Tag Archives: Tom Lando Chico Ca

Monya Jameson, CARD Rec Superintendent: “We need more ‘worker bees’!”

6 Jun

Today I attended the CARD budget work session to find out that a balanced budget is not necessarily a good thing, not when you balance it by carving your expenditures with an ax. 

Like CARD board member Tom Lando, I was left asking myself, “why would they cut the programs that are actually bringing in revenue?”  Because none of the management are willing to give up their fat salaries and benefits to hire more of the part timers that actually do the work. 

For me the hour and twenty minute meeting boiled down to the last half hour or so.   After Finance Manager Scott Dowell explained the ax-carving that brought the budget back from Outer Space, and the horrors of a flat economy that waited ahead, Monya Jameson, Superintendent of Recreation and Community Services, painted an even bleaker picture. She described the shaving down of the programs for which CARD is supposed to exist, then ended her report by asking the board to re-fill the Senior Recreation Supervisor position they’d left open in order to balance the budget, saying, “I cannot continue to teach a program and manage a department.” 

Jameson started out talking about how various programs under her supervision had grown in the last seven to eight years, bringing in more participants and revenues. In 2005 the “net” program revenue was $210,110, with 27,512 participants in the programs. By 2012, participants had more than doubled, to 58,240, with revenues increasing to $324,540. All this time, staff hours only increased from 14,120 to 21,230.  So, participation more than doubled, and staff hours didn’t double – that is a little out of whack.

Now, due to a new federal law lowering the number of hours worked to qualify for health benefits from 40 to 30, CARD General Manager Steve Visconti is not allowing part time staffers more than 27 hours without approval. Part timers are the bulk of CARD’s work force. They not only mow lawns and stripe ball fields, empty trash cans and clean up vandalism, they supervise after school programs, teach swim lessons, and other activities with hands-on involvement with our children. So, Jameson says, she having to cut the participation in the more popular programs – programs that have “just exploded” over the past year. The “Junior Giants” program, for instance, grew from 300 kids signed up last year to 575 this year. Jameson only has two staffers, one full-time, and one part time to supervise that many kids? She will have to cut that program, and others, “looking at impacting about 555 kids”. 

“We need more ‘worker bees’!” she complained.

I don’t entirely sympathize with Jameson. She gets a $79,900 salary, with pension and benefits paid, while her part time “recreation leaders” and “recreation directors” – the people who actually work with the kids – make less than $10,000 – some less than $1,000 a year – with no pension or benefits. If Jameson would pay her own $5477 share of her pension premium, she could hire another part timer. The employer’s share is over $9,000, and she gets another $10,000 + in “health, dental and vision.” 

In fact, something Jameson didn’t discuss that showed plainly in her Power Point Presentation, was that management positions, just in the recreation department, more than doubled over those years between 2005 and 2012. Of course she didn’t have the figures for salaries and benefits over the same period. 

Dowell and Jameson, along with Superintendent of Parks and Facilities Jake Preston, were doing their best to paint a bleak picture for CARD, with property tax takings, their mainstay, flat-lining.  $112,000/year General Manager Steve Visconti howled about the $350,000 they’d been promised out of the dissolution of the RDA – they were lucky to instead received $80,000, and he wasn’t going to bite the hand by complaining about that, he said. In past years they’ve gotten $90,000 – after the RDA rabbit math, that’s $270,000 to be paid by our grandchildren at a date later announced. 

But nobody wanted to talk about Employer Paid Member Contribution. CARD employees do not pay any of their own share.  The funny thing is, most of their employees are part timers  making less than $5,000/year with no benefits. CARD spends about $4.7 million of it’s reported $6.5 million in revenues on salaries and benefits, most of it for only 30 employees. 

Well, I’d like to talk about this meeting further later, I’ll get back to it. 

 

 

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What is Tom Lando up to?

5 Jun

Last night we reached a new low with the council’s decision to move forward on the eminent domain of a private property for a bike lane. The worst part is, the owners say they’d go along with these plans if there was adequate compensation being offered, but the city stands by it’s ridiculous offer and holds a club up to the Douglas’ if they don’t agree.

Again, I’ll remind everybody – Tom Varga has admitted this acquisition will allow the city to apply for grants.  Mark Sorensen has said, “As far as the Grant revenue to fuel capital projects salaries… I believe that has at times been too much of a motivating factor.”  And the city is greedy – if they paid for the Douglas’ sewer hook-up, that would probably eat a good deal of the grant they’re after. 

I’m glad Sorensen voted NO on this item, but I don’t know if he sincerely didn’t want to eminent domain this family’s private property or whether he knew it would carry anyway so voted NO for the pleasure of his peanut gallery.  He had expressed a desire for the bike trail to be completed. Like Stephanie Taber said, they should have had all the properties secured BEFORE they started the trail. I believe Varga did it this way on purpose, to pressure any of those hold-outs who didn’t want to go along.  

But I’m not going to get distracted with that item right now. I feel like we need to be looking ahead. This bike trail fiasco went through the approval process years back, I don’t feel like going back through that process, or the bag ban. Let’s just remember who voted which way in a year and a half, when these people are up for re-election.  

What worries me now, is our finances, and what our city “leaders” are planning to do about the lack there-of.  Brian Nakamura and the New Kids on the Chopping Block – Mark Orme on bass, and Chris Constantin on drums –  are on the “Your City’s Up Shit Creek” Tour, with an appearance at City Chambers, this Friday, noon to 1:30. This event is being hosted by the city, as well as the Chamber, the DCBA, and the Chico Stewardship Council.

Yeah, I’d like to be there, but my family has already moved our plans to accommodate a financial opportunity for my son and a CARD budget meeting.  I hope somebody will go down there and fill us in. 

I will be at CARD’s budget meeting Thursday, 3pm, at the CARD center on Vallombrosa. The story in today’s ER says they have a balanced budget, with expenditures actually falling short of revenues – HOLY SHIT! Stop the press!  I’ll try to get photos of he momentous occasion.

Although, I am perplexed – if they can stay within their budget, why this panhandling lately? First they try to get us to agree to some sort of assessment or parcel tax, and when that doesn’t go over, board member Tom Lando tries to shove a SALES TAX HIKE onto the agenda. That’s what he said at the last meeting, that he wanted to discuss a sales tax initiative. The agendas aren’t very descriptive, there’s no report, so I’m going to the meeting to see exactly what comes up in the discussion. 

I could see a link here, excuse me for having a rubber brain. Lando has his fingers in several pies – he is a board member and past president at the Chico Chamber, and also a board member at CARD. As past city of Chico manager, he also consults extensively Downtown. This meeting Friday, sponsored by the city, the Chamber, the DCBA, and Bob Lincheid’s friends at the Chico Stewardship Council, just reeks of a campaign to get us to raise our own taxes. We need to pay attention to these people, because I’ve found, leeches do not like sunshine.

 

 

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CARD consultant says bond is a No Go, so Lando suggests CARD pursue a sales tax increase!

17 May

Despite the weird experience I had Monday at the CARD finance committee meeting, my husband and I rode our bike down to last night’s regular board meeting to see what CARD’s consultant had to say about the survey run a couple of months ago.  

CARD was testing the waters for a bond or property assessment, insinuating they would build a new aquatic center and gymnasium when what they really need is a bailout to pay their pension premiums. CARD employees get the same CalPERS deal as the rest of the public sector, and they pay NOTHING toward their own benefits. We the taxpayers pick up their entire “employee share”. Of course, that’s for the management who have benefits and pension – most of the people who actually do the work to keep your parks open and somewhat clean are part time workers with neither benefits nor pensions.

At Monday’s meeting, board member Jan Sneed loudly ranted at me that I was accusing CARD of being dishonest – yes, I am. Read the survey for yourselves – where does it mention the $397,000+ CalPERS side fund payoff, over $350,000 of which came out of the now-empty capital projects fund?  They try to tell us they’re going to build an $8 million aquatic center off of a $20 – $52 assessment?  Maybe Sneed would like to explain why the pension fund pay-off is left out of the survey paperwork?

I guess that’s because these survey people like to, as the consultant from SCI Consulting Group  put it, go at it “blind.” Meaning, they make no attempts to educate the survey respondents, they just ask them leading questions. When I’ve studied the consultants that do these surveys, I’ve found, it’s not set up to find out what people really want or think, it’s set up to lead people into wanting or thinking what the client wants them to want  or think. Got that? It’s part of the consultant’s job, not to gauge a community’s willingness to pay more taxes, but to make them think they’re willing to pay more taxes.

From their website, http://www.sci-cg.com/index.html

“SCI is proud of our industry leading success rate with new ballot measure for funding public agency capital improvements and services.“

Part of their service includes “implementing a comprehensive strategy for clearly communicating the issue to the public.”

So, I wish I’d thought to ask this consultant (actually, a very nice woman name of Melanie Lee), “why did you throw up all that stuff about an aquatic center and gymnasium instead of being honest about wanting the money for pensions?” I would think that question kind of answers itself, but Ms. Lee is a professional analyst and very honest and forthcoming – I think her answer would have been interesting.

I did hear what I wanted to hear – she reported that the results of the survey were disappointing. For one thing, they sent out 10,000 surveys and only got about 1800 back. I’d call that a wash, but I remember past surveys that have run with less than 500 respondents, so I won’t discount this one. I just kind of wonder what CARD spent on it, is all – just to send a giant wad of tree pulp to the land fill. 

But for another thing, the surveys that were returned indicated there’s little support for any kind of leech on our property taxes, whether it be a parcel tax, or an assessment. Both came back with less than the recommended amount of support to pursue a ballot measure. 

Ms. Lee also summarized the remarks people made at the end of their surveys – bad economy; recent passage of Measure E, prop 30, and other tax increases; and “government spending”.  

And before she left, she offered the board some great advice –  spend the next couple of years “maintaining and improving the park district”. In the meantime, open up a dialog with large property owners and apartment dwellers – the groups who least supported the idea of a tax.   Above all, she reminded them, “a good campaign starts years ahead.” 

With that Ms. Lee gathered her stuff and headed out the door. Before she was even out of the building, Tom Lando moved that the board consider having the CARD attorney “look into” a “sales tax measure.”  It was as if he missed the consultant’s last words – “the economy, other tax increases, and government spending.” Is he deaf? Dumb? Or really, really smart? 

He brought up the survey he’d run over a year ago, when he wanted the city council to put a sales tax increase measure on the local ballot. He said at last night’s meeting, he’d got over 60 percent approval.  And I guess that sounds accurate – the idiot majority passed Prop 30.

I’m assuming Lando was afraid to run his sales tax increase on the same ballot with Prop 30 – so he thinks waiting two years is going to do any good? Prop 30 raised sales tax to 7.5 – now what, 7.75? 8? 

I know, that doesn’t sound like much. So I have to remind you again what it pays for – for example, the general manager of CARD makes over $112,000 in salary, and we still pay his entire “employee share.” They bottomed out the coffers, of our tax dollars, to pay their pensions. To me, that’s stealing. They’ve stolen from the funds that were supposed to pay for the upkeep and replacement of public facilities to enrich themselves. 

I know my comments weigh heavily on the staff down at CARD, I’m sorry, they think I’m just a bitch. Well, I’d be an idiot to put up with what they’re doing. Steve Visconti, in his closing remarks, wanted to make sure everybody knew, the results of that survey “in no way reflect the way people feel about CARD…just bad timing…”

Then he went on to laud “staff”, meaning himself, I believe, for a recent award from some award givers regarding their website and the transparency of their agency. I must admit, Visconti and finance director Dowell have given me answers to my questions and also documents I’ve asked for. But never once in these “public” conversations has the true reason behind this tax grab come up – they keep talking about needing money to “fund this” or “fund that.”  And when I’ve brought it up in letters to the papers, I’ve gotten attacked. That’s not transparency, that’s a cloud of suspicion, as far as I’m concerned. 

As the meeting was ending up, Lando made one last forceful pitch, even a motion to have his sales tax measure idea brought to agenda, or at least agendized for a committee. I’ll keep you posted – their next meeting is June 5. 

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Nakamura announces a $50 million dollar deficit but still won’t make the cops or fire pay their own way. When will Mark Sorensen and Sean Morgan pull their “fiscally conservative” thumbs out of their asses and do something?

23 Feb

My husband and I both laughed out loud the other night when Brian Nakamura announced our city is about $50 million in deficit. Not that we thought it was funny, it was more of a nervous reaction.   I had to hear him say it a couple of times before the smile slid off my face. 

Then he offered up his puny little reorganization plan that might shave, heavy on the ‘might” – $1 million a year. He’s firing people across the board, and it’s only saving, again, “might” save, $1 million a year. According to the budget figures, that would still leave us in deficit. Has he got some other plans?

His first plan, to land himself a job at $217,000 a year, with a sweeeet benefits package, including a full year’s salary in severance pay, was a roaring success. According to a human resources “wiki” I read, it is customary to give an executive employee a severance of a month’s pay for every year served – Nakamura has not served us six months, yet has a promise of a full year’s salary if we have to let him go for any reason short of homicide or red-handed embezzlement. Thank you again,  Mark Sorensen, proxy dupe, and Tom Lando, puppet master. Boy, wouldn’t you like to get a look at Sorensen’s contract as Biggs city manager, or the contract Lando just got as interim rec manager out in O-ville?

And now these overfed blue jays are the ‘thin blue line” between the city and BANKRUPTCY. They are currently negotiating contracts with Chico Police and Fire Departments.  According to an article in the paper the other day, I was right,  the police alone take over $22 mil, or about half our $43 million a year budget. According to that article, they spend over a million a year on campus, messing with the college kids. 

Let’s face it, it didn’t cost them $100 to arrest that pervert that’s been over there raping who knows how many young women for who knows how long. They claim to spend more than $1 million a year patrolling the college area. Why? There’s a college police department. Why not force the campus police to take over? Why do we have to pay more in taxes for a special “C Team”? Can they get Leslie Nielsen for that kind of money? 

Chico PD just wants more money, more money, more money. They can’t help themselves, they’re pigs. They demand all kinds of perks and benies out of the city – they don’t even pay to purchase or clean their own uniforms – meanwhile, they tell us, they are too short of staff to actually do the job. They don’t prevent crime, they come along afterward and make a report about it so they can ask for a bigger budget the following year. They still haven’t solved the “clown bandit” capers, or those robberies that occurred every summer, again and again the same victims, including the hair stylist over on East Avenue who had her plate glass window smashed out at least twice and her cash register stolen. 

Right now they’re replacing their vehicles – they get new vehicles every five to six years, wouldn’t you like to live like that? Well you ought to, you pay for it!  Go on, go over to Wittmeier, and when they send you into Jackie’s office, you just tell her to call Brian Nakamura, he’s got a little voucher over there for you. She will laugh that jersey girl laugh and say, “No, really Hon, how you gonna pay for this?” 

Yes, the cops get new vehicles, they get a uniform allowance, they get paid to exercise, they get paid to go to their third cousin twice-removed’s funeral. A bunch of them got paid yesterday, along with Brian Nakamura, to stand around and yak it up over a guy who was killed 75 years ago. 

Yes, Officer Carlton Bruce. I didn’t know him, I’m sure he was a wonderful man, 75 years ago. But if I were his wife, I’d still be pissed at him for walking into getting his face blown off. I think Bruce made a number of classic mistakes, and up until now, nobody thought it was worthy of an annual ceremony. Where’s the ceremony for Rod O’Hern? O’Hern was shot in the face and permanently blinded by the accomplice of a suspect back in 1995. He subsequently left the force and moved out of the area. I don’t know if his family still lives here, but at the time of the shooting, he had a six year old and a pregnant wife. These folks could probably use a little comfort for what they went through, but I guess you have to be dead to get any respect out of Chico PD.

I remember that incident, and the problems that caused it have not been solved. Just this past holiday shopping season, only a short walk from the scene of the O’Hern shooting, two women and a ten year old girl were maced and their purses stolen at the MacDonalds on East Ave.  That crime has not been solved.  Our police department continues to take without really giving us anything.  Now they want bigger salaries for their management positions, because they are so jealous and greedy they need to see $$$$ before they will do their jobs. 

Please write to your council – at dpresson@ci.chico.ca.us – and tell them the police and fire need to pay their own pension premiums. Currently the police PAY NOTHING and fire only two percent, toward  pensions representing 90 percent of their highest year’s pay available at age 50. Our city is over $50 million dollars in deficit on these crazy contracts, and we will soon be forced to pay more toward the premiums. That either means new taxes, or it means the cops and fire need to step up and do the right thing. 

Mark Sorensen and Sean Morgan ran as “fiscal conservatives.” Somebody should write them a letter and tell them, “that means, you’re supposed to be saving money!”  Somebody might ask them what they’re doing taking  salary and benefits for their council position when both of them have very nice salaries and benefits from their publicly-paid day jobs.

Write to Brian Nakamura at bnakamura@ci.chico.ca.us, and while you’re asking him to bring the cops and fire to the table, ask him to pay his own pension share as well – he currently pays only 4%. 

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Let’s make Scott Gruendl squeal like a pig

1 Dec

I love living in Northern California and these winter storms are part and parcel. I keep my house maintained and I try to watch the storm drains up and down my street because you can’t depend on the city to do anything until there’s a problem. All along the Manzanita corridor intersections have suffered severe flooding because the city isn’t cleaning the storm drains.  They make a lot of noise about leaf pick-up, allowing landscapers to dump tons of leaves in the street every year, but all it takes is a handful of leaves to plug a storm drain, and that’s what I’ve been seeing around town. 

The city has also allowed an enormous amount of development around town, especially along Big and Little Chico Creeks, without providing any kind of flood mitigation. That’s why you’re all getting notices right now. 

Meanwhile, they are blaming the defeat of Measure J for all their problems and getting ready to mount a campaign to raise your sales tax, starring Ann Schwab and  Scott Gruendl, and produced by Tom Lando and his fist-puppet Brian Nakamura.

Schwab and Gruendl are currently undertaking a scare campaign, with the help of the local media, to convince Chico voters that if they don’t pay more taxes, anarchy will reign in the streets of Chico and we’ll all be home-invasioned and carjacked. Ken Campbell says we complain too much. 

They’re also cutting street maintenance, and watch for the park to start looking pretty bad too. Those bread bags hanging out of those dog doo dispensers are looking like weird trash cans. Wait til we see old crappy bread bags laid alongside trails full of poop, that’s going to look good. 

You probably watched Kojak as a child, if you’re reading my blog. You know what a “protection racket” is, don’t you? 

Nakamura, like a broken record, keeps repeating the same words over and over: “To give you some perspective, $900,000 means seven to eight police officers or potentially two-thirds of an
operation of a fire station…”  That fucker is threatening us. 

Maybe I need to put this in perspective: at the same meeting referenced  below, Jennifer Hennessy told us, we spend over $7 million a year paying  our employee’s pension premiums. She didn’t have the figure on health benefits.  

Yes, that’s just the “share”. The city only contributes 18 percent of the actual costs of these pensions, including the employee and employer shares.  The rest of the cost is what they called, “the unfunded pension obligation.” 

I’ll save you rereading those epic blogs I wrote about the Pension Bomb – the California Public Employees Retirement System – CalPERS – expected to fund 82 percent of these pensions by loading them into a little cart and sending them off to the stock market with Mr. Toad. Mr. Toad fell out before the got the cart off the runway, and every time the cart comes back around it’s full of nothing but I.O.U.’s – or rather – “we owe them’s”. CalPERS has lost 10’s of millions on the stock market, they’ve never made the returns they’ve promised, and now Governor Moonbeam is starting to talk about making the cities and counties pay their own pension obligations. 

Here’s a little slice of what that’s going to look like – these are just the top management pensions, current as of 2010. Yes, all these people are RETIRED. They do NOTHING but still get this money. 70 – 90 percent of their highest years earnings. The “warrant” amount means, their monthly check.  Right now, they are being paid out of RDA funds and off the premiums of lower level workers who pay more, but soon Jerry Brown will turn on us for this money. And guess what – we don’t have it! 

Name Employer Warrant Amount Annual
ALEXANDER, THOMAS E CHICO $8,947.23 $107,366.76
BAPTISTE, ANTOINE G CHICO $10,409.65 $124,915.80
BEARDSLEY, DENNIS D CHICO $8,510.23 $102,122.76
BROWN, JOHN S CHICO $17,210.38 $206,524.56
CARRILLO, JOHN A CHICO $10,398.98 $124,787.76
DAVIS, FRED CHICO $12,467.78 $149,613.36
DUNLAP, PATRICIA CHICO $10,632.10 $127,585.20
FELL, JOHN G CHICO $9,209.35 $110,512.20
FRANK, DAVID R CHICO $14,830.05 $177,960.60
GARRISON, FRANK W CHICO $8,933.56 $107,202.72
JACK, JAMES F CHICO $9,095.09 $109,141.08
KOCH, ROBERT E CHICO $9,983.23 $119,798.76
LANDO, THOMAS J CHICO $11,236.48 $134,837.76
MCENESPY, BARBARA L CHICO $12,573.40 $150,880.80
PIERCE, CYNTHIA CHICO $9,390.30 $112,683.60
ROSS, EARNEST C CHICO $9,496.60 $113,959.20
SCHOLAR, GARY P CHICO $8,755.69 $105,068.28
SELLERS, CLIFFORD R CHICO $9,511.11 $114,133.32
VONDERHAAR, JOHN F CHICO $8,488.07 $101,856.84
VORIS, TIMOTHY M CHICO $8,433.90 $101,206.80
WEBER, MICHAEL C CHICO $11,321.93 $135,863.16

This is what Gruendl doesn’t want to talk about.

Scott Gruendl is a sneaky little creep. The discussion in the meeting lasted less than five minutes, but after everybody was gone he sidled up to reporter Ashley Gebb and continued his threatening diatribe against the public. “After the meeting, Councilor Scott Gruendl said he was disappointed and a bit confused by the measure’s failure.  ‘The voters have sent a conflicting message,’  he said.  Citizens reportedly say they are concerned about
public safety and want more officers on the streets, yet they knew this revenue was tied to preventing cuts, he said.”

Gruendl has a selective hearing problem –  he is deaf to our concerns about salaries, benefits and pensions. 

When I questioned Jennifer Hennessy about the  shares, she told me what an employee pays toward their perks depends on what “unit” they’re in and what kind of “package” they choose. Most pay less than 5 percent toward their health package and NOTHING toward their pensions.  She also acknowledged that all our city councilors receive benefits packages paid by the taxpayers, for which they pay an amount equal to two percent of their city salaries.  For example, Gruendl receives a $16,935 health benefits package, for which he pays 2 percent of his $7,800 council salary – about $150 a year.  That in addition to his salary and benefits out of Glenn County, two other salaries from Chico State, and his partner’s salary. According to his Form 700, Gruendl takes over $140,000 in public money, not including benefits packages. I’m assuming his partner, who takes “between $10,001 – $100,000” as a supervisor at a local rest home, also gets a benefits package. 

This guy never ceases to amaze me. Ever hear a pig scream when you are late with that bucket? Well, there’s Gruendl for you. 

Here’s the article from the ER below.

More cuts to Chico police on the way?
By ASHLEY GEBB — Staff Writer
Posted: 11/29/2012 01:46:41 PM PST
CHICO — Chico voters’ defeat of a proposed change to the city’s telephone users tax almost inevitably will cause
cuts to public safety, members of the finance committee said this week.
Measure J asked voters whether to amend wording to the city’s phone tax to encompass modern technology such
as cellphones while decreasing the tax rate from 5 percent to 4.5 percent. The measure was voted down Nov. 6,
gaining only 46 percent of the vote.
The telephone users tax, like other utility taxes the city collects, supports the general fund. The city receives about
$1.4 million annually in phone tax revenue, of which $900,000 to $1 million comes from wireless
telecommunications providers and likely now will disappear.
Discussion of the impact was brief at Tuesday’s meeting but City Manager Brian Nakamura said the revenue loss
will be a significant hit to the general fund, which primarily supports public safety.
“To give you some perspective, $900,000 means seven to eight police officers or potentially two-thirds of an
operation of a fire station,” he said.
Cuts to public

safety have a trickle-down effect, he said.
“Public safety, that’s what drives economic development, with businesses wanting to locate here and residents
wanting to locate here,” he said.
Revenue loss is expected to start this year, said City Attorney Lori Barker, who plans to bring the topic to the City
Council in December for discussion.
The issue will be determining the loss’ size and
where to adjust the budget, Barker said. The city will
also need to address how it will deal with any
refund requests and notifying phone providers.
Until specific legalities are ironed out, Finance
Director Jennifer Hennessy said the Finance
Department will hold any revenue from phone
companies in an account.
After the meeting, Councilor Scott Gruendl said he
was disappointed and a bit confused by the
measure’s failure.
“The voters have sent a conflicting message,” he
said.
Citizens reportedly say they are concerned about
public safety and want more officers on the streets,
yet they knew this revenue was tied to preventing
cuts, he said.
“People are going to blame us for taking cops off
the streets,” he said. “I’m OK with being blamed
because I’m an elected official, but I voted yes on Measure J.”
Proponents of Measure J said its passage was critical to protect tax revenue, while opponents argued it was a
regressive tax that unfairly targeted students and economically disadvantaged.
Options to address the revenue loss through negotiations will be limited, Gruendl said.

“Part of where my disappointment is, is the unions who are affected by Measure J did absolutely nothing,” Gruendl
said.
This revenue loss is not the only fiscal challenge the city faces, Nakamura said. Several other issues coming
forward will have to be addressed, and he anticipates a significant budget discussion will take place in January.

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

25 Nov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A real “grass roots” endeavor

20 Oct

I remember way back when Casey Aplanalp contacted me via my “Ad Hoc” blog in the Enterprise Record, asking me if I would like to form some kind of group to oppose Tom Lando’s proposed sales tax increase.  We talked it over and came up with the name “Chico Taxpayers Association,” and an “organization” was born.  I started this blog on word press, and yakked it up, and before you know it, we had a group of the “usual suspects” – people who had very little in common except their compulsive curiosity about government spending and intuitive suspicion toward tax increases. We’ve carried on with regular First Sunday meetings, same place, various times, trying to get the public to pay attention what we consider to be EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS.  

We found no support in this community for a sales tax increase, in fact, we heard from many people who were angry about it.  I think we added to the pressure that forced Lando to take a “break” from his tax-raising activities, obviously hoping that public sentiment will change significantly by next year, when I believe he intends to ask council for a special election. 

But we couldn’t let up at that point, because Ann Schwab had already introduced her cell phone tax, eventually Measure J, and it seemed like a “no-brainer” to re-tool our little weed-whacker to oppose this obvious G-snatch. 

We have no registered PAC, no officers, we collect no money, and we have no manifesto. We have a word press site, and a regular standing date at the library. 

According to wikipedia,  “A grassroots movement (often referenced in the context of a political movement) is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures.”

Well, I’d say, we’re about as “grassroots” as it gets. 

And then there’s the opposition – led by our mayor, Ann Schwab. I’d say, a woman who’s been sitting on council since 2004, mayor since 2008, is pretty clearly a “power structure.” Of course, city council is supposed to be a non-partisan body, but try telling that to Bob Mulhullond, the guy who kept his own wife in a “non-partisan” office for 30 years! There’s nothing “spontaneous” about these people  – you can always expect an ugly letter from Steve Troester regarding whoever the conservative front runner is. This morning he unleashed his pen on Toby Schindelbeck – how telling! And you can expect the same last-minute hit-mailer from Michael Worley, even though he got fined by the FPPC for the mailer he sent out in the last election because he put a fake name in the return address – tried to rip off Mothers Against Drunk Drivers – how low will “Miguel” sink this time? It’s anybody’s guess. 

Somebody has already trashed one of the signs I gave a neighbor, along with a Bob Evans sign. Somebody!  Welcome to Chico Elections! 

Oh well, I will say, it has no effect on my enthusiasm. Today I spent an hour at the library, sitting in the lobby with some signs and my sample ballot. The library was busy as usual, I’d say, two or three people came in that door every ten minutes. I had a couple of good conversations – the usual reaction – people are surprised to find out about the tax. It’s not like anybody’s advertising it. You don’t see any “Yes on J” signs around town, do you? The sample ballot was only delivered Tuesday, I wonder, has anybody read it? This morning my husband and I drove out around town, covering the east-south corridor from mid-town out toward Doe Mill and then over to Chapmantown. Most of the people we spoke to had not heard of Measure J, had not had a chance to look over their sample ballot. I worry that people will not have a  chance to look at the text of this measure until they are standing in the voting booth, so I’m out there, and I’m saying something. 

I’m telling people, read your sample ballot, you’re likely to find all kinds of outrageous stuff! 

 

 

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