Tag Archives: City of Chico

Time to write to the city council about these pension payments – Scott Gruendl thinks “pension reform” means making US pay MORE!

12 Dec

Hi Debbie, Council members, 

 
I was just going over the minutes for  the Finance Committee meeting I attended earlier this month. I see that one question I asked, about the cost of certain consultant reports, was included in the minutes, but not the question I asked regarding what the city pays toward the “employee share” of pension premiums. Jennifer Hennessy stated at that time, “about $7 million.” Later she sent me an e-mail correction – the actual figure was closer to $10.1 million.
 
I wonder why my question and Hennessy’s answer are not included in the minutes? I asked this question during the discussion regarding the loss of Measure J. I was trying to point out, that while the city is complaining about losing $900,000 on a failed tax measure, they spend millions paying THE EMPLOYEE SHARE of pension costs, in addition to the employer share. Our city’s financial problems would be solved if the contracts were rewritten so that the employee pays their own share. Why isn’t this option coming up in the discussion? 
 
I also notice, the police advisory board gets verbatim minutes. I wonder, why aren’t all the committee meetings, including the ad hoc meetings, recorded verbatim? 
 
I’d like this letter to be attached to the next city council agenda as a “communication.” 
 
I’d also like to thank Fritz McKinley for answering my flood notice question. 
 
Thank you for your anticipated cooperation, Juanita Sumner

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Ask a simple question.

3 Dec

We had another great meeting over at the library yesterday, and I was so happy to see, despite the ominous weather, a cheerful group showed up for a lively discussion. 

We crowed momentarily over the defeat of Measure J. Casey Aplanalp pointed out that we should consider it an important victory, and proof that a small group can make a difference.  Sue said we should remind other people, even if our voices are a little drowned out on the national level, we can make a more noticeable difference on the local level – it’s a matter of getting involved. We talked for awhile – what’s the best way to get people to be more involved in their local government? 

We could ask Stephanie Taber what motivates her to be so involved – attending meetings several times a week, writing notes back and forth to staffers, asking questions that get kicked all over the city building for as long as Stephanie is persistent in getting the answers. Stephanie combs over the reports and find the discrepancies, and asks the questions that need to be asked. We need more people willing to go to the meetings, morning, afternoon and evening, and ask the same kind of questions. And, go back time and time again, e-mail again and again, and get the answers. 

I’m just too easy – when I asked Jennifer Hennessy about the annual amount the city pays out in pension premiums, she told me about $7 million, and I swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Stephanie was not able to attend, or she probably would have caught it. Mark Sorensen caught it, and asked Hennessy about it later. He had some other figures that added up to more like $11 million. Hennessy sent me a note today – her figure is $10.1 million! 

Whoa. And here I was, thinking $7 million was a lot of samolians! What a dupe I am!

$1.9 million of that total is the “employer paid member contributions” – there’s that confusing terminology again – they mean, the “employee’s share” of the premium that is paid by the employer. 

Stephanie Taber pointed out, that $1.9 million would pay for a lot of police officers. 

Here’s the breakdown of how much the city currently spends annually paying the employee share of pension premiums:

Bargaining Unit  FY10-11 Amount  # of Members FY10-11 EPMC% Current EPMC %
Chico Employees Association  $      128,340.54 79 4% 2%
SEIU – Trades & Craft  $      179,805.62 68 5% 5%
Confidentials  $        12,295.11 10 4% 0%
Management  $      216,952.12 56 4% 4%
Public Safety Management  $      119,193.35 9 9% 9%
CPSA  $      175,646.81 44 8% 8%
CPOA  $      727,452.38 91 9% 9%
IAFF  $      425,517.02 69 7% 7%
 $    1,985,202.95 426

The police and fire employees  complain that safety is at jeopardy due to budget cuts, but read the chart. You see,  if they’d pay the “employee share” of their pension premium, we could save those officers and that 2/3’s of a fire station that Nakamura is threatening because of the failure of Measure J. The police department alone gets well beyond the $900,000 that Nakamura is claiming the city will lose if they can’t tax our cell phones.

Look at their salaries – it would certainly be no skin off their nose to pay their own damned pensions. And, it would leave the city the revenues to hire the extra personnel they’ve been screaming for. And then we could stop paying overtime, and there would be money to hire almost as many more.

I got these figures because I rode my bicycle to an 8am meeting and asked a simple question.  

 

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Oh NO! We’re in the same boat with the Twinkie and Ding Dong eaters

25 Nov

I saw an interesting letter in the ER today – “Mismanagement doomed Hostess”.

I know, why would we care, those cakes are horrible. Studies have shown the high-fructose corn syrup they build those things out of literally tricks your mind into thinking you’re still hungry – off to Obesity!

But, as usual, we find, this enterprise was a giant pillar of the economy – go figure. To think, something that is unhealthy for human beings is good for the economy – you know, like cigarettes and alcohol!

Apparently there were almost 20,000 jobs lost. According to letter writer Paul Ellcessor,  “19,000 good jobs that pay a liveable wage have been eliminated because of mismanagement and vulture capitalism.”

I would challenge Mr. Ellcessor’s idea of a “good job” and a “liveable wage.” I don’t have the specifics on the wages or benefits or working conditions offered by Hostess, but I do know they operate in states where the unemployment level is such that most people aren’t going to question anything resembling a job.  They’re unionized, which means, some guy in a suit makes more than any of the actual workers, driving around from one shop to the other, telling employees to take it or leave it.

But yes, what Ellcessor describes in his letter is all too common in America today.  He calls it “corporate vulture capitalism,” but I would say it’s alive and well in the public sector too. 

A bunch of suits come around and buy a company, whether or not it’s doing well, doesn’t seem to matter.  They can use the company to leverage themselves some outrageous salaries, and as Michael Scott would remind us, “perks!” 

Ellcessor describes how they did it at Hostess: “In September 2004, Hostess filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They demanded and got over $100 million in concessions from their workers’ unions, claiming they could not compete under their labor contracts, even though their competitors operated under nearly identical contracts and were profitable.

At the city of Chico, management used the threat of bankruptcy to eliminate most lower-wage workers, leaving more money to pay management salaries, benefits, and pensions. 

When they emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 they somehow had nearly $670 million in debt, almost double the $450 million owed entering bankruptcy. Most companies shed debt, not increase it, when they seek Chapter 11 protection.

In Chico, finance director Jennifer Hennessy has made one report after another showing we are in deficit, but the city keeps signing contracts that offer pay raises and allow employees to get away without paying their full “share” of their own benefits and pensions. 

What did they do after emerging from Chapter 11? They continued the same business model and products. Plus, like all good corporate leaders, they gave themselves a raise — the CEO to $2.25 million and other top executives got raises of 35-80 percent.

Chico City Council are currently signing contracts that still offer raises and payment of the employees’ share of benefits and pensions. 

Guess what happened, in January? Now loaded down with over $1 billion in debt, from hedge funds Monarch Alternative Capital and Silver Point Capital, they filed bankruptcy again. Incredibly, CEO Brian Driscoll asked the bankruptcy judge to approve a salary increase and severance pay guaranteeing his compensation if liquidation occurred.

Despite Mayor Ann Schwab’s dire warnings that the city would fall into ruin unless voters approved the cell phone tax, she went ahead and hired a new city manager at a $50,000 pay raise over the previous city manager.   I don’t know what kind of severance package Brian Nakamura was promised, but I’m guessing it’s there in his contract, which you can see by appointment and at 10 cents a page. 

Nakamura is no different than the fly-by-night suits that buy and sell these big companies into the gutter. He has worked in cities all over California, staying for an average of just over a year, then moving along to the next town that promises him more money. He’s made his way up to a salary of $217,000 a year, of which he will be eligible for 70 percent a year in pension, on his 50th birthday, which I believe, is less than one year from now. My bet is, he will not make it in Chico more than 18 months, and he’ll leave us in the same quandary he left Hemet.  

How is this different from Ellcessor’s scenario? Well, the Twinkie and Ding Dong eaters pay the suits over at Hostess – Brian Nakamura is paid out of our property taxes. 

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Council to discuss Section 908 – Hennessy offers monthly reports online as well as to council

16 Nov

Well I’ve been lame lately – I have not been attending the morning meetings. You can withhold that from my paycheck, okay? But I do see, on the agenda for next Tuesday’s council meeting, there is the item we’ve been waiting for  – a recommendation that Finance Mis-director Jennifer Hennessy give a monthly finance report, as per city code section 908. 

Since I wasn’t at the meeting, I don’t know exactly what she will be asked to report – here’s the agenda item, take a look: 

4.2. CONSIDERATION OF FINANCE COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE 8/28/12, 9/25/12 

and 10/23/12 MEETINGS REGARDING MONTHLY FINANCIAL REPORTS

A. The Finance Committee considered the matter of development of a Monthly Financial Report at its
meetings of 8/28/12 and 9/25/12:
Recommendation: Accept the Finance Committee recommendation (3-0) to approve the monthly
report package to be distributed each month to the City Council and posted to the City’s website.
B. The Finance Committee considered the matter of development of Monthly Department Expenditure
Reports at its meeting of 10/23/12.
Recommendation: Accept the Finance Committee recommendation (3-0) to approve the Monthly
Department Expenditure Report to be distributed each month to the City Council and posted to the
City’s website.

It looks all well and good on paper, but having missed the meeting, where the conversation goes all over town, I won’t know exactly what she’s going to give until I hear her giving it. And of course, that’s not going to happen unless the full council approves this recommendation. It would probably be good to write letters to council – send them through dpresson@ci.chico.ca.us

Right now I’m interested in hearing a report about exactly which phone companies are still collecting the phone tax, a draft of Hennessy’s letter to these companies telling them they no longer need to do so, and a report as to exactly how long Ms. Hennessy thinks she will need to complete this task.  This is what we will take up at our next Chico Taxpayers Meeting, we will be drafting a letter to Hennessy and her bosses, asking exactly these questions. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, I’ll be tuned in Tuesday night, hope you will be too. 

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Vindictive new city manager Brian Nakamura already threatening cuts in public safety service because we threw out Measure J – who hired this guy?

14 Nov

While there are still votes uncounted in Butte County, everybody seems to be assuming that Measure J has failed.  I’m still not sure, I’ll be glad to hear  Candy Grubbs declare it good and dead so I can start worrying about other stuff.

But a story from Channel 7 news quoted our new city manager Brian Nakamura already making threats to cut public safety.   “Chico City Manager Brian Nakamura says the money would have paid for up to eight police officers or two-thirds of operating one fire station…Nakamura says there could be cuts for fire and police.”

Whoa now! Here’s the guy who Mark Sorensen told me was going to get $taff expenditures  in control! This guy was hired because he supposedly has a reputation as a salary cutter! That according to Sorensen, who voted to hire him at a salary some $50,000 higher than not only his predecessor, but his replacement in Hemet as well. In fact, a few weeks ago, the city finance director had to ask the city council to approve a budget addendum to accommodate Nakamura’s $217,000/year salary. And, as of now, Nakamura pays only a fraction of his “share” of health benefits premiums and NOTHING  toward his pension, which will be 70 percent of his salary, available to him in roughly three years.

The Ch 7 story mentions, “The city says it (Measure J)  would have brought in $930,000. “ I don’t know where they got that figure, but I think it’s a conservative estimate. They already get over a million dollars, mainly from landlines.  According to my research (I GOOGLED it!), over 50 percent of America is still clinging to their land lines.

When you add life’s necessities – PG&E and water – the city gets over $4 million a year off this tax. $4 million might sound like a lot to the rest of us, who live on less than $50,000 a year, but to these people, it’s spit on a griddle. They go through almost $50 mil a year, over 90 percent of it eaten by their salaries, perks and benies.

Chico PD eats over half our budget, and with the fire department, some 87 percent.  After that 9 hour overtime fest at the empty apartment, I think some questions are in order.

But Nakamura isn’t asking any pointy questions about our budget – he won’t rock the boat. He steps right into Burkland’s shoes and starts threatening the taxpayers with cuts in services.

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Dump mismanaged – needs MORE trash!

9 Nov

Well, the headline below says it all – we aren’t trashy enough in Butte County, the dump is staaaaaaarving!  Come on people, shake down – you are not living opulently enough! 

Just kidding. The real problem is mismanagement, or rather, too much management.   The dump currently has at least two management personnel that I know of – Bill Mannel and Steve Rodowick – both of whom yank in almost $100,000/yr, TWO MANAGERS, largely just to drive all over the county and sit in meetings. Hasn’t the county ever heard the one about “too many chefs”? Why do you need two managers, both with separate  benefits, and pension packages, none of which they pay for themselves? 

So, they try to make the increase sound like “pennies”, but Mannel is already crying that this will not be enough. This hike over three years is not going to be enough? No, it’s pissant to these guys with their salaries.  What Mannel really wants is to force the two local haulers to take all trash from Chico to the Neal Road dump. In past, when the county dump has raised their fees, the haulers have hauled ass for Yooooooba City, where other cities’ garbage is considered a “revenue source”.  Yes, Waste Management and Recology, two of the longest-running members of Ann Schwab’s Sustainability Task Force, will truck garbage 50 miles to save “a few pennies.”

The county owns the dump now, “managed” by Mannel and Rodowick. I have listened to these two complain before that the dump does not take in enough trash/money (same thing to them). They want the city to force the two haulers to take all trash from Chico to Neal Road, but the trash companies say they won’t do that unless the city can guarantee them EACH  a certain amount of business every year by instituting  “enterprise zones” – dividing the town up like a pie and handing certain sections to each hauler. Meaning, you don’t choose your hauler, your hauler chooses you.

This is a problem for me because  I WON’T USE WASTE MANAGEMENT.   Linda Herman and Ann Schwab and Larry Wahl know why – they were sitting on the now-defunct “waste management committee” when I brought in a complaint that drivers from WM were driving pell mell across my property, trespassing in my private driveway, tearing holes big enough to form little ponds, to access houses on the other side instead of requiring those customers to put their trash out on the public street like everybody else. At one point a WM truck, trying to turn around on my skinny little private driveway,  took out an electric pole, cutting power to four houses on my street. The manager from WM came out and tried to tell us we had to pay PG&E  for the damages, because it was in our driveway!  The driver of the truck told my husband it was his second day on the job. Wow, good job! Took out a phone pole on your second day at work! We’re so glad to know what kind of people they hire down at Waste Management. My husband told the WM manager to get the hell off our property and we’ve used Recology eversince. The city told Waste Management to stay off our property too, but we’ve had to tell their idiot drivers a number of times since -they’ve admitted to me, they don’t know where their accounts are, so they will enter little cul-de-sacs and alleys  just to check for WM cans. 

Anybody who doesn’t believe me can listen to my story about former employee Ginger, who used to run the WM office. Oh yeah, now you know I know what I’m talking about. Ginger retired a few years  back, but anybody who’s been in the trash trade in this town more than five years know who I’m talking about, and probably has a pretty good story of their own. 

The dump is poorly managed, and money isn’t going to fix the problem. Now they cry they don’t have enough trash, and need a guarantee of more trash to come. But later this year they will switch gears, and say, as they have in the past, the dump is getting USED UP, they need more money to PROLONG THE LIFE OF THE DUMP. They just switch their story whenever they need more money.

The dump needs to be completely overhauled. It is an old-fashioned dump, the kind where you just bury garbage and hope gnomes will carry it deep into the earth before the next generation finds out what you’ve done.  Nowadays, intelligent towns are converting to “composting dumps” – a “no-brainer” as far as I’m concerned – go look at that giant composting machine they use at the “green waste” facility on Cohasset. A-MAY- zing!  Other towns, like Truckee, have also become a lot more careful about what they allow in the dump – they give customers more options for sorting trash.   They actually manage their dumps, not just talk about it.

Neither Rodowick nor Mannel actually “manage” anything, they spend the lion’s share of  their time raising money to pay their own salaries.  Rodowick  gets paid  to sit in Sustainability Task Force meetings, along with employees from both haulers. They’ve asked Schwab  for more trash regulations that benefit their collective bottom line. They’ve  managed to get Schwab to put extra requirements on landlords, lowering the number of units per garbage can and requiring locking recycling bins at rental complexes, so people can’t “steal” from recycling bins. They’ve asked for “enterprise zones” before, but it hasn’t gone anywhere so far. I think Schwab and Herman are aware, I’m not the only person who has pointed out the vast difference in the levels of service you get from Waste Management and Recology. 

Of course, I don’t trust Recology all that completely, but they haven’t burned me yet, I’ve got good service out of them at various rentals for almost ten years, without complaint. It’s only their actitivies in the STF that lead me to mistrust them. They don’t care about the planet, they don’t care about us, they care about money, and that’s the bottom line folks. 

Neal Road dump needs 20,000 more tons of trash a year

By ROGER H. AYLWORTH-Staff Writer
Chico Enterprise Record
Posted:   11/09/2012 12:06:17 AM PST

OROVILLE — Tuesday, Butte County supervisors were told additional trash is essential to the economic health of Butte County’s Neal Road Recycling and Waste Facility.Bill Mannel, county solid waste manager, made that point when he lobbied the supervisors to impose an increased gate fee at the dump.

Mannel asked the board to up the facility’s gate fee by $1.50 a year over three years.

Mannel said the hike will add about 10 cents a month per added dollar for residential trash removal. So at the end of the three-year hike cycle, according to Mannel’s figures, the residential fees will have climbed by 45 cents.

Having asked for the hike, Mannel said the price hike by itself “will not get us where we want to go.”

In order to keep the facility solvent, Mannel said there needs to be a fund balance of $3 million to $4 million a year to be ready for unanticipated operational costs.

To achieve that goal, in addition to the hike, the county needs to bring in 20,000 more tons of garbage a year.

Mannel said in recent years the tonnage coming to Neal Road has slipped. He said the faltering economy and the associated sharp reduction in construction, combined with increased efforts to recycle an ever-larger portion of the refuse, are the primary causes for the drop.

With the $1.50 addition, the gate fee at Neal Road would be $42.11 a ton.

Oroville Supervisor Bill Connelly said when he came to the board eight years ago, the gate fee was less than half of that, and

he asked Mannel to justify the need for the hike.Mannel agreed the fees were lower then, but said in the interim there have been additional state and federal regulations that have sharply hiked operational costs.

Chico Supervisor Larry Wahl said regardless of the need, it is just the wrong time to raise fees on anything, particularly on a service needed by the hard-pressed construction industry.

The $1.50 hike “will add pennies” to individual bills, observed Supervisor Kim Yamaguchi of Paradise. He said it was better to make hikes in increments than to wait until things reach a crisis stage and have to raise bills by a huge percentage.

The hike was approved on a split vote with Yamaguchi, Chico Supervisor Maureen Kirk and board Chair Steve Lambert in favor, and Connelly and Wahl opposed.

Outside of the meeting, Paul Hahn, Butte’s chief administrative officer, said the county hopes to broker a deal with trash haulers and the city of Chico to see that all of the trash collected in the city is funneled into Neal Road.

If that can be arranged, according to Hahn, the 20,000-ton goal could be achieved.

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Hardest election ever!

21 Oct

I received my mail-in ballot Tuesday of last week, and I’ll remind everybody – those are due in about two weeks, so I’d get mine in the mail by next Tuesday if I were you.

I usually fill mine out and send it right in, but this time I’ve been having a hard time deciding on some of the candidates.

I’ve been waiting for Bob Evans to be honest and  tell us what he knows about Tom Lando’s plans to increase our local sales tax, but you’ve  probably heard that old adage about skinning a cat. Bob won’t answer me on that, I’ve asked him point blank and he just avoids the question, slicker than a whistle, that dawg. I know Bob has signed the “argument against” Measure J, but I sure haven’t seen him out  there making any other noise about it. Sometimes I wonder, did he just tack his name onto that argument? Or does he really want to defeat Measure J? I’ve offered him a yard sign, we’ll see if he takes me up on that. I wish he would have given the issue some space on one or two of those billboards he’s got around town.

Almost the first thing Bob said after he mounted the dais was that he’d like to work to get a formal policy by which we replace a council member who steps down before their term is up. Remember, Bob got on council two years ago by default, really. He didn’t win the election, he was appointed to Larry Wahl’s vacated seat.  That was a big fight because currently there is no written policy to fill a vacant seat. It caused a big fight when Colleen Jarvis died with only months left in her term. Her friends in the Esplanade League tried to get her boyfriend appointed by getting “guaranteed” votes from Scott Gruendl, Maureen Kirk, and Dan Nguyen-tan  – but  this turned out to be a Brown Act violation, and Jarvis’ seat remained empty until the following election.  That meeting was nasty, with the liberals mobbing the chamber, shouting insults, etc.

Ann Schwab and her friends tried to have Sor Lo, a local businessman with no local political history, appointed to Wahl’s seat.  The chambers were packed for that meeting and the conversation went on and off the track for hours.   Bob was finally appointed on what I’d consider a shoo-in – he had come within 100 votes of winning in the election, trailing Goloff by only 61 votes, and Gruendl by only a couple of hundred. This seems like a sound enough policy to me, but it was a wrestling match getting Evans in that seat and it will be another wrestling match next time we have a councilor step down. It’s divisive, the liberals have driven the wedge deeper into our community with every push they’ve made to install somebody without the consent of the voters.  We told them that after the Jarvis mess but they didn’t listen, and we had to go through it all again with Sor Lo, amid accusations of racism and some pretty ugly talk from the liberals. And don’t forget the money that went into $taff time. 

This is an important issue, and I’d like to see it go forward. As I recall, it was assigned to the Internal Affairs committee, of which Evans is a member. That committee has been taken up with issues like “corporate personhood” and the smoking ban since last February. While I admired Bob’s comments on both of those issues, I have to say, where’s the vacant seat policy? I couldn’t find it anywhere in the 2012 minutes. They shelved that committee all summer, not one meeting. What happened there? 

Well, that committee is back in business, and discussing important issues, like sunshining the contracts and allowing a certain private developer to develop city-owned parking lots into residential/commercial buildings.  I don’t really like the direction either conversation is taking. The contract talks remain behind closed doors, we get to see the contracts and comment on them but we have no idea what kind of promises or threats are being made behind those doors. Meanwhile, our new city manager is laying the way for New Urban Builders to put “live-work units” on heavily used Downtown parking lots – a sudden switch in gears from the old “we don’t have enough parking Downtown” bullshit. 

I don’t know if I can vote for Evans, I’m sorry. This whole election is going to be tough.

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The signs are in! And they look great!

18 Oct

This sign looks like a winner.

 

It’s official – there is an “organized” opposition to Measure J, the cell phone tax. Now we have some eye-catching signs to get the word out.  Let me know if you want one.  I am arranging to get the meeting room at the library for sometime this Saturday afternoon (October 20). I’ll let you know what time I’ll be there, with fliers and signs. There will be at least one more Saturday meeting, and at least one more Sunday meeting before the election. Or, you can contact me via this blog – look for the comments icon at the bottom left of this post. Leave your contact info, which will be confidential. We’ll get one to you. While supplies last – I only ordered 100, cause I never did this before, and I had no idea what I was up against. I wish I’d ordered more. That doesn’t stop you from copying it onto a pizza box and mounting it on rebar. 

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Ann Schwab sold the airport to Northgate Aviation for $250

10 Oct

Last spring I did a couple of posts about the airport lawsuit – still in progress – and the other day I got a comment from a person who seems to be in the know about the situation. I don’t know who this person is, or if their information is reliable, but it is interesting, I’ll say that.

From “frequent flyer”:

Just a few facts as I understand them to augment your story:

1. Jay’s budget is hardly unlimited, and apparently the city can outspend him. I don’t personally know his finances, but this really stings. He also is paying one lawyer; the city has many fighting him.

2. Northgate Aviation used to reside in his building and left suddenly. However, that’s just business. It’s what happened after they left that went off the rails.

3. When Northgate moved into the hangar next door, I heard they did so without any permits. They eventually received permits I believe, although I heard it took two years.

4. When the city gave Northgate the lease on the hangar, they included the ramp space in front of Jay’s (privately owned) building, a building which according to the city can only be used for aviation-related business. Mr. Jay cannot park a plane in front of his aviation-only building, and to make sure no one else does, Northgate parks their fuel trucks in front of his building. This is like buying a house and finding out that the city gave the driveway access to your neighbor. BTW, Mr. Jay’s primary business is selling airplanes. Ever see a used car lot without any cars? Totally weird. Anyway, the lease should have been rewritten IMO, but has not been. It is a 30 year lease I believe.

5. Tycoons and small business folks alike visit FBOs, and I stand side by side with these guys when buying fuel. Some of us need 80 gallons, some need 2000, but we’re all treated like royalty. To give you an idea of the service differential between Chico and the rest of the world , Sacramento International’s Jet Center is like Nordstroms, Northgate Aviation is like buying a Gyro at the Thursday Night Market. Not swank. It’s embarrassing and frankly, if I were a corporate exec, I’d tell my pilots to get some fuel in Oroville at $1/gallon savings, fly to Sac and have a nap, and pick me up at 4pm. The worse part is not knowing is someone is going to show up. I’ve called for fuel at 6pm (they’re open 7am-7pm) and have been arbitrarily told that fuel stops at 6pm. Seriously? Then there was the guy who found out he couldn’t buy fuel on Thanksgiving. That’s not how pilots roll. We land, we need fuel, as we often carry just enough to get from point a to point b….weight considerations and all.

6. Apparently the City/Airport manager told Mrs. Maria Rock in a private email that was accidentally CC’d to someone else involved with the case that an exclusive deal to run the FBO could not be assured, but he did assure that no one else would be able to have an FBO. That’s actually illegal, since the city has accepted federal funding which specifically states that the city cannot limit competition. In other words it is not up to the city to determine who operates an FBO, as it is meant to be a capitalist, Darwinian Free-For-All. Could Chico support 2, 3, or 4 FBOs? Who knows, but it’s not up to the city to determine the fate of the service providers. Let me be perfectly clear: The city has no jurisdiction over who can open and run an FBO. If they don’t pay rent, that’s another story, but insofar as the application and approval process is concerned, it’s winner take all, may the best man win, and all that rut.

7. Finally, and this is just plain annoying, Mr. Jay registered the name Chico Jet Center on 11/19/2007, and the Rock’s did so on 1/7/2008 4 times: One for Chris, one for Maria, and twice for Northgate Aviation Inc as Northgate Aviation Chico Jet Center. Part of the lawsuit I believe (really I’m not sure but I’ve heard this come up) is a cease and desist order barring the use of the name. The problem is that Dan Jay was denied a “Jet Center” and the name will eventually wind up with whomever uses it the most.

Wow, what an earful of mismanagement.  I’ve talked to other people who fly fairly often out of Chico airport, and they tell me the same thing about the fueling station – Gomer and Goober could do a better job, apparently.

A friend of mine told me even the commercial commuter jet has problems with the fueling station – a  commute flight he was on was held up because the employee at the fueling station had fueled the plane incorrectly, dangerously so. The pilot had to get out of the plane and wander the FBO area, looking for the attendant. When the employee couldn’t fix it, the pilot had to sit on the tarmac running the engines until half the fuel was “burned off,” then re-fuel correctly. That’s absolutely unacceptable as far as I’m concerned.

In past the airport has been managed by Dave Burkland, city mangler. Now we have a new city mangler, with a new contract. I’m not sure what’s going on at the airport these days, but I bet Ann Schwab knows.

See, Maria and Chris Rock, the owners of Northgate Aviation, are Big Dicks in the Democratic party. When I did a casual google search, besides contributions to the Democratic party and  Democrats like John Edwards, I came up with a $250 contribution from Maria Rock to Ann Schwab’s 2008 campaign. That may sound like peanuts, but it was one of Schwab’s biggest individual contributions. And, as I scanned the contributions reports, I found there are many ways to contribute to various organizations and keep your name completely out of it. I’m guessing the Rocks are heavy hitters among the local liberals.

But here’s the real reason. Money might get you some attention, but you better be ready for the push and shove of politics too. People like the Rocks who open their checkbooks for politicians always expect something in return. And Maria Rock apparently gets what she wants, not so much with her checkbook as her nasty temperament.  I talked to two different people who don’t know each other, but know Maria and Chris Rock, and both used the same word to describe Maria Rock – “bitch.” One said, “horrible bitch,” and the other one used “awful bitch.” I was shocked, neither of these people use profanity with me, but wow, they sure called Maria Rock a bitch. All I did was ask them what they know about it, and that’s what they said, Maria Rock is a bitch. She makes phone calls that could skin a cat, and will confront people and humiliate them right in front of others.

So that’s why Ann Schwab is allowing this lawsuit to parole along – she’s afraid of Maria Rock. Our mayor, toothless hound dog, lackey to the rich. Thanks for nothing, Ann.

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“NO on J” signs will be delivered soon – let me know if you want one!

8 Oct

I’m sorry I forgot to post this month’s “First Sunday” meeting – I was so excited about the signs I ordered, I wasn’t thinking. I just notified the usual suspects and we had a quick meeting to compare notes. We’ll have another meeting or two before the election, watch the skies. 

We have all been working in our own way to spread the word about Measure J. Sue and Stephanie walked out at the closing night of Thursday Market to hand out fliers about Measure J. They reported what I had suspected – people don’t know about Measure J, and when they find out, they are angry about it. “What?!!!!” was apparently the general reaction. 

It is always dumbfounding to me how little the public knows about their government. I’d bet my last five dollars most Chicoans couldn’t name the Mayor if they were given a shot of Vitamin B6.  In fact, some council candidates I’ve spoken to have demonstrated an alarming ignorance of the city code, the employee contracts, salaries and pensions.  One candidate I spoke too actually believed it was necessary to close Station 5.  

That’s why the only candidate I’ve endorsed or asked the other members of the CTA to endorse is Toby Schindelbeck. Schindelbeck has worked hard, familiarizing himself with the city charter, going to all the committee meetings for months now, finding his way around the maze Downtown. I know I won’t always agree pointblank with Schindelbeck, but he’s not going in there just to heat a seat cushion two nights a month. 

Another candidate asked for our endorsement, but I haven’t got any solid support from the rest of the members, and this candidate has not done anything lately that I can endorse him about. I’m not campaigning against anybody but Schwab – she’s the stinking fish head in this basket –  but if you want my endorsement, or my support in any way, you need to work for it. Schindelbeck is the only one I’ve seen consistently at meetings, and he’s spoken forcefully on our collective behalf to get finance records and other murky city affairs out in the public eye.  For example,  Scott Gruendl was on the committee that was to lay out the guidelines for  choosing a new city manager, as well as, the guidelines for replacing a council member when they stepped down before their term was up,  when he was himself a candidate for city manager. Schindelbeck pressured Gruendl to either step down from the oversight committee or remove himself as a candidate for city manager, and Gruendl was forced to do the latter. If it hadn’t been for Schindelbeck, Scott Gruendl would likely be our city manager right now, hand-picked by himself, and we’d watching his anointed appointee led to his chair on the dais. 

I’m still waiting for the signs to come back from the printer – sorry to wait til the last minute, but they will look really nice, I’ll promise you that! Let me know here if you want one – I won’t print your response, but I’ll keep track. Give me some address to deliver the sign, one per customer, as long as they last. I’ll post a picture of a sign when I get them, some time in the next couple of days. 

What can you do about Measure J? Please talk to one or more of your neighbors today. I know, it’s tough, neighbors aren’t as friendly as they were 10 years ago. But, for every asshole you encounter, I swear to gawd you’ll meet a nice person. 

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