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January 30, 2006
I HOPE THAT IT'S A BUNCH OF BUNK THAT CHICO IS BECOMING KNOWN AS "CHUCK-HOLE-CITY"
Since I attend a number of meetings each week, I'm continually asked why the City of Chico doesn't maintain its streets since each winter (and other times) there are so many streets with "chuck-holes" and poor drainage.
I don't have any ready answers except to say that the City isn't carrying-out a preventive maintenance program that will at least minimize "chuck-holes" until the City has the funds to rebuild the miles and miles of streets that are in poor repair and require extensive storm drainage facilities.
Although many residents have asked me, I haven't quite figured out the smear job (resurfacing?) done on a portion of East Avenue (from Cohasset Road to the Pleasant Valley High School), a few years a go, that has developed "chuck-holes" throughout the roadway. I understand that the City intends to reconstruct the street in the future when the utilities can be relocated underground and funds become available for the reconstruction. If you want to see another street that will have a bunch of "chuck-holes", if we have any sustained rainfall, take a look at East 5th Avenue (between Mangrove Avenue and the Freeway).
The answer to the question of preventive maintenance is that adequate funds need to be allocated each year--more and more now that the City has annexed miles of county roads that also require a maintenance program. There is also a tendency to build new projects and often neglect maintenance that in the long run can be very costly to the City.
Posted by at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2006
STATEMENTS BY MAYOR GRUENDL CONCERNING THE FOGARTY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT ARE A BUNCH OF BUNK
Mayor Gruendl is a rather pleasant and intelligent fellow but for many different reasons individuals like Mayor Gruendl, when elected to public office, sometimes go through a metamorphosis that turns them into arrogant, immature and irresponsible elected officials.
Why does this transformation occur? Obviously, there are many factors that lead a person like Gruendl to demonstrate the arrogance, imaturity and irresponsibilty but I believe in his case an important factor is that there is a lack of peers, experienced in local government, to help him in carrying-out his responsibilities as an elected official. He and others on the City Council that voted to modify the Fogarty Development Project (Project) showed their arrogance and irresponsibility, notwithstanding the City Attorney's Opinion, that the approval could lead to a lawsuit against the City.
Mayor Gruendl in both his public statements and his Letter to the Editor demonstrated his arrogance and irresponsibility and has now led the City to employ a consulting attorney at $365/hour, that can add-up to a substantial bill if the lawsuit isn't settled in the very near future. I'm aware that the City Council is not required to follow the City Attorny's Opinion, but in the case of this Project the majority of the City Council clearly showed that a developer, and perhaps others doing business with the City, could not depend upon the majority of the City Council to follow the law as outlined in the City Attorney's Opinion and the previous action(s) of approval by the City Council.
I intend to follow this Project and the the lawsuit, and will keep my Blog readers up-to-date.
Posted by at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2006
Action by the City Council majority in the "Fogarty Development Project" is problably illegal and a "Bunch of Bunk"
There have been several E/R Editorials and Letters to the Editor(and a great deal of talk on the street) concerning the votes of the City Council majority to approve the Fogarty Development Project (Project) with additional restricton. If anyone followed the Project, it was easy to determined that the action by the City Council majority would lead to a lawsuit against the City. As we're read in the media, a lawsuit has been filed against the City which has hired a consulting attorney at $365/hour to defend the City Council's actions. And Chico taxpapers will have an outrageous bill to pay unless there is a settlement in the very near future.
I happened to attend the meeting of September 6, 2005 (concerning another agenda item) when the City Council was supposed to take routine final action on the Project (it was on the consent agenda) but was removed at the request of Councilmember Andrew Holcome.
It was unforunate for those in attendance at the meeting to have to listen to the filibuster and diatride by Holcombe, for what seemed like 30 minutes or many more, especially since this Project had been discussed on many occasions by the Planning Commission and City Council over a substantial period of time. When a citizen appears before the Council at a hearing, the citizen is allowed 3 minutes and is then told to sign-in and sit-down.
I've known Andy Holcombe for sometime and was surprised by the arrogance he exibited in dismissing the well reasoned opinion of the City Attorney that it would be illegal for the Council to add additional restrictions to the Project at the meeting. After Holcombe was unable to secure a second to his motion to modify the project at the meeting, he then embarked on another filbuster to get the Council to hold an additional hearing on the Project, at a subsequent meeting. This motion was approved by Mayor Gruendl and Councilmembers Kirk, Schwab and Holcombe. Now we all know that at the next hearing the same majority removed another 80 unit from the uppermost portion of the Project and moved them to another area of the Project. Holcombe's comment that moving these unit would reduce the cost of housing in the other portions of the project is a Bunch Of Bunk.
I suspect that the majority that voted to modify the project may well have had serial discussions prior to the meetings. If that is true, then they were in violation of the Brown Act (open meeting law).
The action of the City Council majority lead one to wonder if anyone can depend upon the integrity of it in other matters before it.
Posted by at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)