Tag Archives: Friends of Ann Schwab

New police contract up for review tonight – I smell PORK!

15 May

Tonight there are a couple of troublesome items on the council agenda. Besides the phone tax, Chico Police Departments contracts are up and open for discussion.

The materials they provided in the agenda are, as usual, convoluted and dense, but this deal looks bad to me. It looks like the cops are offering to give up pay increases for the next two years, but deeper into the paperwork, they ask for an across the board 5 percent increase. It’s very clear they are asking to pay LESS toward their pension and benefits – they want a MAXIMUM of 9 percent, and they’re only paying 4.5 percent now.  According to the city manager, their offer to pass up pay increases will only save about $500,000 over the next three years, but  the PERS contributions will cost the city over $900,000?  No, thank you, I’d like to see a better contract. 

Chico PD gets over half the city budget. They like to brag about being under budget – well, they’re OVER BUDGET ON WORKMAN’S COMP,  for about the third or fourth year in a row. Read the studies – too much overtime causes injuries. So, we the taxpayers get the double whammy of overtime-spiked pensions and a lifetime of disability payments.

Scuse me folks, but I guess that’s why they call them PIGS.

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$200,000 a year city attorney can’t (won’t?) answer my question regarding tax measure she wrote

11 May

In reading the report city attorney Lori Barker wrote about the telecommunications tax she’s proposed, I noticed this paragraph:

“During the discussion at the January meeting, there was a concern expressed in regard to the application of the tax because it is applied based on the billing address while it is possible that the phone may be used primarily elsewhere.”

Here it actually sounds like Barker is worried that she might be taxing phones that aren’t used in this area. But I don’t think that’s really her concern. 

“The application of the tax based on billing address is mandated by Federal law in the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act of 2000. That Act was passed at the request of the telecommunications industry to simplify and provide uniformity in how local taxes are applied to wireless telecommunications industry to simplify and provide uniformity in how local taxes. The service providers are responsible under the Act for obtaining and maintaining their customers’ primary place of use.

I read that paragraph over and I asked myself, “what in the hell was THAT?” You know, everybody gets intimidated by that bureaucratic verbosity – it’s intended to work like many primitive, desperate animal defense mechanisms. You know, like those creatures that  take an enormous dump when they are threatened by a predator. That will make many predators back off. Not this predator. When I get a mouthful of excrement, I spit it out, and I say, “please give me a bite that doesn’t taste like shit.”

So, I wrote the city attorney’s office a note:

“To: sbarrett@ci.chico.ca.us

Subject: clarification of report – “update to telephone users’ tax”
Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 17:59:09 -0700
Hi,

 I wonder if someone could explain this comment from the city attorney’s May 1 report,  “update to telephone users’ tax” – page 3
 
“The service providers are responsible under the Act for obtaining and maintaining their customers’ place of primary use.” In other words, if the phone is billed to an address in LA, but used “primarily” here in town, can this city of Chico users tax be applied?  
 
Thank you for your anticipated cooperation – Juanita Sumner 
I have always received an immediate response from city $taffers – even when they are out of the office, they have an automatic feed that sends a note. Not this time. I waited three days, and then I sent another note.
Hi, 

 
I sent the request below  and am wondering if I am going to get any answer. 
 
Thanks, Juanita Sumner
Later that day, I received this response from $taffer Susan Barrett:
Ms. Sumner:
 
Lori Barker is not available today but can talk to you tomorrow about this matter if you give our office a call at 896-7600.
 
Thank you.
 
Susan
I find that highly ironic – she wants me to call.  I only have a cell phone, and I have the cheapest plan available, for the sole purpose of keeping connected with my kids and calling for help when I need it.   I don’t use it for anything non-essential – one call can put me over on my minutes and then the charges increase dramatically. Of course, Barker makes her calls on my dime, and yours. Isn’t THAT ironic – most $taffers are given cell phones paid for by us, so we will also be paying their telecommunications tax! This is just a barrel of monkeys!
But, the real reason I won’t have phone conversations with these people is that I have no record of what was said. Verbal conversations go all over the place, and then SOME PEOPLE will play games and say they don’t remember what was said, they didn’t say that, you said this! Etc. So, I don’t engage in verbal conversations on important subjects, I get it in writing.
Infortunately, for whatever reason, Miss $200,000-a-year-plus-annual-benefits-package-of-roughly-$95,000  does not want to put it in writing!
So, I had to go online to get it. And I sure as hell got it!
Here’s the link to the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act of 2000:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-106publ252/pdf/PLAW-106publ252.pdf

And it says,

‘‘§ 117. Sourcing rules
‘‘(a) TREATMENT OF CHARGES FOR MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES.—Notwithstanding the law of any State or political subdivision of any State, mobile telecommunications services
provided in a taxing jurisdiction to a customer, the charges for
which are billed by or for the customer’s home service provider,
shall be deemed to be provided by the customer’s home service
provider.
‘‘(b) JURISDICTION.—All charges for mobile telecommunications
services that are deemed to be provided by the customer’s home
service provider under sections 116 through 126 of this title are
authorized to be subjected to tax, charge, or fee by the taxing
jurisdictions whose territorial limits encompass the customer’s place
of primary use, regardless of where the mobile telecommunication
services originate, terminate, or pass through, and no other taxing
jurisdiction may impose taxes, charges, or fees on charges for such
mobile telecommunications services.”

Now, I’m no lawyer, but I think that’s pretty clear, albeit verbose. 

Yes, if you came here to go to school, and you have a cell phone that is part of your family’s phone package in LA, your phone company is responsible for identifying Chico as your “place of primary use,” and applying Lori Barker’s telecommunications tax to your calls. 

Yes, if you live in Oroville, or Red Bluff, or Forest Ranch,  but you work in Chico, you are about to be HAD! Like a fine piece of PORK!

And remember – city $taffers get free cellphones, paid for by us, and so their tax will also be paid by us.

Now, here’s the next question: will those of us who live in Chico but work outside the city get a break because our “primary place of use” happens to be Gridley or Vacaville? Will this Chico tax be applied on calls we make while travelling outside of Chico?   According to Barker’s proposal, this is up to your service provider, so if I were you, I’d be talking to my service provider about this. Or give Lori Barker at call at 896-7600. 

ADDENDUM:

I got this note back from Susan Barrett after my last post:

“Ms. Sumner:

 The City Attorney asked me to forward to you the following information:
 
Federal law makes the wireless carrier responsible for obtaining and maintaining each customer’s primary place of use for their phones.  If the primary place of use is in a city other than the city in which the billing address is located, the carrier should apply the applicable tax for the city which is the primary place of use.
 
Thank you.
 
Susan
 
Well, there she admits it – this tax will apply to:
  • college students whose phones are included on their parents’ bills, no matter where their parents live. 
  • people who live outside the city limits but work and do the bulk of their business in Chico 
  • people who live inside the city limits but work and do the bulk of their business outside of Chico (if you’re billed in Chico, you don’t actually believe your carrier is going to check into your place of primary use, do you?)

So, what about that family who lives in Orange, California. They have three kids. They have cell phones for each of their active kids and also for Dad and Mom. Because one kid goes to Chico State, they pay a local Chico tax on their entire phone bill? 

And what about a gal who works at my bank here in Chico, but lives in O-ville? Will she and her husband pay this tax on their whole bill? Barker certainly doesn’t expect us to believe the carriers will scan over our monthly usage, picking and choosing individual calls? If your “primary usage” is in Chico – and that might just mean, between 7am and 5pm – will you pay the Chico phone tax on your entire bill?

And then there’s the transplants who moved here but kept their job and the bulk of their lifestyle (including kids school and sport teams, after school programs, etc) in Vallejo, or Vacaville, or Pleasanton. The carrier won’t even question their “primary place of use,” because their billing address is in Chico.

I certainly hope to see some pissed off taxpayers at Tuesday’s meeting.

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“to ensure that all taxpayers are treated equally…” – oh yeah, let’s make sure EVERYBODY gets stuck!

10 May

Yesterday evening I received the city council agenda packet for next Tuesday, and wow, Lori Barker has already come up with a new version of the phone tax resolution. I’m sorry, I hadn’t even gotten around to discussing how deceitful the first version was, and she’s already re-done it.

Like I say, evil never sleeps.

She didn’t really fix it, is what I’d say right off the bat – it’s worse than the dawg she dragged in last week. 

AND, they’ve agendized it in the “2’s”, meaning, they just expect to vote on it without discussion. Either a council member or a member of the public needs to request that the item is pulled for discussion. I recommend people WRITE LETTERS NOW. To think they’d try to yank this by us without discussion – WHO DO THEY THINK THEY’RE DEALING WITH HERE? A BUNCH OF SUCKERS?! 

Here’s the ballot resolution Barker brought in last week:

“Shall the City’s current Telephone Users’ Tax be amended to reduce the tax on telecommunications users from 5% to 4.5% and to modernize the definitions of telephone communications services to keep current with changes in technology and federal and state laws. “

Please note, there is not one word in there about expanding the tax to take in our cell phones, not one f-ing word. Lori Barker is a duplicitous bitch. 

So, Sorensen and Evans and some other loud mouths, myself included, rammed and railed for her to rewrite the resolution to reflect, well, The Truth.

So, here’s what she flopped out:

“Shall an ordinance be adopted to amend the City’s Telephone Users’ Tax in order to: 1) reduce the tax from 5% to 4.5%; 2) modernize the definition of telephone communication services subject to the tax to include new technologies such as wireless and voice over internet services; 3) apply the tax to all telephone communications regardless of the technology used; 4) reflect changes to federal and state law? “

Take a good look at  #2 – “2) modernize the definition of telephone communication services subject to the tax to include new technologies such as wireless and voice over internet services”

She isn’t including the whole list of new services that are being made taxable by this resolution. Here’s what she says in her report from May 1:

“They generally capture interstate and international calls, voice over internet protocol, text messaging and paging.”

Duplicitous Bitch needs to add the above bold-faced services to the ballot resolution. Her failure to do so is obviously intended. Gee, who cares if they have to pay a tax on every text message they send? Nobody uses text messages! 

And here’s a question to ask – are they going to tax the Tweeters? Tweet Tweet my ass! 

And then we have #3, where they pit citizen against citizen:  “3) apply the tax to all telephone communications regardless of the technology used.”

She actually took the opportunity to put politics IN the resolution. She is trying to put this notion in  the voter’s head that not everybody is paying their fair share. How cute – you know their PAC is going to hammer this point for the next five months.  Cause frankly, that’s all they got. 

Well, it doesn’t belong in the resolution unless they’re going to explain that this resolution will FORCE EVERYBODY TO PAY MORE, including the pawns that pay the land line tax now. 

We need to expose Duplicitous Bitch. For one thing, I wish people would write to council now and complain about the agendizing of this issue onto the 2’s, and tell them we want it pulled for discussion. Also, I’d like to point out to them, it needs to be rewritten to include ALL the services they’re adding now, and the ones that the city finance director can choose to include in future. 

Yes, that is part of the resolution to – read it online. The finance diretor, and right now, that’s the same woman who’s driven us into this ravine, can decide which new services that come available in future can be added to this tax, without a squeak from the public. 

And finally, #3 needs to be stricken unless it explains that EVERYBODY will be paying a tax they do not currently pay.

Get mad now, it saves time later. 

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City mangler Dave Burkland recommends tax increase for city – he lives in the county!

9 May

I find it interesting how many city employees live outside the city limits. 

Your mayor owns a fine place up above the Forest Ranch Store, staring down at the little smog ball hovering over Chico. Your city manager lives halfway to Dayton in the unincorporated area surrounding Chico. How these people find the nerve to tell us actual Chicoans how to live is beyond me, but you can read Dave Burkland’s recommendation to raise our phone tax here, under the report for Item 4.1:

http://www.chico.ca.us/government/minutes_agendas/documents/5-1-12CityCouncilAgendaPacket.pdf

“I concur with the City Attorney’s recommendation,” he says. Furthermore, he reports, “If Council takes no action, the City stands to lose a significant portion of it’s general use revenue.” 

It’s easy for Burkland to talk – Dave lives well outside the city of Chico. This TAX is for those of us unfortunates who, either by choice, or in my case, ANNEXATION,  live within the confines of the city, where we are seen as a little herd of cash cows to be milked at will by our oppressors. 

Time for a little Animal Farm? Yep, I believe it is high time we stood on our hind legs and threw these people off. 

Of course, our boy Dave, rat that he is, has already made his jump from our floundering shipwreck in the making. Retiring this coming August at 60, BURKLAND WILL BE GETTING 70 percent of his $180,500 a year salary – over $126,000 A YEAR  – with  cost of living increases and medical benefits – for DOING NOTHING but picking up a check, for THE REST OF HIS LIFE. 

Damn, he looks pretty fit too! We won’t be rid of that leech for some years. 

At our Taxpayers’ Association meeting the other day, one  participant opined that Burkland and other staffers are supporting these local tax increases to feather their own nests, to pay for their pensions. Another person present tried to say that these pensions are “paid by PERS”.

Well, wake up and smell the coffee.  Read the papers lately? Like for the past two years? PERS gambled all their funds on the stock market. They lost their asses. Well, actually, they lost our asses. 

Go ahead. Google “pension time bomb” or “California on the hook for unfunded pensions” – you’ll find all kinds of articles dating from the present all the way back to 2010, telling us, we can’t afford these crazy pensions, built on crazy salaries, bloated with overtime, and then gambled on the stock market. 

As the Wall Street Journal says, in an article from April 2010, “Calpers and Calstrs are decrying the Stanford study because it has revealed exactly who is on the hook for all of this unfunded obligation—California’s taxpayers.”

Yeah, we pay for Dave’s pension and benies, and that’s exactly what he’s out to protect. And we pay them out of our General Fund. And like Dave says in his recommendation to stick us with a expanded tax on our cell phones – “The primary purpose of amending the telephone users’ tax is to protect existing revenue for the General Fund.” 

 

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At least 15,000 households eligible for UUT rebate, but only 110 apply? Why?

8 May

In his May 1 report regarding the “update to the Telephone Users’ Tax,” city mangler Dave Burkland tells us that lowering the phone tax from 5 % to 4.5 % would save the average user a whopping  twenty-five cents a month.

Mr. Burkland must think we just fell off the turnip truck. What he’s not telling us, is that while they will lower the phone tax by half a cent, they will expand it to cover your cell phone, with charges depending on your usage. Oh, great! There goes my 25 cents, and then some!

There are those of us now, in fact, who AREN’T PAYING ANY PHONE TAX, and we like it just fine, thank you very much. That’s why we dumped our land lines –  compared to the convenience and reliability of a cell phone, I need a land line like a moose needs a hat rack, Mrs. Goldfarb.  My family realized, why have the additional expense of something that only seems convenient for the people who want to sell you something at dinner time?

So we dumped our land line to save money, and now here they are, coming after our cell phones! There’s no rest for the wicked Honeybabe.

Cell phones can be very inexpensive, you can pay for your actual use instead of paying a flat rate even if you don’t have much use for it. That’s why they’re great for low-income individuals and families – it’s AFFORDABLE.

This is a “regressive” tax, meaning, it hits the lower-income people the  hardest.  During the council discussion, Scott Gruendl actually had the nerve to tell us, it’s no big deal, he’s GLAD TO PAY $2.50 a month to “help my community.” 

He’s talking about the minimum charge, the flat charge. For families it adds up. There is a charge per phone – I still have my AT&T bills – our UUT on those bills was closer to $4 a month. That comes close to $50 a year – and while that may not sound like much to a guy who yanks in over $100,000 in taxpayer money out of one of the poorest counties in California, it adds up to almost $50 a year to pay for the “privelege” of owning a phone. In addition to the $1000+ that you have to pay the phone company. 

Again, imagine life without a phone. I’ll never forget how potential employers acted when my son was looking for a job and we didn’t have a separate cell phone number for him. Having your mom answering the phone for potential employers is like some kind of rat poison. They treated him  like a deadbeat! One fellow was even rude to me! While I’m disgusted with the mentality, I realize, you can’t fight it, especially when you’re the one who needs the job. Going out looking for a job without a car and a phone is like wearing a t-shirt that says, “I don’t really want this job I’m just filling out my unemployment application…” 

So, Mr. Gruendl, living like a pimp on the taxpayers’ dime, can stuff his “community” spirit as far as I’m concerned. He’s not a member of my community, although, if you ask around Glenn County, I think you’ll find, they don’t want him either!

I know they’re sensitive about this aspect of the tax Downtown because Burkland informs us that low-income people can always reclaim their money, if they’re that petty, by way of the Utility Users Tax Rebate program. Do tell Dave! 

“The refund offers a partial refund of UUT  paid on all UUT services to income-eligible participants. “

If you look at the schedule below, you see what he means by “partial” – there is a refund maximum, regardless of what the participant paid in UUT, he/she can only get so much back. And it’s kinda whacked – one person can get up to $105, but eight people can only get $198? 

Burkland ends his report with some interesting statistics regarding the Utility Tax Rebate program. “Historically, the City has refunded between $800 and $1200 in UUT-Telecom refunds to an average of 110 households per year.” 

Well,  if I actually believed for one minute that the city had set out to return this UUT money to it’s rightful and underprivileged owners, I would call that a miserable failure Dave. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 21.2 % of Chico’s roughly 86,000 residents live BELOW THE POVERTY LEVEL. Do the math – that’s over 18,000 people.  If you divide that by the number in the average Chico “household,” and you find there are roughly 7,613 Chico households living BELOW THE POVERTY LEVEL. This is actually more than the California average, by a quite a bit! 

But Burkland informs us, only 110 households get a UUT rebate? Well, what’s the problem Dave? 

Has anybody ever seen this program advertised beyond the city website? No, you haven’t, they don’t advertise it, they don’t even take out a notice in the paper. It is not even mentioned on the city website until the two month period during which they will give you a refund. I have had to ask the Finance Department to post it two years in a row now, and I firmly believe they would’n’t do it if I didn’t faithfully e-mail them every April and bitch about it. 

I have to ask, why isn’t the information posted all year? I mean, in order to collect the rebate, you have to keep ALL YOUR BILLS, so it would be nice if the information was out there more than a month before the collection date. 

Of course, that’s a rhetorical question, I’m just a compulsive question asker, even when I know the answer. It’s always funny to hear the answer come out of THEIR mouth. Tell the truth and shame the Devil, Flakcatcher! As if it does any good – that’s why they’re the Flakcatchers! 

I have posted all the rules and regulations for getting your UUT rebate below. Tell me they’re not onerous, and I’ll give you a wet willy. 


CITY OF CHICO
UTILITY USERS’ TAX REFUND & EXEMPTION PROGRAM
GENERAL INFORMATION
A refund or an exemption from City Utility Users’ Tax, for utility services provided may be approved when the following conditions are met:

(1) City of Chico resident files an application with the City of Chico Finance Office for a refund or an exemption.  The application is a spreadsheet on which you have to write down the amounts of UUT from each bill, twice, and add them up in different directions. Then the clerk makes you sit while he/she adds them up. Once the clerk actually found a mistake on mine – in my favor, ginchee! 

(2) The application is approved by the Finance Office as being in conformance with Section 3.56.190 and/or 3.56.200 of the Chico Municipal Code. Only one member of each household may file an application and only one application may be filed for each household.   Meaning, make sure all the bills in your household are under one name. 

(3) The combined annual income of the household in which the applicant lives for the 2011 Federal and State Personal Income Tax Year was less than the maximum annual income limits in the following schedule:  These actually seem fairly generous to me, and I can’t understand why only 110 households claim the rebate.

Household Size   Maximum Annual Income     Maximum Refund
1                                $32,900                                        $105
2                               $37,600                                        $120
3                               $42,300                                        $135
4                               $46,950                                        $150
5                               $50,750                                        $162
6                               $54,500                                        $174
7                               $58,250                                        $186
8 or more              $62,000                                       $198
(4) The applicant shall be the person in whose name the bills for utility services were rendered.  Meaning, even if you and your spouse have the same name, they will only take the application from the exact name on the bills. 

Applications for Utility Users’ Tax paid will be accepted from May 1, 2012 to June 30, 2012 for tax paid between May 1, 2011 and April 30, 2012.

The application must be accompanied by:
• Proof of household income (2011 Tax Return, Disability Statement, Social Security Letter, etc.)  You can show them your tax return, you don’t have to let them keep it. And I’d use a copy with all the SSN’s blacked out if I were you.
• Copies of the utility bills including Water bills, Gas & Electric bills and Telephone bills paid by the applicant. Here’s probably the most onerous part. If you go into the office, you can just show them your bills, they don’t have to keep copies. But if you want to mail this in, it’s going to cost you in copy money and postage – good luck! 

Refunds will be processed as follows:
• No refund shall be made on any application filed or postmarked later than June 30, 2012.
• All applications for refund sent through mail will be paid with a check from the City of Chico.
• All applications for refund delivered by the applicant to the City of Chico Finance Office shall be processed the same day when possible. I think they have a rule, they’ll pay anything under $50 in cash, maybe $100, I can’t remember. This is the sweet payoff Babee – green money to exchange for sugary treats at Shuberts! 

Applicants for the Exemption Program shall have attained the age of 60 years prior to making the application for exemption. Eligibility for tax exemption for applicants 60 years or older shall be based on the maximum income for a two-person household as set forth above ($37,600 for 2011). Applications for exemption are accepted any time during the year and must be accompanied by:
• Proof of household income (2011 Tax Return, Disability Statement, Social Security Letter, etc)
• Age of the applicant as documented by driver’s license or birth certificate.

I feel they should give an exemption to anybody who’s successfully applied more than two years in a row, and then that household should have to re-submit their eligibility every five or so years. Once you’ve proven you’re eligible, they shouldn’t be able to take the tax off your bills anymore, but this way, they get to collect the interest on it all year. Remember, it’s not just you, they’re doing it to probably 15,000 or more households that are below the income requirements, that adds up to a few bucks in the bank. 

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“Modernization”? “Expansion”? By any other name, a tax increase still stinks!

7 May

I want to discuss the reports made by city $taff regarding the phone tax,  so get a cup of stiff java and a couple of toothpicks to prop your eyes open. I know the language in these documents is thicker than Glenn County fog, but it really helps to go over this stuff a little bit at a time and discuss it. All the sudden you gonna find yourself waking up real fast, Honey.

$taff refers to this resolution as an “update” or “modernization” of the old ordinance, by which they siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars off us through our phone bills. The old law, apparently, only allowed the taxing of LAND LINES.  Tuesday night, Ann Schwab, Andy Holcombe, Jim Walker and Scott Gruendl  directed $taff to “modernize” the ordinance to include “interstate and international calls, voice over internet protocol, text messaging and paging. “

“Modernize“? Excuse me?

City Attorney Lori Barker says in her report, “These measures have the effect of modernizing an existing tax to ensure that all users of communication services are treated the same, regardless of the type of technology they are using or billing practices employed by their providers. ”   

Here’s where it gets deceptive, and ugly. “…all users…are treated the same…” They are trying to pit us against each other, plain and simple. They are telling the land line users that the rest of us are getting by without paying our fair share!

First the ugly stick, then the carrot: “a slight decrease in the (current utility) tax rate, for example, from 5% to 4.5%.” 

So, they’re telling the voters they will not only get the slackers to pay, but that they are LOWERING THE TAX.

Read along in the report and you see why: “Decreasing the rax rate most likely increases voter support of such measures.”

Wow, they must think we’re pretty easy – half a cent?  We all know, that half a cent dries up faster than spit on a griddle when you realize they are expanding the tax to all your mobile devices:

“Additionally, it is believed that an ordinance that includes a slight reduction in the tax rate would have a revenue neutral impact because the tax base would be somewhat expanded.”

Read that again. “would have revenue neutral impact”? “the tax base would be somewhat expanded“? Excuse me,  Folks,  the revenue impact will be VERY POSITIVE. They will make more money with this “modernized” version than they ever made off the old ordinance. And “somewhat” ? That’s a joke – the base is going to be VERY MUCH EXPANDED. They will be getting taxes on cell phones that have never been taxed, from at least two major carriers that I am aware of  — you can bet your booty this tax is being expanded.

City Manager Dave Burkland, in his report, says he is setting out to “protect the existing revenue for the General Fund” – that the city is in danger of losing about $900,000 a year if voters don’t pass this “modern”  ordinance. But  it’s obvious, they’re set to gain a heck of a lot more than that if it does get passed.

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Chico Taxpayers Association discusses pending local tax increases

6 May

We had a great meeting at the library this morning. We discussed the phone tax resolution that is currently being crafted by the city attorney, as well as the sales tax increase proposal being forwarded along by Tom Lando and friends. 

Council heard a first reading of the phone tax resolution, in three versions with three rate proposals,  at the May 1 meeting last week. In answer to complaints that the language in those drafts was misleading and deceptive, council voted to send one of the proposals back to city attorney Lori Barker’s office for some editing.  Council majority (with Evans and Sorensen dissenting) chose a rate of 4.5 percent, but made no specific demands regarding the language or exactly which parts of the resolution should be rewritten. The revised edition should come back to council shortly, I’ll be watching for it.

The sales tax increase proposal is being kicked around at the Chamber of Commerce, of which Tom Lando is a member and past president. The Chamber seems to be vetting the measure, keeping a low profile and trying to get as many clouted individuals on board as possible before they bring this turkey out to greet the public. 

At today’s meeting we read over and discussed the reports made by the city attorney and the city manager regarding the phone tax, and also the proposed resolution itself. I’m going to try to post a bit of those reports day by day so we can discuss the pertinent points here, please stay tuned.

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Phone tax a GO, sales tax increase in the works – let’s talk about it tomorrow (May 6), Chico library, 11:30am

5 May

Tomorrow we will be discussing both the phone tax that council has already added to the November ballot and the sales tax increase that is slithering in that direction.

We realize 11:30 is not good for everybody, so we’ll also be discussing holding meetings at different times, and more often. We have a list of well-informed guest speakers we’re hoping to coax in as well.

I think we’re okay in our location, don’t you? The library is a great place for public meetings. It’s free, for one thing. And it’s fairly well placed, nearly in the middle of the incorporated  Chico area, easy bicycle OR car access, close to the freeway, and plenty of parking.  Plenty of seating too. So, I think we’ll leave it at the library, but try to have more meetings at various times to accommodate everybody.

Hope to see folks tomorrow, 11:30!

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Lando still working on sales tax increase, behind closed doors with Council members and $taff

4 May

Thank you Toby Shindelbeck for attending the Legislative Action Committee meetings which are NOT LISTED ON THE AGENDAS PAGE of the city website.

CORRECTION – my apologies – I found out, this is NOT a committee of the city but of the Chico Chamber, of which Lando is a member and past president.

I have been remiss – I knew about these meetings, but I have not attended. What I didn’t know, is this is where Tom Lando is plotting and planning with Council members and city staff to get that sales tax increase on the city ballot.

They (Lando and friends)  have until the first council meeting in July to come up with a proposal for Council, and it looks like they are  planning to do so.

If we have to mount an opposing campaign, we are ready to open our checkbooks.

The closure of Station 5 should have tipped me off – they are tying public safety to the train tracks to threaten us into passing both the phone tax and the sales tax.

We have a meeting Sunday at the library, 11:30.  I hope some folks will show up,  ready to work.

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You pat my back, and I’ll pat yours!

15 Mar

Every two weeks the city council gets another dose of medicine – budget updates on the dissolution of the Redevelopment Agency. Malfeasance Director Jennifer Hennessy is trying to break it to them slowly that we are out of money, and then they have these little confabs about how to hand the situation. These meetings are maddeningly the same – they never really come up with any solutions, they just sit wringing their hands. 

At my house we have had some financial shocks. For example – I had to get some dental work done, cause I ain’t been to the dentist in six years. My teeth were in generally good shape, except for my back molars – the ones I grind like 24-7. In fact, I’m holding my tongue between my teeth right now to keep them from grinding.

My back molars needed a little extra work – at $170 a tooth, I’d like to think of it as a weekend in the Poconos. All told, between the initial exam, the standard all-around cleaning, and the two back molars, this little adventure ran me about $650. Yeah, $90 for a 40 minute pick and scrape, that was kind of a shocker. By the time I paid all this off, I had taken a hefty broadside at my family’s budget. 

But, I have to say, my teeth were still in pretty good shape – I’ve always had trouble with those molars. When my kids were little, my dentist had me coming in four times a year, at $90 a pop – just put a bell around my neck and lead me to the barn!  When I’d see my dentist at the grocery store, I felt like saying, “Mooooo-oooo Fred!” So,  I actually saved money by not going in, contrary to the lecture I got from my hysterical hygienist, Carol. You heard me – I saved money by NOT going to the dentist. 

So, I’m going to practice the same kind of budgetary magic our Malfeasance Director, Jennifer Hennessy has taught me over the last five or six years – instead of recording the $650 as a loss,  I’m going to write off a $720 savings! 

Unfortunately the city budget is not so simple. Our city has become addicted to endless spending – it’s like heroin, and they are hooked bad. To watch these idiots try to fumble their way out of the mess they’ve made for themselves is very frustrating. It’s like watching the teenagers do all the wrong things in a slash movie. You scream at the movie screen – DON’T OPEN THE DOOR! – but they don’t hear you! 

When I sit through these discussions, I want to scream, “CUT THE CRAP!”

And the “CRAP” I’m talking about are the committees. Like the Sustainability Task Force. Linda Herman is struggling to keep this group together, to keep them on “task”, because her salary depends on it. She makes over $85,000 a year, plus benies and pension, to administer to a pack of children who can’t even make meetings. In fact, lately, Linda seems to have had trouble making the meetings:

Hi Everyone,  Fletcher called me last week concerned about the timeline that was set regarding the Sustainable Business Program.  Primarily he was concerned that the beta test businesses being contacted this week and then having Alan gone on spring break during the time when the businesses may have questions.  I know that the problem was that Fletcher and I were not at the Ad-Hoc meeting and we sincerely apologize for that.   

Right now they are working on the “Sustainable Business” program. Each member is supposed to survey local businesses, find out what they think of the checklists and “tasks” the committee has come up with – stuff like, replacing all your lightbulbs with little mercury bombs, and providing bicycles for your employees to ride across the street to have lunch. We’ll see if they do any better than the Diversity Action Committee, who had to be nagged constantly by Mom Rucker, and turned in less than 200 “surveys” in a town of over 85,000 people. 

But I notice right away, in an e-mail from committee member and Recology employee Jill Ortega, they only seem to be contacting businesses who are already on the bandwagon –  “My list includes the following: Chamber of Commerce, DCBA, Transfer Flow, Woodstock’s, Sierra Nevada Brewery, and Masie Janes.”

 

In fact, Ken Grossman, owner of Sierra Nevada,  is a member of the STF, regardless of the fact that he never does any work and only shows up at a few meetings a year.   This whole “Sustainable Business Program”  is really just a bunch of people sitting in a circle patting each other on the back at our expense. 

Why would Ortega choose to include failed Greenfeet owner Valerie Reddeman in her survey? You got me. “Even though her business has recently closed, I believe she can provide some valuable insight.”  Well, she’s also a member of the committee, and I’ll bet she’ll be real cooperative too. Between these two gals, they’ll come up with a favorable review of their own program, how nice.  

Neither the DCBA nor the Chamber were interested, according to Ortega, so that leaves her with nobody but the choir to preach to. By the way, Ortega is one of several garbage company employees, as well as employees from the county dump,  who are paid to sit in these committees. They tack that onto your garbage bill every month, I hope you don’t mind. 

This is how they fiddle while you are at work all day. They’re supposed to meet next Monday afternoon, but they still haven’t confirmed that yet. I’ll try to keep you posted, but if it snows over the weekend, I ain’t going. 

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