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| Images from the Life photo archive from 1967 . Yesterday I was perusing the internets. Not all of them, but most of them. I ran across Google's Life photo archive. The images are available for free use in personal non-commercial applications. I assume that includes this blog, since I'm not charging for services, earning any money, or selling any products today. A web site URL for the archive is http://www.life.com/archive/gallery, and you can access the images if you add to your Google image search the words "source:life". For example, "elvis source:life" will return images from the Life archives of Elvis Presley. The archive looks like a great source for school reports, and provides examples of the finest photographs of American history. I did a search for my birth year in the archives. A couple of results are shown above, the top image is of the first Superbowl in January of 1967. As I've edged into middle age and become less athletic, my love of football has grown. Perhaps that's because my ego can easily accept that mere humans can no longer compete in the professional version of the sport. Being an armchair quarterback doesn't seem so pathetic knowing that. Or maybe it's because it was the one team sport I really enjoyed playing. I'll always regret not playing my senior year. I wasn't very big, or very good, and I needed money, so I got a job instead. Had I realized then I had my entire life to work, and only that year to play football, I would have made a different choice. The bottom image is a US Army tank on patrol during the Detroit race riots of the summer of 1967. Tanks on American streets. That's so China... and just 42 years ago. I wonder when we'll see that again. I hope when it does happen again they're flying tanks. I've always wanted to see a flying tank. The behemoth above looks like an M60. These were fading into obsolescence when I joined the Army in 1985, a mere 1/4 century ago. A nearby tank battalion was switching to M1s as I arrived at my first duty station in Germany. Maybe one of the M60s they had was deployed in Detroit the year I was born? I might have touched that tank in the photo. Spend a little time looking through the archive. There's so much history captured there. Post a link to a photograph from the year you were born? Show us how wise and aged you are, or how colorfully short in years you happen to be. |
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| A press release I received today. Councilor Larry Wahl has apparently entered the Butte County Supervisor race, and is running against the habitually unopposed Supervisor Jane Dolan. I wonder if his campaign tagline will be "Vote for me, I'm not married to Bob Mulholland!" |
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| Capital projects expected to start or continue in 2010. In the midst of an economic downturn, and with a $4,000,000 General/Park Funds deficit, the city is expecting to spend $28,000,000 on capital projects this year. Most of these are road projects, and about 2/3 of the money is grant funded. These large projects are typically funded out of buckets of money that are not from the deficit ridden General Funds. They often come from redevelopment agency funding, which is like a giant credit card, whose available balance is nearly exhausted. Some of the money comes from the federal stimulus funds (ARRA). If you want to understand why the stimulus has created a "jobless" recovery here is an easy calculation. Just take the city's spending on capital projects for this year ($28,000,000) and divide it by the estimated jobs created (350). Here, I'll do the math for you... the result is $80,000 will be spent for each job created by these projects. If you just took that money and created jobs for $30,000 per year (close to the individual median income for this area) you would create 933 jobs. If you paid people $15,000 annually for part time work you could put nearly 2000 people to work for a year. That money would then flow into the broader economy. You could even buy every citizen in Chico a bike and ask them to use it on warm sunny days. Then all 80,000 of us could ride around the roads that were not improved. The Federal attempt to create an economic recovery through stimulus funding failed, you can look at the projects above as an example of why. Large capital projects are typically construction projects that cost quite a bit for material and engineering. The projects are built by large machines that require skilled operators. I'm guessing that you would also see the city's enterprise funds billing city employee hours to these projects. But much less of the money goes back into the economy than would be the case with a tax cut. Blog Power: Mark covered the Art Commissions proposed program that would have increased the cost of private construction projects on his blog yesterday. Today the ER reports that the Art Commission ditched the plan due to the poor economy, that's blog power. I'm hoping my blog post today will result in an end to capital projects, and a free bike for everyone in town. Fingers crossed. In the ER story TJ was the lone vote to hear the proposal. Hat's off to TJ, whether he supported the proposal or not (we won't know now). The fact is, if the proposal would negatively impacted local businesses today, it will negatively impact them in any future economy. If the Commission wants to tax business for art, let's hear where they stand. Let's hear where the council stands. |
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| New blogger covers Chico, fiscal issues, and wears a mean sport coat. Mark Sorensen has a new blog on Wordpress. The URL is http://marksorensen60.wordpress.com/. I've always had a lot of respect for Mark's fiscal and business knowledge. As a Planning Commissioner and City Council candidate he will likely have some interesting things to write about in the coming months. In the future, when you're reading all about Chico's economic issues, you can visit Mark's blog. That's an option instead of reading what I wrote at 5AM, while hunched over my computer, and sitting in just my underwear. Mark has assured me that he will never write his blog while wearing just underwear. He'll wear a turtleneck as well. |
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| Budget trends from last week's City Council presentation. I was sent the Q2 2009-10 Financial Update slide show that was presented at the last council meeting (here it is, pdf). If you missed it, there you go, it's your's to keep forever. Don't say I never gave you anything. There's not much new that I hadn't covered in this blog in days of yore. Here are the major points. 1. Income is down, but this year's budget is balanced. 2. Next year's projected deficit is $3.6-$4 million, which is up from $1.7 million that was predicted in last year's budget. 3. After the last two years of lower than expected tax income the city is projecting future income will increase at a rate similar to historic rates, this is shown in the top graph.. I haven't written a lot about the city budget in the last year. There's really not that much to write about. In my opinion, the city has had three options for handling its budget issues. Their options have been to cut people, cut pay, or hope for economic recovery. They've managed to scrape through this year by leaving jobs unfilled and paying employees less. I think their plan could be described as doing the least necessary in order to wait out the economic downturn. They were successful in that endeavor last year. They also cut annual spending on purchased services (consultants and others) from a high of $800,000 in Q2 '07 to $400,000 in Q2 ' 09 (slide show page 6). I've always felt that city employees were paid well enough, and were skilled enough, that their heavy reliance on consultants was inappropriate. Unfortunately, it looks like the economic downturn is not moving in a direction that helps the city budget. So the city needs to make bigger changes. How big? I thought it might be useful to look at the kinds of changes that would create a $3.5 to $4 million reduction in the annual General Fund spending. I'm using the 2008 city salaries for this. In 2008 the city paid $3.9 million in overtime. Eradicating overtime could solve the budget problem. It would also cut some emergency service payrolls by 40%. This is particularly true of the Fire Captains making more than $140,000 per year (14 of 18 in 2008). I think that would result in a riot. Not a very big one, but a riot nonetheless. A second option is to cut 10% of employees. The threat of this would make negotiating other options a little easier. Numero three-o, if the city fired everyone that makes more than $150,000 including overtime pay they would save $3.7 million dollars. That's 22 people. d) Attacking the problem from the other end the city could fire everyone that makes less than $47,000 and also save $3.7 million. That's 197 people out of work. Another option would be to cut pay by 10% for all city employees that make more than Chico's median income. Using 2008 salaries, this comes out to ~$3.5 million. This is what CSU Chico did (not the median income part). The 10% cut comes in the form of a furlough, so the employees also do 10% less work... always a bonus. How hard can you complain about more time off? The last thing I would say about the city's budget planning is that I'm not sure it is realistic. The charts the Finance Department provided seem to indicate that they think the recent economic problems are just a bump in a world of ever increasing tax income. The amount of privately held wealth destroyed in this recent recession is substantial. The same CalPERS effect, caused by a 2000-2001 stock market correction, was blamed for the 2006 budget slide into what we have today. Recent market activity will dramatically impact the city's CalPERS funding requirements in a way that unbalances the budget budget further (read about some CalPERS problems here). In addition to overestimating future tax income, I think the city has yet to find out the real impact of its retirement investments. This will take years to unwind (2.78 to be exact). |
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| Could cat weddings become a thing of the past in Bidwell Park? Two letters in the ER today condemn the Chico Cat Coalition for proposing a trap, neuter, and release (TNR) program for feral cats in Bidwell Park. One letter comes from Forest Ranch and the other Paradise, both are from people associated with the Altacal Audubon Society. Birds and cats have been enemies for almost as long as the Israelis have been having problems in their neighborhood. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that bird people and cat people are having problems getting along. The first letter, from Scott Huber, makes a plea for support for the Cat Coalition while pointing out problems with TNR. The second letter from Dawn Garcia points out the possible illegalities with returning cats to the park. Months ago the local Audubon group also dropped off with the BPPC information about successful legal action taken against Los Angeles County for employing a TNR program without CEQA review. The Cat Coalition, short of space, quit picking up new cats quite a while ago. Without additional storage, their only option to limit cat populations in the park is to do a TNR. I guess that's not the only option, killing the cats is another. It's worth pointing out that the Cat Coalition is one group that has received regular park funds from the city (about $10K annually). The other group is the Nature Center. Let's be honest, cat storage space is always difficult to find. I have two cats, and what I've found useful is cutting leg holes in the bottom of shoe boxes. These are perfect for daytime storage. I take them out of the shoe boxes between 2-3AM. That's the 1 hour each day they don't sleep, and usually spend it trying to sit on my head. Oddly enough, I recall that Huber wrote a letter-to-the-editor a few years ago supporting disc golf. And I recall that the Chico Cat Coalition member present at the Bidwell Park Master Management Plan update meetings tended to side with the "Friends" opposing disc golf. In fact, I think she wrote the letter-to-the-editor saying she walked past Bidwell Mansion and heard Annie Bidwell crying because of disc golf. I think Annie was crying because she had to wear a girdle that made her waist 18" around. You can imagine which letter writer has street cred with me. I also think the bird people are organized enough to prevent the TNR program from moving forward smoothly. Oddly enough, if they get their way, I'll bet they make matters worse. A trap, neuter, and return policy would slow the growth of the feral cat population which would slow increases in bird predation by the cats. Since the Cat Coalition cannot afford to house more park cats, and the city cannot afford to give them more money, it would seem the option is TNR, euthanasia, or nothing. What the cat people already know is that it costs money to do things in Chico. But it doesn't cost money to stop things from getting done. Adding to their anxiety is the fact that city decision makers will stay out of the fray as long as possible. My advice to the Cat Coalition would be to organize to prevent a program of euthanasia for park cats. If the TNR continues to be opposed... walk away. Let the City of Chico deal with the problem and focus on preventing them from killing park cats. That's an easy argument that will gain public support, and cost you nothing. My advice to the Audubon people would be to support a trial of the TNR program that includes taking a percentage of the trapped felines out of the park annually. Entice your membership to adopt cats, help pay for the cost of the program, or volunteer to care for the cats. It's easy to ask other people to support the cat group, but if your concern is for the birds, you should provide some support. I think when you do that you'll find out just how difficult it is to what the Cat Coalition has been doing over the years. The reality is both groups should ask the city to contribute space to house the cats. The city can find space. If the two community groups work together they can bracket local government to deal with the problem, as opposed to firing shots at each other in the years to come. I've been there, done that, it's not terribly productive. |
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| A stand in picture for the one I couldn't use. The ER gets peeved when I use their photos without paying their photographers. It's understandable, but I thought I was on their team! While reading the ER this morning I saw the picture of a tightrope walker practicing in the park. I've seen this activity before on campus. These folks aren't practicing for their 1-shot at a life under the big-top. The tightrope walkers are just having a little fun, practicing balance, and enjoying an outdoor setting. If I wasn't 43 with an oblong center of balance I might give it a shot. You can see the ER photo and caption here. When I saw the photo, I thought it would be funny to write a blog about how tightrope walkers were destroying trees in the park. Then I read that the Ranger actually stopped them, out of fear that they might damage the trees. Apparently she even inspected the tree for damage. There is something wrong in our community when law enforcement is prioritizing this kind of enforcement. Trees withstand 40mph winds all the time. When that wind force is applied to their canopy the lever effect on the trunk is incredible. The trunks are so strong that if you drive a car into them at 80mph the tree does not fall over. It takes a very heavy piece of equipment to remove a medium sized tree. Trees live outdoors 24 hours-a-day for decades. The sun, wind, rain, and even snow (not here in Chico) have pounded their exteriors since before blogs existed. Trees hold thousands of pounds of foliage upright against the constant acceleration of gravity. You try doing that. I mean, their whole purpose for existence is to hold as much weight as possible in the air! A tightrope walker using a flat strap between two trees is going to hurt them? That is sillyness. Authority figures should not be silly, and they should not blindly enforce stupid rules. Common sense needs to apply in government more than anywhere else. Is this where we're going to live and raise our kids? Exactly who supports this brand of hyperventilated concern. Next thing you know we'll be taking basketball hoops off of streets, preventing kids from riding bikes in dirt, and fencing off public land with no-trespassing signs. I ran across the video below that shows a couple of tightrope walkers doing some really amazing things. I think everyone should watch it to see exactly the kind of low impact this activity has. It really makes you wonder where the concern is coming from. |
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| Some screen captures from the PDF file I reference below. Mark Sorensen sent me a report from the Rockefeller Institute (see report here, ~2MEG PDF). The report looks at national tax income on a state-by-state basis. It's about 18 pages, with a lot of graphs and tables, so you can glean a lot of information from it without a detailed read. I thought I'd share it here since I often talk about local fiscal issues, but rarely look at the larger national picture. The graphs I screen-captured are a little fuzzy since I had to resize them to fit the blog parameters. They represent data compiled for most states. There are a couple of things to note regarding the charts. First, California is such a large component of the national economy, that it will have a strong fit to the curves even though they are national. Second, California is doing worse than many states, and probably tends to pull the curves downward. The report has tables that list specific data for each state if you are interested in looking deeper. Figure 1 caught my attention because of the really sharp drop in income tax, from Q3 2008 to Q3 2009. This chart shows a 4-quarter average percent change in growth. For much of 2007-2008 state personal income tax "growth" was declining, but there was still growth. Since that time there has been a precipitous drop in personal income tax income. If you consider that California's budget problems have been persistent for at least a few years, then the drop in income tax last year should be an indicator as to what is ahead for the state. Local taxes have been less impacted by the serious drop in personal income tax growth. Local governments draw income from property taxes and sales tax income. You should all be familiar with my regular posts regarding the quarterly sales tax reports for the City of Chico. These have posted regular year-to-year declines requiring constant adjustments to the city budget. As income declines, large purchases decline, reducing sales tax income. But there is a sales tax income base level that will remain during a recession. People will purchase clothing and everyday taxable items like batteries, light bulbs, motor oil, etc. Figure 2 shows the trend in major tax categories over several years. This is a 4-quarter average and shows the year-to-year growth. Anything above the "0" line means that the income from whichever tax you're looking at was higher than the previous year. When a line drops below the "0" line then the income was less than the previous year. You can see that income tax dropped dramatically, and pulled down sales tax income. Property taxes remained more stable, but would tend to follow the reduction in income taxes over time. If the trend lines in figure 2 just leveled off, there would be a need for huge state and local government cuts in spending. If they continue a year-to-year decline then watch out. Figure 4 (the third image I screen captured) shows the retail sales "change" since the start of the recession. I found this interesting, because the drop in retail sales is worse than recessions in 1973, 1980, 1990, and 2001. This indicates how truly bad the national economy is behaving from a historical sense. Just for another attempt at clarification, the graphs above represent the national picture, with data pulled from all relevant states. It's my opinion that government spending, new taxes, and regulations on major portions of our economy will further damage the chance for a recovery. Beyond that, I think California's huge annual debt, heavy taxation, and overbearing regulation will stifle its chance of recovery in the coming years. Increases in personal income would be necessary to lead a recovery. I can't see anything on the horizon that creates that. So I'm going to invest in rice and thrift stores. Meaning, I'll be buying rice and shopping at thrift stores, because investing for retirement or saving for college is so 2006. |
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| Prepare to be bored. And I don't mean drilled... or maybe I do. For too long I have ignored the Chico General Plan Update. 2030 is fast approaching, and I'm concerned some of you may not be looking closely at the General Plan. How you will live your lives with no knowledge of the plan. I have decided that between now and 2030 I will seek to understand and communicate the General Plan update to the great citizens of Chico. Apparently the draft plan is nearing approval. To be honest I need to research exactly where the plan is in its development process. I'm under the impression that the draft plan is almost upon us. I thought now would be a good time to learn more about this plan, and it would be a great time to throw a fit if I don't like part of it. So here we go. There are a couple of ways for me to do this. The first would be to delve deeply into the General Plan documents, communicate with city decision makers, and post detailed understandings of the various components of the plan. That sounds good, but doesn't work well for my unpaid position as "evil genius blogger". Instead, I will review (briefly at best) some lengthy documents, and then make broad, generalized, and damning statements about their contents. Doesn't that sound more entertaining? The documents I'll be looking at are at this web page (http://chicogeneralplan.com/library.html#bg). And I'm going to start with the concept of inclusionary zoning. Inclusionary Zoning: Inclusionary zoning is one idea that has been considered for addition to Chico's General Plan update. It is used in the Bay Area. If I had to summarize Inclusionary Zoning, I would do so by calling it COMMUNISM (you thought I was kidding about the broad, generalized, damning statements). I will also call it IZ, since that's the more hep-cat thing to do. IZ requires private property developers to add low and moderate income elements to their subdivisions. These additions have a lower profit margin for developers and would therefore be less desirable to build from a business perspective. There are other routes to meeting IZ land use requirements, in addition to building the homes. For example, land could be donated to a non-profit that provides affordable housing. Developers could pool resources and build affordable housing outside of their developments. IZ requirements could be met with the additions of condos and townhouses, in addition to single family homes. Upside: The benefits of IZ are that housing for low and moderate income workers/families get built. In a town like Chico with significant (although, to a great degree, artificial) land use constraints affordable housing is harder and harder to build. IZ ensures that some supply exists. Downside: IZ is a tax on developers. As a tax it will be passed on to the consumer, or it will cause marginally profitable developments to become unprofitable. Medium sized homes will have to become larger in order to pay for the IZ required homes that are not as profitable. Since Chico is also focused on high density infill developments, the IZ requirement would make those developments less financially sound. In blogs gone by, I have covered the fact that the City of Chico spends something in the area of $200,000-$300,000 for each unit of "affordable housing" it builds/buys (Update: That number is not correct. The price per unit produced varies based on the program used. What I meant to say was that more affordable housing could be purchased on the private market than at the cost government pays to produce it). I would expect a government mandated IZ requirement to be about as efficient as what's being funded right now (not a compliment). It seems to be an example of social engineering that means well, but isn't held accountable for its results. Summary: IZ was used in the Bay Area to ensure affordable housing was built. Judging by the exorbitant price of homes in that region, I don't think it worked. I think we can expect it to be included in some form in Chico's General Plan. A tax on new homes, which will be the effect of IZ, will either prevent developments from being built or raise the prices on most new homes. Either of those results will cause an increase in the value of existing homes. Either the demand for homes will exist at higher prices, or the supply will diminish (from a per capita perspective). So, if you own a home IZ will likely benefit your investment. If you don't own a home, and are in the middle class, IZ will probably hurt your opportunities for home ownership. If you are lower middle class or poor, you might get lucky and own a subsidized home. I would doubt that IZ would have an impact on housing that is more substantial than the regional economy. So it shouldn't be overplayed. For example, with or without IZ single family homes in Orland will continue to be less expensive than in Chico. |
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| A marvel of modern engineering. $150,000 has been allocated for the new education and recreation center in Bidwell Park. The Nature Calls Center is a marvel of modern engineering, and 22nd century technology (skipping the 21st century technology entirely). It's funded by my favorite proposition, numero 40. The actual cost of the project may be less than the amount allocated. You would hope it's not more. The first home I purchased in Chico was $92,000. It was 1100 square feet. Men and women had to share a bathroom and there was no drinking fountain next to the front door. But the house did have a laundry room, places for beds, a stove, electricity, water, heat, and a fabulous swamp cooler. The restroom will be located on the north side of the park near Sycamore Pool (1-mile area) where the porta-potties now reside, in all their blueberry glory. The Nature Calls Center is 578 square feet. That's just the first floor. When you add in the second and third floors it's 578 square feet. It seems like it should cost less than a 578 square foot home. Especially when you consider that a home price includes the land it is on, and the price for this bathroom does not include the dirt under it (which the city already owns). It's not that I think the Nature Calls Center shouldn't be built, but $150,000 for a cinder block bathroom? It seems like it should be the Taj Mapotty for that price. To represent that opinion I added a butler with after-business mints to the restroom design above. If it had a butler I'd be more likely to use this bathroom. The fact is, I could probably build this thing for less than $100,000. It would be all crooked and would slide into the creek after a couple of years, but think of the money saved? We could do another botanical study somewhere. The big question I've got, the question I want my many, many readers to answer, is who in town can be the Executive Director of the Nature Calls Center? I might throw my hat into the the ring, because having access to that many mints is worth, well... a mint. |
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About Me: Fasten your seatbelts for an exhilarating trip through Chico's public policy; I guarantee it's marginally better than public access TV.
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