Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth writing letters to the Enterprise Record but you know, it’s really the only public forum we have. Here’s how Editor Wolcott responded to the letter I sent the other day about county spending and the fire stations:
Hi Juanita, your last letter begins with this paragraph:
“In 2021, Butte County supervisors approved the use of more than $252 million in PG&E settlement money, received on behalf of Camp Fire survivors, for the creation of over a dozen new staff positions, with salaries over $100,000/year. At the time the county was already carrying more than $44 million in pension liability because of overgenerous salaries and unrealistic employee contributions.
The supes also approved the use of settlement money toward paying down their pension deficit.”
I can find no record of the supervisors using the funds to create new staff positions.
I had to inform him – I got the information from this 2021 article posted in the ER.
Wolcott then tried to tell me, “In this story [link below], we reported “The money was put into a fund to go toward maintenance, rebuilding and recovery after the fire. Flash forward to September 2022 and the Butte County Probation Department took out a loan from the fund for its new office that it is paying back. The interest generated from this would go toward what Chief Administrative Officer Andy Pickett suggested as a cost center.“
What money is he talking about? Because the 2021 story I posted details the spending of $252 million in “PG&E settlement money…”, listing new positions to be created with the money. Furthermore, he’s just proving my point – a new department, the “cost center”, with new positions, new salaries, new pensions, and more pension deficit.
That’s another post, we’ll get back to “cost centers”. For now, I responded to Wolcott.
“below is the link to the story I referenced, ER dated 4/14/21. They created new positions with PG&E settlement money, BUT! I see a mistake in my letter, I said “for the creation of…” I think that should be “including the creation of…” How’s that? They did other stuff with the money, including making a big payment toward the pension deficit, but that was too many words to get into the letter. “
I haven’t received a response, but I haven’t seen the letter in the paper yet. Of course, you can tell Wolcott has been on another one of his extended vacations – no letters one day, three letters the next, and now, a regular avalanche of letters. Including a really nasty letter from regular writer Michael Bertsch, accusing everybody of global warming. But no letter about the misspending of PG&E settlement money, the county pension deficit, or the fact that the supervisors are perpetuating it.
It’s hard to get the truth out when your local newspaper is in on the racket. What’s up Mike?
Chico Taxpayers Association 