by Jack Lee
I keep hearing, voters in Chico are fed up with the bad management coming from our City Council! But, every year we re-elect the same old liberal element and nothing changes. This reminds me of the definition of insanity. So, this year voters have another shot at fixing the problem in city hall, but we can’t do it with a lousy 26.4% voter turnout like last time. 26.4% is pathetic and it speaks volumes about voter apathy.
26.4% also means that a small, but dedicated (liberal) element can control the outcome. You may be wondering how could that be? Well, do the math! If only 1 in 4 eligible voters bother to vote and the liberals make a strong showing… they win. We estimate that liberal hardcore voting block to be less than 25% of the total vote in Chico, but they turn out and the rest of you don’t. By default, they control just enough votes to determine the outcome. So, every election cycle they get their candidates voted in by a tiny margin. That’s frustrating to those of us who are informed, intelligent and regular voters.
Controlling elections using a vocal minority is EXACTLY how activism works! They get major leverage when the majority of you don’t care enough to vote. Or you don’t know the issues or candidates well enough to vote smart.
Let’s face it, the left is always more motivated than the conservative right because they are emotionally driven people with issues near and dear to them. They’re very passionate about voting! In part, because there’s usually something in it for them, unlike our side.
The conservatives want to restrain big government and spending while running a tight ship. There’s nothing particularly exciting about that, is there? No, it’s just good government. And when government is run best, it is, well, boring and it should be! Boring and doing things without any consideration for personal gain does not normally attract voters.
So there it is, this explains exactly why we can’t win elections even though we make up a majority of the vote. Instead, we are left to complain about the liberals. However, this year could be different because of the recession that exposed what they were doing. It was clearly liberals on the council that almost put the city into bankruptcy and left us with millions in debt. This dire situation resulted in cuts to services, reduction in public safety and added risk to citizens. This fiasco was punctuated by a Grand Jury probe that revealed the bitter truth about who we elected. This riled up a lot of passion among the conservatives, so I expect a much larger voter turn out this time. If we can get a 50% turnout we’ll win…hands down.
If this gross fiscal mismanagement doesn’t get the turnout then I wonder what will?
Do you part – vote.
“This fiasco was punctuated by a Grand Jury probe that revealed the bitter truth about who we elected.”
Actually … the report was very discreet. No names were named. And, as your conservative voter, or your liberal voter, is notoriously not moved to exert themselves … the conservatives will assume that they were not to blame, the liberals will assume that they were not to blame, and all will go on as per usual … and you will simply have to accept that you ARE in the minority.
Bummer.
Those who shirk their responsibility and don’t vote have no right to gripe when clowns or fools get elected.
If you can’t decide on whom to vote FOR, at least decide on whom to vote AGAINST!
Jack,
It takes a good turnout effort on our part, but also having good candidates, which we do.
Mark Sorensen, Andrew Coolidge, and Reanette Filmer are good candidates who want to make Chico a better place to live.
Remember that despite all the difficulties and chaos of the last election, Sean Morgan managed to get elected (sometimes the people get it right). If the three mentioned above can make it on board, they will turn Chico around. No more vagrants hunting downtown business, no more rampant drugs and stabbings. Give downtown back to the families who have earned it and businesses will flourish. It can be done.
Yes ,all Conservatives need do their part, and show up at the ballot box in November to prevent Chico from becoming a mini Detroit. Liberal idealism has proven itself non productive, and in fact quite destructive to Chico and its people and economy.
The Grand Jury’s report clearly indicted the mismanagement of how the Liberal majority in power wasted tax dollars, even deceived the voters while at it, yet still the liberals go about their lying and deceptive ways, always trying to cover their tracks of misrepresentation of the peoples real needs. But I guess liberals will always feel they are correct (never right)in doing what ever they want and however they can to achieve their goals.
So get out and vote for a more conservative and better Chico, it only takes a little bit of time, but will reap large improvements for all of Chico.
“No more vagrants hunting downtown business, no more rampant drugs and stabbings.”
So … how they gonna do that? See, if you would pay for it, the stabbers would be in jail and the druggies would be in rehab … and, of course, the merely dispossessed would be employed … but you won’t pay for it.
So … tell us … explicitly … whatcha gonna do?
And then we’ll see if we wanna vote for it.
Re J Soden: “If you can’t decide on whom to vote FOR, at least decide on whom to vote AGAINST!”
William /f. Buckley famously said, “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”
I suspect it would be the same in political bodies as well. Your suggestion has a better than half chance to result in improvement!
We on the right dearly miss the voice of Bruce Sessions who used to inform us on local issues and candidates. At least we had some idea who the candidates were and what they would bring with them to the job.
Find out about the three conservative candidates listed by Steve:
Andrew Coolidge
Mark Sorensen
Reanette Fillmer
Ok, I have a question for Reanette.
Her platform seems to be “more cops on the streets” and “none of those pesky payroll/property taxes for business”.
Question: Where we gonna get the money for the cops?
Theoretically, I suppose, from those non-taxpayers’ employees. But, you know, Chico wages, I don’t think that’s going to work. You get your tax revenue from people who have revenue.
Translated, I would have to say that her platform reads as follows: “The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, and watch out for the cops.”
I’m not voting for that.
Good thing you don’t live here because your understanding of Reanette’s position is off…and typically progressive.
I don’t know what she has in mind tax wise from your description but of course you have misrepresented her position…GROSSLY MISREPRESENTED IT! This is exactly what the left does to win because their own ideas create busted budgets, put more emphasis on art and very little on keeping cops on the street and roads paved! All the while using the “lack of essential services” as an excuse to extract more money from the public. Progressives are just poor managers of money!
So to your question: “Where we gonna get the money for the cops?
Her exact words tell us. From Reanette’s webpage:
Our readers should know that the material was edited (cut and pasted out of order, not altered) in order to create a response to the specific question. Also emphasis is mine.
Your smarmy theory is also typical of the left and totally wrong. Business people pay property taxes every single year even when they don’t own the building! They pay a yearly business license fee. Many also pay a fee for alarm protection.
The way to get more revenue flowing to city government is to attract business to Chico. This would increase revenues from business and with increased jobs opportunities, from the working citizens as well. In time this would also raise the value of property. Tax revenue would flow from a vibrant broad base…high tax rates are not needed when people are actually working at good jobs and making money!
Want to ask some questions about the other conservative candidates? Tee-hee!
There is one thing I have an issue with in Reanette’s position. It’s about this one line, “I will aggressively seek public safety grants.” I’m not so sure that’s the best way to go. A grant typically comes from the feds and they take it from us (taxpayers). By the time our tax dollar comes finally back to us in the form of a grant there’s quite a bit of overhead deducted. My recollection is that about 75% of the original tax dollar is lost to overhead before it gets back to us in a grant form. So, that makes grant money VERY expensive. Then a grant has strings. Mostly the string is the City is obligated to start paying the officer’s salary when the grant runs out. That works if we have the money, but what if we don’t?
The city should hire the cops it can afford and no more. As much as I hate to admit this, public safety is making a pretty fat salary here. Previous studies show they are overcompensated by as much as 20% or as I can best recall. Better that we reign in city salaries in order to have ample officers on the street. When you have hundreds of applicants for a police job you know they have a pretty good thing going, so yes, it’s time to look at those public safety wages and all the rest. When 25% of the city employees make 6 figures something is wrong.
“Good thing you don’t live here because your understanding of Reanette’s position is off…and typically progressive.”
Really? Anybody who cares to read her website will, I think, own that I’ve distilled it succinctly.
Your wallowing in the blather will not alter that. It’s really very simple: who pays? We do have to have these essential services … who pays? Some of us? or … all of us, according to our means.
And the Chico voters will decide.
And Post #11 boils down to: “I’m not gonna pay.”
And ain’t that where we started? … with why Reanette’s platform makes no sense … if you won’t pay.
And if you won’t pay … you can just quit snivelling about the consequences, the vagrants and whatnot.
It is a bore.
Good point Jack and an even better solution.
Really good point Jack, and a really poor spin on Libby’s part. And by the way, Chico currently is paying a rather large price for Liberal wastefulness.
Why allow a wasteful city council to throw away money that only benefits their political seats, or be beholding to Large Government (as such the case with most grants)when a fiscally effective City Council could do a better job using local resources and applying it to budget basics and quit wasting tax dollars on the thing Libby mentioned “vagrants”, which of late are a major cause of crime in the Chico, increasing our need for MORE law enforcement on the streets. Eliminate the cause, which eliminates the COST!
But with the current Liberal majority, they are more concerned with catching a free roaming plastic bag, then a vagrant bum with a knife or rock attaching those who wish to not be bothered by their persistent and aggressive panhandling and vandalism
The same, “grant money” statement jumped out at me too. People think grant money is free money like mantra from heaven and it’s not. Just like that woman who said she was going to get, “some Obama money,” did she actually think it was coming from Obama?
She needs to reconsider how she’s going to fund additional police protection, like Jack said, and change her position before she gets my vote.
The longer we talk about finances and government spending the more Libby sounds like a spendthrift. So typical…these budgets run into the millions, billions and trillions of dollars and she keeps screaming, “you won’t pay.”
It would be hilarious if it were not so serious.
Libby, like all progressives is rather fond of spending other people’s money, and like a teenager with a new credit card, has no cares about how much is wasted or disappears down a rat hole.
Put in charge progressives kill the economy, then demand more in taxes, fail to accomplish anything, and then have the gall to demand more money usually using kids or fire and police protection as a prop.
I don;t know about the rest of the city, state, nation but I’d like to see leadership that shows results AND money saved. The budgets, at least at state and nation, are so padded it shouldn’t be a big problem.
You know Tina, I would love to have a progressive Democrat name one city, state or country that has survived in the past or is thriving today that was/is run on the socialist Democrat’s economic agenda.
Just look at Detroit, Chico, Stockton, Calif. China, Russia and on and on. They’ve all failed or are failing.
Now, look at China, India and Brazil’s economy now that have moved or are moving to the free market system. Their economy is growing while many of our states and our nation as a whole is going down the toilet on a socialist flush. The exceptions are states like Texas that are run by conservative governors and legislators who don’t even need to pick up the red pen.
Peggy I’ve scheduled an article to post around 7:00 AM that you’ll be interested in. Politico asks about conservative cities…check out the book review link at the bottom. Looks like another good read about the way we got here.
Conservative policies do work better…those nations would do even better if they were steeped in the principles of freedom, personal grit, and morality that made America the shining city on a hill. If we don;t pass it on it will be gone within another generation or so. Happily we seem to be doing it bit by bit over the internet 😉
Peggy: “You know Tina, I would love to have a progressive Democrat name one city, state or country that has survived in the past or is thriving today that was/is run on the socialist Democrat’s economic agenda.”
Well, let’s see. I would say the three main cornerstones of the “socialist Democrat’s economic agenda” today are 1) raising the minimum wage, 2) strengthening unions, and 3) raising tax rates on the wealthy in order to fund redistribution programs.
If you look at countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Finland, they are doing all of these things, and their economies are thriving much more than our own. These countries have lower unemployment, better healthcare, higher social mobility, and lower income inequality.
These principles are also fairly close to the model America followed in the 1950s and 60s, to unprecedented success. Few people know that President Truman doubled the minimum wage in 1949, and the 50s were a time of unprecedented job creation. And in the ten years after LBJ implemented the War on Poverty, the poverty rate was cut nearly in half, and has never once gone back to pre-1964 levels. (The poverty rate began fluctuating a lot in the mid-70s, and has fluctuated since, likely because of the declining purchasing power of consumers due to the falling min. wage.)
As for taxes, I’ll admit that Kennedy and Reagan probably had the right idea with most of their tax cuts (balanced, as even Reagan’s were, by increases in the capital gains tax; wouldn’t you know, treating labor as a higher good than capital, as Lincoln said, actually works!), but we’ve now gone too far in the other direction. I acknowledge the validity of the Laffer curve, but Republicans today (including ol’ Artie himself) seem to treat it not as a curve but as a straight line, where the farther down you go, the better off the country is; that’s not at all what the theory states. The Laffer curve suggests that taxes can be too high OR too low, and we need to find an ideal. I’ll concede that in the 40s and 50s taxes were punishingly high; today, taxes on the wealthy are too low. We need to find a balance.
#19 Chris: “If you look at countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Finland, they are doing all of these things, and their economies are thriving much more than our own. These countries have lower unemployment, better healthcare, higher social mobility, and lower income inequality.”
Best check your facts next time Chris before you make a flat out “misstatement.”
Sweden’s cost are higher in almost all of the categories.
Country vs country: Sweden and United States compared: Cost of living stats:
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Sweden/United-States/Cost-of-living
And this.
Country vs country: Sweden and United States compared:
Cost of Living:
Sweden – $3,181.11 Ranked 14th.
USA – $3,258.85 Ranked 12th. 2% more than Sweden
Population:
Sweden – 9.12 million
USA – 316.67 million
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Sweden/United-States
Sweden unemployment rate:
Total – 8%
Under 25 years old – 21.6%
Over 25 years old – 6.0%
Sweden’s total unemployment is actually higher if you use our U-3 number of 6.1%
Oops, guess what was just adjusted UP? Not good new just before the election.
Unemployment rates rise in 24 US states in August:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unemployment-rates-rise-24-us-144033803.html
Don’t think I’ll be moving to Sweden any time soon, but you go right ahead.
Forgot to include taxes for Sweden, which turns out to be one of the LOWEST in the world. The have three levels: 0%, 20% and 25%.
Sweden Income Tax Rates for 2014:
“Sweden has one of the lowest income taxes in the world, charging a maximum income tax of 25.00%. Countries with similar tax brackets include Spain with a maximum tax bracket of 27.13%, Canada with a maximum tax bracket of 29.00% and Mexico with a maximum tax bracket of 30.00%. Keep in mind that our ranking measures only nationwide income taxes, and does not account for local income taxes at state, province, or municipal levels.”
http://world.tax-rates.org/sweden/income-taxhttp://world.tax-rates.org/sweden/income-tax
USA tax rates:
“The 2014 income tax brackets will continue to keep the 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35% and 39.6% tax brackets in place from last year.
Read more: http://www.mydollarplan.com/tax-brackets/#ixzz3Du033ZKO