Council OKs across-the-board cuts

I would invite the council, before the budget cuts, to come out and ride in a patrol car for one straight week. I think they may take on a different perspective. However, in politics we all know it is easier to make decisions and give directions from the back seat. That is why they wont show up for a single shift.

And what a joke - they are spending $6 million more a year than they take in. They hold up a tree service employee like a shield - cut those $150,000 plus salaries, cut Dave Burklands $190,000/year salary.

Council should have followed Wahl and Schwab and refused Burkland's plan and told him to come up with something better or get out.

Get the fire and police unions to cut their pay and retirement bebefit packages. If not, don't even try to come to the tax payers for more money.

Bob, I would envite the entire police staff to come to my house and see how to live on $40K a year. I would also envite them to come to my place of business and see how to run a fiscaly responsible operation. The police and fire are huge cash cows that spend money on like drunken sailors. It is time for the asanine spending to stop.

So get this, a firefighter can take a week vacation, come back, work two days during the same week and claim overtime for both days. (Run that one by your boss and see what they say). To top it off they can take their overtime as comp time at time and a half so they get more vacation time. While they were gone someone was covering for them, making overtime which they also claim comp time at time and a half. So now one day of vacation for a firefighter (which I am in no way shape or form against) is costing the city 3 days worth of wages. The rediculous overtime policy has got to come to an end. It is this way for most fire agencies and many other state agencies. Not hard to see why our governments are going broke.

Across-the-board is still unfair. FD and PD have both been the beneficiaries of much greater investment over the years than other departments. Why should they get away with equivalent reductions? They should bear a greater burden than the other departments for tunneling out of the budget mess their bargaining units -- and a squandering council -- created.

According to agency leadership, we can *never* have enough cops or firefighters, and if zero loss is the mission, that may be true. But zero loss is never achievable, so we're going to have to see what we can get for what we can afford. Across the board.

Alan Chamberlain
axon@axonometrix.com

Maybe they should stop spending so much on crap art.

Don't cut cops 7.5, cut the fire department by 15. Much more fat in their budget. Too much OT. 168,000 dollars for a Fire Captain? They need to be back under control.

Speaking of good-ole chico fire, way to go on yesterdays control burn (now burnign again with fire engines rolling code 3 to respond). If a private citizen is stupid enough to let a control burn get out of control they are held liable and are forced to pay thousands in penalties...Now today I see you let your fire escape prompting an emergency response. Did some of you need some more overtime? How much is this going to cost us? Heads should role!

Awesome job by the council for passing a budget to benefit the citizens for a change!Police and fire can work through this reduction just fine.Their supporting departments would not have been able to perform a supporting role had the reductions not been equal.The police don't repair their own computers,radio's,vehicles,ect .All important tools to effectivly police.Same for the F.D.WE NEED MORE ON THE COUNCIL LIKE THOSE WHO VOTED FOR THIS BUDGET AND LESS OF WAHL AND SCHWAB.WE HAVE A CHANCE TO REMOVE THEM IN NOVEMBER AND SHOULD DO JUST THAT!

Have you heard about Vallejo?I wondered where it would stop and it is Chico.Thanks for holding the line on public safety before we too are bankrupted by this powerful lobby.The city manager is doing what needs to be done and the council too made a unpopular but correct decision.Never easy in politics but very brave.My hats off to you honorable public servants and keep up the good work!

You folks are jumping on the wrong bandwagon. Take a look at the following article: http://www.10news.com/news/16272793/detail.ht...
Poway spent $20K to find out that overtime actually does save money. Chico spent $30K on a survey that results in people not wanting to cut public safety. And instead of looking at Vallejo, why don't we look at Phoenix which cut non-public safety General Fund departments by 12.1 percent and the Police, Fire, Municipal Court, Law and City Prosecutor departments by 3 percent.
Don't be misdirected by propaganda that comes from the local media. Do your own research before jumping on the bandwagon. You may find the truth is not what you think it is.

At this time when folks are being let go from their jobs, health care insurance it is right and good to limit even the police and fire departments to 1% cost of living increase. We that are struggling with higher transportation cost, food and medicine living on what we've earned when we were employed now retired. Every day someone is raising their bill we just try to stay even don't become sick or have something go wrong with our automobile or house. We all need help, not just the city, schools.

I see we have the PR guy for the fire fighters union posting on here now (CFS)

Can_t Fix Stupid wrote:

You folks are jumping on the wrong bandwagon. Take a look at the following article: http://www.10news.com/news/16272793/detail.ht...
Poway spent $20K to find out that overtime actually does save money. Chico spent $30K on a survey that results in people not wanting to cut public safety. And instead of looking at Vallejo, why don't we look at Phoenix which cut non-public safety General Fund departments by 12.1 percent and the Police, Fire, Municipal Court, Law and City Prosecutor departments by 3 percent.
Don't be misdirected by propaganda that comes from the local media. Do your own research before jumping on the bandwagon. You may find the truth is not what you think it is.

We can't fix stupid but maybe we can educate some.Look at a map and you'll learn Phoenix is in Arizona!Vallejo is in california just like chico.This is important because of the state raids on local government funds.A different strategy is needed by local government located in california because of this ongoing revolving numbers game.Welcome to California!

This is a perspective coming from someone who lives near downtown. Me and my husband moved here after having our child due to high costs everywhere else, and now we are stuck in basically the ghetto of Chico. The police do nothing to help us around here. There are fire works, and gun shots, and car theft. In the past year i have heard 14 gun shots, seen a building go up in smoke from a lab exploding. Huge parties involving people driving around black out drunk.I have heard two huge explosions during the night, and to top this all off a guy got hit by the train not too long ago very close to where i live.

Only twice have i seen the fire department react to things on the street. One of them being my neighbor throwing sticks at a bee hive that was bigger then me because no one would respond when we pleaded them to take it down. As for the police. I have seen them patrol, but only once have i seen them break up a party. They didn't even catch any of the drunk drivers that stumbled to their cars and drove past them.

I have no sympathy for their cuts. They should try working harder for the community, and not allow places like Rancheria become an all out war zone every weekend.

Also i agree they really shouldn't spend money on art like that. There are many artists in Chico that will do things they want for a whole lot less. As a born and raised Chicoan i am ashamed of seeing the artwork that has been put up in my time, and very close to moving somewhere else to raise my family. This place i once called home is now a foreign place.

The City Council recently approved a five year contract for the Fire Employees that gives them a 5% raise per year for the next five years. Also in their contract is $250 per month to go twords their retirement healthcare. The $250 goes up to $350 a month next year. This represents a 35% raise over the next five years! They even got more vacation time! How dare they stand up and complain about having to cut 7% from their budget! They are the most over paid, under worked department in the City of Chico. They should be ashamed of themselves for saying that a 7% cut is to hard on them. They act like little children. It is time to revamp the Fire Department. When their are over 500 applicants for one position, it means that they are over paid!

I understand the city is facing difficult financial times. Next time they could save money and not conduct a survey asking what Chico citizens are concerned about. The number one answer in the survey was crime and the need for public safety. With these cuts it would appear the council did not listen to the voices of the citizens of Chico. Schwab said it best when she commented on the removal of the downtown officers and drug enforcement officer. Schwab did forget the gang officer, school resource officer and several patrol officers. Maybe we should give $10,000 more to the homeless shelter.

Kudo's to the city council and manager for successfully pitting the Public against Public Safety employees. Tsun Tsu could not have been more proud of their divide and conquer strategy. But I think we should all stop and consider how we got here:
#1: The Chico City council rushed to incorperate delapidated areas of Butte County into the city of Chico.
#2: The City Council agreed to allow Butte County to claim 55% of the marginal property tax revenues that these areas generate. FOREVER!
#3: The City Council approved the the contacts that all City of Chico bargining units work under. The final say was theirs. They agreed, including a huge new fire contract AFTER THEY FORCASTED A DEFICIT.
#4: The city council and chamber of commerce, in their effort to keep a stranglehold on wage potential in Chico, have managed to run many well paying companies out of Chico. After 30 years, Blue shield of CA is moving out of chico and taking dozens of well paying jobs with them. Ditto for Dan Gamel RV. And has anyone noticed that the staff at Uniprise (United Health) has shrunk to occupying half their building? But as long as there are tons of near minimum wage college students available to fill jobs for cheap, our chamber of commerce/local business owners can count on pocketing the difference.

So lets see here. Our Public safety employees are paid on par with others for similar sized cities in California. The problem is that our CITY COUNCIL has done a HORRIBLE job of managing the growth and creating jobs. So guess what, Chico has a lot of people, but a very low tax base. But the people still call 911! So Public safety employees are supposed to pay for the City Councils mismanagement? I suppose if they asked with respect the employees might consider it. But by reading the coments form Grundle and Nickel, I wouldnt be suprised if Public Safety employees tell them to stuff it. I know Police should. They are paid less than fire, however, they repeatedly have to hear Grundle and Nickel bad mouth them.

Fed up, guess what that more vacation time means? Another fire fighter on overtime covering for the fire fighter on vacation. Of course that fire fighter is likely to take his overtime as comp time, then take time off and give yet another fire fighter more overtime...it is a never-ending story of wasted money.