Tag Archives: City of Chico Ca

Let’s make Scott Gruendl squeal like a pig

1 Dec

I love living in Northern California and these winter storms are part and parcel. I keep my house maintained and I try to watch the storm drains up and down my street because you can’t depend on the city to do anything until there’s a problem. All along the Manzanita corridor intersections have suffered severe flooding because the city isn’t cleaning the storm drains.  They make a lot of noise about leaf pick-up, allowing landscapers to dump tons of leaves in the street every year, but all it takes is a handful of leaves to plug a storm drain, and that’s what I’ve been seeing around town. 

The city has also allowed an enormous amount of development around town, especially along Big and Little Chico Creeks, without providing any kind of flood mitigation. That’s why you’re all getting notices right now. 

Meanwhile, they are blaming the defeat of Measure J for all their problems and getting ready to mount a campaign to raise your sales tax, starring Ann Schwab and  Scott Gruendl, and produced by Tom Lando and his fist-puppet Brian Nakamura.

Schwab and Gruendl are currently undertaking a scare campaign, with the help of the local media, to convince Chico voters that if they don’t pay more taxes, anarchy will reign in the streets of Chico and we’ll all be home-invasioned and carjacked. Ken Campbell says we complain too much. 

They’re also cutting street maintenance, and watch for the park to start looking pretty bad too. Those bread bags hanging out of those dog doo dispensers are looking like weird trash cans. Wait til we see old crappy bread bags laid alongside trails full of poop, that’s going to look good. 

You probably watched Kojak as a child, if you’re reading my blog. You know what a “protection racket” is, don’t you? 

Nakamura, like a broken record, keeps repeating the same words over and over: “To give you some perspective, $900,000 means seven to eight police officers or potentially two-thirds of an
operation of a fire station…”  That fucker is threatening us. 

Maybe I need to put this in perspective: at the same meeting referenced  below, Jennifer Hennessy told us, we spend over $7 million a year paying  our employee’s pension premiums. She didn’t have the figure on health benefits.  

Yes, that’s just the “share”. The city only contributes 18 percent of the actual costs of these pensions, including the employee and employer shares.  The rest of the cost is what they called, “the unfunded pension obligation.” 

I’ll save you rereading those epic blogs I wrote about the Pension Bomb – the California Public Employees Retirement System – CalPERS – expected to fund 82 percent of these pensions by loading them into a little cart and sending them off to the stock market with Mr. Toad. Mr. Toad fell out before the got the cart off the runway, and every time the cart comes back around it’s full of nothing but I.O.U.’s – or rather – “we owe them’s”. CalPERS has lost 10’s of millions on the stock market, they’ve never made the returns they’ve promised, and now Governor Moonbeam is starting to talk about making the cities and counties pay their own pension obligations. 

Here’s a little slice of what that’s going to look like – these are just the top management pensions, current as of 2010. Yes, all these people are RETIRED. They do NOTHING but still get this money. 70 – 90 percent of their highest years earnings. The “warrant” amount means, their monthly check.  Right now, they are being paid out of RDA funds and off the premiums of lower level workers who pay more, but soon Jerry Brown will turn on us for this money. And guess what – we don’t have it! 

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 L 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

This is what Gruendl doesn’t want to talk about.

Scott Gruendl is a sneaky little creep. The discussion in the meeting lasted less than five minutes, but after everybody was gone he sidled up to reporter Ashley Gebb and continued his threatening diatribe against the public. “After the meeting, Councilor Scott Gruendl said he was disappointed and a bit confused by the measure’s failure.  ‘The voters have sent a conflicting message,’  he said.  Citizens reportedly say they are concerned about
public safety and want more officers on the streets, yet they knew this revenue was tied to preventing cuts, he said.”

Gruendl has a selective hearing problem –  he is deaf to our concerns about salaries, benefits and pensions. 

When I questioned Jennifer Hennessy about the  shares, she told me what an employee pays toward their perks depends on what “unit” they’re in and what kind of “package” they choose. Most pay less than 5 percent toward their health package and NOTHING toward their pensions.  She also acknowledged that all our city councilors receive benefits packages paid by the taxpayers, for which they pay an amount equal to two percent of their city salaries.  For example, Gruendl receives a $16,935 health benefits package, for which he pays 2 percent of his $7,800 council salary – about $150 a year.  That in addition to his salary and benefits out of Glenn County, two other salaries from Chico State, and his partner’s salary. According to his Form 700, Gruendl takes over $140,000 in public money, not including benefits packages. I’m assuming his partner, who takes “between $10,001 – $100,000” as a supervisor at a local rest home, also gets a benefits package. 

This guy never ceases to amaze me. Ever hear a pig scream when you are late with that bucket? Well, there’s Gruendl for you. 

Here’s the article from the ER below.

More cuts to Chico police on the way?
By ASHLEY GEBB — Staff Writer
Posted: 11/29/2012 01:46:41 PM PST
CHICO — Chico voters’ defeat of a proposed change to the city’s telephone users tax almost inevitably will cause
cuts to public safety, members of the finance committee said this week.
Measure J asked voters whether to amend wording to the city’s phone tax to encompass modern technology such
as cellphones while decreasing the tax rate from 5 percent to 4.5 percent. The measure was voted down Nov. 6,
gaining only 46 percent of the vote.
The telephone users tax, like other utility taxes the city collects, supports the general fund. The city receives about
$1.4 million annually in phone tax revenue, of which $900,000 to $1 million comes from wireless
telecommunications providers and likely now will disappear.
Discussion of the impact was brief at Tuesday’s meeting but City Manager Brian Nakamura said the revenue loss
will be a significant hit to the general fund, which primarily supports public safety.
“To give you some perspective, $900,000 means seven to eight police officers or potentially two-thirds of an
operation of a fire station,” he said.
Cuts to public

safety have a trickle-down effect, he said.
“Public safety, that’s what drives economic development, with businesses wanting to locate here and residents
wanting to locate here,” he said.
Revenue loss is expected to start this year, said City Attorney Lori Barker, who plans to bring the topic to the City
Council in December for discussion.
The issue will be determining the loss’ size and
where to adjust the budget, Barker said. The city will
also need to address how it will deal with any
refund requests and notifying phone providers.
Until specific legalities are ironed out, Finance
Director Jennifer Hennessy said the Finance
Department will hold any revenue from phone
companies in an account.
After the meeting, Councilor Scott Gruendl said he
was disappointed and a bit confused by the
measure’s failure.
“The voters have sent a conflicting message,” he
said.
Citizens reportedly say they are concerned about
public safety and want more officers on the streets,
yet they knew this revenue was tied to preventing
cuts, he said.
“People are going to blame us for taking cops off
the streets,” he said. “I’m OK with being blamed
because I’m an elected official, but I voted yes on Measure J.”
Proponents of Measure J said its passage was critical to protect tax revenue, while opponents argued it was a
regressive tax that unfairly targeted students and economically disadvantaged.
Options to address the revenue loss through negotiations will be limited, Gruendl said.

“Part of where my disappointment is, is the unions who are affected by Measure J did absolutely nothing,” Gruendl
said.
This revenue loss is not the only fiscal challenge the city faces, Nakamura said. Several other issues coming
forward will have to be addressed, and he anticipates a significant budget discussion will take place in January.

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Save your old phone bills – the city may be doling out refunds of illegally taken cell phone taxes

28 Nov

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I been busy hanging laundry these last fine days, anticipating the wet stuff. Kris Kuyper has predicted, today the honeymoon ends, and we’re going to get a little taste of Winter. About five days of it, apparently. Well, speak of the Devil – it just started pouring down as I sat here typing.

So yesterday I mounted old Myrt, my old Raleigh Superbe,  and we headed out through the park about 7:45 to a Finance Committee meeting Downtown.  Wow, what a morning it was, I didn’t even need a extra pair of skivvies. There was a mist along the ground. The leaves were still clinging to the trees, and that far-away sunlight was filtering down through all the light greens and tones of gold, it was like some magical forest. Right up til you get to the freeway where they’ve slaughtered every living thing. Oh well – did you think we could go along like a nice little town after Schwab and her friends permitted Meriam Park – “a city within a city.” The freeway widening as well as the upcoming widening of Hwy 32 were necessitated by Meriam Park and a couple of other subdivisions permitted by this “sustainable” council of ours. Tom Varga stood up and told us, gridlock will get worse, air quality will get worse, we will have all the trimmings of a city before you know it. I choose to get out there and enjoy what’s left of Old Chico before the developers bury it in a pile of shitopia.

If you’ve been watching meetings lately you’ve seen, we have to come up with matching funds for those projects. Business as usual Downtown.

At yesterday’s Finance Committee meeting, chaired by Scott Gruendl, they were busily giving away more of the taxpayer’s money. Gruendl really seems to believe that’s his job. The first two items on the agenda were approval of two mortgage subsidy deferrals. The mortgage subsidy program is intended for low-income first time home buyers, a low-interest loan that is supposed to be paid off or refinanced in five years.  Yesterday, on the recommendation of staffer Sherri Morgado and city manager Brian Nakamura,  Gruendl and Mark Sorensen voted to extend the loans of an individual and a couple who have moved out of their city-subsidized houses but “can’t” sell them and want us to go on footing the bill for their life styles. The first woman has had her loan out for 10 years, and has already got one extension. Now she’s coming forward for her second extension, even though she owns a second home. The other couple says they had to relocate to the Bay Area for their jobs.

Frankly, I don’t believe either of the buyers would qualify under the income requirements, but Morgado didn’t present all the documents. She argued that the city would lose if they force these folks to sell now. I don’t agree – the city could easily recoup their money by foreclosing. None of these people are threatened with homelessness, they just don’t want to lose on their investment, like families all over town. So they expect us to subsidize their bad judgement. Morgado is the one to blame – she is loaning money to people that banks won’t touch.

So both of their houses are being rented below market here in town, competing with landlords like me who run our businesses properly. I also believe they could be lying about the actual rent they collect, but there’s no way to know.  I find that kind of mismanagement of a fund that is supposed to help low-income people buy houses pretty disgusting. But, Mark Sorensen and Scott Gruendl went ahead and gave them the extensions. That matter was settled by 8:05, when Mary Flynn walked in the door with wet hair and a startled look on her face. She had already missed the first two agenda items. She looked surprised, as if she expected them to wait for her.

Flynn’s attendance at meetings has been so shoddy, a few months ago council had to vote as to whether to kick her off or not. They let her slide.   I’ve heard she’s pondering quitting, even before her term’s up. But that’s just gossip, we’ll have to wait and see what she does.

She made it to the meeting just in time for the quickie financial report from Finance Director  Jennifer Hennessy. This consisted of charts and doodah made up by consulting firm HdL Coren and Cone – “2013 Property tax Summary” and “City of Chico Sales Tax Update” – five pages in  total. I’ll ask – why do we need a consulting firm to do these reports? To do our everyday bookkeeping? We have not only Jennifer Hennessy (salary over $133,000/yr, benefits over $60,000) but her staff of thirteen accountants, account clerks, senior account clerks, accounting technicians, accounting manager, financial planning manager – as Yul Brynner would say, “Et-CET-era, Et-CET-era, Et-CET-era!” God only knows what their salaries and benefits add up to, I only have the management salaries from 2010. 

I asked Jennifer what we pay for HdL, Coren and Cone, she answered, very nicely I might add – “$4200 a year, for the Property Tax Summary.” I asked her what it cost for the sales tax report, but she didn’t have that figure. 

Well, I’ll say, it was three pages long and with all kinds of groovy colors and little pie charts and bar graphs and all that stuff you always wondered if you’d ever use beyond 9th grade math. It gets confusing. All  it represents to me  is $4200 (just for the prop tax report)  that should have gone toward flood mitigation on Big Chico Creek. 

While it might make a good read for the dentist’s office, it’s really just the same old stuff, gleaned from the Butte County  records, analyses of various statistics regarding the housing market, comparisons between prop tax revenues over the last few years, “real estate trends,” yadda yadda. It’s a great illustration of how they can use figures to say whatever they want, as long as they leave out a lot of pertinent information. For example, “Home sales have begun to rebound…The reported median price of an existing, single family detached home in California during July 2012 was $281,000. This was an 11.5 percent increase from $252,-000 in July 2011.” That sounds great, as long as you don’t include the fact that the same house was going for more than $500,000 just four or five years ago. That’s a loss of almost 50 percent. Bad, bad, bad!

Hennessy had to admit, we’re in the red on prop taxes – declined 2.1% – because “our budget assumed there would be zero impact” on property tax revenues this year. She speaks as though it’s the budget’s fault.  That seems kind of dumb to me, but I’m no Financial Planning Manager.

The rosy report for sales tax was a 9.9 % increase – mainly due to “building and construction.” Yes, you’ve seen those low-income apartment projects going up all over town, as well as some new housing. And you’ve seen home improvement projects all around town, people are spending money.  While “Lumber/Building Materials” were up by 42%, “Plumbing/Electrical Supplies” were up by a whopping 139% .  Yes, mom and dad remodeled the bathroom alright! 

Department stores and electronics stores took a hit – down about 9% and 13% respectively.  But, people are apparently buying new cars – that was up about 17%.  Wait til she gets the Christmas receipts – even  my family bought stuff for Christmas. We’re glad to do our part. 

 As Hennessy concluded her report, I noticed, it wasn’t even 8:20. Things were rolling right along, even with my bitchy questions. Time for a “discussion of Measure J.”

There was no staff report for this item. There was really no discussion. Scott Gruendl described Measure J as though he was reading it cold from cue cards, having never heard of the measure before. He asked Laurie Barker, “What needs to be done around the failure of Measure J?” I thought this was a no-brainer, but Barker, whose  total salary and benefits cost the taxpayers almost $300,000/year, said the city’s next move needs to be discussed and approved by the full council, probably in December. 

They all seemed tongue-tied and hesitant to talk about Measure J. Sore losers? I tell you, the linguistic gymnastics these people go through just to avoid telling it like it is – “we’re trying to define what the loss will be, what adjustments to make…”  The proponents, including Gruendl, said in the election booklet, $900,000 a year, what happened to that figure? What “adjustments” to make? You mean, contact the providers, and tell them to stop collecting the tax?  Stop spending the money? No, that wasn’t all of it.

Barker added, “How will we deal with refund requests?”

Oh, there it is. That’s what they’re nervous about discussing – I wasn’t crazy – they may actually have to refund money! 

Now, hold my horses, you know how excited I get. Barker made it clear, you can only claim up to the past year. And, she’s not sure if they’ll have to refund anything at all. She wasn’t pouring forth with details, but I’m pretty certain she is watching for the outcome of that lawsuit in the San Diego Superior Court – Chula Vistans suing their city for refunds on the same tax. 

But Gruendl was concerned about refunds – he said, “I’ve been paying that tax for years!” Earlier he said he’d be glad to pay a tax to help the “community,” but now he’s talking about getting his refund, I just don’t know what to make of that man.

Jennifer Hennessy said the city would hold the receipts that continue to pour into the city’s coffers until “further determination on the legal front.” 

Brian Nakamura, our harried and peaked new city manager, spoke up, saying “this will go into the ‘unfunded liabilities’ conversation.” He went on to say that the city had already made cuts, “reduced contributions to certain funds.” I think what he actually meant was, they’ve laid off all the lower level employees that actually provided service, and funneled their $20 – 35,000/yr salaries into the funds that pay pensions and benefits contributions. 

He went on to repeat, almost word-for-word, what he told Channel 7 News: the money “lost” by the failure of Measure J “would have funded 7-8 positions at the police department or 2/3’s the cost of operating one fire station (for a year?)” He talked about cutting maintenance to  Bidwell Park, mentioning “our grandchildren” and making all the usual threats. What a petty little man we got for $212,000 a year, plus undisclosed benefits. 

At this point I asked, “What is the current figure the city pays for benefits and pensions?”  Hennessy quoted the pensions figure alone – just pensions – “close to $7 million…”  She didn’t have the benefits figure. 

Scuse me – 7 million dollars? Just for pensions?

Coincidentally, the next item on the agenda  was a continuation of the “unfunded liabilities” conversation from October 23 – but Nakamura didn’t have the report that was requested at that meeting, so there was no discussion. I’ll have to catch up with that one in the next blog. 

The last item was rescheduling the meeting that fell on Christmas Day – that will probably happen on December 26.  Then, during “business from the floor,” former city council candidate Dave Donnan started a quick discussion about the revenues that might possibly be had through garbage franchise districts, but Gruendl closed the meeting just before 8:35,  saying, “the stage is set to discuss ‘enterprise zones’ in the coming year.” That’s also another blog entirely. 

I was shocked what they managed to cover in less than 35 minutes. I think that’s because, Donnan and I were the only members of the public in attendance. More people need to show up at those meetings, ask more pointy questions – but like the checker at the grocery store told me when I told him about it, “that’s why they have those meetings at 8am, they know we can’t show up.” 

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I booked the library room for every first Sunday through April 2013 – Chico Taxpayers Association is here for the long haul.

19 Nov

I am still waiting, with coffee breath, for the final results of the election. I’ve noticed, more votes have been added at some point since election night, but the result remains the same – Measure J is a good 2,000 votes behind and at least 5% short of the 51% needed to pass. 

I think it was member Casey Aplanalp who said we should be thankful to Tom Lando and Ann Schwab and the other tax hike proponents – they gave us the nudge to create our group, and wow, it sure worked out. 

So, I went ahead and reserved the library meeting room for the next five months, first Sunday of every month, 9am to 10am. I will be there this December 2 to see if anybody can help me draft a letter to the city. I want to ask a  few questions, what happens now that Measure J has been defeated? Which companies are collecting the tax currently, and when will Jennifer Hennessy have a letter drafted to those companies, telling them to stop? 

Etc. 

I hope you can join me, but don’t worry, I’ll be sure to fill you in.

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We need to remind Jennifer Hennessy and Ann Schwab to get cracking on getting that phone tax off our bills

12 Nov

I’m still poking Measure J with a stick. It lays there as if dead, but we’ll see.   Not that I’m so worried about those 14,000 uncounted ballots, but, will the city stop taking the tax now that we’ve sent it to the boneyard?

And according to an article in the Enterprise Record the other day, “it’s unclear what the city’s next step will be.” Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy says the city will “likely have to proactively inform” the phone companies they no longer need to collect the tax. Well, let’s write those letters folks – that’s jhenness@ci.chico.ca.us  – no, that’s not a typo, that is her correct city of Chico contact.  Remind Ms. Hennessy she needs to contact those phone companies NOW. Tell her you’d like to get copies of those notices. 

And, ask her for a list of those companies that DO collect the tax – as far as I know, it’s only AT&T, even though the ER article says there’s only one carrier that doesn’t collect. 

In Chula Vista, ratepayers are still awaiting the outcome of a trial, set for this coming January, to determine if they will be REFUNDED of money that was collected by way of the old tax. This old tax was in effect all over California, and all over California people are throwing it off. The original law allowed for taxing of land lines, NOT cell phones. The City of Chula Vista brought forward their own version of Measure J, to “modernize” the tax for their own use. Their voters rejected it soundly. But, the city continued to collect the tax.  They said the law was too vague.

Your vivacious Mayor, Ann Schwab, admitted in her “argument in favor” of Measure J, that the old law  needed to be “modernized,” or the city was “at risk” of losing this revenue. What does she mean, “at risk” ? Is she going to pull the same kind of bullshit they pulled in Chula Vista? Ask her at aschwab@ci.chico.ca.us

In Chula Vista, the city claims that ” municipalities all over the state collect a similar tax under similar ordinances.  The original ordinance never intended to exempt from taxation the usage of mobile communication devices that are in common use today.”

See that article at 

http://www.thestarnews.com/latest-news/judge-oks-pursuit-of-lawsuit/

Be ready to hear the same bull from Schwab and Barker. And be ready to go right back on the warpath. If they don’t stop collecting the phone tax, we should go after a reduction in the Utility Tax rate, to 1 percent or less, and then go after an exemption for ALL citizens who qualify for the rate assistance programs offered by the utility companies.  

When the ER reporter asked me for a comment, I told her The Chico Taxpayers Association would follow this thing, and I’m ready to do that. That’s what it takes. The CTA isn’t going to go away. 

 My grandma had a little poem hanging on the wall of our bedroom when we were kids. “Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn! The sheep are in the meadow, the cow is in the corn! “  For those of you who didn’t grow up on a farm, those are bad things – the sheep are scattering, and the cow is wrecking your corn patch.  “But where is the boy who’s to look after the sheep? Why, he’s under the hay mow, fast asleep!” Hey, is that you? Are you sleeping while the cow is eating your good sweet corn, and your sheep are about to be hit by some drunk on his way home from The Four Corners?   At the bottom of the frame, there were the words, “Go After the Cow!” Yes, wake up, write those e-mails, tell those cows, “get your hooves out of my phone bill!” 

HERE’S THE ER ARTICLE FOR REFERENCE

With Measure J failure, City of Chico waits to understand impact

By ASHLEY GEBB-Chico Enterprise Record, Staff Writer
Posted:   11/08/2012 12:05:48 AM PST

CHICO — While Chico voters appear to have defeated a change to the city’s telephone users tax Tuesday, it’s unclear what the city’s next step will be.

Measure J asked voters whether to amend wording to the city’s telephone users tax to encompass modern technology such as cellphones while decreasing the tax rate from 5 percent to 4.5 percent.

With all precincts reporting early Wednesday, the tax measure was failing, with 53 percent opposed.

The tally to date is 12,451 no votes and 10,973 yes votes, with still about 14,000 ballots left to be counted in all of Butte County.

If the measure fails, the city will likely sustain a major hit in revenue that supports the general fund, said Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy.

The city currently receives about $1.4 million annually in telephone user tax revenue, of which $900,000 to $1 million comes from wireless telecommunications providers. That may not be the extent of the loss, Hennessy said.

“Over time as more people transfer from having landlines to having cellphones or other types of voice communication that’s not covered under our current ordinance, our tax base will continue to decrease,” she said.

City Attorney Lori Barker declined to state impacts until Measure J’s outcome is finalized, but she said she will prepare a report for the City Council once all the votes are tabulated.

Measure proponents said its passage was critical to protect tax revenue, while opponents argued it was a regressive tax that unfairly targeted students.If the measure does fail, Hennessy predicts the revenue loss will begin this fiscal year.

The time frame also depends on phone companies, she said, and the city will likely have to proactively inform them they no longer need to collect the tax.

All but one company currently collect the tax. Metro PCS stopped paying the tax in March 2011, causing a loss of nearly $80,000.

“We will be working with the new council as for what priorities are, where we cut the funds, where we cut the expenditures,” she said. “There will be some tough decisions.”

Juanita Sumner of the Chico Taxpayers, a group that worked to raise public awareness about Measure J, said members now will wait to see if the city stops collecting the tax. She noted that in Chula Vista, where a similar measure failed but the tax continued to be collected, the city is being sued.

“Chico Taxpayers are ready to follow this issue to its end,” she wrote in an email.

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Mail in ballots are the way to go

1 Nov

Here’s the proof – I printed the page off the county clerk’s website, showing that my ballot was in the clerk’s office within 24 hours of mailing.

I think mail in ballots are the best way to go.  I put my ballot in the mail on the 25th,  after noon, and it was at the clerk’s office by the end of  the next day. 

How do I know? I checked here:

http://clerk-recorder.buttecounty.net/BallotStatusLookup/Default.aspx

First I used the last four digits of my SSN, but it registered negative. So, I tried again with the last four digits of my driver’s license number, and there it was. It told me not only that my ballot had been received but that it’s condition was “good”. In other words, my votes will be counted, at least as surely as any that are turned in from the precincts on Election Night. 

In fact, it was the problems we were having at the polling station that finally drove my husband and I to register for mail in ballots. My husband was a contractor, he’d leave town as early as 5 am to get to a job in Chester or Quincy. Sometimes those were overnight jobs, sometimes he’d come back after 6pm. There were many Election Days where we’d be dragging in with our kids after 7:30 pm. The polls, after all, are supposed to be OPEN until 8PM. They’re not allowed to lock the door and start closing up shop at 7:30, or 7:45, or 7:55. It’s 8:00 straight up. But twice they tried to tell my husband he was too late. Another time they tried to tell him his name was not on the list – he had to lean over the old crone and put his stubby glue-covered finger right on his name, our address being right directly across the street. “oh, well,” she says, and hands him a ballot without one word of apology. 

We also found that our polling place was changed so frequently, we never knew where to go until the last minute. In the June 2011, the elections office closed a bunch of polling stations, saying it was because the students had left town and those stations were not adequately used. This was not true – at least a half dozen of my friends living on the south side of town showed up at empty polling stations – old fuckers who’d  been voting in the same spot for years without interruption. 

People are rightfully paranoid about their ballot being counted. If you wait til Election Day, you have no way of knowing, ever, that your ballot was turned in or counted.  But, according to the county clerk, mine has been received and will be counted, thankyouverymuch!

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We’ll have to hit the ground running

26 Oct

I’ve reserved the meeting room at the Chico library for our First Sunday meeting, November 4,  9am. I hope that’s good for everybody, let me know, I can change the time.

That of course, is only days before the election, a little too late for any strategizing on Measure J.  What I’d really like to talk about is what we’ll do after the election. I got a couple of ideas I been kicking back and forth with the fence post.

Of course, I believe our first true concern is a sales tax increase. I would bet my last five dollars that whether or not Prop 30 or Measure J pass, Tom Lando will bring forward his sales tax increase measure. He will either say, Prop 30 lost and we need the money, or Prop 30 won but we can’t trust Brown to share the proceeds from 30.  He’ll say, whether it wins or loses, that Measure J was already being spent, which is true. The city has been collecting the phone tax illegally, mainly through stooges AT&T, for years, and stands to lose millions in ill-gotten gain. Sheesh – they may even be afraid we’ll sue them for those illegal takings, like the folks of the  city of Chula Vista!

http://www.caseygerry.com/news/class-certified-chula-vista-tax-lawsuit

I honestly believe Tom Lando fully intends to ask for a special election in Spring 2013 to put a sales tax increase measure before the voters, and we need to start thinking about a serious “organized” campaign against it.

Secondly, I heard a good idea from the city of Hemet, which recently unloaded their ex-city manager on us – Brian Nakamura. Sure, they made it look like they were being ripped off, but I say, they hoodwinked us into taking the guy. Ever read “Ransom of Red Chief”?

Yeah, those Hemetians are pretty damned smart.  Two years ago, they passed some very interesting legislation in their little town, read here –

http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/hemet/hemet-headlines-index/20101026-hemet-campaign-spending-increases.ece

Here are the ballotpedia pages for Measures W and X – both passed with OVER 80 PERCENT OF THE VOTE. Measure W limits terms for city elected officials, and Measure X cuts them off from city-paid  health benefits.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Hemet_Term_Limits,_Measure_W_(November_2010)

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Hemet_Prohibition_on_Contributing_to_Cost_of_Healthcare,_Measure_X_(November_2010)

You will note, the Hemet Taxpayers’ Association put some money into these issues. We must decide, do we want to start raising and spending money?

I hope to see the usual suspects on November 4, at the library, 9am, along with some fresh newbies, willing to put their shoulder to the wheel to turn our city around.

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We need to dump structural overtime and ask public safety employees to pay more of their own health and pension costs so we can hire more personnel

24 Oct

I watched the city council meeting for a while online last night and then I read the report in this morning’s ER. As usual, no mention of pension premiums or structured-in overtime.

Right now Chico police employees pay nothing toward their pensions, which will be 90 percent of their salary, available at 50 years of age. The city of Chico, and that would  be you and me, the taxpayers, pay not only the “employer  share” but the “employee share” of pension premiums for all city employees – except the fire department. They pay two percent of their premium cost, and the city picks up the other seven percent of the “employee share”, as well as the entire nine percent “employer share”.

Two questions stand begging beside the table here –

  1. why do they call them the “employer” and “employee” shares if the employer is doing all the paying?
  2. who pays the other 82 percent of the premium?

The answer to Number 1 is, we’re a pack of suckers.

The answer to Number 2 can be found in this  earlier post:

https://chicotaxpayers.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/ann-schwabs-mismanagement-21-top-paid-retired-employees-get-over-2-million-a-year-in-pension-payments-plus-benefits-and-cola/

Nobody pays that other 82 percent. It’s “outstanding.” It is waiting offshore like the fabled “perfect storm,” waiting for the lack of revenues to catch up with the overspending of same. When CalPers can’t pay those “outstanding” pensions anymore, it will fall on the cities and other public entities that agreed to these contracts to pay them. Let me show you the tidal wave we’re facing here – well, how about, just the part you can see through the windshield of George Clooney’s crappy little fishing boat. These, again, are just those 21 retirees receiving over $100,000 in pension. There are hundreds more receiving $99,000 or less, plus health benefits.

Name Employer Warrant Amount Annual
ALEXANDER, THOMAS 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

Six of the above, that I know of, are either police or fire department.

The police and fire departments also manage to drive up their salaries, some of them almost DOUBLE, with overtime. It’s the classic repo-man grab – they say they need to write overtime into the budget, and the contracts guarantee officers a certain amount of overtime. They say overtime is cheaper than new hires. But then they turn around and bitch for new hires.

The police and fire departments, mostly through salaries and benefits packages, take up over 82 % of our city budget, and drive our looming pension debt.   This never came up in the budget conversation at City Hall last night. There stood the elephant in the room, crapping all over the chambers, but nobody would look him directly in the eye. 

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Are you tired of this? Me too.

22 Oct

I’m looking for a caption for this picture – something imaginative, not the same old cranky drunk potshot. There’s more to this picture than a snarling bitch holding on to a sixpack. Think about it. The winner gets a $5 gift certificate from Shuberts and a free ‘NO on J’ sign.

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Toby Schindelbeck responds to Mary Goloff

17 Oct
Hi all,
On Tuesday night, I addressed the comments made by Mary Goloff about me in the 10/11/12 issue of the Chico News and Review. She had made several inaccurate statements that attempted to discredit me. She also lied about my position on property taxes, and made a false claim that having a Facebook page for Economic Development in Chico would violate the Brown Act.

Click on the link below to read her unprofessional and inappropriate political smear ad:

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/speaking-of-na-iuml-vet-eacute/content?oid=8056374

Her attack was politically motivated, and the fact that she slandered my intelligence and character with lies and half-truths motivated me to respond to her claims at the October 16th City Council meeting.

Please see my response below, and please send her an email at dpresson@ci.chico.ca.us to let her know that this type of political slander and attack is not appropriate for a seated council member, nor is it conducive to civil discourse.

Political smears and attacks like this are what is wrong with politics. We need to work together to improve Chico, and the country. This type of personal attack is the exact wrong thing for a seated council member to do.

Here is my response. It is worth watching:
And please share it with everyone you know who has an issue with this pompous, condescending woman.
Toby Schindelbeck

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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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