The trees will be removed in connection with the 2nd phase widening of the 99 Freeway between 8th and 9th Streets (State Highway 32) and East 1st. Avenue.

As you drive along the Freeway, the specimen trees are seen between the viaducts that cross Bidwell Park. With the removal of the trees and the widening of the viaducts, it will appear that you’ll be driving through a tunnel, when using the Bidwell Park roadways.

An alternate plan was previously approved by CalTrans, BCAG’s consultant and a local advisory committee. Although other trees will need to be removed, they are of minor importance compared to the Bidwell Park specimen trees.

The City needs to quit babying our bicyclists and begin to cite them for the numerous violations that most of us see on a daily basis; including (1) not stopping at stop signed intersections; (2) riding the wrong way on city streets; (3) riding bicycles in the City without a permit; (4) riding on sidewalks in Downtown Chico; and (5) blocking sidewalks by tying bicycles to street tree protectors in Downtown. There others violations too long to list.

This was unnecessary, since the plans approved by the Project Advisory Committee, the engineering consulting firm, and CALTRANS recommended the improvements be built so that the Oleanders and trees could remain in place.

The improvements recommended included auxiliary lanes built on the eastside of the northbound lanes and westside of the southbound lanes; not requiring the removal of the Oleanders or trees.

If you want to save the Oleander and trees you should contact BCAG; Attention: Jon Clark, 2580 Sierra Sunrise Terrace, Chico, CA 95928 or call 530-879-2468 or e-mail www.bcag.org.

Since each Fire Station will now longer need sleeping and cooking facilities, some of these areas can be reconstructed to serve as Police Substations. I know there will be all kinds of arguments why this will not work, but with our modern technology the police headquarters can be in constant contact with the substations and the individual police employees. This concept will allow police and fire employees to respond to incidents in a timely manner.

None of the changes in hours or consolidation will occur overnight, but with strong leadership by the Council and City Manager, the changes will provide substantial savings in expenditures as well as providing outstanding police and fire services for Chico.

As new employees are added to the departments, the City can train them in the dual position of police and fire employees.

If you read carefully the article, and substitute City of Chico for City of Vallejo, you’ll understand that Chico is very close to the same problems that lead Vallejo to file for bankruptcy; several years of deficit between revenues and expenditures; labor contracts that offer salaries, overtime pay, pensions and health benefits. These expenditures are expected to balloon as health care costs soar and employees retire earlier and live longer. Chico’s police and fire salaries and benefits make-up approximately 75% of the general fund budget, similar to Vallejo’s.

The City of Chico cannot solve it's long range “structural budget deficit” unless it can secure agreements with the City’s employee unions, to substantially reduce salaries and benefits. This is particularly true with City’s revenues leveling off or reducing in the coming years with expenses increasing every year.

The only other solution is for the Council to ask the voters to increase one or more taxes which the Council recognizes will not be approved in the near future.

Many employees represented by SEIU union ( wearing their special shirts) packed the Council meeting, since there was some indication by members of the City’s finance committee that there departments would take approximately a 12% budget reduction in order to keep the fire and police departments at 5%.

After the City’s Finance Committee discussed items that could be implemented to assist in reduction of the City’s “Structural Budget Deficit” of approximately 6 million dollars, the committee could not agree on the recommendation of the City Manager to reduce all department budgets by 7.5%; so it sent no recommendation to the City Council to consider this item at its meeting of May 20th. One recommendation that was considered by the committee was to only reduce the police and fire departments by 5% and to increase the other departments by approximately 12%. By the way, the other departments provide all of the other essential services for the City’s residents; the administrative services; design and maintenance of the City’s roadways and streets (which are presently under funded); sewer collection and disposal system; parks; airport; and other service relating to the City’s infrastructure.

After a great deal of discussion, the Council supported the City Manager’s 7.5% budget reductions for all departments.

Packing the City Council Chambers brought results for the SEIU members to secure equitable treatment for all departments. They should now keep a watchful eye as the budget is not yet adopted and can be changed at any time by a majority of the Council.

Why not consider combining the Police and Fire Departments. If implemented there would be a very, very substantial saving in City funds and would provide more than enough employees to provide outstanding police and fire services to our residence.

There will be multiply arguments against the consolidation from both Departments, since it is not easy to implement changes; we’re always used to doing it in the” good old way”, but it is one way of thinking “outside of the box”.

Since most of the City Council had support from the Police and Fire Unions, I’m surprised that they haven’t met with their friends and secured a simple solution to the City’s “Structural Budget Deficit”.

Agreements with the unions to change the working hours of the Fire and Police employees would go a long-way towards solving the “Structural Budget Deficit” problem.

In the case of Fire Department employees, change the present 24 hour shifts to 12 hour shifts 12 hours; and in the case of the Police Department employees change the present 10 and 12 hour shifts to 8 hour shifts. Fire employees would work approximately 14 shifts per month instead of 8 shifts. Police employees would work 5 days per week instead of 4 or less days per week.

These two simple changes would provide a very substantial budget savings and would allow the Departments to maintain their existing level of staffing; and would not require a reduction in services that has been discussed recently by the Council Finance Committee. Overtime could disappear and each department would have more than enough personnel to maintain a high level of services for City residents.

Agreements by the unions to change the working hours of the Fire and Police Departments would go a long-way towards solving the “Structural Budget Deficit” problem; change Fire Department personnel working 12 hours shifts instead of the present 24 hour shifts; and in the case of the Police Department change the shifts to 8 hours rather than the existing hourly shifts.

These two simple changes would provide a very substantial budget savings and would not require any lay-offs (and reduction in services) that have been discussed recently by the Council. Overtime could disappear and each department would have more than enough personnel, even with employee retirements.

The majority of the City Council recently approved The Avenues Neighborhood Improvement Plan (Plan). I doubt that the City Council understands or read the documents (80 plus pages) that they approved at their meeting on April 15th. The “Great Hoax” is that the costs relating to the improvements desired by the property owners and residents of the neighborhood are well in excess of 50 million dollars (my estimate, since the expensive Consultant and novice City staff didn’t make any realistic estimates).

By the way, the Council allocated 7.5 million for improvements within the Plan before the Plan study started. This method of budgeting is unique, considering allocating funds well in advance of determining what The Avenues Neighborhood Improvement Plan and other neighborhood plans would cost.

This is one more example of the majority of the City Council mismanaging the finances of the City rather than correcting the “structural budget deficit” which is bringing the City to the brink of bankruptcy. The majority of the Council “wrings their hands” and holds hearing after hearing without determining how the City will get out of its disastrous financial problems.

More to come in future Blogs.

A couple of recent examples include the Fogarty property development (now in litigation) and more recently the approval of The Avenues Neighborhood Improvement Plan (PLAN) which was recommended to the City Council after several time consuming public hearings and discussions.

The Commission recommended eliminating from the PLAN changes to The Esplanade which included reducing vehicle lanes to 10’ and placing a bike lane of each side of the northbound and southbound vehicle lanes (not withstanding that bikes have the side drives available for their use), obviously, setting-up a dangerous and accident prone situation. This recommendation, originally included in the PLAN, is contrary to the City’s General Plan and was completely ignored by the majority of the voting Councilmembers, since a novice planner told them that it conformed to the General Plan.

One of the costly annual expenditures of the City is the hiring of CONSULTANTS for studies that rarely, if ever, result in any improvements to the City’s Structural Budget Deficit problem. In the last several years the City has hired, expensive, Consultants for the Neighborhood Plans, Downtown Access Plan, Opinion Surveys and now the General Plan Revision; which approaches a cost of approximately 2 million dollars (recognizing that much of this cost can be spread to funds other than the General Fund). There are other Consulting Services that are not listed here.

Each of these projects requires the City to allocate a substantial number of Staff to oversee the projects and to provide much of the information necessary for inclusion in the plans.These projects should have been handled by the existing City Staff, with little, if any Consultant expenditures. The existing well paid Staff should have the capabilities of conducting these studies, or perhaps the City’s hiring practices need improvement.

It is very obvious the City Council does not seem to understand the seriousness of the City’s Structural Budget Deficit. There are so many examples of the reason for the Deficit that has been obvious for at least the past 5 year; employee wages with annual increases that consume approximate 80% of the General Fund Expenditures; a lack of recognition of the fact that General Fund Revenues have been outpaced by its Expenditures for several years; and unwillingness to rein-in other expenditures, such as Consultant Services.

In the meantime, the Finance Committee meetings are tying-up valuable staff time—six or more staff at each of the meetings.

The deficits and the solution is a City Council problem; not a committee problem; and the Council knows that the only long-term solution is to reduce the cost of salaries and benefits or ask the voters for a tax increase, which they probably believes would not be approved at this time.

The only real solution is to secure a voluntary salary and benefit reduction from its unions, which is probably unlikely, unless the City Council threatens bankruptcy.

It appears that the Finance Committee meetings are a way of delaying a solution to the "Structural Budget Deficit" until after the November elections.

Bankruptcy being discussed by the City of Vallejo was mentioned by Chico’s Director of Finance, during the recent update of the City’s financial status. Many of Vallejo’s problems, relating to police and fire salaries and benefits as well other employee contracts, are the same problems of the City of Chico. The City recently enter into a new contract with its Firefighter, giving them a 5% salary increase for the first year of the contract and 4% for next 5 years. And the Police union has a “me too” contract that provides them with the same increases as was given to the Firefighters. I don’t write this to place blame on the Firefighters for the City’s structural deficit problem, since other employee contracts are a portion of the employee’s costs that are major contributors to the City’s fiscal problem.

All blame for the City’s financial problem belongs to the City Council that has the final authority on all fiscal matters of the City.

Although there has been much discussion and many meetings about actions that may save the City from bankruptcy, I have not heard of any real leadership by the City Council attempting to resolve the financial disaster that faces the City.

Without City Council leadership, the “ship” may well sink into bankruptcy.

It’s about time that the City and the Downtown business and property owners get together to develop a program to minimize the damage from the Pigeons and before they become a serious problem; similar to those that Downtown has had in the past.