Steve Jobs needs no introduction or explanation. He wrote the following many years ago:
“I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money”
Change topics to today’s politicans: It’s not about the money for many of them either.
This is clearly true as we see a state $16B in the hole, and a city (Chico) $1M in the red. I don’t understand people that say we shouldn’t run a city like a business? Clearly when we don’t track revenues and expenses in a transparent way the money doesn’t matter. You can just keep moving things around and cover everything. Until you can’t. We are at the “until you can’t” stage in Chico, CA (and in the state of California too for that matter). The closing of fire stations and reductions to police forces are symtoms of a broken system. They need to be dealt with for sure, but more importantly, let’s address the root cause of the problem. It is about the money!
It will be impossilbe to tax our way to prosperity and continue to furnish city employees the lush pay packages they have now. Step one: change the hiring procedures. The next city employee (in any department) must be given a benefit package more in line with private industry. I’m not talking about cutting current contracts (although that may some day be necesasry, I hope not) but at least, right now, stop the bleeding.
If an informed citizendary cannot make the wise choices and hold their government officials accountable for their tax dollars, you will soon have a bankruptcy judge governing your city.
-Sean Morgan
What does Chicos City Council and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have in common? Both are controlled by a bunch of liberals who believe they can spend our tax money as if it was their own.
The feds want more of our money so we can spend one million dollars of it to send the Ninth Court judges and their staff to Hawaii in August for a conference instead of holding it in SF where the court is located and has several conference facilities. (Didnt the hear about GSA? Do they care? Are they the same judges that would here the case if/when charges are filed against the GSA dimwits?
The city wants more of our money so they can continue to pay artist for artwork like plows, hands and bridge decorations, and subsidizing low income housing going up all over town. Outrages, theyll cut the very services that will put our lives and homes at risk so they instead can continue cutting more checks for artist .
Really looks like its time for major changes both in DC and here at home.
Chico … $1 million in the red? One?
Chico sports about 30,000 taxpayers, which busts out to about $33.00 a piece. Would you please, all, just cough it up.
Honest to freaking christ.
It’s not quite that easy, if it was just a one shot thing we could pony up, but this million bucks comes on the heels of other millions lost, and we face yet more millions in losses if things don’t pick up next year.
This is a problem about poor management, the Chico City Council made a number of expensive blunders and it has really hurt us. When city officials waste millions of dollars in a lawsuit because they broke a contract or they spent millions for land that is basically inaccessible for the public, it’s hard to ask the taxpayers for more millions until the council of bad managers is changed.
Libby, you might want to know the guy you just mocked is a professor at Chico State…he teaches business.
Sean, excuse me, but I’ve never seen you at a meeting, maybe I’ve missed you? I supported Bob Kromer and Bob Evans, and I’d likely vote for Herrera before you, because I saw them getting involved, trying to get more citizens involved. Schindelbeck will get my vote, whether I agree with him on everything or not, because he goes to the meetings and pays attention, and opens his mouth when he sees something that isn’t right. He’s also had some common sense ideas.
The city $1 million in the red? If you’ve been keeping track over the last 5 or 6 years, it’s more like $4 million. Hennessy’s reports have been pretty inconsistent the last few years, she says one thing when she’s giving herself a raise, and another thing later. That woman would be amazing with a set of walnut shells and a pea!
I’m sorry, a professor at Chico State? Just like Ann Schwab? Mary Flynn also works at Chico State, and Scott Gruendl. The school that is in debt, sending away students, raising tuition around every corner?
Sean, you’re running an armchair campaign. Little snipes and potshots from the comfort of somebody elses’ blog? The letter you wrote to the paper told me you have very little knowledge of the process Downtown. You don’t have an ice cube’s chance of getting elected, and if you did get elected, I’m afraid you’d allow yourself and the rest of us to be badly taken advantage of.
You need to come down from the ivory tower before you get my vote. It’s hardly anything to brag about, Jack!
I know about the $9+ million paid to the developer to recoup his out of pocket cost after the city council shut down his housing development project. But, what is this about them buying property that no one can get to. I’ll assume it is still located in Butte county at least. Please tell.
I beg to differ. I think the problem is that we ARE running the City like a business. We have professional, career city management, and I feel that is the problem. Like many corporate executives, they care more about their careers and retirement, than about the people of the city.
In the old days, cities were run by elected management. Elected officials are up for reelection, and knew that if they didn’t do a good job, they would be voted out. Studies have shown that cities which are run by elected officials are far better at fiscal management. Now management have secure contracts, and have no intensive to save money. Chico is an excellent example of incompetent city management.
I feel that we need to go back to elected city officials, starting with the Mayor, Police Chief and Fire Chief.
Juanita, I could not agree with you more. I would actually consider voting for someone who didn’t match me exactly in political ideology if I felt they were paying attention and seeking information and facts. Many decisions do not have to be politically partisan but because our politicians are uninformed they vote ideology. This is so true with our school board. What a bunch of fools. If you sit in the meetings it is embarrassing that they make long term decisions that destroy our schools. Right now they are going to spend millions of dollars to make part of Chapman a high school that we don’t even need. We have Parkview which is almost empty and three junior high schools when we only need two. But instead of locating the new charter high school at a place already built they want to spend millions of dollars building something new.
Juanita is totally right if people aren’t going to the meetings they are hosed because the ER does not report what is going on.
Jim I get your point about wanting city officials to be elected as a better way to go, however, your proposition that corporate heads only care about themselves and not the people is way off base and a poor comparison.
Corporate heads are not obligated to “care about” the people. They run the business to make money and to do that they must serve and satisfy customers and investors. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their investors and a compelling reason (making money) to satisfy customers. Profit is not a dirty word.
City managers, on the other hand, are obligated (a fiduciary responsibility) to manage the peoples money responsibly…it is not their money. They did not invest it and they did not earn it. They are not obligated to make money AND they are obligated not to waste money or overspend and create excessive debt.
The relationships are entirely different. The purpose for each is entirely different.
Tina you are confirming my point. The Chico City management is not responsibly managing the peoples money, they like most corporate executives are much better at taking care of themselves, than taking care of the taxpayers.
I believe that the solution is to get rid of the career managers in the City, starting with the City Manager, the Assistant City Manager, and so forth, and replace them with an elected Mayor. Give the Police and Fire Chief the same treatment. Make them directly answer to the taxpayers. If they don’t do their job, we vote them out.
All I did was get out the calculator, and I think my comment was addressed to the tax-snivellers of this state.
“It’s not quite that easy, if it was just a one shot thing we could pony up, but this million bucks comes on the heels of other millions lost, and we face yet more millions in losses if things don’t pick up next year.”
I’m gonna go all German on you now here … cause the semtiment expressed above, Jack, is snivelling. It doesn’t really matter how we got here. We’re here. Pay up.
And if the running of the city needs to be changed, you organize yourselves and get it changed. These blogs ought to be an excellent vehicle for that. Moaning about the past (that lawsuit paragraph, for instance) is not productive, and smells of partisanism.
Juanita, over on her blog, is sort of kind of trying. But she goes into no detail about proposed actions she finds appalling … just opinionates.
We gotta have details, facts, upon which to base an opinion/course of action. This is not something we get from the ER (which is why it is SUCH a crummy paper), but you retired guys could do it. PDF those proposals and put them up, then summarize and opinionate.
Libby, everything you said was reasonable and exactly the way we have been going about changing our city council. I mention those past blunders not to be sniveling, but to bring focus why….we are appalled at the state of our city coffers. We can and we shall do better, and changing the people sitting on the council is how we intend to do it. I belong to a group that has raised over a thousand dollars to help fun good candidates and we shall do even more as time goes on. You should be glad we are doing exactly as you have suggested. Pretty amazing,huh?
You’re right, Peggy.
There’s not enough money to fill pot holes but plenty of money for fat gummit pensions (just ask old Tom Lando) and plenty of money for non-sense like the STF bureaucracy her majesty Schwabette created.
And don’t forget that when the control freaks on the city council outlaw plastic grocery bags there will be costs to administer and enforce that.
And unless we raise you know what, these criminals on the city council are going to do everything they can to increase the amount we pay for our phone tax (they say they want to lower the rate but they will apply it to more services so we will pay more), make us pay a 1 cent sales tax on top of the state sales tax and they are going to put a new tax on alcohol.
Imagine next year at this time going to the grocery store to buy your weekly goods and thanks to these bullies you will have to pay extra tax to her majesty Schwabette and the retailer will be a criminal for giving you a bag.
When do we stand up to these bullies? If not now, when?
“…we are appalled at the state of our city coffers…”
Me too, but if the proposed tax increases go through that will only encourage more waste.
The other thing that I find appalling is the local chamber of commerce. Jack, are you a member?
If so you’ve got to do something so that Lando does not use the chamber as a tool in his quest to raise taxes!
Nice to see Juanita is again making friends and influencing people … as usual. Sean, you have been properly chastised.
“Chico … $1 million in the red? One?
Chico sports about 30,000 taxpayers, which busts out to about $33.00 a piece. Would you please, all, just cough it up.”
With the current crop of politicians and bureaucrats running things here that would be like buying a bottle of Thunderbird for an alcoholic.
But lemme understand your “reasoning.” The worse the politicians and bureaucrats screw up the MORE of our money they should take?
Oh, silly me. I forgot the answer to the city’s budget woes is ALWAYS higher taxes, always letting politicians take more, isn’t it Libs?
And it makes no never mind how incompetent or corrupt they are.
“With the current crop of politicians and bureaucrats running things here that would be like buying a bottle of Thunderbird for an alcoholic.”
That’s very poetic, but also pointless hyperbole. Collecting the $33 would pay off the debt. It’s up to you, down to the city council chambers every month, to see they don’t do anything else silly.
So? Get down there.
Collecting the $33 would pay off the debt
Instead they could cut back on pensions and other benefits and cut salaries of those in this incompetent government.
There are plenty of bloated paychecks and benefits that could be cut as well as useless programs and bureacracies like STF that should go.
I am tired of having to pay for other people’s screw ups. It’s time to stop punishing the taxpayers and rewarding the politicians with ever more money for their screw ups.
And it’s clear the council members who screw up don’t give a d@mn what people think. Try preventing them from making further costly mistakes and see how they react. They are going to do what they want.
Jim: “they like most corporate executives are much better at taking care of themselves, than taking care of the taxpayers.”
You are welcome to your bias about corpoirate heads and certainly some are greedy but no more so than people everywhere. The majority make a lot of money but ONLY becasue they have satisfied customers and investors.
Our council members are not satisfying citizen (as customer) OR citizen (as taxpayer/investor) and STILL they are rewarding themselves. A business would quickly go out of business using this model.
A corporate exec knows that in order to receive his reward he must perform so that everyone involved is satisfied.
Your plan sounds good. The whole concept of limited government is returning it to a place of responsiveness to the people (customers/investor).
Business must be responsive to it’s customers and investors or it will not survive.
Both government and business are subject to the failings of humans. The republic under which we live requires a moral, educated populace. I think these are the areas that need the most attention for both business and government.
Thank you for your contribution here…we need to talk about these things so that the truth about America and the truth about what works moves into the mainstream of thought and participation in America.
“Instead they could cut back on pensions and other benefits and cut salaries of those in this incompetent government.”
You know what this is? “Let somebody else pay it.” aka snivelling.
No. $33 a head, and you pay your share.
Joseph you are spot on about buying cheap wine for the wino’s as a cure. Taxpayers have been patient and cooperative only to be abuused and kicked in the teeth over and over again.
NO! We want changes and cuts before being asked (forced) to “cough up” more. When an unruly, brat of a kid is so demanding it is utter idiocy to reward him with a new bicycle, a movie, cookies and an all expenses opaid trip to Nevada!
We need to return to a society that rewards achievement rather than failure…that coughs up when our money has been well managed, not when it nhas been poorly managed.
Shut up and pay up is a stupid way to address any problem.
You know what this is? “Let somebody else pay it.” aka snivelling.
No. $33 a head, and you pay your share.
No $33 a head! And it sure is about letting someone else pay. LET THOSE RESPONSIBLE PAY!
Let’s cut Schwabbie’s benefits and salary and all those on the city council.
Let’s cut the pay and benefits of the bureaucrats.
THESE ARE THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE!
And while we’re at it let’s get rid of STF and other senseless bureaucracies!
If everytime these people screwed up they were bailed out by the taxpayer do you think they would ever change?
The victim is the taxpayer, and it’s time to stop punishing the victim and rewarding the criminal!
You’re absolutely right, Miss Tina.
At some point taxpayers have to say, “ENOUGH!”
If the taxpayers continually bail out incompetent and corrupt government officials nothing will ever change.
I guess Lando felt some heat because he has decided to not go through with his sales tax increase.
BUT he said he will try to push it through in the next election after 2012. He may even try to push through a special election before 2014.
The tax eaters will NEVER stop in their efforts to take away as much as they can from us.