Tag Archives: Chico Police Officers Assoc

Well, FINALLY! Clerk posts CPOA filings, rec’d Feb. 20 – over two weeks late

24 Feb

http://www.chico.ca.us/city_clerk/campaign_disclosure_files/documents/POAForm4602ndSemi-Annual_Redacted.pdf

She must have posted them yesterday, I looked over the weekend and they weren’t there.  Nothing exciting, just two pages – two pages that were required by law to be in the clerk’s office by January 31.

I don’t know if she fined them the suggested ($5 or $10?) a day. If you want to know, you can contact the clerk’s office at debbie.presson@chicoca.gov; heather.kavanaugh@chicoca.gov; dani.brinkley@chicoca.gov

Presson has two assistants, not just one as I had believed. What’s the problem down there? Health issues? After the week I’ve had, I don’t want to hear about your health issues.

We are less than two years from another election. If you are interested in helping out with ideas let me know. Tell me if you don’t want your comment posted.  I’ve been getting a lot of feed back from people who feel it is risky to talk publicly about the cops or fire department.  

That’s a sad commentary – our police union makes us afraid. 

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Sheesh I’m glad we got Mark Sorense watching our bacon!

20 Jan

Tomorrow night council will probably pass the employee contracts. There are improvements,  but only because we are at rock bottom now, would what they are doing look the slightest bit good. It’s not good enough.

Oh Geeshy! The cops and fire are being asked to pay (gasp!) nine whopping percent of their own pensions.  Yeah, they will receive 90 percent of their highest year’s salary – most of them taking home $90,000 to $100,000, some even more, for RETIRING. For not coming to work. Wow, that’s just a gobstopper.

I will predict that Gruendl and Sorensen will lead the kudos team with exclamations about how much money they’ve saved!

Let me put this in perspective. Imagine, you are out in the ocean in a disabled boat,  a week’s float from civilization. You have the city staff in the boat, and exactly enough water to meet their dire need for the exact amount of time it will take to reach land. But, of course, passengers start bickering –  the cops and fire employees feel they should have more water than others, because they can’t stand their own body odor.  Mark Sorensen and Sean Morgan take over the boat and announce they will  give the cops and fire employees more water, cause they need to shower, so the cops and fire start using up all the water. A few days later, Sorensen, under pressure, decides that the cops and fire need to cut their showering by 50 percent. Then he takes a shower to celebrate – “look at all the water we’ll be saving!“

Plug this into our scenario – Sorensen’s shower is the $21,000 health insurance package he takes off he taxpayers, for which he pays a Jesus H. Whopping amount of two percent of his council salary – less than $200 a year for a $21,000 health insurance package. He also gets a package from the city of Biggs. I’ve asked him again and again, why does he need us to pay for that $21,000 package? On his FPPC Form 700, he claims his satellite tv business yanks in over $100,000 a year. What’s he need the taxpayers to pay his healthcare bills for? But he won’t answer. He’s a weird bird – if you ask him a question that suits his propaganda, he’ll yak all day. But if you ask him the wrong question, it gets so quiet you can hear a cricket fart.

Maybe we should ask him how much money he’s been taking from the “public safety” unions. I’ll tell you what – you won’t pull that out of him with a tractor. And, as of a minute or so ago, it’s not on the city website either. After all that bitching I did about the minutes not being up to date, I’ve let them get – are you ready for this – YEARS behind on the campaign reports. The clerk doesn’t even have the reports for the last election – and I’m sorry, I know it’s on purpose. They were there and they were taken. Gone. Kaput!

I sent an e-mail to Clerk Presson, City Manager Nakamura, as well as Mark Sorensen …. oh excuse me, that must be “Sorense,” because he’s dropped that last ‘n’ from his e-mail. You know he’s CRAFTY!

He’s TRICKY!

That’s Mark Sorensen at msorense@chico.ca.us. Wait! That’s mark.sorensen@chicoca.gov   – see Mary’s comment below, I had forgot about that.   I asked very nicely why the reports aren’t on the website, and where can I find them. We’ll see what we get. 

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What happens to the revelers after they are arrested Downtown? How about some accountability for the $60,000 spent over four days of Halloween?

20 Dec

A month or so ago I read an article (posted below) in the Enterprise Record regarding the dollar total for police enforcement over Halloween weekend. Over a four day stretch the cops reportedly rang up over $60,000 in regular hours and overtime, it’s all spelled out down there, thank you Almendra Carpizo. 

Lately I’ve been looking over arrest reports – something I found a few years back when I was researching potential tenants. I try to keep an eye on those, which are available online – I just google “Chico police arrest reports,” and usually the most recent ones pop right up. I’ve never kept notes, or tried to make any long term study. What I’ve been doing lately is checking the names on the arrest logs over at the Butte County Superior Court website. I realize, it may take some time to update the court website.  I haven’t been doing this too long, but I will start writing down names and dates on the drunk in public stuff, and then I’ll try to check back to see how many of these drunk in public arrests actually make their way to court.

I’ve been told, Ramsey won’t prosecute, his office is understaffed and overbooked, yadda yadda.  Not to mention, he seems to have been carrying at least one staffer with perpetual hangover the last few years. Whatever the reason, the fact remains – the city of Chico is spending millions of dollars a year on cops who arrest people who are never formally charged with a crime, never prosecuted, and therefore, never tapped for their share of the cost. 

I asked Chief Trostle about it.

Sent to Chief Trostle, Dec 3 2013:  I have a question about arrests made over Halloween, St. Patricks and other high enforcement “holidays”. I was not sure who to ask, so I have sent to you four.  I’ve cc’d the news folks because I thought they’d be interested, or maybe they know something that can shed light here. 

 

My question: what happens to these arrestees? How many are charged formally? How many convictions, generally speaking? How much is collected in fines from these people? If you do the math for this recent Halloween, it cost about $600 per person to make there arrests, how will that money be retrieved? 

 

Thanks, at your convenience, for either answering my questions or forwarding me to someone who can  – Juanita Sumner, Chico

Response rec’d Dec 4 2013:

Ms. Sumner,

I received your email and questions regarding arrests, convictions, and fines.  I wish I had access to that type of information, but unfortunately it doesn’t exist.  I can tell you that during the special events (ie Halloween, St. Patrick’s day, etc.), everyone we arrest is booked into the county jail and charged.  This is different than most of the rest of the year.  For most of the year, people arrested for things such as drunk in public, are not formally charged.  This is mostly due to the workload of the District Attorney’s Office.

 

We do not receive a report from the DA’s Office regarding convictions or fines.  When a case is adjudicated by the courts, we do not receive any notice of the final outcome.  That is also true with potential fines.  It is possible to go to the court’s website and research cases by name, but that is a very time consuming process which we have never had the staff to complete.  Sorry I don’t have more information for you.

 

Ford Porter

Captain

Chico Police Department

I had to thank Captain Porter for his response, but I find it very frustrating, and unacceptable. Here they hold their hand out for more money every Halloween – not to mention, Cesar Chavez Day?  But they don’t have any kind of figures on what becomes of their arrests? That’s just inexcusable un-accountability.  

Again I will quote that old Yiddish saying – When the fish stinks, it’s the head of the fish that stinks!  Here we have a many-headed fish, a monster sporting the heads of Scott Gruendl, Mark Sorensen – the whole council, in fact – along with Brian Nakamura and Kirk Trostle. This is why we have elections folks. It’s time to wrap up some fish and huck it into the bin. 

Chico Police Department reveals salary costs of patrolling Halloween weekend

By ALMENDRA CARPIZO-Staff Writer

POSTED:   12/03/2013 12:00:00 AM PST

CHICO — The Chico Police Department spent more than $60,000 to patrol downtown and the area south of the Chico State University campus from 6 p.m. Oct. 31 to 6 a.m. Nov. 3, according to the department.Chico police used about 1,380 staff hours during that period, mostly due to regular shifts or shift adjustments, according to a press release prepared by Chico Police Lt. George Laver.

“Numerous officers (including detectives) had their shifts adjusted to work Halloween night in an attempt to alleviate overtime,” he stated.

The police chief, captains, lieutenants, detectives, other sworn staff and dispatchers who would normally work during the day were required to work the three nights to help with the event, Laver told the Enterprise-Record on the phone.

The only exceptions were for personnel working a day shift — about 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. — and a few other officers.

The amount of staff that worked is what would be expected, because “unfortunately” that’s what the department has had to do for the last 20 years, Laver said.

“It’s one of the days or events that we have circled in the books and everyone knows that there’s no vacations … A ‘don’t even bother’ type of thing,” he said.

The costs of the extra staffing were just over $42,000 in regular wages and an extra $20,000 for overtime, according to Laver, who oversaw the Halloween operation.

Those wages reflect the people who were pulled from their assignments to work specifically on Halloween weekend and were dedicated to the campus area and downtown, Laver said. There were two teams that were on duty to patrol the rest of Chico, but the amount of money to staff those teams was not included as to not skew the data.

Halloween 2012 took $53,000 out of the department’s overtime pay, and it was expecting to spend about $70,000 to $75,000 in total this year.

Although the figure was smaller than first thought, Halloween weekend costs the department two training days to accommodate for the event and stay on budget.

Typically, the Chico Police Department trains once a month with the department splitting in half and alternating months, Laver said. Training days scheduled for November and January had to be canceled in order to save on overtime.

If the Police Department wouldn’t have done that, overtime costs would be over or comparable to last year, Laver said.

Laver said that during the Halloween weekend there appeared to be fewer arrests than years prior, but he’s unsure why. There were 99 arrests, 84 alcohol-related, according to police.

People may say not to worry and let people have their fun and only respond if there’s a problem, Laver said. However, a situation can quickly become a crowd-control issue and the Police Department won’t be able to muster enough resources to handle it.

Outside agencies like the Butte, Glenn and Tehama County sheriff’s offices, several Butte County police departments, and the Butte County Probation Department donated 686 staff hours to help Chico police during Halloween weekend, according to Laver. The AVOID the 8 DUI Task Force provided an additional 64 hours of enforcement.

“It’s a tremendous help to have those agencies here,” he said.

Laver said he’d like for things to get back to where the Chico Police Department could staff Halloween weekend with its regular shifts or just one extra team.

All the money saved could be used for increased staffing for the remainder of the year, he said. He recalled 1989 as the last year the Police Department had its regular staffing out for the event.

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