Leave it to Scott Rushing to put it in adult language! Thanks Scott!
A City Manager form of administration is popular among Chico City Council members because it provides them with plausible deniability. When things go wrong, they can fire the manager at will. When things go well, the council can take credit for overseeing the City Manager, even though that oversight is illusory.
Yes, the city manager form of administration is just a win-win for everybody but the taxpayers. Council members are indemnified, and so are city employees. Yes, things go wrong, but very seldom does anybody get fired or go to jail. For example, Mark Orme, wow, that guy really screwed our pooch. I’ll say, he lied about population figures and he used COVID as an excuse to cut the public out of many important conversations. I can’t remember exactly what he did to piss off his adoring council, but even Sean Morgan, who used to call Orme “Skipper” so affectionately, turned on him like a viper. Here’s what he said about Orme’s “management style” when he voted to hire Sorensen.
“I think that some of the decision-making methods [in city administration] were handled loosely and people were given reigns that shouldn’t have been given reigns.” That made me laugh – he acted as though he and the rest of council were out to lunch while all this was going on.
So they pressured Orme out, because they knew it would be a lot more expensive to fire the little asshole, and hard to prove anything without turning the monkey gun right into their own faces.
Where’s that little asshole today? He’s in some nasty town, just about 2 hours west of Slab City, making over $250,000/year, base salary.
Yes, their “control” over our town is “illusory”. We’re sitting here like Mulder and Scully, in that episode about the underground fungus. “They treat us like mushrooms, they keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit…” If we allow them to hire this woman from Vallejo, we’re going back into the cavern.
Chico councilmembers want to be popular and pontificate at public meetings; after all, they are politicians.
That reminds me of a remark Bryce Goldstein made on her Facebook, rationalizing her decision to hire the woman. Talk about a pontificator – because the Vallejo woman “worked for The Tribe...” She also thought “settling” a lawsuit is the end of it. I’d have to ask her, what does she know about the lawsuits brought against this woman and the city of Vallejo? Does Ms. Goldstein think that paying somebody to shut up about a crime is “settling”? How much did those lawsuits cost the taxpayers? Including in terms of deferred maintenance? When I looked further into Vallejo’s finances, I see they recently went about cutting 20% of their staff, saying their pension deficit was their chief financial concern.
Thanks for keeping the conversation going Scott, hope to hear from you soon.
Chico Taxpayers Association 