or pay; and payments for indirect instruction, educational achievement, and misc. incentives.”

But, Gonzalez and the other lieutenants pitched a bitch because many sergeants, who are supposed to be subordinate to the lieutenants, were jacking up their $80 – 95,000 a year salaries with overtime, to waaaay more than the lieutenants were getting paid. So, despite the bullshit storm being stirred up by Peter Durfee of Chico Police Officers Assoc, they did so get raises in their new contracts. it makes me sick to have to listen to even Channel 7 perpetuating this horseshit campaign, letting Durfee shoot his mouth off on the news without any opposing viewpoints.

Durfee, by the way, padded on more than $30,000 to his seemingly innocuous-looking $63,000 salary, taking home more than $95,000 in 2012.

Here’s a response my letter got from a cop groupie, sitting next to her scanner in a negligee:

Linda Hinchcliff Rouland · Clear Lake High

Chico PD is the only city bargaining group that has come forward offering concessions to contribute toward their retirements in an effort to offer savings and keep their department operating. No one else has, and the city managers rejected the offer.

Yes, they certainly did reject it, and good for that. I wish people would try harder to be informed before they accuse ME of spreading misinformation – but this woman is obviously going to support the cops no matter what they do.  

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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:

img003

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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No, big spending doesn’t guarantee election success – CTA kicked ass with $330 – have a glass of turnip juice, it’s on me!

8 Feb

I’ve been so disappointed in the Enterprise Record lately, I wish I could stop reading it, but for Chico news, that’s all there is.  It’s not really news, but it’s a good indicator of what they want us to think is going on around here.

I was just reading an editorial by David Little, where he just gushes all over Tom Lando. That’s good to know.  Remember what Madame Web said – “Keep your enemies even closer.” 

This story below, which details some of the spending in last November’s local election, ignores Measure J completely. Wouldn’t you like to know what the city spent on Measure J?   I’ll tell you what I spent – $330, and some change. That bought 100 “No on Measure J” signs, and we didn’t even get all of those out. But we won, go figure.

We followed Tami Ritter’s advice – we ran an effective campaign, not a costly one.  Although, I will say, for a family like mine, who live on about half of what Sean Morgan spent on his campaign, $330 is a lot of money. It would have gone most of the way paying for my kid’s class at Butte College. Luckily, the CTA came through, everybody chipped in. We found out – an individual can spend almost $1000 without creating a PAC or having to fill out paperwork. On whatever they like. We chose signs.

Ritter talks about giving money to charity. She should know – I wonder if she’s ever had a salary that did not get squeezed out of the public teat. She acts like she spent nothing – $15,000 is chump change to these people.  We kicked the crap out of Measure J with roughly two percent of what she spent.

 I call that, damn good turnip squeezin!

And here’s that application link again:

Click to access CellPhoneRefundApplication_011713.pdf

Big spending doesn’t guarantee Chico election success

By ASHLEY GEBB-Staff Writer
Posted:   02/05/2013 12:21:45 AM PST
Click photo to enlarge

Chico City Council candidate Dave Donnan removes his election signs along the Skyway on Nov. 7,…

CHICO — Spending big bucks in the Chico City Council race was not a guarantee to secure a seat at the dais last year, with two out of three top spenders failing to get elected, the latest finance filings show.Finance reports released this month for Oct. 31 to Dec. 31 show that Sean Morgan spent and received the most in 2012, at $40,928 and $41,081, respectively. He was the third-highest vote getter for one of four available seats.

But two candidates who raised the second- and third- highest sums of money and also spent large amounts during their campaigns did not get elected.

Andrew Coolidge spent $36,822 and came in fifth place. Bob Evans spent $27,636.92 and received the seventh-highest amount of votes.

First-time councilor Morgan thinks the money and effort spent on his campaign was worth it, but more importantly, he said, he hopes citizens who supported him got what they wanted.

“The deal was you contributed because you believed in my message — a safe place to raise a family, an ideal location for business, and a premier place to live,” he said. “And that is what we are working on.”

The three other candidates to be elected were Ann Schwab, who spent $27,342, followed by Randall Stone at $25,072 and Tami Ritter at $15,919. They received the first-, fourth- and second-highest vote totals, respectively.

In both spending and contributions, Ritter ranked seventh among the 10 candidates. She said she credits getting elected to an effective campaign,  not a costly one.”I made a commitment early, in terms of the amount of money I was going to spend,” Ritter said. “There is an awful lot of money that goes into the campaign process and for me that was a real challenge. Being as tied in as I am to the social services community, I see how much good those dollars could be doing.”

She devoted much of her energy to walking door-to-door, enlisting volunteers and utilizing free social media.

She invested what she did spend on well-planned advertising, using a targeted approach instead of blanketing the community, she said.

In total, last year’s campaign spending by the 10 candidates who accepted contributions totaled $224,680.41. Campaign donations totaled $236,220.87.

Some candidates spent more than some citizens’ annual incomes, Ritter said, but at the other end of the spectrum was candidate Lisa Duarte, who pledged to not accept any money and encouraged people to donate to community causes instead.

“I would love it if that were the norm for a campaign because clearly I can think of multiple organizations around Chico that can benefit from the $15,000 I spent,” Ritter said.

Yet, Duarte received only 3.26 percent of votes, a fraction of those tallied for candidates who amassed thousands of dollars in contributions and invested heavily in their campaigns.

Both Ritter and Morgan said spending money seems to be an inevitable part of campaigning.

“The neat thing about a city council race is you can still meet a lot of people. You can go door-to-door and meet people and say hi,” Morgan said. “But can you knock on 10,000 doors? Probably not. You need money to get that message out there.”

As a newcomer to political races, he did everything he could to reach out to strangers and people he’s known for decades.

“What I didn’t want to happen is for it to get to be the last week and not win because we missed one mailer or one ad,” he said.

Morgan pointed out the campaign finance reports show only what candidates raised and spent, not what was raised or spent in support of them by other individuals or political action committees.

“Somebody else could have had twice that spent on them, and no one looks at it because it is outside,” he said.

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City announces they’ve instructed cell phone companies to stop taking tax – check your bills to make sure!

29 Jan

I see the Measure J refunds story is in the “most read” section of the Enterprise Record  today, but I posted it here just in case you missed it – read below.

I see a couple of problems in the story – for one thing, Ashley Gebb is a sloppy reporter. There she says, “Nearly 54 percent of residents voted in November to not update the city’s phone user tax”.  No no Dear, it was 54 % of the city’s VOTERS, not residents, duh. Does she understand how voting works?  Sorry to be a nit-picker, but this is the same gal that lectured me on the proper mis-use of the word “average“.  I notice she dropped that word from the part about billing amounts. In her pre-election story she said the “average”  bill in Chico was $50. When I questioned her about that, she came back like, “Oh silly, I didn’t mean mathematical average, I just meant, you know, AVERAGE!”

Another bit that bothers me is where Hennessy says folks will have to provide not only proof they were billed for the tax, but proof they PAID the tax? Of course, that should come up on the next bill, but what about your last bill? You need to wait until you get the following bill, that says you paid your previous bill? For Chrissake Jennifer, LET IT GO!  This whole thing reminds me of “Repo Man” – the old movie with Emilio Estevez. 

But, the good news is, ” the city has notified wireless phone companies to no longer collect the tax.”

Now, there’s some news! But I’d like to hear from those of you, who, like Jim in Chico, have seen the tax on their billing, who can check to make sure it’s gone. Let me know. 

Here’s Gebbs’ story:

Measure J-related phone tax refunds now available in Chico

By ASHLEY GEBB-Staff Writer
Posted:   01/29/2013 12:00:00 AM PST
 

CHICO — Chico residents can now apply for refunds for phone taxes paid to the city during the previous 12 months. 

Due to the failure of Measure J, the city is offering residents refunds for any utility user taxes paid for cellphones or Voice over Internet Protocol services within a year of application. 

Nearly 54 percent of residents voted in November to not update the city’s phone user tax to include modern technology such as cellphones, and the city has notified wireless phone companies to no longer collect the tax.

“If an individual showed documentation they were billed a tax and it was paid, we will issue them a refund,” said Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy on Wednesday.

The 5 percent phone tax would equate to about $2.50 of a monthly $50 bill or $5 of a monthly $100 bill.

Since November, any phone tax revenue that has come in has been placed in an account earmarked for refunds. If any remains after one year, the revenue may be placed in the general fund.

As for how many people may apply, “I have no idea,” Hennessy said. The potential fiscal impact is about $900,000 if all phone tax collected were to be reimbursed.

The City Council has not yet addressed what it will do to compensate for the loss in revenue, which supported the general fund.

Residents will need to provide documentation, including their cellphone bill and proof the bill was paid. Refunds will be issued beginning Feb. 21 and be mailed to the name and address on the bill.

Residents may not claim refunds for amounts previously refunded through the city’s utility tax refund program for income-qualified individuals. Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS customers are also not eligible because the providers did not collect the tax in the last 12 months.The refund application is the only way for the city to issue reimbursements, Hennessy said. The tax payments it received from phone companies are a lump sum, with no indication of who paid, for what and how much.Applications are available online and at City Hall’s Finance Department counter.

“We will be processing them as they come in and issuing refund checks,” City Attorney Lori Barker told the City Council this month. “Checks will be issued on the city’s regular cycle of processing and accounts payable.”

The City Council unanimously made final approval of the refund ordinance at its Jan. 15 meeting.

 

Connect with Ashley Gebb at 896-7768, agebb@chicoer.com, or on Twitter @AshleyGebb.

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The squeaky wheel gets the grease

26 Jan

I been rattling chains over at the Finance Department to find out how they plan to legally notify the public about cell phone tax refunds. I feel  it’s more their job to protect the citizens than to protect the city itself, but they agree to disagree with me on that. It’s all about civility people – don’t ask too many questions, you will be treated like you’re from Glenn County or something. 

I feel the city should be more responsible for returning this ill-gotten booty, so I’ve been e-mailing the Finance office about once a week for more details. I have to give Frank Fields some credit – at least he answers my e-mails.   He told me they’d finally decided how to notice the cell phone tax  refund:

Ms. Sumner:     The City will be placing a “Notice” (much like the notice for the annual UUT Refund program) in both the Chico ER and Chico N&R beginning late next week (i.e., sometime over the weekend).   – Frank

We’re so damned civil around here! Don’t fart, you gauche bastard! 

So, next Thursday there should be something in the N&R, and then we’ll maybe see it in the ER later that weekend.  

Of course, as far as I know, they’re still taking it out off people’s bills, which really isn’t very civil, but you know how they are. Down at the city, civility means, you get a kiss with your screwing.

 I have not heard one more word on their quest to inform the cell phone companies. That’s a question for Jennifer Hennessy, and I forgot to ask her at the last Finance Committee meeting. I’ll have to drop her an e-mail soon. 

What I do know is, people are hitting that link I posted to the refund application – here it is again:

http://www.chico.ca.us/finance/documents/CellPhoneRefundApplication_0117

I hope people will get their refunds – that’s the real “victory” I’m looking for here, that the city is called on it’s bad behavior, and made to set things right. 

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The new buzz phrase – “budget neutral…”

16 Oct

I am really disappointed in the Chico Enterprise Record lately. I don’t know why – it’s not like the ER has ever been a great newspaper, but at least, it has  been more of a real newspaper in the past.

I don’t know where they got the gal that wrote the story on Measure J, but she needs to take a math class.

According to Miss Ashley Gebb of the Enterprise Record, “The rate change, if applied to an average cellphone bill of $50 per month would change the tax from $2.50 a month to $2.25.”

There she says, “an average cellphone bill of $50 per month…” She’s saying the average Chico cell phone bill is only $50. When I asked her about this, she said it was “an issue of semantics.  I wrote “an average phone bill” not “the average phone bill.” No, Ashley, there’s no “semantics” involved here – according to the dictionary, “average” means “constituting the result obtained by adding together several quantities and then dividing this total by the number of quantities.”  

Furthermore, she took the exact words out of Ann Schwab’s argument in favor, changing the word “the” for “an”, like she said, as if that makes some kind of difference.

She  insinuates that everybody already pays this tax. She says some carriers haven’t collected the tax – she means, only AT&T has and that’s been illegal for 30 years! 

Sorry Ashley, you wrote a propaganda piece. You didn’t bother to contact anybody in opposition of this measure. All she had to do was google “no on measure j chico ca” and the first thing that pops up is this blog.  Our blog was on the news the other night – seems like the tv news reporter went a little farther in her efforts to get the real story. Gebb’s piece comes off in favor of Measure J. I’ve run it below, pretty sloppy, but you can read it for yourself – it’s a propaganda piece, not news. 

That’s because, Dave Little wants it to pass. He believes “most” people do not pay enough taxes. He’s just bitter because his house is upside down.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/13-Stratford-Way-Chico-CA-95973/52456465_zpid/

The house he bought in 2007 is worth over $100,000 less than he paid for it. Of course, look at the tax history – he’s managed to get the assessor to cut his taxes by almost $1,000 over the last four years. Wow, I wish he’d shake down with that information – the “average” person would be afraid to go to the assessor – he can also assess your house for MORE! But I doubt he’d pull that kind of shit with the editor of the local “newspaper.” Gee, how nice for Dave! But still, his house is overtaxed, and he’s pissed about it. He wants a baseball stadium and all these bells and whistles for his public charter school kids, so he’s allowed Tom Lando to talk him into this Measure J bullshit – yes, you know Tom Lando is behind this, Ann Schwab is too stupid to come up with it herself. 

Little sent his brand new reporter out to do a little story about Measure J – why not a more seasoned reporter? Somebody who knows what’s going on in our local politics?  Because he doesn’t want a real story, he wants Measure J to pass. 

GEBB’S STORY FROM THE ER

Telephone users tax put before Chico voters

By ASHLEY GEBB – Staff Writer
Posted: 10/15/2012 12:35:27 AM PDT
CHICO — The jumble of taxes tacked on to phone bills may go unnoticed by
many, but one that provides revenue to the city of Chico may garner a little
more attention come Nov. 6.
Measure J is asking voters whether to amend wording to the city’s telephone
users tax to encompass modern technology, while decreasing the tax rate
from 5 percent to 4.5 percent. Revenue from the telephone users tax
supports the general fund.
Since implementation of a telephone users tax in 1970, the city’s existing
ordinance, like similar ordinances statewide, defines services subject to the
tax by referencing a federal telephone tax.
As phone technology has modernized, the outdated definition is being
challenged in many cities and some phone carriers have quit collecting the
tax.
To protect against losing revenues, many cities are updating their
telecommunications user taxes through voters. Nearly all the measures
have been approved, such as one in Oroville in 2010.
“It’s not a new tax, it’s just paying attention to the fact we have different technology than we had 30 years ago,” said
Councilman Jim Walker. “It’s not like we are trying to find a windfall for the city. The way our current tax law is written,
the city stands to lose $800,000 or $900,000 in revenue because we have antiquated verbiage.”
If Chico’s measure succeeds, the tax would apply to all users of telephone communication services, including
cellphones, voice over Internet, paging, text messaging and landline
services. The tax would not apply to Internet service,
pay phones and low-income residents.
The rate change, if applied to an average cellphone
bill of $50 per month would change the tax from
$2.50 a month to $2.25.
Council members Ann Schwab, and Andy
Holcombe and Mary Goloff also support the
measure, saying it is critical to prevent loss of tax
revenue that ultimately supports police and fire
services, road maintenance and park funds.
Rejecting it, they say, could keep Chico from
remaining solvent.
The city currently receives about $1.4 million in
telephone user tax revenue a year. It is estimated
$900,000 of that comes from wireless
telecommunications providers — revenue that could
be at risk if the ordinance is not updated.
In March 2011, Metro PCS stopped paying the tax,
causing a loss of nearly $80,000.
Measure opponents state the tax is one more opportunity for the “bloated Chico bureaucracy” to get more revenue
out of its residents.
“(City) taxes on water, electricity, natural gas and phone service are bleeding Chico’s citizens and businesses dry

12 Telephone users tax put before Chico voters – Chico Enterprise Record
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“City government must tighten its belt by cutting back on nonessential programs and services.”
As for arguments the measure’s failure will cause cuts to critical city services, “isn’t that what they always say?”
Sorensen said. “It’s up to us what we cut.”
“Another problem is it’s regressive, so it hits lower-income folks harder than it does higher income because it’s a
bigger portion of their allegedly disposable income,” he added.
It also remains to be seen whether the city would lose any revenue, said Sorensen, who predicts there could be a
gain.
Councilman Scott Gruendl disagrees.
“There is a lot of misinformation out there,” he said. “Part of the argument in opposition to the tax measure is it’s
more taxation on the people, when in reality, the existing tax ordinance is out of date … Something that never gets
said is the fact we will be taxing cellphones — we already tax cellphones now.”
Gruendl has also heard criticism the city lowered the rate to deceptively encourage voters to support the measure.
Yes, the city wanted to incentivize people, he said, but it lowered the rate to not boost city revenue when more people
begin to be taxed.
“We wanted to be as budget neutral as possible,” he said.
Connect with Ashley Gebb at 896-7768, agebb@chicoer.com, or on Twitter @AshleyGebb

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Get those letters in to the ER – but remember, you only get one “election related” letter before November 6.

19 Sep

I think David Little makes a big mistake every year when he tries to limit people to one “election related letter” after Labor Day.  Instead of creating a discourse over a period of months, he gets a last minute bullshit storm. 

Right now, nobody is writing, because they want to get that last word in. That’s what happens. In the last few weeks, after about October 5, it will be standing room only. 

In future I wish Little would start encouraging discussion as soon as the candidates and the measures start popping up in the spring. The state ballot measures were posted way back in March or April. And the local ballot measures, like the cell phone tax, have been in the works since last spring too. But you don’t read anything in the ER or the News & Review until the last few weeks. That last minute scramble is never the best atmosphere for considering a ballot measure. 

But, if you have a mind to write a letter to the ER, it’s wide open. 

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Schindelbeck is the only council candidate who’s been willing to take on $taff and Measure J

19 Sep

I got together the other day with some friends and talked about Measure J. We came up with a short analysis of this measure. These are FACTS that everybody should know about Measure J:

  • Measure J will add a 4.5 percent tax to cellular phone services and every form of electronic communication service existing now, as well as those yet to be invented.
  • Measure J allows the city Finance Director to add new forms of electronic communication to the list of those services taxed, without voter approval.  
  • Measure J revenues will be directed to the General Fund, which means there is no guarantee they will be used to fund public safety as proponents claim, but could be used for any purpose determined by council.
  • Measure J revenues can and will be used to pay the outstanding pension obligations of our city employees, more than 100 of whom make over $100,000/year and pay none of their own pension premiums. Only the fire employees pay any pension premium, and only 2 %. 

These can be typed or written onto a card or half sheet of paper and handed out or sent to anyone you know who receives a phone bill within the city of Chico. Or you can memorize them for enlightening conversations!

Here’s another list of facts –  these are the top 21 pension earners at  the city of Chico – those who get over a $100,000 a year, in pension. “Warrant Amount”, in case you didn’t guess, is how much they get a month.  John Brown, by the way, is our recently retired fire chief. Want to make a guess at what the new fire chief makes, the guy who shut down Station 5? 

Name Employer Warrant Amount Annual
ALEXANDER, THOMAS E CHICO $8,947.23 $107,366.76
BAPTISTE, ANTOINE G CHICO $10,409.65 $124,915.80
BEARDSLEY, DENNIS D CHICO $8,510.23 $102,122.76
BROWN, JOHN S CHICO $17,210.38 $206,524.56
CARRILLO, JOHN A CHICO $10,398.98 $124,787.76
DAVIS, FRED CHICO $12,467.78 $149,613.36
DUNLAP, PATRICIA CHICO $10,632.10 $127,585.20
FELL, JOHN G CHICO $9,209.35 $110,512.20
FRANK, DAVID R CHICO $14,830.05 $177,960.60
GARRISON, FRANK W CHICO $8,933.56 $107,202.72
JACK, JAMES F CHICO $9,095.09 $109,141.08
KOCH, ROBERT E CHICO $9,983.23 $119,798.76
LANDO, THOMAS J CHICO $11,236.48 $134,837.76
MCENESPY, BARBARA  CHICO $12,573.40 $150,880.80
PIERCE, CYNTHIA CHICO $9,390.30 $112,683.60
ROSS, EARNEST C CHICO $9,496.60 $113,959.20
SCHOLAR, GARY P CHICO $8,755.69 $105,068.28
SELLERS, CLIFFORD R CHICO $9,511.11 $114,133.32
VONDERHAAR, JOHN F CHICO $8,488.07 $101,856.84
VORIS, TIMOTHY M CHICO $8,433.90 $101,206.80
WEBER, MICHAEL C CHICO $11,321.93 $135,863.16

You not only pay these pensions, you pay the interest on the money we have to borrow to pay them. See, the California Public Employee Retirement System gambled it’s money on the stock market, and lost our ass. CalPERS officers still take huge salaries, and of course, get 70 percent of their salary as pension.

The salaries these Chico pensions were based on  were negotiated by people sitting on council now, including Ann Schwab. When Tom Lando  left the city of Chico he was making over $190,000 a year, largely because of a memo Ann signed that linked city worker pay to revenue increases but not decreases. 

That memo was really the last nail in our coffin. Like a little time-release bomb. The public salaries went up, up, up, and they took the cost of living in Chico with them, never to return. Unfortunately, at the same time, council, led by Ann Schwab and the liberals, went on a building permits spree to fund their salary increase, ruining the housing market and the construction industry in our town.  The contractors they brought in from towns like Fresno brought not only their own workers, but undocumented aliens, who took their paychecks out of town. Meanwhile long-time local contractors and workers were left unemployed. This had a long-term effect that is coming to fruition now – those folks are losing their homes, which are selling for much less than they were assessed at five years ago, and now the big stinking pigeon has come home to roost – the city is broke.

And that’s where the memo comes in again – revenue increases but not decreases – revenues went down, down, down, but salaries DOWNTOWN are still going up, up, up. I’ll never forget the time Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy was allowed to hire her own performance auditor, and when he gave her the expected favorable review, she gave herself a $14,000 a year raise. Wow – talk about your perks and benies – a job where you get to be in charge of your own pay! 

This hayride has to end, but when?  The only candidate I’ve seen in this election taking any of these people to task is Toby Schindelbeck, and that’s why he’s the only candidate who has the endorsement of the Chico Taxpayer’s Association.  I like Coolidge, but he hasn’t done much, and some of the stuff he’s said has left me wondering. And Morgan doesn’t know what he’s talking about –  he’s just a rubber stamp for the “public safety” unions. Meanwhile, Evans won’t admit he knows anything about Lando’s sales tax increase proposal, even though he’s been sitting in on the discussions. 

I‘m sick of the same old same old Downtown, I’m not voting for Fist Puppets. I want somebody different in there. Right now, most of them are public workers or ex public workers, including career military pensioner Bob Evans and Biggs city mangler Mark Sorensen.  I don’t think these people can stand up to $taff because they are blinded by self-interests – they know, pension reform could affect them! We need a small business owner, an employer, a person who does business with the general public – somebody who still has his feet planted firmly on the same dirt the rest of us are standing on. 

That’s why I’m supporting Schindelbeck. His future is more tied to Chico, and the rest of us. 

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