Commission Impossible

CIC The "ship of fools" ?

CIC The "ship of fools" ?

Or maybe more simply a "junk"

I'd buy it (the ship).

Lon--

The topic of taxes is always a prickly one, and the arguments for and against often take on a religious certainty that betrays a belligerent hostility to reason.

There are certainly some distortions in the local economy, and $200,000 fire captains qualify, but the notion of increasing tax rates is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.

But before we can ask our fellow citizens to pay another quarter percent in sales tax, we have to make certain that the current resources are being used wisely. While overpaid middle managers dining out on excessive overtime is a convenient target for our ire, there are more prosaic issues that demand meticulous scrutiny.

On the issue of sworn officer overtime, Chief Hagerty explained to the council on Tuesday that completing paperwork after an arrest or other intervention kept officers at their desks after the end of their regular shift, incurring overtime pay.

Why, in the 21st century, is any officer doing "paperwork"? I am given to understand that in modern police operations elsewhere, a great deal of the case processing has been automated, with officers able to update records in near real time, using networked laptops in their vehicles. Why is our police force stuck in a premillenial process model?

This is but one example. Recently, there has been some discussion of parking enforcement in the downtown. Many downtown employees (and in some cases their employers) park their cars near their workplaces, feeding the meters in defiance of the two-hour time limit. We have implored the parking enforcement command to cite these abusers. Lack of manpower is cited as the reason this is not pursued.

It turns out that there's a new technology (or more likely a new use for some old ones) that would make this achievable with no increase in staffing levels. A camera, attached to the parking patrol vehicle, would record the license plate, GPS coordinates, and time of occupation automatically. When encountering a vehicle parked in excess of the posted time limit, the operator would be prompted to cite the offender.

This would produce several useful consequences. For one thing, it would encourage more turnover of parking, which directly corresponds to increased sales per square foot of retail operations nearby (and thus increased sales taxes collected). More importantly, it would result in increased citation revenues going directly to the general fund. Why is this solution not in use today? It's about a $50K investment; or about a fourth of a fire captain.

The token budget cuts made by the council may provide some breathing room, without appreciable reduction of service levels. But prudent investment in new technologies, modern best practices, and revenue-producing procedures, would have a significantly higher impact on Chico's long-term fiscal health.

Those investments do need to be paid for, and increasing tax rates may be one way of funding those initiatives. OTOH, so would divestiture of unwise investments in real estate the city has neither plans to improve to resources to maintain. I too find it hard to believe Chicoans will tax themselves at a higher rate to pay for the notorious blunders of the past.

The self-identified progressive majority likes to point out that past budgets have been approved unanimously by liberal and conservatives alike. They are not so quick to acknowledge that some very bad investments have been historically contested by the loyal opposition. Therein lies both the proximate cause of our current troubles, and the probable avenue of our salvation.

--Ax

Lon,
I think Holcombe is out to lunch on this one. I've got a little experience with unions in the private sector. It is the unions' job to negotiate for as much money and benefits for the membership as they can. However, in the private sector, unions rarely win pay increases when the company they work for is LOSING money like Chico is (see GM, Ford, AMR, UAL etc.). When my former company, AMR, was losing money, I lost my job. Those that didn't lose jobs, lost pay AND benefits. The ER has done a pretty good job of exposing the buffoonery committed by our city leadership, but I find it disheartening when every time a reduction in salary is mentioned they add a caveat that the unions will want a perk in return. That is true, they will want something in return but we don't have to give it to them if we can't afford it.

I happened to see the aftermath from the Humboldt Road incident a few weeks ago and I found it interesting that in the ER's story the following day they mentioned that the unfortunate gentleman was speeding and not wearing a seat belt. But in Little's subsequent editorial and another story the blame for the man's death appears to be the lack of a guardrail. I agree that a guardrail is needed but we need to take a little personal responsibilty for our safety as well. I don't know that a guardrail would have been a panacea in this case. I hope this doesn't sound too cold, I really do feel sorry for Mr O'Neill's family.

I took my dog to the vet today to get his ears checked out (caught an infection from some sort of allergies..) anyway... I'm sitting in the lobby, and these crazy people come in with a rubbermaid storage bin and something flopping around inside. Well it turns out it was a pidgeon, that the people suspected safeway of "poisoning it." Anyway that's not the point. What caught my ear was the guy saying to the lady at the front desk, "just so you know, it can still fly, it got out in my car I darn near crashed because of it."

I had to choke down some laughter at that... it just struck me as ridiculous, people almost crashing because of a pidgeon. Why on earth would you risk your own life for a wild bird that has law's in effect that specifically state that businesses can legally poison them, due to overpopulation concerns?
That's like someone coming into my garage and finding a dying rat that had stumbled upon a trap and rushing it to the hospital to save it. What?

That would have been some real fickle fate there. Killing yourself to help something that is looked upon as a pest.

(Now if it was a dog that was flopping around in a parking lot and I saw it, I would probably try to help it. At least a dog can't fly in your face while your driving and peck your eyes out.)

Alan,

I recognize the shortcomings of a black and white opposition to increased taxes. Being self-employed provides me with insight into taxation that doesn't always exist with employees. It also provides me with insight into the source of money that eventually gets tapped to pay for government. Sometimes I think those connections are lacking in decision makers who help to consume our taxes. Scott Gruendl posted a little while back that he was self employed and understood many of my concerns. I believe he does.

But there is a political game being played where the recognition of the magnitude being spent on human resources is way out-of-touch with our regions economic capacity.

I don't believe it is sustainable. I had someone suggest that the $200K Fire Captain number I throw around was a bit of hyperbole on my part. I went back over the salary figures and with regular pay, benefits, and overtime the average Fire Captain pay in Chico is $192.8K.

I appreciate the hard work people do around town. But that number seems so out of touch with reality that I can't condone any kind of tax increase until this is recognized as a problem. Is it not a problem?

I agree with you on new technologies and the benefit of investing in them. Good leadership, the kind you get when you pay for "the best", would naturally have made changes in this direction.

On parking... maybe better inforcement will get you where you want to be, or maybe people will get tired of the tickets and quit shopping downtown. I don't really have a dog in that fight, I ride my bike, take a bus, or park in a leased spot that I pay a bundle for.

Lon

Sean,

I think you make a good point. The government can't put a guardrail on every road and cannot take responsibility for every bad decision we make.

Another good example is the sub-prime lending debacle. The lending institutions are now bad-guys for supplying kookie loans to people who couldn't afford them. They were not the bad guy when they provided homes for people with no downpayment. The loans were no less kookie when people were signing up for them.

On the car crash line of thinking, I was just pondering how one instance you're alive, and the next your dead. One local family got a Christmas miracle yesterday and another received a nightmare. It makes you think, and hide under the covers.

Lon

Trevor,

That's why all my pigeons are the homing type with one end-point at the vet. If they ever get injured they fly, or take the bus, anf get help from themselves.

Lon

See, now that's the way a pidgeon's supposed to be. They couldn't even spell it right.

Guy:"How do you spell pidgeon? p-e-g-o-n?"
Lady:"No it's P-i-g-e-o-n."
Me: "ooh sorry, so close. no cigar. come back next time, on the spelling is right!"

Lon, you have your own spot downtown? Lucky...

I don't even have a car. or a bike. or my skateboard anymore, as I gave it to Marissa's little cousin who didn't have one.

Lon,
Funny you mention the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I was reading a story in the USA Today a couple days ago about the sub-prime "victims" that signed up for loans they couldn't afford. I was thinking that I'm the real victim in the mess since I actually pay my bills and will likely see higher borrowing costs, but apparently the victims are in fact the people that gambled on the housing bubble and lost.

I got the whole fickle thing although I didn't express it. I'm thinking about hiding under the covers instead of cutting a holiday tree next year. There are just too many crazies on the road.

The challenge was Zheng He's treasure ship.

600 years ago he traveled the seas collecting treasure. We could use him around here these days.

Lon