Tag Archives: Scott Gruendl Chico Ca

Whimsies

23 Jan

I attended last night’s Chico City Council meeting last night, on a whim, for a short while. It’s good to make yourself physically attend one of these meetings now and then, like cod liver oil, it’s good for your constitution. 

The items I was interested in had been held to the end of the agenda –  the new employee contracts. The big news is, city employees are being asked to pay their full share of their pension premiums. Whoop-de-fucking-do!  That’s only nine percent of the cost of pensions worth 70 – 90 percent of the highest year’s salary, available at age 50 – 60 years.  Life expectancy in the United States, according to Wikipedia, is about 78 and a half. So, on average, we will pay these folks almost a full salary,  for DOING NOTHING,  for an average of 28 and a half years. And yeah, we pay their health benefits and their rest home insurance too.

Sure they will make new hires pay 50 percent. Another can of worms hits the floor. First of all, how would you feel toward your co-workers knowing fully well you pay 50 percent of your pension and they only pay nine? Come on – I feel that is setting up a hostile work environment, how could anybody be so stupid or insensitive to think something like this is okay?  Well, I guess the same folks who think it’s okay for Todd Booth to carry a gun and represent the city of Chico, there’s your answer.

Second, this plan will only work if they fire all existing employees and hire new ones. Fat chance. 

I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay for that issue, so I’d written an e-mail to council ahead, telling them they needed to make the contracts only good for year, and then we need a financial report about how much money was actually “saved.”  I also wanted to thank Michael Jones for the wonderful chart he had made with friends, showing how out of whack our salaries are when compared with other, some of them very spendy, California towns. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera.  He’d had a beautiful banner made, displaying it on the back of the council chamber. He’d also had postcards made up, already stamped and addressed to each council member. He was handing those out, asking people to sign and send them. He gave me a set, which I sent. 

Here's one of the postcards Michael Jones had made. Speaks for itself. Thanks Michael and Kelly!

Here’s one of the postcards Michael Jones had made. Speaks for itself. Thanks Michael and Kelly!

When I see that kind of determination, I feel, well, you know:

Michael Jones has been active in Chico for a long time, he could give you a pretty good historical perspective on most of the business before council today. I remember stuff too, and it’s funny to listen to what they say now.

 I sat through the annexation conversation, which was interesting because I happen to know a lot of the background on that conversation, I remember when it all happened. I’ve watched it because I’d owned rentals with septic tanks in parts of the county that Tom Lando systematically turned into “county islands” so he could annex them later. For example, at one point, the city just annexed Courtesy Motors, who wanted to expand onto their sewer. Wow, all the sudden, we were in a county pocket, boundaried by a car dealership? In a morning meeting, Lando crowed about the sales tax receipts he’d just stolen from the county!

And Colleen Jarvis was honest at the time – she let everybody know, they were annexing for the property taxes, and they wanted people on sewer to pay for an expansion at the sewer plant, as well as problems with river flow and accidental poop releases  that they are still having today.

When I complained about annexation of my properties, they said, “Oh Juanita, you’re going to get all these city services, and you can vote in council elections!”   Boy, talk about rainbow promises – here’s a funny example: We were living in a house on Palmetto, and the county had started a makeover that was supposed to be completed by the city, an agreement made over the annexing of the neighborhood. The county started the job, and everything went smoothly – they stripped and resurfaced it, it still looks great! But, on the day that the job was handed over to the city for completion, work came to a halt. Oh oh, we thought, our driveway was still suspended about a foot up in the air, and we’d been cutting across the neighbor’s side yard (with their permission) and exiting by way of their front yard, because it was lower than either driveway. There were three households off our driveway, we’d turned that one neighbor’s yard into a mud slick. It was the rainy season, so the mud went all over the place, all the way up our shared driveway, and out into the construction zone.  It made for slippery driving, and forget pedestrian access. A week or so went by and the city just didn’t show up. One night our old neighbor lady had a stoke – and the ambulance could not figure out how to get into our driveway. It was a disaster, all of us were out there trying to get that ambulance across that mud slick, and they didn’t want to come. Finally they got the poor woman out of there, but she didn’t last very long afterward, and I can’t believe the ambulance delay helped her in any way.  The next day I called the city, told them what happened – oh, many apologies – but they still didn’t send a crew until the next week.

And now I live on Filbert – we are proud of our potholes, we call them, “vernal pools.” (sarcasm alert)  There’s a chronic pot hole near the corner of Filbert and Downing – about 12 years ago, it voided the warranty on my tires – excessive road hazard.   They annexed our neighborhood here over five years ago, and you can still look out there and see that same pothole – I call it, “Mooooby Dick! Ye dam-ned whale!”

Oh, but you say, I can vote in city elections! Yeah, that was tasty two years ago, when we kicked the shit out of Measure J, but, over the long run, it’s been a total downer. I voted for Scott Gruendl, Mary Flynn, Tom Nickell, Mark Sorensen, Sean Morgan, Mitt Romney (?!) and some others my brain is protecting me from by forgetting. The only votes I feel good about today are the ones I threw away on Nader – thanks for that Ralph.  I am starting to hate voting, I may quit altogether. That carrot has gone sour.

So, this controversy over the annexation of much of Chapmantown, one of the oldest contiguous sections of the city of Chico, has many biting heads. No, I don’t feel any better about being annexed myself. When I lived in the county, I had the sheriff and Station 42. The sheriff’s employees we encountered were great. We also got alot of support from CHP in those days – they came to help a couple of my old neighbors shut down a party house, that was a-may-zing. CHP did that, because we were in the county, now we can’t get them, they tell us to call the Chico PD. Hah!

The fine volunteers of Station 42 put out two fires in my neighborhood within minutes, saved both houses, one of was already burning on the roof. The other fire involved a car parked right next to the house, which left a huge scorch mark but never “engaged” the house. Because Station 42 is there within five minutes, we timed them. When I had an experience with the city, it was more like 10 minutes, and the house was fully engaged and ended up being a total loss. I believe if it hadn’t been for the fast actions of my neighbors, I would have lost my garage that day.

So, when Scott Gruendl protests that he has received “a lot” of comments from Chapmantown residents that they don’t want to be annexed, I say, “who could blame them.” Well, I have to think again.

I owned a house just this side of the city limit in Chapmantown. I had great sewer, great drainage, high curbs, etc. My house was protected. Blocks over, the houses sit in swamps, no sidewalks – one lady came to a meeting to describe the system of planks she has to lay out during rainy weather to get from her front door to her driveway. This also means, raw sewage floating up out of old long untended septic tanks. I’m sure, some of the septic tanks in that part of town are sub-code.  And, it’s been documented – the water pipes are leaking toxins into the groundwater over there, and toxins are getting into the drinking water. This I know because friends of mine living on 20th Street received  notice that drycleaning fluids had contaminated the city water, and they shouldn’t even shower in it until further notice. Last I heard, the city is making some progress on this issue – but they are waiting for lawsuits against the old businesses to play out, or for grants and funds  from the feds and state. In the meantime, they’ve been deferring developer fees, that fund being bottomed out. That’s who is supposed to pay for the sewers and the plumbing for development, the developers. Instead, the city has been giving them a free ride for years, and now they want the taxpayers to foot the bill for clean-up required by poor infrastructural management.

So, yes, in this case – one of the oldest urban areas of town, not an almond orchard dotted neighborhood five miles north of town – I’m for annexation.  And I think most of the residents would say so too, given the proper background info and an election to make it respectable. Instead, we get vague reports from Scott Gruendl about residents he’s talked to that don’t want to be annexed. These nameless residents who can’t seem to put comments in writing with a signature, these shadow-puppets, are saying, they like their rural charm! But no names, no phone numbers, no evidence. Just Scott Gruendl’s word.  Like they’ll tell you if you try to report something – anecdotal evidence is not acceptable, let’s hear some names, let’s see some e-mails or phone memos Scott.

And excuse the ramble, but then there’s Sorensen. He says we can’t afford to annex Chapmantown? Oh, but we can annex all over North Chico, they’re just chomping at the bit to get out there where the properties are bigger and generate more taxes, but everybody is on a new septic tank, and their houses are not close enough together to warrant sidewalks, so this would be pure profit for the city. They’d be taking in all those expensive properties (prop tax and utility tax) but they wouldn’t have to offer any services. They certainly wouldn’t have to clean up the mess they’ve allowed Chapmantown to become over all these years.

Dan Nguyen-tan was one who told me my services would get better after annexation. Within a couple of years, Nguyen-tan was complaining that the annexed areas had become a drain on Chico, and – GET ALOAD OF THIS! – he and Gruendl and Dave Burkland tried to blame our burgeoning fiscal problems on the annexations! And at the meeting the other night, Ruben Martinez reminded us, our short-lived City Mangler Greg $190,000/year Jones (who retired at 70 percent of that salary having paid only 4 percent toward the pension premiums) tried to tell us that we’d annexed these areas “without any visible means of support.”

That just doesn’t add up to me. Oh sure, you annex millions in property taxes, millions more in sales tax, but the annexed neighborhoods are still looking like third world countries 10 years later? Drive that neighborhood along the freeway, behind East Avenue McDonalds. Go in the daytime, they’ve had strong-arm robberies there during the day.  Look at the streets, look at the filth, and ask yourself – “am I in America?” Yeah you are, you’re in the City of Chico.  Alabama? Nope, California. Tom Lando’s California. Dave Guzzetti’s California. Jane Dolan’s California.

I mention Lando because he was the puppeteer, but I also mention Guzzetti and Dolan because they’ve been the official face of efforts to stop the annexation of Chapmantown. Dolan even threatened to sue at one point. Schwab and Gruendl both brought her up, but for some reason, refused to mention her name. She was the “county supervisor from that district…”, even though, both Schwab and Gruendl, by his own admission to me, have had dinner many times with Jane and husband Bob in their home.

Oh well, enough of this. This is a  ramble. I went to a meeting, so I felt the need to talk about it. Go to a meeting and tell me what you saw.

Did I say going to one of these meetings is good for your constitution? Well, it is. As soon as you get home you are going to want to take a big dump. Works better than poke berries. 

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You can put a dress on a pig, but you don’t fool us – it’s a GARBAGE TAX!

16 Dec

At tomorrow’s city council meeting, there’s a vague item on the agenda regarding a $100,000 budget appropriation from the not-so-aptly-named “Emergency Fund” for another consultant. If you didn’t read the item you might not know, it’s about the garbage franchise zones that Brian Nakamura is trying to flop on us. He’s lied all the way through on this one, telling us alternately, it would get trucks off our streets, bring in fees to fix streets, that it would give us more control over the haulers so they couldn’t use “their old trucks” here, among other accusations, and finally, that the companies would have to perform “free” services, such as street sweeping and emptying the cans in our public parks. 

On that last note, I’d like to point out, Park Staff used to empty the trash cans in the park. This involved one or two guys wearing appropriate clothing and gloves, lifting 33 gallon trash bags out of the stationery cans, picking up any errant trash, and tossing it all into the back of a city pick-up truck. Now we have a gi-normous WM truck trolling through the park. They come in on days when the gates are closed, so the driver must have a key to the gate, or a staffer who goes over and lets the truck in and out, I don’t know. The cans are off the road, so the driver can’t get them with the truck – I’ve seen him at 5 Mile. He has to park the truck and walk over to take the bag from the can. I’ve never seen a WM driver pick trash up off the ground, he’s just walked right by it on his way from can to can. I don’t blame them at what they get paid, they shouldn’t have to bend and stoop to pick up trash off the ground. 

I’m guessing it’s cheaper to have WM do the parks because their drivers don’t get a fraction of the pay that our park workers got, and they only get the nominal worker’s comp, no benefits or pension. But, the trucks are literally “trashing” the park road, just like they trash streets all over town, and the smell of exhaust hangs in the air for a good 10 minutes after the truck has left. 

As for Nakamura’s claim that people have complained there are too many trash trucks on the street, I’ve asked him for those letters, e-mails, transcripts of phone calls – all of which are part of the public record. He has never even answered those requests. I don’t believe he has any such complaints, because as soon as I came at him with that question, he started saying the new fees from the Franchise Agreement would go to fix the streets. Like the Castaways said, “Liar!” The city already gets about $20,000 a year in license fees from the haulers, and this money disappears into salaries and benefits, along with the receipts from the Gas Tax. 

Another claim Nakamura made was that our haulers “dump” their old trucks here, bringing in old trucks from the bigger cities, where Nakamura claims the air quality restrictions are higher? Some people will feed you anything, don’t leave your mouth open too long. I wasn’t the only one to call BULLSHIT! here – Joe Matz, from Recology was pretty offended by these accusations, but kept a cool head in reminding us that ALL California has the same air quality and safety restrictions on any motor vehicle, and those accusations were just pulled right out of Brian Nakamura’s ass.

So now Nakamura is desperately trying to tell us that with a FA, he can “make” the haulers do extra chores, like street sweeping, park clean-ups, community clean-ups. No, we will all pay the haulers do that stuff, when we are already paying city staff to do that stuff. We pay for all of that in our property taxes, even those of us who don’t dump our backyard leaves in the street, even those of us who don’t leave trash in the park, even those of us who don’t throw garbage on the  ground, but pick up the trash of others and dispose of it in our own garbage cans at home.

Please write letters to council and the newspapers rejecting this garbage franchise. It’s just a sneaky way of getting the ratepayers to pay more taxes to pay for Nakamura’s sweet pension.

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Scott Gruendl and friends in denial over loss of Measure J – still giving away rainbows down at City Hall

9 Nov

With the help of the media, the city of Chico continues to distract us with “Sit/Lie,” while behind closed doors they’re negotiating the employee contracts. Just the other night they handed a bone to the cops – longtime Chico police officer George Laver was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant, a significant pay raise. Days later, the department announced Laver intends to retire soon. He will retire at lieutenant’s salary. This is one form of spiking, and there they do it right in front of us, with the full blessing of our idiot council.

Including Mark Sorensen, who told me personally that Brian Nakamura was hired to wield a big stick with the employees and their unions. But just a couple of weeks ago, Nakamura complained to a full room at a Tea Party meeting that if he tried to make any changes to existing cop or fire contracts, “the city chambers would be packed with people wearing red Chico Fire shirts… ”  The cops and fire bring in big lawyers from out of town, he said, wa wa wa! Sheesh, this big gun assassin I heard so much about is a quivering woos!

They are laying off people Downtown who do work that brings in revenues, and protecting a pack of prized pigs who won’t even pay their own benefits to keep the city from going under. This idiocy needs to stop with the next election.

Scott Gruendl is up in November 2014. Gruendl, Ann Schwab and Mary Goloff, put Measure J, the cell phone tax, on the ballot, and wrote the arguments in favor. They tried to tell us the money would go specifically to police, fire, fixing the streets and maintaining the parks, but instead of putting those specifics into writing they wrote the measure to deposit the receipts in the General Fund, where they could use it any way they wanted. They also lied about the average amount a customer paid in UT, and about what they would be losing if Measure J failed to pass. They wrote the measure to include “all forms of electronic communication now available or those which become available in the future,” with staff deciding what constituted “electronic  communication”, without any input from the public.

Gruendl complained again about the failure of Measure J in an August article in the Enterprise Record. “Two cents actually makes a difference these days,” he complained to the reporter. “We are so cash poor, every dollar counts.“

Then why did they promote a guy who’s going to retire in less than a year? So that he could collect pension at that amount for the rest of his life? Because “we are so cash poor, every dollar counts“?

The reporter continues, “[Gruendl] also noted the measure’s failure has not caused changes in city salaries and benefits that opponents of the cellphone tax had argued for, saying they wanted the city to extract funds in other ways. Changing employee compensation continues to be a challenging and ongoing discussion, Gruendl said.”

I’d like to make double note of that fact. Here he actually seems to be bragging that he ain’t going to knuckle under to the citizens who won a majority decision over his measure, that he just won’t listen. He’s just not going to do his job as our elected representative, he’s just point blank refusing to deliver the will of the people over this special interest group. I’d also like to mention, as an employee of Glenn County, he is a member of the very same special interest group – a member of the public employee unions.

But  neither will I forget the way Mark Sorensen held me off by the forehead when I complained about Nakamura’s salary and terms of his plush contract. Sorensen insisted that Nakamura would prove himself worth the money when he wrestled the employee unions to the table, kicking and screaming, bluster, bluster, bluster.

 Now Nakamura is the one doing the kicking and screaming, or more appropriate, whining and squirming. Wiggling out of his job.  Flaking on his promises to get our employee expenses under control. Why would anybody be surprised? The first thing he did was give himself an out-of-control salary, and a contract guaranteeing a lifetime of paychecks for only four percent of his bloated salary. 

Sorensen is no better himself.  Remember, he’s was the one who wrote the opposing arguments for Measure J. I think Stephanie Taber or even I could have done a much better job, but it fell first to the council member who wanted it, and Sorensen snatched that opportunity, within the narrow time limits given by the clerk’s office, to write a pretty lackluster argument that lacked sincerity. As if anybody would believe that Mark Sorensen and his friends give a rat’s patoot about low income people.  I have never been fully convinced that Sorensen didn’t want J to pass, even while posturing for it’s defeat. I’ll bet he was surprised it lost. If it had won, I’m absolutely certain he’d be standing aside while the revenues were poured into salaries and benefits, including his own $21,000 insurance policy. 

 Gruendl told the Enterprise Record “I don’t think (Measure J) really changes how we bargain and negotiate.”  That seems to be true. They still negotiate these contracts as though they’ve got a money tree out back of City Hall. They don’t get it, they won’t get it – Measure J’s defeat was about more than excessive taxation, it was about what they’re doing with the money. But they ignore the will of the people, they never intended to pay attention.  They’re not up there to serve us, they’re up there to serve themselves and their friends. 

Cellphone tax rebate applications start to slow down

By ASHLEY GEBB-Staff Writer

POSTED Chico Enterprise Record:   08/10/2013 01:19:22 AM PDT

CHICO — Six months have passed since cellphone tax refunds became available to Chico residents, and the city has since issued $9,550 to taxpayers who want their money back.Chico accounting manager Frank Fields said 191 individual refunds had been issued since February to both residences and businesses, for an average of $50.

The city began offering the refunds in the wake of the failure of Measure J. Nearly 54 percent of voters struck down the proposal to update the city’s phone user tax to include modern technology such as cellphones.

All wireless phone companies have stopped collecting the tax on the city’s behalf. The 5 percent phone tax equated to about $2.50 of a monthly $50 bill or $5 of a monthly $100 bill.

The city will continue to issue rebates one year past the date of any cellphone taxes charged to customers but the number of applications is already starting to dwindle. Only eight applications were submitted in July.

“At this point, somebody could claim back through August of last year,” Fields said. “The one year window is sort of closing every month that goes by. Somebody might have August through January-February. Next month, it will be September through January-February.”

As for the volume of rebate requests, it wasn’t something the city could anticipate, Fields said.

“I don’t know if there was a way to predict what kind of response we would get,” he said. “We had no preconceived ideas about how many refunds we would issue.”

The refund money comes out of the general fund, which is also experiencing the impact of the overall tax loss.

The last three months have been the best indicator of the impact the loss of Measure J will have because only small amounts of tax have been paid to the city, Fields said. Compared to the previous year, the lost cellphone revenue tallies $217,000.

If multiplied to represent the entire year, the loss looks to be about $870,000.

“That’s general fund revenue that’s no longer available to pay for general city services,” he said.

The loss of revenue related to Measure J was noted during the June budget study session, as councilors cut $4.8 million from the 2013-14 budget.

Councilor Scott Gruendl said he remains disappointed by the measure’s failure, especially as the magnitude of the city’s financial situation continues to be realized.

“Two cents actually makes a difference these days,” he said. “We are so cash poor, every dollar counts.”

He also noted the measure’s failure has not caused changes in city salaries and benefits that opponents of the cellphone tax had argued for, saying they wanted the city to extract funds in other ways. Changing employee compensation continues to be a challenging and ongoing discussion, Gruendl said.

“I don’t think (Measure J) really changes how we bargain and negotiate,” he said.

Recently, while walking through Bidwell Park in an area now shuttered to citizens because of budget-related park closures, resident Siobhan O’Neil said she sees a direct link between the city’s cuts and the failure of Measure J.

‘You get what you pay for and what you don’t pay for,” she told the Enterprise-Record. “For pennies a month, we gave up a source of revenue to help with services in an economy that’s still struggling.'”

To obtain a refund, residents must provide documentation, including their cellphone bill and proof the bill was paid. Applications are available online and at City Hall’s Finance Department counter.

Fields acknowledged some people have complained about the amount of necessary documentation but said there is no other option.

“We have to have documentation to show that it was paid,” he said. “Unfortunately, those are usually phone bills. There is no way to bypass that part of the process.”

Since November, any phone tax revenue that has come in has been placed in an account earmarked for refunds. As of Monday, about $286,450 had accumulated.

Whatever remains after the one-year mark of not receiving any cellphone tax revenue will go into the general fund, likely in spring 2014.

Reach Ashley Gebb at 896-7768, agebb@chicoer.com or on Twitter @AshleyGebb.

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The Good Old Boy Network is alive and well in Chico

6 Nov

This afternoon I attended a meeting I had never attended before – the Local Government C0mmittee, made up of representatives from county and city elected officials and staffers. This was easily one of the worst meetings I have ever attended.   I sat there looking at a group of trough slickers, people who’ve grown comfortable getting paid to sit  in meetings  for endless hours, their mushroom-shaped asses molded right into those chairs. They don’t have any sense of time anymore, they just sit in these rooms breathing their own gas until they’ve all dissolved into a slurry of communal back-scratching.

That would include the ones we may or may not have voted for – Randall Stone, Scott Gruendl,  City of Chico;  Maureen Kirk, Larry Wahl, County board of Stupes; Cory Honea, Butte County Sheriff. Excuse me if watching these morons in meetings has left me without an ounce of respect for any of them. They’ve all completely lost touch with what they’re supposed to be doing, and WHO they’re supposed to be serving. Then there’s the usual collection of ass-sucking bureaucrats who go whichever way the wind blows – Chico City Manager Brian Nakamura, representatives from the police department, and then those drip-lickers from agencies like Butte Environmental Council and “park volunteer” Susan Mason, of Fiends of Bidwell Park.

Again, I’ll say, these people have made a life of sitting in meetings on our dime. While we’re out hustling to survive, these soft-handed help-themselvers are sitting in a gorgeously appointed room with a brand new H/A system and fancy furniture, pretending to work for a living. They’re no better than the freaks who hang around the outside of the building. 

The meeting didn’t start until 3:45. That sucks for me, I’m not a professional mushroom ass, I have other responsibilities. And, I like to use my bike to get around – it sure beats the hell out of going everywhere in a conga line of cars – but that limits me to daylight hours. It now starts to get dark at 5 pm, and I don’t feel too secure running around alone in what this council has done to my town after that hour. Lights don’t help, unless we’re talking about a Maglite 6 cell D, or how about a set of nunchucks strung with LED’s?

I also notice, the afternoon and evening meetings are not that productive. I’m not the only person who’s been up all day. Jennifer Macarthy, the county Economic and Community Development Manager  who was supposed to be running this meeting, seemed to forget what she was doing, and let the first topic run off subject a number of times. This was particularly annoying when people insisted on addressing the next topic on the agenda, and then expected to make the same remarks during that conversation as well. Every now and then, sometimes with a nudge from Mo Kirk, Jennifer seemed to remember that she was supposed to be keeping people on subject. This discussion of cleaning up homeless camps ran at least 20 minutes long, at least, with people asking to make just one more off-subject remark after another, and Jennifer allowing them. When one woman’s off-subject comment was ignored, gadfly Emily Alma raised her pudgy little mitt to insist somebody answer the woman. At this point, I wanted to re-enact these old bits from “All in the Family”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkue1ns4XvU

I went to hear the report on the garbage franchise contract now being stitched together in a cooperative effort between Butte County and the city of Chico. This deal will give either Waste Management or Recology,  or both, exclusive franchise zones in Butte County and in Chico. This means you no longer pick your own hauler, and there’ll be no more incentive for these companies to keep our costs down. There will also be admitted but as yet undisclosed increases in costs for the city of Chico, as well as liability issues. 

Given remarks I’ve heard lately and again at today’s meeting, this is already a done deal in both the county and the city. Right now they’re playing the haulers against each other, nudging them into giving up as much as possible. Today I again heard mentioned the idea that whoever gets the permit should be willing to do all kinds of free services for the city of Chico, like pick up trash in city parks for free, provide free dumpsters for community clean-ups, free street sweeping, etc.

Brian Nakamura has also been running around town saying that we need some kind of prod to make our haulers abide by the laws – during last night’s City Council meeting,  Recology manager Joe Matz finally took exception to this trash talk Nakamura has been spewing. Nakamura said to a Tea Party gathering recently that the garbage companies would use Butte County as a dumping place for their old substandard trucks, that they’d cut recycling services to save money, and all kinds of other fear mongering if we don’t have this franchise to hold over them. Matz reminded everybody last night that all of California has the same air quality laws and vehicle standards. What is Nakamura trying to pull here?

Well, that’s a rhetorical question, you know the answer, I know the answer – he wants the hugely increased fees to pay down the UNFUNDED PENSION LIABILITY. What does he think, that like Herman Goering, he can just keep repeating his Big Lies until they become the truth?

I didn’t have to stay for the rest of the meeting to  tell you what when on – Good Old Boy network. They allow women in now, but it’s all the same stuff that’s always gone on. Our county and city are run by the talking heads, and they run things to their advantage. Your elected officials are just as bad as staff  – city councilors get a small stipend and a big health insurance policy, and last time I checked, county supervisors were being paid almost $60,000 in salary, plus benefits. None of these people are going to rock their little boat. You have to rock it for them every four years, and it’s time for Gruendl, Wahl and Kirk to take a little swim.

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From Truth Matters Chico: Mayor Gruendl threatens to release personnel files – why is he so desperate to shut these people up?

19 Sep

The following is a repost from Truth Matters Chico, with permission from Mary. Read more discussion at

http://truthmatterschico.com/2013/09/19/mayor-gruendl-threatens-to-release-personnel-files/

Mayor Gruendl threatens to release personnel files

Posted by 

In today’s Chico News & Review, Bob Speer writes of our interaction with the Mayor during September 17 Business from the Floor, wherein we exposed his recent Facebook rant:

Interviewed after the meeting, the mayor was unapologetic, though he acknowledged he may have been “a little over the top.” Obviously frustrated by what he called a “cover your ass” effort on the women’s part, he said they’d waived their right to employee confidentiality and threatened to reveal embarrassing things from their personnel files.

We will be addressing the entirety of the article shortly; however, we wanted to get this out to you right away. Every person who has a personnel file at a prior employer should be outraged.

Again we ask, why is it so important that the Mayor silence us? Could it be that, although we have only exposed the tip of the iceberg, he knows what lies beneath the surface? Could it be that, as the longest-seated member of the Council, his prior words and voting record would reveal that he contributed to the City’s current financial situation? Does he want to stop us before we reveal a truth he does not want to acknowledge?

This behavior is frightening. It is an abuse of power for a government official to assault private citizens and attempt to quash their right to free speech. Only your voices can stop this out-of-control official. Please attend Council meetings and be heard, or write your Councilors and demand that they cease their efforts to silence dissenting opinions. Remember, the next person who disagrees with the Mayor could be you or someone you love.

If you did not see the Mayor’s Facebook rant, it is here:

2013-09-06_Mayor Scott Gruendl_FB

The entire Chico News & Review article can be found here:

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/on-the-chopping-block/content?oid=11501932

As always, we thank you for your readership and encourage your comments.

Remember, Truth Matters, Chico!

GRUENDL_CHICOER

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Yes, the clerk certainly does pick and choose what she puts in the reports and minutes

12 Sep

I hate to be a pest, in fact, I won’t tolerate a pest. Yesterday I found rat turds on my garbage can, so my husband went out and bought me a trap! It’s that time of year, everybody’s foraging – but I don’t put up with rats that close to my house.

Yes, I hate to be a pest – mostly because, people will only put up with a pest for so long. I’ve always known I’ve been walking on thin rice paper Downtown, trying to get information out of employees who may or may not like what I’m doing. I’ve had city staffers walk up to me out of nowhere and hand me documents – one woman said, “if anybody asks you where you got this, you don’t remember…” I’ve had them come up and tell me things, call me on my private phone, approach me at my kid’s games,  to tell me things aren’t good Downtown. This has been happening for a good five or six years, ever since I started to criticize the pay scale and the benefits. 

When I needed something from the clerk’s office, I’d ask for it. I’d tell them I didn’t want to be a bother, no hurry, etc. Debbie Presson was always almost too friendly, too cheerful, but I appreciated her cooperativeness. I remember when my neighbors and I had an appeal up before the city, we were told, we had to get it in within “calendar” days, not working days. It was Christmas time, and they counted both Christmas Eve and Christmas in the 15 days we had to turn in our appeal.  Debbie Presson was really nice – when my husband needed help with something, she told him, she’d be down there on Saturday morning, give her a call and she’d meet him at the door downstairs. That bothered me – at the time, I didn’t want her to go to the trouble, now I wonder, was she on overtime? And why can’t she do her job during the 9-5 M-F week? So, I figured – my mom liked to go to her office for the peace and quiet, maybe that’s what Debbie was doing. 

Knowing we pay dearly for Presson’s time, I’ve kept my requests to a dull roar.  But always Presson indicated to me that I could call her or e-mail her office anytime I needed anything! We had personal conversations I won’t repeat here. I started to get too comfortable with this woman because she was so kissy-nice all the time. 

You know me, I can’t swing with a good thing, I always have to shoot a hole in the dinghy. I started to find out, Presson has a lot of discretion. Discretionary rules always bother the hell out of me. Discretionary rules often set up a system by which “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” And sometimes I don’t want my back scratched, and I sure as hell don’t like scratching somebody else’s back. Yeeeeecccchhhhh!  I don’t play those games, I always get thrown out for bitching about stuff.

Below here I have the exchange I’ve been mentioning between myself and Debbie Presson, from December of last year, regarding incorrect minutes from the November finance committee meeting.  One thing I will point out – last year she had those minutes up within a month of the committee meeting in question, that’s why I asked her why she’d left out a whole conversation between me and Hennessy regarding the employee’s share.  

Then she says they will be discussing my questions regarding minutes at the January 2 2013 council meeting – I don’t remember it, and she only posted the minutes for that meeting a few days ago. According to the minutes, my letter was read to council and no action was taken. You have to get up there and call these people out physically if you want something – gee, I guess I had better things to do the day after New Years than go Downtown and try to Matt Dillon some legal propriety out of these idiots Downtown.

This is why I’m getting to the end of my patience with Debbie Presson and $taff and the talking heads we call our “elected representatives” – they play games, they jack me around, they are shysters.

In December of last year, having attended a Finance Committee meeting during which I asked detailed questions about the city retirement system and was given erroneous answers by the Finance Director, I read the report from that meeting and noticed that while another question I’d asked had been included in the report, they’d left the conversation about the pension system completely out, not one word.  So, I felt this was important enough to mention, I wrote the following e-mail to Presson and the council:

 

>>> juanita sumner  12/12/2012 6:49 AM >>>

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

 

Presson answered right away to let me know she’d received the e-mail:

 

Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:34:27 -0800
From: dpresson@ci.chico.ca.us
Subject: Re: letter to council
To: juanita sumner

Hi Juanita….
 
I have received your email and I wanted you to know that I will check into the minutes as well as place your letter on the January 2, 2013 meeting under Reports and Communications.  I will however be in touch with you as soon as possible.
 
Have a great evening!
 

Debbie

When I didn’t hear anything or see any change in the minutes a week later, I wrote back, wondering if she needed proof – Mark Sorensen was the one who e-mailed me to tell me Hennessy had given me the wrong information. By this time, the whole employee share thing was getting pretty clear, and I felt like I was being pushed back in my attempts to bring it to public attention:

 >>> juanita sumner 12/19/2012 8:28 AM >>>

Hi again Debbie,

 

I wonder if you’d like me to forward you the e-mail discussion I had with Mark Sorensen and Jennifer Hennessy regarding the question I asked that was omitted from the minutes of the meeting? I’m sure Scott Gruendl and Mary Flynn also heard my question and Hennessy’s answer. 

 

My question and Ms. Hennessy’s answer (answers?) need to be part of the public record. I’m just wondering, why do the minutes mention the one question I asked, but not the other?  The record needs to be complete. This is another reason people don’t participate. I rode my bike through the park to that meeting, at 7:45 in the morning, just to ask that question, and it’s important to me that the question and the answer are part of the official record. Is it a waste of my time to attend these meetings? A waste of time for the public to pay attention? 

 

I’ll be at the next Finance Committee meeting, I’d like some kind of resolution to this problem by then  – thanks, Juanita Sumner

Presson answered me that day. She mentions council’s 2001 decision regarding “‘action only’ minutes, with some summary when needed.”  Well, I think what has become apparent in this conversation, is that Presson and her staff are either incompetent to provide proper “summaries” or they are willingly distorting the record. You decide. 

 

Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:56:57 -0800
From: dpresson@ci.chico.ca.us
CC: bnakamura@ci.chico.ca.us; DBrinkle@ci.chico.ca.us; KMasters@ci.chico.ca.us
Subject: RE: letter to council regarding minutes
To: juanita sumner

Hello Juanita.

I have researched your questions regarding the discussions that occurred at the 11/27/12 Finance Committee Report (minutes) and found that the report does not reflect all of your comments regarding employee share of pension and benefit costs and subsequent responses by staff. That report is currently under review and once the report is amended, we will provide the Council with the report, with a copy to you as well. Please note, it is always our intent to provide a thorough report from these meetings. The reports however, are typically in summary format. Council’s formal action in 2001 was to direct staff to provide “action only” minutes, with some summary when needed. That motion carried 7-0. 

On a side note, but still related to this topic…. City Manager Nakamura sent you an email following that November Finance Committee meeting which included two attachments pertaining to safety and miscellaneous costs as well as an overview of the range of healthcare benefits that employees can chose from and for which they pay a share of the costs. Would you mind confirming if you did or didn’t receive this information? We would like to make sure he has your correct email address.

As I had mentioned in my 12/12/12 email, your email will be included on the January 2, 2013 agenda under Reports and Communications. At that time, I will be able to address regulations regarding the types of minutes required. Hope that helps. 

I wish for you and your family a wonderful holiday and will see you on January 2, 2013.

Sincerely,

Debbie 

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Koyaanisqatsi! The Meagher has turned on the Mayor!

4 Sep

Did you happen to see our mayor, Scott Gruendl, on tv last night? Gruendl actually called a press conference before last night’s council meeting, to complain about how people have been complaining!  Seems the heat is getting too hot for Gruendl, he’s getting a little hysterical.

On the Channel 7 news website, Gruendl claims there’s been violent threats made toward Brian Nakamura, and insinuates others. Randall Stone jumps in with a story that does not include time, place, or names of those who supposedly wanted him “punched in the face.”

Gruendl also says people are trying to “paralyze” our local government – with requests for minutes? Well, at a meeting I attended recently, they said the minutes were months behind. Debbie Presson’s staff has been cut down to Dani, who isn’t worth the rubber foam in those crutches we’re paying for. They aren’t covering all the meetings, and when they do, they don’t transcribe the minutes for months. They offer instead ONE TAPE of the meeting, that you have to go Downtown to get, for 24 hours? – when I tried to use these, the local news reporters already had them, I’ve had to wait for them for a week only to have to take them back the next day. This is no way to keep the public informed, and those people requesting those minutes are not doing anything out of line. Didn’t I tell you all, a few months ago, there’s a trend in cities all over California right now, telling citizens they’re taking too much staff time with their requests for public information.  I knew Gruendl would jump on this wagon. 

Gruendl is out of line here, and so are the other five councilors supporting him in the news conference.  That’s right, FIVE. Schwab is conspicuously absent here. Looks like Ann is walking out on The Gang.  And guess what she’s taking with her – a little bag of money name o’ Kelly!

By the way Scott, you look like Hell! Is it okay to say that, because I’m just being honest. You look like a plate of Death lately. Take a vacation somewhere sunny, would you? You look like a ghoul.

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What have I learned after 10 years of attending city meetings? Be a bitch, or get screwed.

29 Aug

Wow, isn’t that great that acting city Fire Chief Keith Carter has found a way to make those cuts at Chico Fire. The story behind that is, Brian Nakamura told an “exclusive membership” audience at the Chico Chamber luncheon he was considering out-sourcing the fire department to Cal Fire. Wow, all the sudden Carter got real imaginative on ways to save money! I honestly don’t think “public outrage” had anything to do with it – unless it was public outrage directed toward Nakamura.

I get a kick out of the editorial in today’s paper, saying the department could have kept the public better informed – what’s Nakamura doing, discussing city policy at private chamber meetings? This was never discussed before the full public in any council or committee meeting.

I bet you all wonder how much stuff goes on Downtown without any public oversight – plenty! At yesterday’s Economic Development committee meeting, that was a large part of the discussion. Unfortunately, Nakamura and  council have decided to cut expenses by cutting the staff who usually keeps the public in the loop. There was no clerk at yesterday’s meeting, and I didn’t notice anybody at that table taking notes. If you don’t attend these meetings, you wouldn’t know stuff like, they have a staffer almost completely dedicated to servicing the Chico Chamber, Shawn Tillman.

Tillman was apparently one of the staffers who was kept through the makeover but “bumped down” a couple thousand in salary – he used to make about $92,000/year, now only $89,000. At another meeting, I found out, his salary is paid out of the RDA because he also administers the oft-cancelled “RDA Successor Agency” meetings.  That means we really pay him about $250,000 – most of which goes to the interest on the RDA money. 

The Economic Development Committee is currently struggling with this problem – even while we spend $38 million of our $43 million dollar budget on salaries and benefits, they keep whining we still don’t have enough staff to cover meetings, notice citizens via e-mail or post agendas and minutes online. Paubrecitos!

Yesterday’s meeting started out with a discussion about how they will run this committee. Gruendl has foisted a plan by which there will be “regular business meetings” every other month, during which the committee can take action. In alternative months, the committee would meet with the business community via “events” orchestrated by Katie Simmons, director of the Chico Chamber of Commerce.

Simmons already has a city staffer, Tillman, assisting her with business that really ought to be done by the chamber. Why are we handing the Chico Chamber a free staffer, in addition to money they get every year from community grants?   Tillman administers “Team Chico,” a group of consultants, including Simmons, who are supposed to be reaching out to local businesses, telling them about programs they otherwise might not be aware of!  This little club of matrons visits businesses they choose to visit, offering them perks and benies of Chamber membership, as well as notifying them of city programs.

Isn’t that Katie Simmon’s job? All a business has to do to find out about what the city offers is come to the website. 

This is the kind of crap that passes for “Economic Development.” Tillman gives roughly the same glossy report every meeting – “our business climate is healthy!” He says there’s been 400 jobs added by existing businesses – businesses he’s actually contacted!  Do tell?

But I wish you’d also tell me Shawn, other than contacting these businesses and then reporting it to us, what did you do to create those job? Well, nothing.  It has become more than apparent to me that Tillman’s part in all this is simply the part of cheerleader, yakking up the marvelous magic of Economic Development! 

At one point, Mark Sorensen raised an interesting issue – just how far should the city, a public entity, go to promote private business? That went out the window.

I think they’ve already gone too far. There was the Mayor’s Business Advisory committee, with Ann Schwab and Mark Sorensen meeting privately with businesses – – like PG&E! Enloe Hospital!  – – but Sorensen, Schwab and the staffer attached to that committee denied me access to those meetings, saying the business people didn’t feel comfortable talking in front of the public.   Well, that tells me more than an agenda! What the hell could they be uncomfortable talking about in front of the public?

When I asked Gruendl about these meetings, he said they will be “absorbed” into the Economic Development Committee, I’ll have to keep an eye on that.

I was pleasantly surprised that yesterday’s agenda included something like a business roundtable – several members of Team Chico, local business owners, had come in to give reports about their activities with TC. Unfortunately, Item 1 was allowed to go all over the place, at least 20 minutes spent completely OFF TOPIC, and by the time these reports came up, I had to leave. 

Unlike most of the people in that room, I am not compensated to sit in those meetings.  I don’t have a housekeeper at home to make my family’s dinner. I have two to three hungry family who have been working physically all day to further my bottom line as well, and I like to offer some support in the way of a hot meal on the dinner table. The fact that they schedule these meetings at the dinner hour is frustrating to me – how does this save staff time? How do council meetings that go on beyond 11 pm save staff time? 

Scott says having these alternate meetings with businesses, outside the city chambers, away from the clerk and the recording devices, will save staff time!

I will call Scott The Rubberband Man – you gonna lose control when the rubberband starts to jam.

Scott can turn anything around and make it sound positive. Yesterday he told us that these “industry meetings” would save money. Oh? How’s that? By cutting out the pubic, that’s how. The conversation covered the Brown Act – Taylor cheerfully announced that if only one or two of them attended an “event” it wouldn’t be a Brown Act violation. Sorensen agreed. They all kept repeating a lot of crap about keeping the public involved – I felt this conversation was almost fully for my benefit – thanks for the yadda-yadda wave Katie – but you know how some people say exactly the opposite of what they really mean because they know you won’t like what they really mean? 

It was Tillman who said he didn’t think they needed to notice the “industry meetings” – he waved at “the partners” from Team Chico and said, “you can promote it…” he suggested. Oh really? Well, I’m not expecting to see any tv commercials or giant glossy ads promoting the “event” they’re scheduling for the “market analysis” they did with taxpayer’s money a few months ago. Remember the retail survey, you might have participated? Tillman told us in June that report would be made at this meeting, but all they have are tentative plans for a two day “event”, workshops planned mostly for businesses. They are planning workshops designed to show retailers how to “take advantage” of the data from the survey.   

Jesus Christ Katie, do you have to be so insensitive?  Great choice of words –  “take advantage”   This woman does not pretend to have any concern for the average citizen, consumers are her bread and meat.  She said it herself – those “exclusive to members” luncheons she’s been inviting city staff and council to attend are “a fantastic opportunity for our guests (city employees, elected officials) and for our members…” Yeah, they sure are. Legally, they call that lobbying. Unfortunately, not everybody benefits when special interests are allowed an exclusive event to lobby our policy makers.

When I pointed this out, they all sadly agreed. I told them, these meetings all need to be completely open to the public, and noticed, just like they have been in the past, or it’s going to look like something inappropriate is going on.  We wouldn’t want anybody like me thinking there was something funny going on, now would we?  Scott agreed, profusely, his tail so far between his furry legs you’d almost think he really meant it! Simmons actually said that the luncheons would be made public, but again, I’m not expecting a big ad campaign pointed at the taxpayers. 

What the hell does Tillman do with his time that he doesn’t have 5 minutes to send a list-serve e-mail? “I guess I could use the notice list for the regular meetings to notice the industry meetings?” he offered meekly, like a little child who’d been told he was expected to eat the crusts too.  Yes, that’s what you need to do Shawn, duh, please stop trying to make it sound onerous, you little drip. 

Scott runs these meeting horribly, he’s no improvement over Goloff. I’m all for public comment, I demand it, but Gruendl needs to keep the comments on topic or step down. He let a man go off topic for like 20 minutes. I had my hand up the entire time to ask on-topic questions about the public noticing of these meetings, and Gruendl just ignored me. After he let the other man go on at length, repeating himself, and going way off topic, he let Audrey Taylor in ahead of me – off topic, at length. I finally had to wheel my chair – from now on I will not sit in a chair without wheels at those meetings – and physically insert myself into the conversation to ask my on-topic questions. At one point, I just had to start yelling over Tillman, regarding the noticing of what Scott called “the listening meetings” – I had to keep saying, “No, that won’t work…” until they listened.

I’m not going to be polite, I don’t care who thinks I’m a bitch. One thing I’ve learned having dealt with these people all these years, be a  bitch, or get screwed.

I’ll keep tabs on these upcoming “events”. 

 

 

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Just how should parking revenues be spent?

28 Aug

Yesterday I hauled out of here at 7:45, and I mean hauled ass.  I can never get out of here in the morning, always have to go back for something, bike lock, ink pen, notebook, whatever. Just getting out my driveway can take me 20 minutes. If I’m lucky I don’t get halfway up the street and then realize I’m still wearing my pajama top.

I made the 8:00 Finance Committee meeting at about 8:04, having achieved flight somewhere under the freeway overpass, screeching into my chair just as Brian Nakamura and some other $taffers were taking their seats, and  Mark Sorensen was calling the meeting to order.

I had gone down there to ask some questions about the parking fund.  I find these meetings are the best time to ask questions, as long as they are relatively on topic. I must say, despite my feelings about their obese salaries, Chris Constantin and Frank Fields seem competent and are cooperative.  They give me an answer when I ask. The only part I have to figure out is, which question to ask.

Yesterday I wanted to know, what salaries are paid out of Downtown parking revenues, or Fund 853. I saw in the reports that fund takes in a little over a million a year – that’s just coin from Downtown parking meters – Whoa Nelly!

I also saw, half that fund goes to salaries and benefits, and I wondered – that can’t be just the parking meter crew. No, it’s not. Mark Sorensen mentioned, they take $120,000 for a cop, and no, he’s not assigned Downtown.

Well, I must say, that’s questionable. And that was the topic – just what should the city be able to do with the parking revenues. Fields, speaking on behalf of Constantin who is out of town til Sept 9, wants direction on that. It’s not his job to set policy, he’s just there to give us the facts. The fact is, we’ve been spending money “loosey goosey” (yes, that term has made it’s way permanently into the finance lexicon), and the Finance Department is asking council to put some limits on various funds, make some rules about spending.

Oh my geeshy sakes, isn’t that just Rocket Science! 

I know, we’ve heard this before, months ago. It’s not staff’s fault here, Constantin has been asking for direction, telling council they need to come up with new budget policies. Council has been moving like sap in Winter. I keep going to these meetings, months apart, and hearing the same conversation.  At one meeting, Constantin said departments had all been spending money without Finance Department oversight, and then just handing the bills to the Finance Department. Also, historically, whatever a department spent became their budget for the next year, encouraging departments to spend more to get more.  This is called “rollover,” and Fields says that while it’s really not a good way to run your finances, it’s “become the norm in government, I’m not sure why…”

Well, Frank is being too nice here. I know why, cause I remember an article in Tim Bousquet’s paper, years ago, about a lady named Jan who worked at the college. She said her boss had bought an enormous, gorgeous teak desk one year with what otherwise would have  become a “budget surplus,” meaning, their budget would have been cut. Rather than take a budget cut, this man bought himself a grandiose desk, at the taxpayers’ expense. This has become “the norm” in government.

And don’t forget, budget surpluses can also be taken as bonus by the department head – watch that episode of the office, where Staff is divided over buying new chairs or a new copy machine, and Michael “solves” the argument by taking the surplus as a bonus and buying himself a pimp jacket.

I have to get to work around my house now, I’ll pick this up later. 

Later:  Since I last posted, I have got a bunch of figures from Frank Fields, regarding the parking fund (853) but I haven’t had a chance to look them over. I also got some figures for the park fund (050) and wow, that’s a can of worms. I will get back after I’ve read over those documents – today  I am working out of town.

Later Later: Well, the documents Frank was so nice to provide me didn’t tell me anything really new – just kind of answered my suspicions.  Nor did he give me a document that I can cut and paste or figure out how to post in any way for you – I’ll work on it. Suffice to say, yes, they pay too many salaries out of the parking fund, salaries that, I’m sorry, have NOTHING to  do with providing anybody parking. 

What stunk about this meeting was, they have had the same discussion in front of me several times now, over months – and years previous with Hennessy – but nothing changes.  Staff certainly seems willing to have new rules for spending money – they don’t want to take the blame for the mess we’re in, they want to make sure we all know they are at the behest of council. So, the problem – the head of this stinking fish – is COUNCIL.

Furthermore, I’m blaming the two who told us they’d bring “fiscal conservatism” to this council – Sorensen and Morgan.   These two, especially Morgan, who is an ass, are doing nothing but fiddling our money away. They both signed another set of contracts agreeing to pay the employee’s share. With Morgan completed embedded at Chico PD (he brags constantly about going on frequent “ride-alongs” with his personal friend CPOA president Peter Durfee), I don’t see this changing anytime soon. We will continue to pay whatever the cops hold their hand out for as long as Morgan has anything to say about it.   Sorensen is way too friendly with the Chamber crowd. We’ll never get our financial house in order with Sorensen and Morgan handing out our taxes to their friends.

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Hwy 32 widening: Will CalTRANS carry out their threat to sue us because we didn’t collect developer fees? ANSWER – probably so!

22 Aug

NOTE: This is an old blog, I’m not posting comments here anymore. I posted a comment received recently on a new blog. Thanks!

This morning I sent the following e-mail to Mark Sorensen, at msorense@ci.chico.ca.us. No, that address is not a typo, he leaves that last letter off his name for whatever reason.  I’ll keep you posted as to his response, if I get any.

Hi Mark,

 
I was not able to stay for  the Hwy 32 widening conversation – that first item was pretty badly agendized, and the discussion was poorly handled. One thing Scott will need to learn to do is SHUT UP. He rambles too much. Maybe you councilors ought to be held to 3 minutes a piece?
 
Anyway, I had wanted to ask – I sat in on a meeting years ago with Wayne from CalTRANS. He told us they were poised to sue the city of Chico  because of those subdivisions – including, by name, Meriam Park, Westside Green, Barber Yard, among others – that had been approved without dedicating funds to widen 32. At that time Lando opted NOT to collect the fees from Tom DiGiovanni and the other developers, but to take the money from the RDA.
 
So, did DiGiovanni or Giampoli or Greening or any of the other developers/project owners named specifically in that lawsuit demand ever pay any road impact fees? At that time, we attended a charette at which Varga told us Meriam Park was going to take our traffic rating on that side of town from “A-B to D”, regardless of road improvements. I also remember, Tom DiGiovanni got $7 million in RDA funding for the sale of the low-income part of Meriam Park to a Fresno Developer – the city paid with RDA funds. So, did ANYBODY ever pay road impact funds on Meriam Park? 
 
And, finally, how are we going to avoid the lawsuit from CalTRANS? 
 

thanks, at your convenience, for your anticipated cooperation – Juanita

UPDATE: Mark got back to me pretty quickly:

the city matching funds for the project are expected to be 100% development impact fee supported. The problem is an old one, in that development impact fees are not collected until construction begins (or is completed) on actual structures. Whereas there are some advantages to fixing the traffic problem before it becomes really bad. 

 

At this point in time that particular development impact fee fund is in a deficit position. 

 

The low income project should have paid their development impact fees, but that is just a tiny portion of the Meriam Park project. 

“And, finally, how are we going to avoid the lawsuit from CalTRANS? “

 

Its might not be a lawsuit, per se. But CalTrans could oppose projects if the impacts on their roadways will be too severe and un-mitigated. This was a portion of the discussion on Tuesday night. 

 

But, when we come right down to it, the city can not continue to spend money that it does not have. Some sort of a reasonable funding source must be found. That might include developers developing a solution, and it might include holding off on the project for a period of time (EG: one or more years) until a reasonable method of funding is found. …. 

But I had to ask him to explain, you know I’m pretty thick:

Thanks for responding Mark,

 

I’m not sure what you mean, let me run this by you:

 

The developer (Ashcroft? of Fresno)  has paid the impact fees for the low-income portion of Meriam Park, but no road impact fees have been paid for Meriam Park, is that correct? What about Forgarty? Any of the others named in that lawsuit threat? I realize the fund is empty now – did they ever pay? 

 

Also, could you give me an example of what you mean by “reasonable funding”?  

 

Thanks for your help understanding this issue – and, I’d also like to invite you to our next CTA meeting, Sept. 1, 9am, library. I can get the room earlier if you’d like,  for some discussion of these latest developments Downtown – thanks, Juanita

He resent my e-mail with his responses in red:

The developer (Ashcroft? of Fresno)  has paid the impact fees for the low-income portion of Meriam Park, but no road impact fees have been paid for Meriam Park, is that correct? What about Forgarty? Any of the others named in that lawsuit threat? I realize the fund is empty now – did they ever pay? 

 

The low income housing project should have paid the appropriate development impact fees before or during the construction of that housing project. I’ll ask city staff to provide the calculation and indicate what was paid in the way of development impacts fees. (digressing for a moment) Fees that were probably paid with RDA, State and/or Federal grants or loans. And of course, the property is now off of the property tax rolls. 

 

Development impact fees are usually not collected until construction begins (or is completed) on actual structures (homes, buildings, etc). The vast majority of Meriam Park is still vacant land. Same is true of the Oak Valley Subdivision (Fogarty) it is vacant land on which impact fees would not yet normally have been assessed or paid. 

 
 

Also, could you give me an example of what you mean by “reasonable funding”?  

 
A GREAT example would be to use development impact fee surpluses on hand at the city. The problem is that the fund is already in a deep deficit position. See Fund 308 on page 87 of the following PDF: 
 

Clearly the Council did not find any of the 3 alternatives presented on Tuesday to be “reasonable”. 

 

If and when the State Department of Finance actually allows the City to use the remaining (approx) $6 million in RDA bond proceeds for projects, the HWY 32 project could be a candidate for consideration. 

 
 

Thanks for your help understanding this issue – and, I’d also like to invite you to our next CTA meeting, Sept. 1, 9am, library. I can get the room earlier if you’d like, and probably get at least Stephanie and Sue to show up for some discussion of these latest developments Downtown – thanks, Juanita

 

At this moment, I don’t know if I’ll be in town for the Labor Day weekend….

I thanked Mark, for responding.  But the whole thing really pisses me off. Developers don’t pay their way, they never have. But, try being a developer, dealing with the City of Chico! It’s a meeting of nasty dogs, don’t get too close, you will get bit.  

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