Tom Lando is being quiet about his tax proposal – that doesn’t mean he’s given up. Currently he’s conducting a “survey”, supposedly in order to gauge public support, but more likely intended to mold his proposal into something the public will support. He’s just trying to find out what rainbows he needs to promise in order to get it past the uninformed.
That’s why I’ve tried to keep people informed to what’s really going on here – the city is broke after 10 years or more of absolutely reckless and irresponsible spending and Lando has been tapped (because he doesn’t have an elected position at stake) to sell the voters a tax increase.
Last night council wasted another two hours on a rambling bullshit session regarding the budget. It wasn’t a “work” session like you’d see if you attended a city council meeting in Red Bluff or Gridley. In those towns they actually fix streets and get money for school projects.Here they sit and babble for hours and come up with NO SOLUTIONS.
They’ve got to start cutting the upper level staffers. Dave Burkland should not be allowed to retire at 50 years of age, taking over $130,000 a year in pension. He should be told that he’s going to get a 50 percent salary cut and if he doesn’t like it, there’s the door. Same for Assistant City Manger John Rucker, who is instead getting ready to insert himself as Police Chief, and I’m guessing his new salary will be within $5,000 of the big 2-0-0-0-0-0! Same for at least 20 upper level employees, and those are just the cockroaches you can see.
Ann Schwab won’t fight the union – she IS the union. She works for the university – SEIU. Same with Holcombe, Gruendl and Flynn-Golom. These people are loyal first and last to their benefactor, the union. They know boat rockers get the pitch overboard.
They don’t want to “fix” the budget, they want more money to pay the pensions, including their own. They want a higher state sales tax, and they want a higher local sales tax, you can bet on that.
When I spoke to Ann Schwab at her “Meet the Mayor” event Saturday at the library, she assured me she would not support a sales tax “for a ballfield.” That was it. She won’t support a ballfield? Well, at the regular city council meeting last week she said she’d dip into the reserve fund to hire new people. She ‘s already used the RDA like a credit card to pay salaries and pension payments, that’s bad enough. Hiring new hires without getting your finances in order is like putting out a fire with gasoline. Or in this case, putting out the Pension Bomb by throwing some more flaming pensions at it.
If you’ve already written a letter to council, I’d certainly like to post it here. Sometimes it helps if they see the conversation going public, makes it harder to ignore us. You can also post your thoughts here anonymously, as long as they are on subject (Chico sales tax increase) and within the legal boundaries (don’t knowingly spread misinformation, and if you make a mistake, please be sure to retract quickly). Just click the “leave a comment” icon at the bottom left of each post.
Also, don’t forget, Chico Taxpayer’s Association meeting this Sunday, 11:30, at the Chico library. We have the room for about an hour before the next group comes in.
Chico Taxpayers Association 