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| To date it looks like 14 people have applied for Steve O'Bryan's Planning Commissioner seat. I don't know if these 14 applicants would also be used for Kirk Monfort's now vacant seat, but I think they could be. There were also 41 applicants to the General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC). The appointments for O'Bryan's seat and the GPAC will be made at next week's City Council meeting (I don't know about Monfort's seat). Here is who has applied. Planning Commission Michael Worley Dale Gorman Norman A. Stump, Sr Tom Hayes Nancy Wolfe Joan Black Frank Fleming Dr. Richard Ford Kathy Barrett James Craig Brown Mark Sorensen Marlayna M. Wright Alan Chamberlain Nora Todenhagen GPAC DeMario Alexander Glemann Eric Erland Kristin McHenry James Stevens Connie Wright Richard L. Elsom Sr Tara Michele Hansen Sara Adams Darlene Baxman Nancy Page Ostrom John Lawrence Sphar Kent R. Westover David Kim R. John Anderson Roger S. Beadle Elizabeth Devereaux Scott S. Winter Holli Anderson Sor Lo Thomas Murphy Ryan Miller Noel Carvalho Jane Turney Chris Giampoli James M. Owens William S. Webb Winder Baker Alberto Hernandez Bob Odland Todd Sturgis Joe Valente Dave Kelley Norman A. Stump Sr James Craig Brown Diana L. Baker Kirk Monfort Alan Chamberlain Michael Worley Barry Belmonte Tony Kilcollins Note: Not all applicants addresses have been checked to ensure the applicants are residents of Chico. I recognize quite a few names on this list, but I'll leave any descriptions of the applicants alone. |
October 2007 Archives
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| Photo: Contest Winning Costume - Halloween 2004, and one of my all-time favorite pictures. Halloween has been celebrated for many reasons and in many different ways. Its name comes from all-hallow-even, or the eve of all-hallows' day. From Wikipedia... "Many European cultural traditions, in particular Celtic cultures, hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world, and when magic is most potent..." Here in Chico Halloween has it's own flavor, called "pixie stix and beer", but I enjoy that this town celebrates things with vigor. It makes the seasons pass more slowly. But I'm curious what readers do for Halloween. Do you dress up for Halloween? I still do. I like to dress up, go downtown, stab a few people, and flip over cars. Oh wait... that's what the police have had to deal with in the past. I do remember being downtown on one Halloween back in college and one side of 2nd Street was yelling "Tastes Great" and the other side was yelling "Less Filling". There were hundreds of people doing it. I always thought it Tastes Great Filling, but that's because I'm a natural bridge builder. My Halloween experience is a little more tame. Usually my son picks what he wants to be and the family follows along. Last year he was Luke Skywalker, and while I couldn't pull off Darth Vader, I did a pretty good Obi-won. The best part was that it gave me a reason to buy a couple of lightsabers that were too expensive but flashed, whizzed, and had vibrating feedback in your hand (Wow! That might describe a couple of college Halloweens as well). The true high point of our Halloween costumage was the photo above. Back then we had a lot of friends that were still in the "we have dogs not babies" phase of life. After trick-or-treating we went to a Halloween party with mostly adults. At the party there was a costume contest where you had to "act out" your costume. Since my son and I were wrestling regularly we simply did a Robin is evil theme and he planted an atomic elbow-drop on my abdomen over and over until we won the contest. That was 50 smackeroos that never came close to his college fund. This year's costume has taken on a less violent aspect. I think it's because my son and I don't really wrestle anymore. He's about to turn 7 and can pretty much kick my butt. I'm still really good at mental abuse though so he's got a few challenging years ahead of him. This year he's a chef, the baby is a hot-dog, I'm a customer, and my wife is mustard. But I'm curious what other Chicoans do for Halloween. Do you dress up with your kids? If you don't have kids do you dress up and head out to a party? If you're in college are you going to dress up like a sexy witch and then go downtown and stab someone? Who's going to the DCBA Treat Street downtown? For some reason they quit asking my office to take part in that. What about people who have grown kids? Do you just quit having fun? Do you buy really bad candy on purpose to get back at them youngins that broke last year's pumpkins? Or do you have secret naked Wicca parties with spells and what-not? If so, could I get an invite? |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: TJ Glenn, see comments below for the anwer. |
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| Photo: Friends O' Park identify 4th Annual Family
Fun Day participant shown above as primary cause of city's budget problem. When I first read that the Friends of Bidwell Park were blaming frisbee throwers for the cost of the $600,000 Bidwell Park Master Management Plan I thought it was pretty funny. But the Friends O' Park, well known as city budget hawks, have decided to move away from a failed strategy of over-emphasizing environmental concerns, and instead focus on how bad disc golf is for the budget. I think it's pretty clear that they go way beyond expressing "concerns" with the hiring of lawyers, burying arborist reports, and sending out letters like the one below that they know are pieces of fiction. So what is going on with the Friends? Why do 6 people work so hard to shut down part of the park? I think they found oil up there. I think the next thing we'll see is a Scooby Doo-ish haunting. Anyone up for investigating the "Phantom of the Checkerbloom"? Below are the comments they made in red, and I've added my responses in black and brackets. It's pretty long, but reading their comments is a fascinating look into how they address potential supporters. To buy into their budget bravado the reader must be uninformed and suffering from a lack of critical thinking. |
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Title-What is the Real Cost of Disc Golf in Upper Bidwell Park? [Lon - $1,000 per disc golf hole, or 0-$36,000 depending on the course size selected (you could go with $50K to be conservative or assume limited use of volunteerism).] Since Chico has been discussing significant budget shortfalls, we should also discuss the fiscal irresponsibility that’s being foisted on the citizens of Chico by the project proponents of two 18-hole disc golf courses in Upper Bidwell Park. [Lon - I think I'm a project proponent. Sorry for foisting this on you. Seriously, I rarely foist things, and I feel really bad about all of the foistiness I've displayed at this juncture.] Several years ago, a small group of disc golfers decided they wanted to build their own courses on 40 acres of public property and proceeded to do so illegally without any environmental review or formal permission. Regrettably, the City subsequently agreed to allow them to play there pending the outcome of required environmental review. [Lon - Those same disc golfers shared the property with hunters, 4-wheelers, and cows. Somehow all of those users avoided environmental review as well. I wonder if it was because no review was necessary because it was BLM property. But there are Bidwell Park examples of things with no EIR, like Sycamore Pool, and of course all of the trails in the New Addition. Some things pre-existed city ownership, others pre-existed environmental review (DG is the former).] First there were the initial environmental reports. Three versions filled with significant errors and omissions (e.g. there were no rare plants reported for the site and no impacts to the Humboldt Road and ancient oak trees were mentioned). How much did Chico spend for consultants to do the original surveys? How much was spent for staff time to write these reports? [Lon - About $50K was spent on archeological reports, plant studies, environmental studies, and plans for a 45 hole disc golf course. These studies would have been adequate for any project in the park. But in 2003 the Friends' lawyer said those studies don't matter at all. He said disc golf had to be removed, and the General Plan changed, and the Master Plan for the park updated. I wonder how much staff time all of that might cost? From the 2003 legal threat... "...even if the identified defects in the City’s CEQA documents are cured, the project cannot be approved because it is fundamentally inconsistent with the overlying requirement of the City’s General Plan, the zoning designation for the project area, and the Bidwell Park Master Management Plan. For these reasons, the City must take affirmative steps to curtail the existing use of the project area for disc golf until such time as the City’s General Plan, the zoning for the project area, and the Bidwell Park Management Plan are updated (including appropriate CEQA review for such updates) to allow disc golf in this environmentally sensitive area of Upper Bidwell Park."] Then there is the update to the Bidwell Park Master Management Plan (MMP), which has been dominated by disc golf discussions. How much have the disc golfers cost the City for their arborist report, botany surveys, wildlife surveys and their re-design of the courses to avoid rare plants? In addition to money given directly to the consultants to analyze the impacts of disc golf, how much money has been spent of City staff time for endless meetings revolving around disc golf? Now the City reports that there are so many comments regarding the deficiencies and inaccuracies in the Draft MMP and Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that they need even more money to proceed. [Lon - Hey, didn't I just show that the Friends' lawyer demanded the Master Plan update and all of the studies. Yeah I did. Those pesky Friends, they're not telling the truth here. There were something like 45 public meetings. One or two citizen advisory meetings were dedicated to disc golf as was one Park Commission meeting where the commission heard from the public.] If the City officially approves disc golf at this location, what would the capital project costs be? How much to build a turn-out lane and/or a turn-in lane on Hwy 32 if required by Caltrans? How much will it cost to design and build the driveway and parking lot? How much to buy and install an access gate, 36 concrete pads and baskets, an unknown distance of rock lined trails, benches, trashcans and the bathrooms? [Lon - Guess what? There is currently only one option that removes disc golf from Bidwell Park. It's called the "Restoration Alternative". All of the big ticket items like parking, driveway improvements, turn lanes, etc. are included in the restoration alternative. In fact the only thing removed is disc golf. Which happens to be the only portion of the project that could be funded and built by park users. Wait a minute... those pesky Friends know this... they're not telling the truth again.] How much will it cost to provide mitigation for the significant impacts identified in the EIR? How much money for the “tree guards” to reduce damage to the blue oak trees? How much will cost to buy and install the still undetermined amount of mulch required to reduce soil compaction over the undetermined amount of acres? How much to monitor the area’s blue oaks and rare plants for ongoing damage? [Lon - Hmmmm... mulch and tree-guards, that's going to cost billions of dollars. I don't think anyone in Chico has ever put poles in the ground AND applied mulch to an area. This sounds super complicated. But to save some money I volunteer to monitor the area's blue oaks.] What will be the ongoing cost to maintain the remote disc golf courses? How much staff time and expense will it cost to open and close the new gate twice daily, ranger patrols, service the portable toilets, empty the trashcans. [Lon - This would be the same cost to empty trash cans, open gates, provide ranger patrols, and service portable toilets, if disc golf is removed. Or the same amount of money that is spent today to do all of those things, except for toilets and gates which don't currently exist.] Allowing disc golf courses to be built in Upper Park is not only significantly damaging the environment (see www.friendsofbidwellpark.org for more information); it is also costing the taxpayers a fortune. The City needs to find an alternate site in Chico (perhaps in Middle Park) and build an accessible and sustainable, single 18-hole course suitable for everyone’s enjoyment. [Lon - The Friends of Bidwell Park are responsible for the majority of the costs associated with the Master Plan for Bidwell Park. They demanded it, they hired lawyers to refute it, and they still obstruct its completion. Hey... wouldn't a Middle Park course cost more than building the Upper Park course? We'd have to do all new studies, and the equipment and material would NOT cost less (that includes the billions for mulch and tree guards). All of the major access improvements are supposed to be built at SR32 anyway. Those rascally Friends, they're not telling the truth yet a third time. I believe they are in the act of foisting. It is nice that the Friends want to build a Middle Park disc golf course. I support them completely and look forward to their proposal, which I'm sure will be submitted very, very, soon.] |
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This is a new challenge type. I've isolated the first second of a song whose title or lyrics relate to the post. You should see a small audio control below which is provided by your browser. Let me know if you don't see it. You've got to give me the song title to win. CI Challenge: Can you guess which song this is? Note: Original challenge clip and a longer clip are on the next page linked below. Winner: Steve B., see comments below for the answer. |
Continue reading Friends O' Park Are Fiscal Conservatives?.
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| Photo: A villa in Montserrat, a viable location
for a new "sister city". It feels good to help other people. I enjoyed Alan Sheckter's E-R story (here) about our how Chico helped out our "sister city" Pascagoula, Miss. That city was ravaged by the hurricane Katrina and we shipped them a truck and some other supplies. I have a few concerns over our interaction with that city, and some suggestions for the future of our sister city program. Regarding Pascagoula, I am concerned that we sent them school supplies for 1500 elementary school kids. It's possible that those kids would not have had homework for many more months if we hadn't intervened. Did we create a tiny army of Chico hating Pascagoula-ians that will strike back in the future when our kindness has been long forgotten. Also, I think there are a lot of people in the community that know Katrina was caused by global warming. I'm concerned that we haven't sent our Sustainability Task Force down to Pascagoula to get them re-building in the right direction. If they don't stop global warming with a Mayor's task force won't they just get hit by another hurricane? I suspect that they are fixing roads as opposed to replacing them with public transit and bike paths. They probably used plastic bottled water during the relief effort, as opposed to re-usable tin cups. Are they making sure that all new buildings are LEEDs certified? How walkable are the neighborhoods they're fixing? A good mayor's committee could work all this out in several years, they should hold off on rebuilding anything until we can export our vast California knowledge to them. But it made me think that if Pascagoula was helped by Chico because it was our sister city, perhaps we could find a sister city to help us out. Maybe we should look for a wealthy city that could loan us a few hundred million bucks at no interest? Zurich, Switzerland would be a good choice. (visit Zurich here) They've got lots of money and they consistently top the list of cities with the highest gross wages (although there is nothing gross about high wages). On the web site linked above it is described as a "pulsating international metropolis" which seems a little too sexual. But if faced with choosing between Zurich and Rio (described as a "gyrating, breathless, pounding, city of excitement) my puritan lineage cries out for Zurich. This line of thought opens up a whole new world of government-to-government welfare schemes. If the Chico PD want a little help on holidays, or maybe want to spend some time at home with the kids, why not call on our sister city Beijing, China to send in reinforcements. They did a bang-up job on Tiananman Square, literally. Or perhaps the local Fire Fighters need a break from racing ambulances or knocking cats out of trees with their fire hoses. We could partner up with Ossining, New York whose 450 member volunteer fire department is on track to make 300 runs this year, and even operates fire boats. I'd love to see a fire boat in Big Chico Creek. I could be thinking too small. Who really cares about helping out the city or its employees. Maybe we should partner up with the government of Montserrat in the Caribbean for a vacation home swap. We could renovate the mobile home park near Scotty's Landing for the Montserrat-ians to stay in and send some of our folks to a beachside villa in that island nation. Since it was my idea I should go first. I'll try not to start a disc golf related international incident. Speaking of disc golf, if it were up to me I'd say we become a sister city with St. Louis who has 11 disc golf courses in the area of that city (see map here). Maybe they'd be nice enough to loan us one of their courses until we can make a decision on whether or not the thousands of people that play in Chico deserve a permanent locale. Who do you think we should "sister" with? |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Brian Ray, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Photo: Capital Project 12066 - Cohasset Widening
plus attractive people to blunt the impact of an image possibly budget
related. The rippling impact of our city's financial problems won't be clear for years. Some decisions seem minor today, but could have significant negative impacts in our future. When politics trump long term financial planning it's difficult for leaders to focus on things like projects that help build jobs. As an example I want to discuss capital project 12066. This project had been allocated $13.3 million from the RDA. The purpose was to widen the road to the airport and improve a creek crossing. The Chico Airport area contains some of the most affordable property that is zoned for manufacturing or light industry. It could be an area Chico could use to attract higher tech clean companies. These companies tend to pay employees well. It is certainly one of the only areas where land cost, zoning, and space all work to the benefit of commercial industrial development. The Cohasset Road Widening project would improve the roadway and make the area more attractive for siting a large business. It is a necessary step in improving Chico's economic future. However, this project showed up on the chopping block of the deficit reduction matrix. City officials have suggested cutting $9 million from this project. This leaves enough money for some improvements and provides enough funding to receive grants for bridge improvements within the project area. I have little doubt that the $9 million will be cut, and possibly reallocated to a project like the proposed new police station that is not fully funded. The lack of improvements will make the airport area less attractive to new companies. It will hinder attempts to grow the number of employers and therefore may reduce private job creation. This in turn will slow increases in sales tax and property tax income. Real economic growth comes from private sector job creation. A similar reduction of access came years back when a bridge into the Hegan Lane business park was prevented. That area has taken a long time to grow, and a lack of access is one reason for that. I recently heard a short presentation on Chico's available manufacturing and light industry land. It is severely constrained by cost, size, and environmental issues. So while the police are near securing 5.6 acres for an 80,000 square foot building, there are very few opportunities in Chico for private employers to do the same. And we're making financial decisions that make the opportunities that are available less attractive to employers. Is it wrong to defer this project? I don't know for sure, but it certainly makes is a step in keeping one locale in chico unattractive to employers. Raising local taxes, diverting money from projects that support job creation, and fighting over every land use decision will cause long term damage to the private sector that creates our local economy. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Sean Baber, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Photo: Chico Police making a DUI stop on Friday
Night. Resulted in a DUI arrest and passenger was felony "walk-away"
from California Youth Authority. All people in the car were from out
of town and suspected to be in a gang. I took a ride with Chico Police Officer Rich Hartman last night to get a feel for how our police force deals with the raucous party crowds during the Halloween season. This was my second ride along and Hartman was nice enough to pick me up at my house. Unlike the last few times the police were at my house I wasn't cuffed and tossed in the back. Riding in the front is much more comfortable. Hartman's an easy going ex-Marine who seemed as curious about why I was going on a ride-along as I was about what we'd see. I had met him earlier at this week's Finance Committee meeting where he had his six year old in tow. At that meeting Hartman watched from the hallway with his son Eric. His son kept saying "Dad, when are we going to get to leave"? Sometimes I feel the same way. I went on this ride along so I'd be better informed about the job our police do. They do a good job. I asked Hartman about his pay, and if he thought it was high. He gave me an honest answer, and that was that he got paid well. He understood why people thought it was high, particularly for the area, but wasn't about to turn down more money for his family. He said that if his benefits were lowered he might do the best thing for his family and seek work where the benefits are higher. The benefits Chico pays its police and fire fighters are common throughout the state. So we have a real problem in Chico. We can't afford to pay Hartman what we do, and I don't think we can afford to lose officers like him either. On last night's ride there were a couple of arrests. One of the arrests was a meth-using transient. Two others were a DUI and warrant for some suspected out-of-town gang members made at the same stop. There was also a report of people wanting to retaliate for a gun being brandished. This occurred at a Nord apartment complex where a home invasion took place recently. During the night Hartman was looking out for gang members and parolees that now live intermixed with the college population. He said he looks for groups of people that aren't displaying the "I'm out for beer and to meet girls" attitude. Rich said predatory groups were a concern during the Halloween festivities as were fights that escalated to armed conflict. The police had logged about 440 calls during the 24 hour period ending last night. Most were inane or minor, but that's a call every 3 minutes. Even minor arrests were a major time-burden. Hartman described the monotonous paperwork he had to fill out for any arrest. He had to fill out 4 forms with suspect's name, address, etc. He had to provide a variety of narratives of each incident. This paperwork often results in an officer logging overtime to get the job done. It always results in a high paid employee being "off the job" because he/she is not on the street. I don't know if anyone in Chico has the political will to reduce pay for our safety employees. But they should have the will to constrain costs and make our high paid employees more efficient. Modern (or even 5 year old) computer technology would reduce paperwork, dictation by a lower paid clerk would reduce overtime, and many more changes would keep officers in the streets where they need to be. They are being paid well to be on the street, not engaged in paper shuffling. The police administration, city management, and elected officials, need to have a complete "efficiency review" of our public safety employees. That should be done before any more pay raises are negotiated. |
| Halloween Fun: The
college students were out in force on 5th and Ivy, and the rest of town.
The police had a strong presence with
mounted Chico police
as well as some horse folk from out of town. They seemed to keep a lid
on things (as of 12:30AM). When I was in college the scantily clad girls were all sexy cats, witches, and bunnies. Now the girls dress in a way that would make a whore blush. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't offended. As you can tell from the Jessica Alba image I posted the exposed female form is not something I feel a need to suppress. But after tonight I can safely say my daughter is going to college at a nunnery. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Todd Sturgis, see comments below for the answer, or visit your local hardware store for sharp implements to poke your eyes out. |
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| Photo: My Rotary team's projects last year at
Caper Acres included refurbishing Humpty, painting the big cheese,
and planting a butterfly garden. Humpty at Caper Acres had been vandalized
and our team prepped and painted
his sandbox, and hired Gregg
Payne, disc
golf master with minor art talents, to do the detail work.
Doesn't Humpty resemble a Rotarian? This Saturday is Make A Difference Day. I don't even know where Make A Difference Day comes from. I think it's an old Hawaiian holiday and the term "diferince" which is pronounced like difference translates to brewing an intoxicating combination of fermented coconut milk and guava. But I digress. For me Make a Difference Day is about taking on a small local project with my Rotary team. Rotary does a lot of different things throughout the year. There are scholarships, donations to various community efforts, team's works on one or two hands-on projects (Rotarians break into teams of 20 or so people each year, you do a lot of work with your team), and the club rallies around a single large project (about 200 people). Last year that project was making improvements to Citrus Elementary School. For Make a Difference Day my team will be splitting to work for the Boys and Girls Club and to plant trees around the Nico Project in Caper Acres. I seem to find myself in Caper Acres a lot these days. I'm really happy with the changes I've seen there over the last year. I'm even more happy to know that my friends, both inside and outside of Rotary, have been making a lot of it happen. Make a Difference Day is a good idea, even if a little goofy. Everybody should try to make a difference in this community (preferably a good one). I don't know if the city has some specific projects that people could walk onto on Saturday, but they might. If you're looking for park volunteer opportunities see the city volunteer web page and contact Lise the volunteer coordinator (here). Or you could just head out to the park and pick up a little litter on your own. |
| How Did I Get Into Rotary? A
friend of mine, Tim Macarthy, acted as my sponsor into the club. I knew
Tim from
disc golfing. He convinced me that the opportunities the club provided
to work on community projects would be worth the time obligation
the club requires. He was right, you really get to do a variety of projects
as a Rotarian. I've found that Rotary is less about business networking
and
more about
community involvement. Tim passed away shortly after sponsoring me into the club. He left behind a wife and two young children. That sad reality will always be a component of being a Rotarian for me. Tim was a good guy, fun to have a beer with, fun to play disc golf with, and I wish he was still around. My last Rotary team placed a small bronze plaque dedicated to Tim at Caper Acres. It's part of the butterfly garden we built near Humpty's sandbox. It's not much, but it's nice to know it's there. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Gregg Payne, see comments below for the answer. |
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| I received my Norcal Blogs newsletter this morning.
It came with some very troubling statistics. I lost close to a 1000 "things" last
month. I call them things, because I have no idea if they are unique
hits, or if they track the several hundred times per day I visit my own
blog. Here were the top 5 site stats... September 2007 1. Watts Up With That? (21,525) 2. Commission Impossible (5,367) 3. Bullfight (3,718) 4. Post Scripts (1,674) 5. Chico, Sustainable (829) I began doing research into specific days to find out where there might have been some problems. It became pretty clear (see graph below) where one problem was coming from. From the individual day-by-day hits I could tell that when CI staff reporter Laura Kleinlittle taps the keyboard the visits increased. In general, hits declined when I talk about the budget, and a precipitous drop occurred at the time of my poorly executed "Triple-Flip" story (see story here). This coincides with an E-R editorial that essentially points out how dull and useless my budget based posts are (see editorial here). In the local blog world my Triple-Flip story is now being called the "Triple-Flop" which I think was a term coined by Tempra Board. In order to slow the outflow of hits I've hired a blog marketing consultant. She has provided an analysis of my blog problems and has made some suggestions. Problems: 1. too many words and too much information 2. doesn't feature enough "hot" people 3. threatening kittens not good for popularity 4. not enough use of "sustainable" and "hybrid" in blog titles 5. compete better with newer-media technologies 6. don't seek enough reader feedback Solutions to Previously Stated Problems: 1. too many words and too much information: I've decided to use fewer words by increasing the use of hyphens in-my-blog-posts. It was pointed-out-to-me that well grammar is-no-longer a requirement in internet writing, so I'be also creating m'own contractions to use fewer words. As far as information goes I already provide very little, but this post is yet another step in that direction. 2. doesn't feature enough "hot" people: I've already started featuring more hot people on the blog. Based on reader posts I have to assume a majority of readers are men. I've targeted that particular market with the image of Jessica Alba above. But knowing that the fairer sex also breezes through this blog I've added an image below of who I believe is the sexiest man alive. That would be David Hasselhoff (before he was on the sauce). 3. threatening kittens not good for popularity: Threatening kittens has been a lifelong hobby of mine. In fact, I could go so far as to say that it harkens back to my Native American ancestry (hunting pumas and what-not). But I recognize that other's may have a problem with it. So I will be threatening fewer domesticated-micro-pumas, and featuring puppies more often on this blog. See Hasselhoff photo again as an example. 4. not enough use of "sustainable" and "hybrid" in blog titles: This is an easy one. I create my blog titles by adding scraps of paper with words scribbled on them to a hat. I then draw a few out, and bingo a snappy and relevant blog title materializes. This is also a great way to name a rock band. But I just need to add more scraps of paper to the hat and I'm good. 5. compete better with newer-media technologies: Market growth in blog readers is expected to come from today's text messagers. So I'll be text messaging the blog to people as well as using this antiquated forum. To do this I'll use an English to netlingo translator. dis blog S gr8 bt it myt B btr f I rOt it n d nude. CU l8r. 6. don't seek enough reader feedback: Solving this problem will require some town-hall meetings and some charrette-like get togethers. I'd rthR put needles n my Iyz. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Rainman, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Yesterday the Finance Committee voted 2-1 to forward
the use of $2.5 million dollars in RDA money to design a new police station.
They also recommended that 5.6 acres of RDA property be transferred to the
City of Chico. The property is described as the northwest corner of Bruce
and Humboldt Roads (shown above). The estimated cost of the facility is $46 million. Documents located on the city web site as of yesterday showed only $2.5 million dollars allocated for this project. But sometime in the last few months an additional $17 million of redevelopment money was transferred to the facility's construction. I don't know who or when the decision was made to allocate these funds, but I am trying to find out. Update: I received this from the Finance Department... The Redevelopment Agency & the City Council approved the 10-Year Capital Improvement Program at their June (5th I think) budget workshop. This is the all-day Council meeting that is dedicated to the Budget. Because this was in the middle of the City's Biennial Budget, we call it the "Mid-Cycle Update", which will be published on the web this week or next.. Councilor Wahl voted against moving the project forward until questions of existing properties and RDA fund balances were clarified. He also quipped that he wondered how many other projects the same $17 million was allocated for. CPOA Police Officer Jim Parrott said that the police employees sometimes feel their facility needs are ignored and said that employees appreciated the city's desire to move this project forward (Parrott was the officer that took me on a recent ride-along). There are a couple of issues that I think need to be presented on this topic. The first is that I think all elected officials agree that a new facility is required for the police. The existing site is 23,000 square feet, and the police say they will need 80,000-90,000 square feet in roughly 20 years. This assumes significant growth in the force. The cost to build a facility is $375 per square foot, which is apparently much higher than commercial construction costs. The second relates to money. We are short ~$23 million dollars, with an empty RDA, and that assumes that the project could be built within the estimated budget. There has also been no discussion as to how we will pay for the police that are anticipated to need the facility in 20 years. The Council will vote on this issue in a month or so. Spending $2.5 million to complete a plan is probably a reasonable step. But actual construction requires that the city have more money than it currently has. I think this is an strong indication that a public safety related bond issue is being considered. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: #2, Sean Baber, see comments below for the answer. |
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| I've been told that Planning Commissioner Kirk Monfort has resigned from the Planning Commission. Again, I only have a single source, but it's a pretty solid one. I don't have much information as to why, so I'll leave it at that. Monfort resigned from the Planning Commission once before due to a requirement that commissioners not purchase property in the redevelopment agency (RDA) that is not their primary residence. He was later appointed to the commission again after that property became his primary residence. If this is the case he may have resigned to spend more time on the CI Challenge, and work with Steve O'Bryan who resigned recently to do the same. Okay, Steve O'Bryan didn't resign to work on the CI Challenge. Monfort probably wouldn't resign to do that either. |
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| Photo: Dr. Richard Ek faces audience and directs comments about employee
costs to CPOA and other union members in the room at 10-22-07 Finance
Committee public forum. Last night's Finance Committee forum had some high points for me. The first was that nobody approached me and gave me the code phrase I had mentioned on this blog. This allowed me to keep my hard earned parking money. Maybe I'll donate it to the General Fund. Another high point was hearing Dr. Richard Ek. When speaking Ek attempted to face the audience and spoke directly to the IAFF and CPOA union members present. Among his more illuminating comments was the fact that the Fire Department answered 8100 call last year. 54 were for confirmed fires, 6000+ were for 911 medical calls. The firemen don't have paramedics. So responding to medical calls while Enloe and private ambulance firms do the same seems a bit pointless (and costly). Update: The Fire Chief stated this morning that they are trained EMTs, and that their ETA to an emergency is half that of ambulance services (4 minutes), so there is a benefit to the community for this response. Ek also felt there was some validity regarding a "call in" that presented the concept of privatizing the fire department. Ek also stated that no matter how many police you hire there will still be crime, and that people need to take some responsibility for their own safety. He recommended that everyone carry a gun. It's that kind of overt avoidance of political correctness that makes me happy Ek is around. At times his comments rambled, appeared eccentric, or veered down obscure alleyways of thought. But at other times he said things that really did need to be said, and that would only be said by an informed retiree with nothing to lose. Beyond Ek and myself roughly a couple of dozen people attended the meeting. I would say half of those people were easily recognized as city union employees. If I had to guess (which I do because I don't really know the answer) I would say less than 5% of the Chico population are members of a union. None of those union employees spoke during the meeting. With so many union employees present and none speaking up I have to assume they were there to send a message to the council members. Four people spoke at the meeting, and about 6 called in questions. I did speak. I suggested that the city justify the 62% benefit allotment police and fire receive and contrast it with benefits in the private sector. Councilor Gruendl responded that police and fire are like sports heroes without the fame. He said they have shorter careers because of their jobs and should receive well funded retirements. Other information became available during the meeting. The fire department recently won a 25% increase in pay over the next 6 years. The current average cost of a public safety employee at the city is $140K year. That means in 6 years the average fire fighter will cost roughly $175K. This raise was passed unanimously by the City Council. I would suggest that it represents the kind of budget cutting we're likely to see in the near future. City staff made the argument that the "flat" raise was better than previous "formula" based pay increases because it allowed for better long term planning. IF LONG TERM PLANNING SHOWS THAT YOU CAN'T AFFORD THE EXISTING COSTS WHY WOULD YOU RAISE THEM? It was also stated that the 2005 redevelopment bond issue has had all of its funds allocated. That means each dollar has been applied to a project. Each dollar has not been spent, and money could still be shifted from one project to another. This would seem to seriously effect the idea of building a new police station (estimated cost ~$40,000,000). Unless RDA money was recently applied to this project it would seem to be both un funded and un fundable. Update: The Finance Department said this morning that $17 million of the RDA was allotted to the police station, but that the documents online may not have been updated yet. If that's the case I would suggest that the city is likely to propose a public safety bond issue to build the station. The current deficit budget discussion is essentially about our city's income statement which is a revenue versus expenses problem. We need to make those two categories equal (at least). But on the balance sheet side of things (what we own versus what we owe) the city is in pretty good shape. The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR - see here) shows the city with ~$489 million in assets, ~$171 million in liabilities, and $140 million in cash or investments. Most of the cash and investments will cover future city expenses, and includes the RDA money that has not been spent (but is all allocated to be spent). Of the assets about $40 million are considered unrestricted assets which could be liquidated and used to pay debt. Whether or not a buyer for these assets truly exists is another question. Those assets could include things like improved properties or vacant land. The forum did provide a good place to ask questions and have them answered publicly. City staff, including the Finance Department's Jennifer Hennessy, have done a good job of providing information to the public. But the topic of public finances is a difficult one to master, and too few citizens are asking questions. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Anthony Watts, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Photo: Participants in the First Annual Oak Way
Park Disc Golf Tournament, not sure who won, we forgot to keep score. The world's greatest recreation, disc golf, has seen massive growth in the last week. A 400% increase in tournament style discatcher "basket" targets occurred thanks to the Chico Area Recreation and Parks District (CARD). 3 basket targets were installed in Oak Way Park that expand on the single target purchased by Gregg Payne and installed in Children's Park in downtown. This is the first publicly funded disc golf equipment in Chico. The recreation is taught in all of our Junior High Schools and many other schools. People have played disc golf in Chico since the late 80's. All of these targets are good for practice or family fun but don't rise to the level of a much needed official facility. A good analogy would be that of a single basketball hoop placed in a grass field. You could practice some aspects of the playing basketball but many facets of the game would be unsupported. Still, since the targets were installed I've seen them getting good use. When I see people using them I try to stop and talk to them about it. A dad I talked to takes his kids to play disc golf when picking them up from Emma Wilson. On Saturday a couple showed up with about 10 kids, all of which were there for their son's birthday party. They were playing disc golf and other sports supported by Oak Way Park. On Sunday three kids from down Oak Way were tossing Wham-o frisbees at one of the targets. And of course the kids in my neighborhood have been shanghaied a couple of times to go play. The Friends O' the Park are now trying to convince people that disc golf is expensive and the $600K Master Plan for Bidwell Park is expensive because of disc golf. They're kind of nuts. Here's a rough cost of all planned or existing disc golf equipment in Chico. Children's Playground - $300 Oak Way Park - $1,000 Hooker Oak Recreation Area kid's course (9 holes) - $4,250-$7,500 SR 32 Advanced Course (18 holes) - $20,000 SR 32 Beginner Course (9-18 holes) - $10,000-$20,000 Total: $48,800 Here are some comparisons... A picnic table - $1,500 A drinking fountain - $2,000 Bench - $1,500 Artsy bench downtown - $5,000 A few chess tables - $68,000 Chess table area - $250,000 Single picnic shelter - $50,000 Large group picnic shelter - $300,000 Basketball court - $75,000 Skatepark - $500,000 The Silver Plow - $130,000 The cost to answer the Friends EIR questions - $50,000-$100,000 Neighborhood scale playground- $80,000 Traffic Light - $300,000 Park Plan - $600,000 It's interesting when you look at costs. There's no doubt in my mind that with no need for lawns, irrigation, or large manufactured play surfaces, disc golf is one of the most sustainable and lowest cost recreation options available. At about $8 for a disc it's pretty cheap to play as well. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Gregg Payne, see comments below for the answer. |
| If you live by the code of the electronic TV god
you know that this is the season when sexy
cats, witches, and bunnies rush
down to Ray's Liquors to pick up some seasonal Keystone Light. It's also
when the police gear up for a full contact sporting event in the neighborhood
of Riley's. This event is as popular as the Almond Bowl with some Chicoans,
but I don't think the visiting side has won one in recent years. For the other 100,000 Chicoans the Halloween season takes on a different flavor (it's called Candy Corn). That's especially true if you've got kids. But even without those tiny candy-grubbing menaces many Chicoans still dress up and attend a party or two. My costumes have changed over the years. Once I made a suit out of plastic turf (pants, shirt, hat) with a sprinkler strapped to the hat. I was "lawn" that year. A couple of years later, when we had a kid but most of our friends didn't I dressed up as Greg Wiggle, the yellow one. Nobody got it. For those of you with kids that went through the "Wiggles" phase you might want to know that Greg Wiggle left the group for health reasons. For those of you that don't know the Wiggles here's a sample. If the song sticks in your head for more than a few minutes please feel free to gut-punch me next time we see each other. Anyway, in the last three days I took part in a 1st grade field trip to Book Family Farm and got lost in the great corn maze of Orland's Country Pumpkins. I haven't made it to TJ Farms this year, but they've got a good pumpkin patch too. I would recommend that people buy pumpkins at one of these locally grown pumpkin places. It'll probably cost you more than Safeway, but keeping these opportunities around for the future residents of Chico is important, and requires financial support. For me, recent days have highlighted the dichotomy of the Chico Halloween advertised on TV and the one most of us take part in. I thought I'd put together a video to give you artsy people some ideas for pumpkin designs, and at the same time display what my family's Halloween is like these days. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Mrs. Rainman, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Last year the City Council approved $2.5 million
dollars to plan a new police facility. This expenditure comes from the
redevelopment agency (RDA). Last year the City Manager (Greg Jones)
recommended that the council set aside $13.5 million for construction of
the facility, but the Council did not approve that funding*. The total
cost of the facility is estimated at $46 million. At the 10-23-07 (Monday-8AM) Finance Committee meeting the interim Assistant City Manager, Dennis Beardsley, will present a recommendation that the committee transfer a 5.6 acre lot at the corner of Bruce and Humboldt Roads from the RDA to the city as a location for the new facility (here is the agenda, starts on page 28 of the pdf). The recommendation also includes spending the $2.5 million to plan the new facility. The project size and the future needs of the police department are detailed in the Police Facility Needs document (see report here). From a facility standpoint the police currently use a 23,000 square foot site and the report states that they need 65,000 square feet today and 85,000 square feet in the next 20 years. I've toured the current police station twice, and they are crowded and inefficiently distributed. Vehicle parking, evidence storage, and personal work space are not adequate. However, I can't confirm that a 3 or 4 times increase in space is required. And it should be pointed out that the assessment is not a document produced by a "neutral" party. Where would this money come from? I'm currently going through fits trying to figure out exactly how much money is left in the redevelopment agency. The City Council seems to have approved spending a total of $92 million dollars from all of the RDA bonds. The current balance looks like -$23 million, but RDA spending tends to operate in a deficit. Of the 2005 RDA bond issue ($65.5 million) is looks like $41 million may be unallocated. Of course using that money assumes that tax income to the RDA will eventually pay the bill, and the interest. Here are the RDA Fund summaries, good luck figuring them out. Funding sources other than the RDA may be available to help with the cost. I do wonder at the purpose of designing a new facility without first addressing how you will pay for the expected growth in the police force. The $56 million deficit we're all talking about assumes no growth in city employees. With planned growth in police and fire another $56 million gets lumped in. Recently the E-R's Jenn Klein wrote a story where the Finance Department stated that growth in police and fire would necessitate growth in non-safety departments at the city. This was followed by today's E-R "miss" which says in part.. "MISS — The city of Chico's long-term budget deficit seems to rise by $10 million or $20 million with every new story and every new revelation about the future. A year ago, councilors vowed to "sharpen their pencils" and make no more foolish decisions. That doesn't seem to be working out so well. I wouldn't call planning a new facility a foolish decision, but doing so before you figure out how to pay for its inhabitants might fall under that category. On the other hand you have to respect that everyone's putting their cards on the table as far as future costs go. |
| *NOTE- In 2006 instead of applying $13.5 million to the police facility the Council funded "public infrastructure improvements" to the tune of $14 million. The City Manager had recommended the opposite occur. I believe a large portion of the public infrastructure improvement money will be applied to the Chico Avenues Neighborhood Association near Enloe. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Rainman, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Interim City Manager Dave Burkland has provided
a list of recommendations to close the city's budget gap. The list and
other information are part of the October 23rd Finance Committee meeting
agenda staff reports. They can also be seen
in this pdf file. The items listed above are described as permanent changes that would result in a savings of $2.2 million annually. The budget imbalance is described in the document as growing by $1 million annually. That doesn't mean we have an $1 million dollar shortfall every year. It means if we have a $1 million dollar shortfall this year, it would be $2 million next year, then $3 million, etc. If you recall from previous posts the city is currently making use of transfers and other budgetary shifts to balance the budget. The items italicized in the list above would require a renegotiation of contracts with city unions. Since the italics are hard to see here are those options.. Limit medical insurance contribution citywide ($450K annually) Freeze management merit increase for one year ($200K) Privatize airport operations ($75K annually) Partially close city hall for Christmas/New Years ($70K annually) Research a two tiered retirement system (this would reduce PERS for new employees and would have most fiscal impact in 20+ years when they retire) There are a couple of items that could be seen as tax increases of a sort. They are.. Reduce transfers to Private Development Fund by revising (increasing) Development Impact Fees ($250K annually) Reduce community agency funding by 30% ($250K annually) Increasing development impact fees is essentially a tax passed to new home buyers. Also, most large housing developments have already been approved. I don't think the city can go back and revise the fees for the ~3000+ new homes they approved this year. I believe that boat has sailed. As far as I know the community agencies are groups like the Chamber, CARD, and 20 or so non-profits that get augmented funding from the city. This reduction would have to be compensated for by private donations. A couple of the recommendations could be revised. Freezing merit pay for the management union for a single year is a nice gesture. But how about restructuring merit pay so it's harder to get and is rewarded primarily for budget conscious management? Currently it can be rewarded for "time-served" among other things. Another recommendation given by staff relates to cost savings from reduced processing time for business licenses. This is not a true money saver. The $108K described is the employee cost to manage this process. If the process is changed the employee would be able to do other things which increases efficiency. That's a good thing. But there is no less money spent on that employee and no real dollars cut from our city's expenses with this kind of change. That's important because we are actually trying to shave off dollars spent to reduce the $56 million ten year deficit. |
| Phases Of Budget Fixing: Interim
City Manager Dave Burkland mentioned three phases of budget fixes. The
first
phase, which is the list described in this post, are within the City
Council's authority to accomplish. The items associated with unions
on this list could
not be
done
immediately if at all (depends on negotiations). The second and third phases will be presented at upcoming Finance Committee meetings. The second phase will focus on revenue increasing options including changes in tax sharing agreements with the county, sales tax increases, and a variety of bond issue options. The third phase will recommend funding mechanisms to meet the requirements of increased staff levels of police/fire/other employees at the city. The expected cost of employee growth has been estimated at an additional $56 million over the next 10 years for police and fire alone. This phase would probably also discuss tax increases or at least a public safety type bond. All phases and a 10 year implementation strategy should be presented city staff by the November 27th Finance Committee meeting. |
| Meetings: Finance Committee evening meeting - 10-22-07 6:30-8:30PM conference room 1 city hall: In an effort to gain public participation to help balance the General and Park Funds' Ten-Year Financial Plan, the Finance Committee has agendized three evening meetings to discuss topics relating to the General and Park Funds' structural deficit. This is the first of the three meetings, in which a presentation entitled "Understanding Your City and Its Finances" will be presented by staff to provide background on the City's financial structure, the basics of fund accounting, and the current financial challenges facing the City. Can’t attend? Please call 896-7200 or send an e-mail to citybudget@ci.chico.ca.us Your questions or ideas will be forwarded to the Committee and addressed at the meeting as time allows. Finance Committee regular meeting - 10-23-07 8:00-10:00AM conference room 2 City Hall: See agendas and staff reports here. Summary: The Finance Committee has been discussing the budget issue, and in particular the Budget Deficit Reduction Matrix since July 23rd. One month ago Dave Burkland suggested the city staff could provide specific recommendations. And two months from that date the Finance Committee should have a possible implementation strategy. I'm not sure where to pin the lack of leadership on getting this boat moving in the right direction. Was it the City Manager exodus? Did city staff take a hands-off approach with the matrix they provided? Was the Finance Committee too slow in recognizing that the matrix didn't have adequate financial impact information? I can't answer those questions yet. I do think all City Council members need to get focused on this problem. **Downtown "dog logs" and defecating drunks are a problem. But we could probably hold off on that pressing issue until the $112-$150 million ten-year deficit is dealt with. If the City Council wants the public engaged in our collective financial future they need to lead by example, and make this a priority of public discussion.** **Blog log tip: E-R, here is a good segment to add to your Blog Log. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Dave Brobst, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Ordinances impacting businesses, drunks, dog
owners in the works; sober humans, drunk animals not covered. By LAURA KLEINLITTLE - CI Staff Writer Article Launched: 10/18/2007 12:12:21 AM PDT Councilor Tom Nickell has proposed new ordinances for the downtown area. If the ordinances are approved business owners will become responsible for cleaning city owned sidewalks external to the property where they hold a commercial lease. Drunks caught downtown would also be held accountable for the vomit or defecation they leave, and dog owners who don't clean up poop could be fined. Some downtown business owners support the ideas. Sheela Brommanbopple, who owns Shoes For Ladies With Man-Sized Feet was looking forward to the additional responsibility. "I would love to take responsibility for the sidewalk in front of my shop. I'd give it a new pink paint job and set out planters full of cacti. I might even plant one of my favorite types of privets to provide shade. If the city wants me to take ownership of the area, I'm ready to do it." Brommanbopple explained. Another downtown businessman thought the ordinances didn't go far enough. Klyde Hyde, owner of Spoons, Forks, and Things (But Not Knives) said "The problem isn't so much drunks defecating and dog owners not cleaning up after their pets. Drunk animals are my beef. The real problem is intoxicated canines who crap and vomit all over the place. I can't tell you how many times I've seen some Snoopy-wannabe crawl out of the Bear spewing pancake batter out of both ends." Klyde became more agitated as the three cats he was holding attempted to escape his loving clutches, but he continued, "And something needs to be done about the canine drinking age. Humans have to wait 21 years, but this whole 1 human year = 7 dog years has Lassie down at Duffy's shooting tequila at 3 years old, that's not right." A homeless "resident" of the downtown plaza, who goes by the name Number-Two Lou, didn't seem bothered by the ordinance. "I usually only defecate on the sidewalk when I'm sober. It sounds like I'll stay clear of any new rules if I can stick with that motus operandi." He finished by saying "When I'm wasted I like to relieve myself or vomit on dogs or cats, which I think is still not an activity covered by the ordinances proposed." Lon Glazner, President of Citizen's for Responsible Alcohol Policy (CRAP) felt that the new rules might not be constitutional. "I'm concerned that only "the drunk" are being targeted by these new laws. First they prevent the functionally drunk from driving to get more beer, now they want us to find indoor restrooms? This can really reduce productivity for the average drunk-on-the-go. As a community we need to remember just how important "the drunk" are. Unexpected pregnancies and hilarious stories about falling down are just a couple of the contributions our local drunks make. A sober person falling down and getting hurt isn't funny at all." As part of the discussion of these new ordinances the City Council is also considering doubling the size of the General Plan Advisory Committee. Its been determined that Chico's General Plan update will now include a Chapter called "Ordinances Proposed By Tom Nickell" and the new advisors will be needed to sift through all of the data. One city staffer commented off-the-record that he thought Councilor Tom Nickell had some great ideas, and he was really looking forward to hearing them. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Anthony Watts and Gregg Payne, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Image: Slide 26 of Chico Financial Challenges presentation
(see
pdf here). The city is holding a Finance Committee meeting at 6:30PM on October 22nd (a Monday evening) down at city hall. I suspect they will review portions of the pdf file linked above. I expect all CI readers to attend, since you're now some of the most knowledgeable locals with regards to city finances. Scary isn't it? The public meeting is free to attend, but it looks like we'll now be paying to park. I don't want that to be a hurdle my readers have to jump. So if you approach me at the meeting and say the code words "a golden fox is loose in the henhouse" I will reply "and it's PERSonal". I will then give you $0.50, or fiddy-cent, to cover your first hour of parking (while funds last). With 8 readers I'm thinking I only need to bring about $4.00. To ensure you're ready for some of the crazy budget goodness I'll throw out a few primers in the coming days. You might hear the term "triple-flip", which can describe an inline skate stunt, a particularly good pancake maker, a politician's stance on abortion or gun control, or in this case a strange slight-of-hand trick used to shuffle money around and balance the state budget. Here's the overview: California voters passed a bond in 2004 creating $15 billion in debt, to service and reorganize other long term public debt. To pay for the bond the State reduced the local sales tax rate by 0.25% and increased the state wide rate by 0.25%. That's flip one. The local governments would get paid back the reduced sales taxes by counties taking money from the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (called the ERAF) that normally goes to school districts. That's flip 2. The state government would replace lost school money from shifting ERAF funds with money from the State's General Fund up to Proposition 98 minimums. And the triple flip is complete. An added bonus of this exchange is supposed to be that sales tax income to local governments is replaced by property tax income which is more stable. |
| Triple Flip as Described By BOE: In March, voters approved Proposition 57, the California Economic Recovery Bond Act, which allowed the state to purchase bonds to reduce the state budget deficit. The legislature enacted provisions that will change how sales and use taxes and other revenues are distributed to schools and local governments on and after July 1, 2004. These changes will remain in effect until the State Director of Finance notifies the Board of Equalization that the state’s bond obligations have been satisfied. The Triple Flip Under the new revenue "swapping" procedures—commonly referred to as the " triple flip"—the following changes will occur: Local sales and use tax revenues will decrease, beginning July 1, 2004 The statewide base sales and use tax rate will remain at 7.25%. However, the local government portion of the statewide rate will decrease by 0.25%, and the state portion will increase by 0.25%. Local sales and use tax losses will be offset by property tax revenues The County Auditor in each county will use property tax revenues to reimburse the county and cities within the county. They will set aside some funds from the County Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund and place them in a Sales and Use Tax Compensation Fund. In January and May of each year, the State Director of Finance will instruct County Auditors to allocate revenues from the Compensation Fund to the county and to the cities within the county. State General Fund revenues will be used to help schools Since a portion of the County Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund will be set aside to offset sales and use tax losses, schools will receive less revenue from county property taxes. The State of California will use state General Fund revenues to protect the minimum-funding guarantee of Proposition 98. Source: State Board of Equalization newsletter (see pdf here) |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Nobody, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Photo: First citizen advisory committee in U.S. history. Last Wednesday we finished up CARD's Master Plan citizen advisory committee (CAC) which was a process that took about 6-8 months. I also took part in the Bidwell Park Master Management Plan CAC, which is in its 3rd year and will cost around $600,000. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who has taken part in both. There are some interesting contrasts between the two experiences. There were similarities as well. In fact both plans use the consultant EDAW, and both follow roughly the same process. Here's how a Master(or General) Plan update tends to work. A citizen committee is formed to provide input from citizens. A technical advisory committee is formed from government officials or other experts to provide specialized information. A hired consultant works with organizational leaders to develop a "plan" for policies, objectives, and goals based on the organization's mission, history, and input from the previously mentioned groups. That process creates a "draft" plan. The draft is then forwarded to the governing body and revised and then adopted. Dramatic changes to plans can occur in that last step. Citizens are often unaware of the purpose of these plans. They are intentionally vague so as not to hamstring decision makers in the future. For example, CARD's plan won't say we will build an aquatic center off of the Skyway in 2009, instead it will say Chico needs an aquatic center, when built it should be close to major transportation corridors. The role of the citizen's committee is not to create the plan. It is simply to provide some input, and the governing body is the group that has the final say. In CARD's case that's their board. For the Bidwell Park plan it is first the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission, and then the City Council. The Bidwell Park Master Management Plan (BPMMP) had an open citizen advisory committee. You could join just by asking to join, and if you didn't join you could attend any meeting which were all held at city hall. At early meetings there were as many as 60 people, and the process was very much like a charrette. As the meetings dragged on the number of attendees dwindled. There was only one "vote" that I recall and it had to do with disc golf. 80% of attendees wanted it kept where it was and improve the site to reduce environmental impact. Just short of 50 people stayed until the end of the meeting to take part in that vote. By and large the makeup of these meetings were regular citizens (not elected-appointed officials), but most were part of some special interest group. There were friends of the park, friends of the park watch, friends of flowers, friends of horses, friends of disc golf, friends of birds, friends of cats (they actually sat with the friends of birds), friends of mountain bikes, etc. After all was said and done the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission went through the policies portion of the plan and re-wrote it line-by-line over about a dozen meetings. I personally think they found a good balance. CARD's citizen committee was different. You had to apply to be on the committee and then selected (I'm sure meetings were open to the public, I think they have to be). I applied and was accepted. When I arrived I found that much like the BPMMP there was a Friend O' the Park (John Merz) on the panel. Merz lobbied for greater involvement of local officials and next thing you know Councilor Anne Schwab, Supervisor Maureen Kirk, School Board member Rick Reese, and Park Commissioner Tom Barrett were all on the panel (I think it was Reese, I'd never met him and missed any introductions). Park Commissioner Tom Barrett never actually showed up at any of the meetings, and the School Board member was only there once. These citizens could hardly be called average. One lady who seemed to be "just a citizen" attended one or two early meetings and dropped out. This is really too bad because much of CARD's programming is marketed towards women who are the ones who enroll kids in their classes. There were also past CARD board members, and a few other community members, but beyond those officials mentioned all were male.. CARD's panel knew more about the city than the consultants could ever hope to. Discussions were almost entirely driven by land use issues which is not too bad since the Master Plan itself is primarily a land use document. But very little detailed discussion occurred about the focus of programming which is where most citizens come into contact with CARD. For example, the consultants placed markers on one map to indicate possible neighborhood park locations. Merz said two of the park areas had environmental issues (one was a wetland, one was a drainage area), and Kirk suggested a neighborhood park located in a gated community should be removed. Whether or not future parks will ever be funded was a topic left mostly undisturbed. Last Wednesday this panel ended with the draft plan moving to CARD's board. They will likely make significant changes in the document, which is the reason they were elected. |
| Summary: So one committee was a large group with broad interests, little community knowledge, and was easily accessed by the public (BPMMP). The other committee was a small group with narrower interests, lots of community knowledge, and was harder to get involved with (CARD). Both used the same consultants, and covered similar topics (park use). Which was better? I think that the BPMMP CAC did a better job of spotlighting the opinions of the public. It was longer, goofier, and more poems were read. That's the public. Managing and compiling the information from that crowd probably cost a lot more. The CARD plan was essentially a technical advisory committee for people not employed in government. However, more than half of CAC members were either elected or appointed to local government positions, or had been in the past. It was shorter (half as many meetings), had more detail, and probably cost a lot less. But the simple fact is that none of these committees have the level of impact on these plans as the governing organizations. The Bidwell Park and Playground Commission completely re-wrote the document it was provided by EDAW after the CAC meetings. The City Council will make some changes when they get a shot at it. CARD's Board of Directors will make modifications in their document. Fretting over the Chico General Plan and Butte County General Plan citizen committee make-up is a worthy endeavor. But the make up of the City Council and County Supervisors is what will determine the nature of these planning documents. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Mark Sorensen, see comments below for the answer. |
| I was so distraught over the CNR's selection of Dan NT's
"Bullfight" as the best local blog that I contacted them to find out what
qualified as a local blogger. I was surprised by the information that they passed on to me. It came in the form of a video (I've linked to it above). I believe it is definitive evidence that Dan actually does blog locally. So I've decided to live with my failure to attain the highest level of local blog recognition in the CNR's "best of" issue. Maybe next year. At least this means I can cancel the U.S. Supreme Court case I filed last week. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Mrs. Rainman, see comments below for the answer. |
| The city has extended its deadline for applications to
the Planning Commission. The two week application period will now run through
October 24th and will match the application deadline for the General Plan
Advisory Committee. At the time the period was extended the city had only received four applications for the Planning Commission. As of Thursday they had received six. They were Mark Sorensen, Michael Worley, Marlayna Wright, Barry Belmonte, Alan Chamberlain, and Nora Todenhagen. I like Mark and Alan for the Planning Commission, I think Michael Worley is a "no-parking structure" advocate, but don't quote me on that. And I don't know any of the other names off-hand. I have to say that I like saying "Todenhagen", so Nora has that going for her. Todenhagen, Todenhagen, Todenhagen. The city has only received three applications for the General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC). Both recruitments were advertised in the E-R and CNR which is typical for the city. Since these recruitments don't seem to be producing a lot of applicants I've put together a public service announcement for the city. This should help bring in some younger, hipper, iPOD tote'n folks. I'll make another PSA for the GPAC soon. Note: Almond Bowl was good, very crowded though. We had to leave at Varsity halftime to get some rest. Today we're off the SF to celebrate my kids' Great Grandfather's birthday. Please post comments and challenge guesses, however I probably won't be able to approve them until later on tonight. If I get a chance to post something tomorrow it'll be the second time a local blogger has officially posted from the big city. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner : Anthony Watts, see comments below for the answer. |
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| For many people in Chico tonight's Almond Bowl football
game is the biggest sporting event of the year. I'm not one of them. I've
never been to The Almond Bowl. Having lived in Chico for 18 years I do
consider myself a local. But I know I'm different than the people born
and raised
here. Many of the changes the old-school Chicoans have faced are due to people like me coming here and never leaving. Increased traffic, restricted use of public open space, having your town's reputation diminished (or improved depending on where you stand) by Playboy, are just some of the changes they've experienced. My first experiences in this town still describe how I feel about Chico. Around every corner I found some new place to explore, or new interesting people to meet. But those experiences were naturally centered on the University and the downtown area. Shortly after starting my business we set up shop on the north end of the Esplanade. We were surrounded by carpenters, auto mechanics, and various repairmen. These people were Chicoans with multi-generational histories in our area. They still carried with them the ideas and life experiences of a rural north state town. They were wholly disconnected from the University/downtown-centric political machine that now seems to drive decision making. When I read about the 37 year old rivalry between PV and Chico high schools that will be tested on the gridiron tonight I think of the two Chico's I've seen. There's the one that can't wait for the Sustainability III conference to get underway, and there's the one gearing up for the cross-town rivalry that's occurred every year for nearly four decades. Both are held at CSU Chico this year. I've never attended either event. I might try to attend both. But, to be honest, if I had to choose between the two I'd head out to the game. That's the Chico I want to spend some time with these days. Additionally, the series record of 18-17-1 with the lead by the PV Vikings provides emotional incentive to the Chico Panthers to tie things up. It should be a good game. It is simplistic to describe Chico as two separate camps, politically speaking. I think it is accurate to say that the University area and its politics currently hold sway over the rest of the community. Councilors work for the general good of the community, but when push comes to shove we seem to move where the downtown wants us to go. |
| Almond Bowl Info: E-R Almond Bowl Insert (pdf) E-R Almond Bowl Slideshow and Game Preview (flash) JV Game 5:30PM, Varsity Game 7:30PM - University Stadium From the E-R: "The Almond Bowl is a big event. So big that spectators can bet on waiting in line to buy tickets. The student stores at each school will offer presale tickets and there is a discount for those who decide to plan ahead. The Chico High student store is open from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and PV’s operates from 11:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m." Other information: • Ticket booths at University Stadium will open at 4:30 p.m. • There are no in-and-out privileges. • Outside drink containers will not be allowed. If anyone has advice on things to bring or pointers on going to the Almond Bowl please post them as comments. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: David Kim, see comments below for the answer. |
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| An interesting rumor... I've heard that members of the previous City Council that took part in the Fogarty property decision making were questioned under oath recently. That questioning apparently included Supervisor Maureen Kirk who previously sat on the council. It also included discussion of Councilor Scott Gruendl's challenge to "bring it on" in reference to the property owner's law suits. Fogarty's lawyer and the City Attorney were present. Jenn Klein wrote in a previous E-R article (see entire article here) "The Fogarty case is by far the largest of the three, with Fogarty seeking $44 million. Barker [Lori Barker - City Attorney] said the case is also the most time intensive with tens of thousands of pages of documents. The Fogarty case also has a much earlier trial date." I'm under the impression that any settlement or loss by the City of Chico would have to be paid out of the General Fund. Fogarty is asking for $44 million as compensation for business losses and cleanup of the Humboldt Road burn dump expansion onto his property. The city and Fogarty have until January 11th to make a good faith effort to mediate a solution. This was one of 4 lawsuits that are costing Chico $525,000 this year in legal fees/consultation. The vote that precipitated the lawsuit was a 4-3 decision with the liberal councilors making the majority. Fogarty has had another massive lawsuit thrown out on a technicality. |
| My son's first grade teacher called my house a few days
ago. She was reading a story about a farmer who ran a pumpkin patch. In
the story the farmer made a giant paper mache pumpkin and sat it by the
road. People in the story asked why he did it, and he said it was to let
people know he had pumkins for sale. My son's teacher called to let us
know that that was when he raised his hand, and when called on said to
the class "That's called marketing". Somebody parenting around here is doing something right, and it's not me. This post is about marketing. I'm not a reality TV watcher. In fact I can't stand it. Watching heavily edited storylines where emotions are fabricated by staged confrontations makes me uncomfortable. I find the whole genre to be on par with Soap Operas. I don't want to sound like I'm too good for that kind of television, after all I'm a big fan of the latest revision of Doctor Who. I also like Godzilla movies, so bad TV is right up my alley. This morning I was tooling around the Internet and followed enough links that I was essentially lost. I ran across some comments about a show called Meerkat Manor. I've seen this Animal Planet production a couple of times and it's not the worst thing on TV. They film several meerkat families in the Kalahari, give them names, and edit the show for drama. The shows I saw were not much different than your average wildlife documentary, except these animal's lives have been serialized and humanized. I haven't seen it in the last year, but when I did see it I thought it was fun and interesting. For this season the promos were pretty funny, and from a marketing standpoint I thought extremely effective. They basically play off of the fact that meerkat society is promiscuous and turbulent. The one above is for Flower, and there are some more that follow the same line of humor below. Carlos Promo Mozart Promo Flower full length movie Queen of the Kalahari (got a little "300" to it) Apparently a lead character "Flower" was killed in March when a cobra bit her on the head. I hate it when that happens. I think it was only recently televised since the season began on August 10th. This news prompted reactions like the one below. "I am devistated, I have tears streaming down my face, what a shock, poor, poor flower. My heart goes out to all who knew her & her Meerkat Family. 'What a Loss' My husband & I have only just started watching this series & we both fell in love with Flower. A Valliant Lady Leader Meerkat to the end. We will miss her so much. Hope Flower has lots fun in Meerkat Heaven & looks down on her family with pride, which Flower fully deserves." The news and outpouring of viewer grief created tribute clips to "Flower" on YouTube and bad poetry posted to viewer forums. It even created some responses like the one below (which I thought was really funny). "What astounds me is that anyone watches this crap long enough to be traumatized by anything that happens in it. I watched a few minutes once and it left me longing for my own untimely death-by-snake." So why am I posting about this? I'm not entirely sure. I think I want to open a discussion about effective marketing, emotion driven consumerism, voyeuristic passion, and a disconnection from your own community (not all at the same time). It's amazing that people can be seriously impacted by the death of a wild animal, that occurred earlier this year on a different continent. Locally, there are animals being euthanized on a regular basis because people don't care enough about them to give them a home. The TV based passion is safer, more convenient, and easier to let go of. I sometimes wonder how muted our own passions are since we live lives of relative luxury. The emotions that drove us as cavemen to kill with our hands, club the cave-women over their heads (in a gentle and loving manner), and run wildly through the woods with a pack of wolves on our trail don't get much use these days. I am a fan of marketing and enjoy deciphering the messages being passed to us. Don't be fooled into thinking that marketing is just a gimmick of corporate evil. It's often a reflection of our own wants and desires as much as the corporation's wants and desires. The worst marketing is not the kind that makes you want to buy toothpaste. It's the kind that causes you to adopt political philosophies at the expense of common sense or fairness. On the up side there is truly helpful corporate marketing like Mattel's Barbie Fashion Fever Shopping Boutique that teaches girls all about credit cards. From the Amazon.com web site, "Once the balance hits zero, it will reset so you can continue to shop." Thanks Mattel! Now I won't ever have to teach my daughter about financial responsibility (see poor quality commercial below). So I'm not sure where to go from here, except to say I've cleared my brain of some thoughts by posting them to this blog. I guess if I had questions of readers they would be... Is there marketing you like? Dislike? Do you teach your children what marketing is? What commercials have actually moved you emotionally? |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Rainman, see comments below for the answer. |
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| An excellent opportunity has opened up in the Chico real
estate market. The Drake-Simmons
property is up for sale. It's 19 parcels
and consists of 2900 acres in Chico's foothills. The asking price is $75
million (that's $25,000 per acre). I've highlighted 2 large pieces of the
property above. They are bisected by highway 32. There is also a light
green section east of highway 32 at the top right portion of the image.
I also dropped an overlay of Bidwell Park onto the image for reference.
It may not be sized perfectly, but it gives you an idea of where the properties
are. $75 million seems like a pretty high price considering the obstacles to developing there. I'm pretty sure the price was driven so high because of the proximity to what may one day be California's greatest disc golf course. I imagine many successful people would like to retire to a $5 million dollar mansion located across from hole 9 of the disc golf course. Every morning you could get up, go outside, intentionally destroy some Butte County Checkerbloom, and throw some frisbees. That's the kind of lifestyle us Wall Street / disc golfer types go for. I wonder if the price is more directed towards a large conservation group than a developer customer? At $25,000 / acre the property is 10 times the cost of the 1400 acre New Addition and BLM disc golf course area purchased in 1994. I think that property was purchased for $3.5 million (Gregg, disc golf historian, please add comments here). The 1994 property was added to Bidwell Park, sort of. Until the Master Plan is completed allowed use of the new acreage is unclear. There are a few things worth mentioning here. First, what a fantastic purchase the New Addition and BLM property were for the citizen's of Chico. Second, can you imagine if Chico was on sound fiscal footing! What if we could purchase some of the Drake-Simmons property as an addition to our open space park land. Forget for a moment that some people in our community would want to fence it off, or prevent things like mountain bike trails from being built. It would be a much more positive land purchase with regards to recreational use than Bidwell Ranch or Comanche Creek were. Thirdly, there are some people that want disc golf removed from its 20 year residence shown in the image above. There's never been an alternate location that made everyone happy. CARD doesn't have any property for a full-blown course. If the city decided to purchase new land, similar to what's already available they might have to pay more per acre than it costs to build an entire 18 hole course (which requires 18-25 acres). In closing, development impact fees have been collected for years from new home buyers. Some of those fees are supposed to buy more land for Bidwell Park. I'll have to see how much is available, but at $25K / acre maybe the city could bite off a little chunk of this property and use that money for what it was intended. Which is add to accessible park land for everyone in our growing community. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Rainman, see comments below for the answer. |
| I've been trying to develop some new skills for the
blog. Some of them are on display above. Sometimes I get bored trying
to report on the "goings on" of the city. But I have
to say that even if I shy away from public meetings I always have something
to write about. There's always something happening in Chico worth passing
on. The trick for me to keep it entertaining
is to not just regurgitate what the E-R publishes and to make sure I talk about
the budget enough that Tempra gets annoyed. In my new video above I pay homage to the wonderful leaders of Chico that give me something to write about. Please let your friends know about it. It took 6-8 hours of my life over the last 3 days to put it together, and I certainly enjoy feedback on the results. Now I have the skill set to create flash videos and movie files, and things are always quicker as you do them more often. I can add content like this more often if you like it. Update: For new readers of the blog those funky creatures at the end of the video come from the "Cupcake" series of posts. Hostage Crisis A Big Problem R.I.P Cupcake |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Rainman, see comments below for the answer. |
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| I don't have much time to blog this morning, but I wanted to point readers to a 44 page pdf file the Finance Office has provided at the city web site. I've referenced information from this document a couple of times in the past. As far as I know it derived from a presentation given to the Chamber of Commerce budget task force last month. A similar presentation was given to the Finance Committee on 9-26-07. This latest iteration was created on 10-2-07 and it looks like it has new information in it. If you're wondering about Chico's budget problems this document provides the most succint description of how the city budget works, and what's causing problems. http://www.chico.ca.us/Finance/Chico_Financial_Challenges.pdf |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Trevor Hastings, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Photo Above: Random people who I don't know (I swear)
showing how "Art For Your Butt" is designed to be used. The
annoying but often
present Karate Kid pose is expected to die off as Global Warming destroys
the
planet.
Thanks
Global Warming! Chico has continued expanding its "Art For Your Butt" program with the placement of 2 new artsy pedestal seats outside of Upper Crust Bakery. The best guess on the date of installation was the morning of October 4th (last Thursday). The seats cost $1000 each and 8 are expected to be deployed downtown for your butt's pleasure. Previous "Art For Your Butt" installations include the "Luminary Benches" already present downtown. Three more of those should be installed and dedicated to John Muir, Susan B. Anthony, and Sir Joseph Hooker. These benches cost $5000 each. Some of these three benches might already be installed, if so I'm not aware of where they are. The pedestal designs were approved by a citizen selection committee and then the Art Commission last year. Photos of some work in progress with students helping can be seen at the city web site (see here). This is a rather successful public art program which arose out of the "Art On Your Butt" concept developed by local tatoo parlors, and is related to the very short lived, and never approved, "Art In Your Butt" project recommended by one local proctologist. Photo Below: We've created the new Crusty Burger made from Upper Crust pastries. You need 1 apricot granola bar for the "burger" and two bear claws for the "buns". After eating several of these we needed the concrete pedestals to carry our weight. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Alan Chamberlain, see comments below for the answer. |
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| The image above is an example of what NOT to do when
your government is running low on funds. But for some reason I wouldn't
be totally surprised to see money spent this way in our town. I'm seeing
a lot of discussions about budget issues, but the actual spending keeps
increasing. Here are some examples.. Cost to defend litigation - $525K (was estimated at ~$100K) Bidwell Park Plan - $600K+ (originally~$300K, $100K added this year) Green House Gas Emissions Survey - $25K-$90K Planning Commission / ARB Work Plans - $160K-$200K (see here) Summing the lowest dollar amounts from these 4 items equals $710,000 of spending that wasn't planned for. Some of this spending may not materialize, or could be less than estimated. On the other hand there are probably a dozen other spending increases that I haven't listed because they don't immediately come to mind. The point I'm trying to make is that there seems to be real movement towards spending more, and no real move towards spending less money. This simple estimate above would constitute an increase in annual city expenses of 1.7%. If you look at the budget deficit reduction matrix* you'll see that in order to offset spending of this magnitude there are really only a couple of options. These are increase revenue through tax increases, or reduce spending significantly through union renegotiations. I'm looking forward to seeing the staff recommendations for solving the budget problem, because I think that will be a defining moment. I believe they will have to recommend one or both of those options. The city has only kept its budget balanced by transferring money from other uses to cover its expenses. If you just go back to basics the problem in Chico's finances is very clear. Eliminating transfers into the budget and just looking at revenue and expenses we've been spending more than we should for at least a few years. Looking at numbers from 2004 to estimates for 2008 our spending has, and is expected to, increase at a significantly greater rate than our revenue. Salary and benefit costs are expected to increase by 40% in just a 5 year period. This isn't each employee getting 40% more money, but the reality that local government is growing out of proportion to revenue. Beyond all of the financial gymnastics that go into finance reports is the simple fact that local government is growing too fast. This bloat is not occurring to build infrastructure and fix our roads. In fact it is coming at the expense of those important government functions. Somebody in charge needs to start justifying these rising costs, if they can. *Note: With the city staff now providing recommendations on budget balancing solutions I wonder if the deficit reduction matrix will disappear from public discussion. I think it will. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Gregg Payne, see comments below for the answer. |
| Recently that City Council decided to populate the General
Plan Citizen Advisory Committee. The council discussed how many people
should be on the committee for for 8 or 9 hours. They actually spent more
time on this than the $56 million budget deficit. It's that important! The number of people on the committee was a sticking point. Some councilors wanted 1.3 trillion to ensure a wide range of opinions. Other councilors just wanted 1 really cool person, like Bill Fishkin. They settled on 9 after using the following equation calculated by Councilor Mary Flynn, a high school math teacher. |
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| The left-side councilors pointed out that the an unbiased
Planning Commissioner would really make the advisory committee work. They're
now hoping that some of the Planning Commissioners fired in Orland will
be available, because none of the Chico's Commissioners match that description. But I wanted to let all of you unbiased Chicoans out there know that you can apply to be on this important committee. But you need to do it soon. Here's a link to the application. I think this form also works for the Planning Commissioner spot which is taking applications for a few more days (not sure though). I decided to put together a video resume for the job. I'm asking all my readers to view it, recognize the value I would have as a member of the General Plan Advisory Committee, and demand that the council appoint me. Please demand in a nice way. Here's an example "Dear Councilors, I demand that you appoint Lon Glazner to the General Plan Advisory Committee, please". |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Trevor Hastings, see comments below for the answer. |
| Last weekend my son and I made a salt crystal garden.
It was a fun and easy experiment and made us want to experiment with other
crystal growing experiments. The ingredients can be found off-the-shelf at the supermarket and the experiment is quick to set up, and takes about a day to complete. I created a YouTube video to show how we did it. There were some pretty significant obstacles that we ran into, and the experiment went awry during a couple of the steps. See the video for the details. There's even Ukrainian new age music as a background for your listening enjoyment. I also included an example of what your kids can do while waiting for the experiment to conclude. If you don't have kids you can still do the experiment. I hope you enjoy the video. Here are the things you need for the experiment. laundry bluing* ammonia table salt H20 food dye (optional) porous rocks, charcoal, or brick pieces Here's a link to detailed instructions and recipe (here you go). *I had never heard of laundry bluing before. It's used to make your white cloths stay white by removing the yellow tinge bleaching or washing can cause. Mrs. Stewart's Bluing can be found at Safeway. Note: I had the "comments" function turned off for a while. Sorry. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Mark Bohn, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Last night the liberal City Councilors (Wahl, Gruendl,
Flynn, and Schwab) narrowly defeated the conservative City Councilors (Holcombe,
Nickell, and Bertagna) and diverted a rebellion on Tradewinds Court. The
4-3 vote succeeded in destroying a local land baron, and pacified the serfs
whose brandished pitchforks could now be put to use in the fields. In reality all of my blog readers should send Larry Wahl an email congratulating him for getting on the winning side of a vote. Lately he's been voting with conviction and landing on the wrong side of a council majoirty. So what happened? Here's the back story. A property owner on Tradewinds Court purchased 2 side-by-side lots with single family homes. She filed to have the lots combined, which was allowed, and she filed for the work permits to combine the two homes into one, and received them. In order for the property owner to continue the work she needed the utility easement abandoned by the city. On July 17th the council said they intended to do that. A utility easement is..."The area of the earth that has electric, gas, or telephone lines. These areas may be owned by the homeowner, but the utility company has the legal right to enter the area as necessary to repair or service the lines." Since the homeowner owned the property on both sides of the easement (it is between the two homes), the easement was no longer needed by the utility companies, in fact it sounded like no utilities existed there. So abandoning the easement meant giving the homeowner the right to use land that they owned that had been established as an access point to service public utilities that wouldn't exist. The city staff recommended that Council abandon the easement and even suggested that there was no legal justification for not abandoning it. Now as far as the serfs (neighbors) were concerned this Taj Mahal was an unwelcome addition to the kingdom. It was going to be 3 times larger than some of the other homes. There was no public notice of the property merger, or other construction plans. This stems from the General Plan requirements for private residence construction. In fact private residences are free and clear of many municipal rules. There were some inaccurate concerns. The landowner runs a private daycare, and neighbors felt a bigger house would mean more kids. Not true, and not legal. Another neighbor wondered whether the house would become a frat house, half-way house, or sex offender house, in later years. After all, who would purchase a big home in a small home neighborhood? I guess it's also possible that the house could turn into a giant octopus and eat kids that walk by. It's too bad we don't know the future, these decisions would be easier. So there it was. The landowner was in the right. The neighbors didn't have a leg to stand on. And yet a 4-3 majority, led by Councilor Wahl, sided against the landowner. Why? There were perfectly valid reasons, not legally valid mind you, but still valid. The planned home is too big for the neighborhood. The neighbors had no chance to publicly oppose the construction except via the utility easement. The rules in the General Plan exempt this kind of construction, but didn't really envision THIS KIND of construction. Four councilors used the public utility easement as a tool to prevent the private property owner from building something that met the General Plan conditions. They did it for the public good, but may have exposed the city (us) to a legal response. I can't really blame them for making what in most cases would be the right decision. Three councilors expressed a desire to fix the problem in the municipal code that allowed this project to occur. But they also felt that the project was within the rules already defined, and changing the rules midstream was not okay. Bertagna, Holcombe, and Nickell deserve credit for voting in an unpopular way, but staying with the rule book. The vote taken was to not abandon the utility easement and move some discussion to the Internal Affairs Committee. I don't know if this project will move there or just a discussion to change the code that allowed the project to go forward. My feeling was that the project was killed last night. |
| Violence in Chico: The Police Chief
discussed violence in Chico, which statistically is on the increase. If
I had to boil down the comments (which I have to do because I don't want
to write about it), it would be that the police need more staff to handle
the problems. Couldn't see that coming. Here's a little more detail. The Chief indicated that anti-gang work and other specialized problem solving positions were lacking in Chico. He cited a large number of guns collected in the last couple of years as a big problem. He also said that all of the serious crimes recently involved college aged individuals. Ad Hoc Downtown Committee: I totally fell asleep on the couch. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Anthony Watts, see comments below for the answer. |
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| Photo: The view from inside the police substation in
Chico's parking structure. The Chico Police are poised to move into the Old Municipal Building on the corner of 5th and Main in downtown Chico (see E-R story here). The necessary renovation has not yet occurred but the city has budgeted $2,567,223 in its capital improvement program. The money was allotted for 2006-7 and it looks like about $167,000 has been spent. That money comes from the Chico's redevelopment agency (RDA) which has apparently been running close to empty these days. Fixing blight is a main purpose of the RDA and it's spending. A remodel of the old building is more of a blight fixin' measure than some other spending I've seen. Previous to the upcoming renovation the newest police facility in town was the parking structure substation (see photo above). I know all of you were curious what the inside of that place looks like so I arranged to get a photo. It was not difficult, I just sent the police a candy gram with a hidden camera inside the truffles. The police also share some resources with fire stations in order to have locations away from the main station to get some work done. The computers at the parking substation are networked with the main station. Officers can write reports downtown, but it sounds like the process used to do that may be technically a little behind the times. Solitaire has also been removed from the computers (I knew you'd want to know). The use of the old municipal building, parking structure substation, and fire stations fill a need for the Chico Police. That need is simply to give the officers a place to hang their hats and get some paperwork done. There's a benefit to staying close to their area of operation and not having to return to south Chico. They can spend less time driving and more time proactively working in the community by using substations. Chico is still too small for precincts to operate effectively and they would create an unnecessary duplication of resources. But the municipal building remodel is a step in that direction. Substations do not have lockers, secured vehicle parking, secure evidence rooms, finger printing equipment, CSI, explosive disposal robots, SWAT teams, or a holding cell. A precinct, by definition would have some of those things. However, if you do end up at the downtown municipal building on the wrong side of the law you might want to review this list of prison slang. That web site also has a background soundtrack that I found a tad funny. |
| Notes: In a perfect world I would have
preferred that the beautiful old building be used for a cultural purpose,
like a museum. It's not a perfect world. A regular foot, horse, or bike
presence downtown is needed. Taking a longer view, it's a good idea for the city administration to keep the old building under their thumb. In the coming decades the city will need to expand its staff. The old municipal building might provide some interim breathing room while other arrangements are made. Or its property might be used to build a larger facility. I've heard a lot of praise from the police for their non-sworn employee Debbie Collins. Part of her job is to find ways for the police to efficiently use the space they have. She upgraded the parking structure substation to make it more roomy and usable. Below is an image of the police locker room at the main station which is near bursting with gear, and the kind of space issue she has to troubleshoot. I grew up in the Bay Area just a few houses away from Collins. I can still remember when she left for Chico State. I believe I was in elementary school. It was fun to run into her at a tour of the police station last year. I don't think I'd seen her in at least 2 decades, probably more. Collins still drives a classic Ford Mustang she owned in high school. That seems to indicate a personality geared to take care of what you have, make the best use of available resources, and avoid costly purchases. It also shows an appreciation for a classic American design. I hope she's intimately involved in the renovation of the old municipal building. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Withanee, see comments below for the answer. |
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| It was nice to read about Amanda Detmer returning to town to receive
a Chico High alumni award for her contribution to the
arts. Her death scene in Final
Destination certainly contributed to my
liking her as an actress. So did Saving Silverman, because Neil
Diamond kicks butt (or in the Northstate, butte). I'm not trying to be
mean or facetious regarding Detmer's death scene. She appeared
to be a
main
character
in
that
movie,
and early
on as
the plot line is unfolding she steps off a curb and gets splattered by
a bus. It was probably the most abrupt character ending I've ever watched. I remember seeing Amanda and her brother (Matt?) at Shakespeare in the Park years ago. If I had guessed then who would be famous I would have said the brother. I assume lots of Chico people knew Amanda Detmer before she became famous, I certainly didn't. But she was my neighbor across the street when I was finishing college (mid 90's). We said hi a few times, and she had a pug dog named Melvin. I think she said it was named after her dad. What's more interesting about those days is that I had a friend who was trying to "break into" Chico's theater scene. The further she got into her studies and off-campus theater productions the further she moved away from our group of friends. She made a few attempts to invite us to the cast parties, but they didn't really work. Drama junkies seem to form a rather insular society with a clear hierarchy. I saw the same thing when visiting my brother in San Francisco. He was part of the national poetry slam movement. The performing artist parties always seem to devolve into second or third tier people vying for attention with louder and louder exploits. Out come the bad british accents and the raucous and rude poetry. Then the Kings and Queens of the scene breeze in, spend a few low-key moments, and flitter off to another party. This leaves the room to talk about them. During that time I heard a lot of things about Amanda Detmer and how she achieved her successes. None of it was bad, which really says a lot. I think it was Detmer's success that caused a lot of Chicoans to push harder into the national acting scene. My friend moved to southern California after college, made a couple of commercials that were shown nationally, and I think still works tangentially in the the entertainment industry. We lost touch with her, but I did give her a cold call at my company's last Christmas party. And on Friday night ran into her sister at Duffy's, which brought those days to mind again. Chico has produced at least a few celebrities. And they run through a range of occupations. There's Aaron Rodgers of the NFL, Amanda Detmer of Hollywood, Ken Grossman, or more appropriately his beer, and even Anthony Watts has received the national spotlight recently. Our University has picked up some less than desirable accolades over the years, but I'm guessing those issues haven't really hurt enrollment. I think the successes some of our residents have can be attributed to the special place that Chico is. Our politics are sometimes hard, our people are bright and energetic, and we have a bubbling cauldron of youth thrown in. I'm still waiting for my turn in the sun. And I'll be pissed off if staff writer Laura Kleinlittle gets noticed before I do. She does do a good job though, and looks smashing in a bikini. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Anthony Watts, see comments below for the answer. |
Lon
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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