Politics – Page 41 – Really Right

Democrat Future Bleak after Janus

The Supreme Court ruling that struck down unions from requiring non-members to pay dues as a condition of employment is bigger than most people realize. Folks, the Court threw a thermonuclear grenade into the status quo political arrangement.

I’m going to tie three different threads together as we discuss this issue. As the adage goes, “Follow the money.”

First, the amount of money collected in dues just in the State of California is staggeringly large. I knew that combined the California Teachers Association (CTA) and Service Employees Union International (SEIU) collected about $625 million during each two year election cycle but today I learned this is peanuts.

Based primarily on publicly disclosed 2016 form 990s along with information obtained from their individual websites, in aggregate, California’s major public sector unions are estimated to be collecting over $900 million per year.

Because there are undoubtedly smaller and less visible public sector unions operating in California, this number may be conservative. The number is also possibly understated because when making assumptions, conservative estimates were always applied. This was the done when estimating average membership dues in nearly all cases, and also with respect to total membership.

California’s Major Government Unions Collect At Least $900 Million Per Year

Yeah, you read that right, 900 million dollars a year is the conservative estimate. And as of now they get zero dollars unless they can convince people to join. Now multiply these numbers all across the other states and the Democrats just lost the gravy train. They and their financial backers have lost billions of dollars. Folks, they will not get all these people back on the union rolls; ever.

The implications for the political environment are huge. The most immediate result will be the congressional elections in November; especially the Senate. Democrats have to defend ten seats in states where Trump won. Without funding, their job just to keep these seats let alone gain anything has become all but impossible. Democrats will have to spend all their cash to keep from losing more seats in the Senate. Becoming the majority is almost mathematically impossible. Furthermore, once the elections are over, they and their special interests will be out of cash.

Against this background, take a look at the Supreme Court. The urgency of the smear campaign against the nominee now comes into sharper focus. It doesn’t matter who Trump put up, they have to oppose him. Again, it takes vast amounts of cash to run this campaign against Brett Kavanaugh. Again, this cash cannot be easily replaced.

Following the November election, Republicans will likely gain a few seats in the Senate.
Fox Business even agrees with me on this assertion. This from Stuart Varney:

Is it possible? A red wave coming, to the Senate? The Republicans pick up seats, increase their majority?

It’s possible, and because of Judge Kavanaugh, it’s probable!

Kavanaugh could make red wave probable in Senate come November: Varney

And this is where things get really interesting.

Justice Ginsburg is at the end of her time both on the Court and on this planet. She’s 85 and in poor health. If Democrats had any strategic thinkers on their team, they would have replaced Ginsburg while Obama was President. This would have assured a young Liberal on the court for the next 30 years or so. But they were so cocksure that Hillary Clinton would win that this never happened. This theme has been voiced twice in the last few days. First by Liz Peek on Fox and then by Rush Limbaugh.

Liz Peek: Democrats are furious about Trump and the Supreme Court – They have only Obama to blame

Limbaugh: Dems blundered by not having Ginsburg retire

If Republicans can pick up two or three seats in the Senate, Trump can appoint a full throated conservative to the Court that everyone knows will vote to overturn Roe v Wade and there will not be a damned thing that Susan Collins and her fellow pro-abortion Republicans can do about it. Look for a female Catholic to be nominated to replace Ginsburg.

Oh, this also explains the logic of putting up Brett Kavanaugh to replace Kennedy.

CRA Failed To Stop Trump Nominee

The call to action was apparently not answered; chalk this up as another failure from the CRA and its “leadership.” It is unknown at this time how many calls were made to the White House or to the congressional switchboard, but the effort was a failure none the less. Perhaps CRA President Thomas N Hudson is expecting too much from a membership composed mostly of geriatric white guys with arthritic fingers and rotary dial telephones. The bottom line is that Hudson put out an urgent call for action, but the membership failed to deliver.

Rumor has it the “Sith Lord” made many phone calls from both cell and landline phones, including his wife’s phone. As per usual, he was a good soldier in the effort. Perhaps he had his apprentice applicants make calls from the CRA call center since he is reluctant to put his actual name on anything except letters to the RNC opposing Douglas Ose. The “Drunken Jedi” was enjoying Happy Hour over the last 72 hours and as a result was in a normal state of inebriation, therefore no phone calls from him. The “Wookie” didn’t even know there was a vacancy on said Supreme Court because he thought the “Supreme Court” was a new item at Taco Bell in honor of the Sacramento Kings. Oh, by the way these are your three choices for President of CRA folks, just imagine the debates among these three; one is inept, one is clueless, and one is a psycho and I can’t figure out who is who!

CRA motivational flyer as seen at Stop Trump call center

Let’s just chalk this up as another embarrassing loss for the CRA and whatever is left of its membership. Membership is down substantially over the years, entire counties no longer have units, it’s just gawd awful what’s happened under the current board. This is exhibit A folks of what happens when you try to take stands against what the people actually want, and as a result, members have been fleeing this stumbling organization. Sadly, this group opposed Donald Trump every step of the way and honestly, most probably think there was collusion with Russia…nope. Blog Father and I have really right news for you….Trump will get re-elected in 2020. Here is my crying towel….womp womp!

That’s right folks, while most are celebrating a 5-4 conservative edge on the court, this band of losers wants Trump gone. Make no mistake about it, the nominee will easily clear 55 votes with at least four democrats voting to confirm. Yet still this band of losers can’t stand the man, thinking that one Theodore Cruz was unfairly denied the nomination. Maybe Trump wasn’t born here, and you guys can use that route to get him impeached? Never mind the fact if these idiots had their way it would be a 5-4 liberal edge on the court, thankfully the masses voted for Trump and it’s a moot point.

Serious analysis now; we can count on the “Sith Lord” to drum up opposition like he tried to against the nominee, despite remaining on the sidelines. Rumor has it his groin has been bothering him for straddling the political fence for almost 50 years. No word on the many dead carcasses of suicide bombers he has riled up over the years. The “Wookie” still thinks Barack Obama is our president and is in disbelief he would nominate 2 conservatives to the court. Much like the Sith Lord, he still thinks Ted Cruz is up for president in November. The “drunken Jedi” was asked for comment but his commentary was undecipherable due to the fact it was not certain which was higher his BAC of the percentage of votes Travis Allen got for Governor. He said something along the lines of he wasn’t sure that it was absolutely Absolut, I guess a reference to Vodka.

But here is a win for the CRA, a photo of Theodore Cruz, and in the words of Frankie Vallie and the 4 seasons….”Can’t take my eyes off of you!”

Until Next time,

“X”

Finally: A Ted I Can Believe In

Ted Hickman, a city councilman in Dixon, CA, has really irritated the Left and made them forget all about their hatred of Donald Trump…at least for a while. You see, on his blog, Ted declared July as SPAM… Straight Pride American Month!

Ted Hickman’s bold declaration

Now hundreds of millions of the rest of us can celebrate our month, peaking on July 4th
—Ted Hickman

Ted is even on the ballot this November so as you read this, you can marvel as I do at his perky sense of humor. Sadly the Left is not laughing but suffering an aneurism.

…I am proclaiming July as NOT LGBTQ-WTF aka… Straight pride month… You know… I hereby resolve that I proclaim the month of July to be celebrated as… I am proud to be a heterosexual, monogamous, married to the opposite sex, straight individual that knows what goes where and why. But I’m not going to try to shove this down you throat, so to speak, you can be one or not, that’s your choice.

(emphasis and colors in original post)

Ted’s exhibits as to why S.P.A.M. is necessary for our youth

Last Sunday ended LGBTQF-WTF month Yea! (*Don’t get me wrong I support the First Amendment, as much as the next person, and support the rights of grown men to wear skin tight short-shorts and go-go boots and don tinker bell wings with wand and prance down the streets of San Francisco) with tens of thousands of folks dancing and prancing all over American celebrating the fact they are different than most of the rest of us and showing their “pride” in being so.

Now before anyone gets their pantyhose in a knot, this is not really legally anti anything; instead it’s pro-family; and proud to be a straight American, and me expressing a private opinion… So there! If you remember last week I proclaimed the Month of July as SPAM …(Straight Pride American Month)…(as Vice Mayor don’t know if I can, but what the heck). Now hundreds of millions of the rest of us can celebrate our month, peaking on July 4th, as healthy, heterosexual, fairly monogamous, keep our kinky stuff to ourselves, Americans… We do it with our parades in every state and county in this country with families celebrating together. We honor our country and our veterans who have made all of this possible (including for the tinker bells) and we can do it with actual real pride, not some put on show just to help our inferior complex “show we are different” type of crap. We ARE different from them…We work, have families, (and babies we make) enjoy and love the company (and marriage) of the opposite sex and don’t flaunt our differences dressing up like faries and prancing by the thousands in a parade in nearby San Francisco to be televised all over the world… *And yes, before it becomes an issue, I do believe in faries; I’ve seen them in SF for myself. Let’s see if I can remember the Peter Pan story about believing in faries…oh yeal, so according to “Wikipedia” faries are powered “bypiezoelectric” crystals which can be energized by sound waves like made by clapping. So, right now if you don’t want any faries to expire, you can clap your hands. See, I do have a heart I just can’t type and clap at the same time… so I had to make a hard choice didn’t I?

URL: Ted Hickman blog

Ted’s response to taxpayer promotion of the rainbow lifestyle

Ted has stones to put this stuff up on the web. As a result, he has the Huffington Post, local and regional papers, television stations, and folks all over the Left upset that he dares to stand-up for the rest of us and mock the “rainbow people” for their moral nakedness.

So be thankful on this Independence Day (‘cause every country has a July fourth on their calendar but only America Celebrates our independence on this day). Thanks to veterans and people that sacrificed to make this country what it is, and still do. And mostly be thankful for regular guys like Donald J Trump and Ted Hickman that believe that America needs to be made great again. So, enjoy the fireworks on the web and in the sky tonight. Oh, and happy SPAM month. Enjoy it, we’ve earned it.

The CRA Killed Itself

As has been chronicled on this blog many times, I left the CRA a while ago. I watched it single handedly devolve into something that I no longer recognized. Barbara Alby (rest in peace) and her minions have destroyed any chance this group has of ever being viable again. I will lay all this out for you, but the CRA was at one time a growing organization that did have quite a bit of clout within the party and the endorsement was coveted, not an afterthought as it is now.

You see Alby and her minions introduced and elevated “scorched earth tactics.” If you’re not with us you’re against us. Alby went one step beyond others and put the whole thing in terms of a spiritual battle between the light and darkness.
Think Frank E. Peretti’s This Present Darkness.

Alby got into power and then pushed out all of her opponents. This initial purge resulted in the formation of the California Congress of Republicans (CCR). Keep in mind that many of these people did not differ much on policy. On the whole, it was purely due to the fact that they did not have allegiance to Alby and company. Over the years, other leaders came and went. The group tried to regain its footing many times but continued to bleed members.

In 2011, you had the infamous Celeste Greig vs Karen England smackdown. Again, the losing side being wiped out of CRA entirely, many with lifetime bans. During this struggle, the Park Brothers began to take over the group, coalescing power, and just like that, George Park Jr became the defacto leader. Think the Trojan Horse that appeared a gift but was really an unmitigated disaster. I say Park was the leader because John Briscoe was just a useless puppet very similar to Bill Cardoza. Once again it was jihad time against their own membership, people were again purged for the soul fact they were not ideologically pure enough.

Then a movement to oust the Parks happened and CRA once again cleansed itself of people who were not worthy. Well not really, the current President was best friends with said Park brothers. Naturally he shielded them from any criticism. Meanwhile, the rank and file were told Craig Alexander was preparing a large lawsuit to recoup damages. The legal action never happened and Craig hasn’t been seen in years. The Placer County Mafia sticks together and protects their own.

As for as the characters running for next CRA president? I have no real opinion, but if there was a “none of the above” I’d vote that way. Also, they have thinned their ranks so badly that no one wants to join the group either. In less than three decades, CRA has lost 99 percent of their membership going from 80,000 to 800. Last I checked, entire counties do not have any active units! Sad! However, that’s ok because the only members left all think the same on policy and ideologically.

I remember the good old days of having endorsement conventions and crossing swords with people only to go out for a bite to eat or a drink afterwards, but those days are long gone. The battles now go bone-deep with some friends being lost forever; causalities of a war for purity that no one can win. Some of these battles we fight internally are the equivalent of Jihad. Barbara Alby taught us well in the ways of scorched earth and Jihad.

I remember when getting picked for the endorsement convention used to mean something. All it means now is a meaningless meeting on a Saturday which in most cases involves considering the merits of the only Republican in the race. The endorsement is so worthless that the candidate (whoever he/she may be) doesn’t even bother to show up. Yet somehow the delegates in attendance turn the meeting into a 3 hour BS fest complete with people needing to get on their soap box; each in turn beating their chest and promising that the good old days of Ronald Reagan could be right around the corner. This is why some units don’t send anyone at all, because no one wants to go, yet the CRA leadership doesn’t see it that way. Now the group is filled with nothing but policy wonks and people that want to have fights about Roberts Rules or whether someone is really a Republican or if they are a plant. No current member of the Board knows how to fix this mess.

Then witness the endorsing of Ted Cruz. I was there when a motion was made to consider Donald Trump. You could hear the groans. Delegates were horrified that they should even be considering the one person who had a chance to be nominated by the Republican Party. Mind you that Trump had all but secured the nomination when CRA took this vote. CRA was ground zero of the NeverTrumpers. CRA endorsed Ted on the first ballot with over 80 percent of the vote, which is about how big Trump’s victory was when California voters had their say.

This year, the CRA couldn’t endorse John Cox, they instead chose Travis Allen. Allen finished fourth. 90 percent of Republicans voted for another candidate. CRA endorsed candidates are getting destroyed at the ballet box year after year. This illustrates how out of touch this group is. In many races, the Green Party guys get more votes than CRA’s candidate. This is why no one wants to join. You have kicked out every sensible, fair-minded person. Occasionally CRA will pick-up a single-issue voter that wants to kill Common Core, repeal the Federal Reserve, call a Constitutional Convention, or enact the State of Jefferson.

How would I fix CRA? Close the door and shut off the lights.

In all seriousness, here are my suggestions but don’t expect them to be listened to or considered.
• I would rename the group and adopt a new logo; the current name and logo are very stale and could use a refresh.
• Stop kicking out members because you don’t believe identically on every issue. Purging 99 percent of the membership is proof you need work in this area.
• Stop having board meetings in seclusion and making people drive all over the State to attend. Conduct business over a conference call or Skype. Open them to the public and add some transparency.
• Keep the meetings, including the regular meetings short and to the point. No more two-hour, long-winded sessions. You are running off members. No one cares to hear about your car ride to the board meeting. Tell us what happened in a short synopsis.
• Restructure the entire board and put the power down at the grassroots level. Allow new units without red tape. Reward recruitment and grant breaks on dues owed the parent organization.
• Have a strategic plan and stick to it. Stop being wishy washy.
• Move your endorsement calendar up so as to avoid embarrassment.
• Remove rogue, alcoholic board members. This should go without saying, but actually do it.
• Don’t give us rhetoric but no action to match it.
• Do a deep dive on units who have had the same president for over a decade, there is something inherently wrong there.

Respectfully submitted in a spirit of charity,

“X”

Editor Note: Below is list of splinter groups formed as result of being purged from CRA.

California Congress of Republicans founded 1989

Conservative Republicans of California founded 2011

Impact Republicans founded 2015

CRA Scorecard for June 2018: Epic Failure

As you might recall (no pun intended), the week prior to the June election Secretary of State Alex Padilla reported that:

Republicans are now just a quarter of registered voters in California, with both Democrats and independents outnumbering the party that once dominated politics in the Golden State.

The percentage of voters registered as Republicans has been falling steadily over the past two decades, from 38.5 percent in 1998 to 25.1 percent in the latest figures.

Republican Party Drops to 3rd Place in Latest California Registration Numbers

I decided to take a look at the CRA endorsement list for the June election and see how they did. It doesn’t seem fair that MR. X seems to frequently whack this organization and I don’t. I looked at the statewide races of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and US Senate. (These are in the order used by the Secretary of State website and not the CRA endorsement list.)

Of these nine offices, CRA failed to endorse in the following races: Controller, Insurance Commissioner, and, Superintendent of Public Instruction. Thus CRA ceded one third of the races. Of these three, the Controller race has a registered Republican that made it to November with no help from CRA; recovering Republican Steve Poizner came in first for Insurance Commissioner; and Superintendent of Public Instruction did not indicate party on the ballot so I don’t know who they were. The implications of this inaction is that we must conclude that CRA doesn’t care about California.

Look at what each of these offices do.

Controller
First, Betty Yee is arguably the worst incumbent on the ballot. Yes, even worse that Garvin Newsom. Her track record is terrible and in my opinion, she is the worst Controller that California has seen in decades.

The backbone of California’s financial records system is a UNIX based program called CalSTARS that was implemented last time Jerry Brown was Governor back in 1983. Yeah, this is the program that caused the Y2K crisis in California. Millions were spent to pay retired state employees to return to work to patch this P.O.S. so it could handle four digit years.

For many documents that her office processes, SCO has a backlog to 2015.

Under her leadership—or lack thereof—the Controller’s Office is slower and less efficient in a state that thinks it is the technology leader of the world. Can you say Irony? Oh, her Agency still uses tractor-feed paper and dot-matrix printers to give documents to various departments because they aren’t available in digital formats.

I could go on but the thing that should really frost not only CRA but all Californians is that Betty Yee and Fiona Ma—the Treasurer candidate—are personally responsible for the disinformation campaign that dismantled the Board of Equalization last year. Since CRA’s current President, Tom Hudson, worked for BOE, I would think it a slam-dunk that CRA had a candidate they could support to “take-out” Yee but no dice. Like everything else under Hudson’s leadership, all you get from CRA is crickets.

You would think that Hudson, Sue Blake, George Runner and the other so-call Republican stalwarts would stand-up for themselves and their livelihoods even if they won’t stand-up for the taxpayers that they claim to represent at BOE. Democrats threw the token black guy (one of their own) under the bus and all you got was crickets.

Insurance Commissioner
CRA claims they hate Obamacare. We all know that Obamacare was a stopgap solution on the socialist road to single payer healthcare. So did CRA run or endorse anybody that is running for Insurance Commissioner? Heck No! Once again, their rhetoric and their actions don’t agree.

CRA has had many opportunities to change their endorsement process to conform to the “Jungle Primary” system that we have in California. They have refused to face the reality that not every race will have a Republican in it. At my last CRA convention (you know the one where they overwhelmingly endorsed Lyin’ Ted), I brought the issue before the convention and they killed it at the earliest opportunity.

In his Republican days, Poizner was a CRA endorsed candidate but in a race with no Republican, CRA didn’t have the guts to go with him when he clearly is the best guy on the ballot.

Superintendent of Public Instruction
At my last CRA Convention, much energy was spent bashing Common Core but again CRA has no dog in the hunt for this job; somehow I don’t think it’s because they figured-out that in California, Common Core is here to stay.

Secretary of State and Attorney General
CRA did actually hit two winners in the statewide offices. For Secretary of State, Mark P. Meuser, came in second. For Attorney General, Steven C Bailey also came in second. If the June results are any indicator, both Republicans will face the slaughter in November.

Sadly, this brings us to the third act of the CRA train wreck. CRA had four big misses in the endorsement department. Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer, and US Senate.

Before I get into the details, I know some will try to nitpick what I’m about to say so in the interest of full disclosure, the numbers used below are from the Secretary of State’s website on June 12, 2018.

Governor
At Convention, CRA spent much time debating the pool of potential candidates and threw their weight behind Travis Allen. Meanwhile, their arch enemy, Donald J Trump, threw his support to John Cox. From the votes tallied thus far, Cox received 25.8 percent of the votes cast while CRA’s all-star candidate received 9.55 percent. Trump’s guy got about three times the number of votes. Oh, Allen came in fourth place in the race while Trump’s guy will be on the ballot in November. Since the jungle primary was implemented, this is the first time a Republican gubernatorial candidate has made it to November. For that we have Donald Trump to thank not CRA.

Lieutenant Governor
CRA fared even worse in their choice for governor in waiting. Their choice was David Hernandez. Hernandez received 6.1 percent of the vote. Out of four republicans on the ballot, CRA’s anointed came in fourth. My prolife Facebook friends said to go with Cole Harris who ended up being the top Republican vote getter. Sadly, Harris was beat by two Dems so he won’t be going to November. Oh, CRA’s guy came in seventh place.

Treasurer
CRA had a chance to go after Fiona Ma with their choice of a Treasurer candidate. They picked Jack Guerrero. Jack apparently didn’t know jack and came in third place. He was bested by Ma and Republican Greg Conlon.

US Senate
From a Conservative Republican point of view, if any candidate on the ballot embodies the opposite of what is good, right, and Constitutional it is Dianne Feinstein. Surely CRA had a guy to go after the ancient Senator from San Francisco. Charged with this task at their Spring Convention was the noble Tom Palzer. In a field of 32 candidates, surely the CRA endorsement would be decisive in propelling a solid Republican to the head of the pack. 11 of the candidates were Republicans. Among Republicans, Palzer placed a solid fifth place thanks to CRA. Sadly, he came in seventh place overall with 3.09 percent of the statewide total.

Conclusion
CRA is a lost and irrelevant organization. In my mind, their “jump the shark moment” was the endorsement of Ted Cruz. Their vote of over eighty percent endorsing Ted Cruz on the first ballot proves that they are out of touch with rank-and-file Republicans. They are bleeding membership and still have many paper clubs in their midst. Tom Hudson was supposed to be a caretaker President to heal the organization and provide stability and integrity. Instead, he is the undertaker President leading the group into the wilderness to atrophy and die. They should either pull the plug on the organization or hand it over to Johnnie Morgan and his group in LA. Either way, the current leadership needs to walk away now.

CRA—a dumpster fire waiting to be extinguished

California Republicans Continue to Fail

The Republican Party in California is dying a very slowly painful death by 10,000 cuts and they have no one to blame but themselves. The CRA is the main culprit in this…..remember they are the conscious of the party! Think about it, the CRA didn’t even offer token opposition years ago when the State Party was going to change their platform on same sex marriage. Actually I remember seeing some CRA members, and some in leadership actively campaigning to support the platform change. So much for being the conscious of the party, just like the national party under Bush, you decided to play nice and it cost you at the ballot box.

Same thing is happening in Southern California, the groups down there were so incensed by Janet Nguyen, Ling Ling Chang and Young Kim winning Assembly and Senate seats that they made sure that two of them did not get re-elected later. Yes, you read that correctly, because of a couple bad votes, the CRA wouldn’t endorse Janet Nguyen or Ling Ling Chang and as a result, we lost the ability to stop tax increases and gave the other side a super majority. And raise taxes they did, the newly elected Senator Josh Newman voted along with several Republican colleagues to raise the gas tax to fund “transportation projects” also known as the Bullet Train. Once again the CRA took no stand against any of the seven Republicans who voted for it, likely they endorsed their re-election as well. Because hey, we need to play nice and it’s only a few dollars extra added to fill your tank up with gas. This is another reason the party is failing, they usually campaign and win on the issue of taxes, but if you support higher taxes and a majority of your rank-and-file go for it, is there really any difference between the parties?

California Republican Assembly sinking to the depths of oblivion

Now about the recall election of Josh Newman that took place last week. Please don’t gloat too much CRA rank-and-file because your organization did nothing to lead this battle. Mostly because Ling Ling Chang, there’s that name again, got elected to replace him. The effort was led by Carl Demaio and a host of southern California radio hosts who had finally had enough of the steaming pile of B.S. being pushed by your organization. The recall passed with 59%, you were once again on the wrong side of a result, maybe Ling Ling endorsed Trump? I would love to hear the spin doctor try to spin this one, lol.

While you are at it, maybe have your fellow elected and endorsed Republicans explain this comment by Newman;

“It saddens me, colleagues, Republican colleagues, that despite all your nice…words, not a single one of you had the integrity, the decency or the courage to stand up and say…‘this is wrong. This is an abuse of the recall process.” URL: Recalled Democratic senator condemns GOP in defiant speech

Think about that and let it set in for a moment. This now recalled Senator is basically saying to the opposition party, you guys supported me behind the scene, how come your didn’t come out publicly? Where are the conservatives in the party? Where is the CRA? Like usual, nowhere to be found. Maybe that’s why registered Republicans are now the 3rd political preference after Democrat and Decline to State?

Lastly, maybe you should take a long hard look in the mirror regarding your so called “conservative credentials”; especially, seeing that your group almost always winds up endorsing the most liberal candidate under the guise of “only they can win the seat.”

Until next time,

When CALPERS Owns Your City

First some history. CALPERS (California Public Employees Retirement System) is for civil service (Union) employees at state, county and local levels; excluding teachers as they have a separate pension provider. California also has one of the most generous pension formulas in the entire country, even with the recent changes enacted by Supreme Ayatollah Jerry Brown. (Note that the State’s pension reforms are not retroactive but only affect new hires.)

In California we have a defined benefit plan, meaning we use a calculation that comes up with an amount of money that the retiree will get monthly for the rest of their life.

Defined Contribution
In the “real world”, you might have four percent of your wages set aside in a 401K or other pension plan. Then your employer will kick in an additional amount, say two percent. Whatever you manage to squirrel away in your working years is yours to live off of in retirement. This is called defined contribution.

Defined Benefit
The amount taken from a state employee’s check has nothing to do with the amount they get in retirement. As long as a state retiree draws breath, he draws a pension.

Example. You start at 25 years old and work until 55 years old. 30 (years of service) times 2% equals 60%. You get 60% of your highest year base salary as your pension. If your highest base was 100K you now get 60K to do nothing. They usually have a cost of living increase every year as well.

URL: What does 2% @ 55 Mean?

Here is an actual table from CalPers showing how it works:
URL: CalPERS Tier 1

If you have completed 20 years of state service then government also pays your medical insurance.

FYI: State workers can also collect Social Security but in most cases teachers cannot.

Thus if you make $6K monthly, have worked for 20 years, and retire at age 55, you get $2,400 for the rest of you days. If you live to 90, that’s $1,008,000 plus medical and Social Security!

It is not uncommon for many civil servants to retire at between ages 50-55 because “they make more money retired than still working” because retirement checks can be more than net pay while working. Couple that with life expectancy which until recently is getting longer and longer and it’s no wonder that some workers are collecting pension checks for longer than their number of years worked. The system was not designed to work this way. Worse yet, the generation currently entering retirement years—the generation age 50 and up—are doing everything in their power to destroy future generations long after they die. I will outline this below.

Games People Play
Gaming the overtime system, is a big part of the pension issue. This abuse is most prevalent with prison guards and public safety workers. Between having a colleague call-in sick or not being at work because they are enjoying the generous vacation policy while feeding at the government trough, those that wish, have abundant opportunities to work overtime shifts. Some more egregious examples in recent media reports include a BART janitor sleeping in a closet while claiming he works 20 hour shifts and CalFire firefighters that claim to work several days straight when in reality they were drinking and partying it up while on duty! No one seems to miss a chance to game the system.

Oh by the way, when a union renegotiates its contract with the state, or any other municipality, it frequently includes retroactive pay and bonuses for its members.

Other cases include: applying for the same job in a more expensive area (think the bay area or coast) to get a major salary boost for the sole purpose of juicing your pension by an extra $400 or so a month! This is known as pension spiking.

My personal favorite, promoting a colleague who intends to retire in a couple years, but due to his accrual of 999 days of sick leave he continues “working” by calling out sick for 3 years. Nice gig if you can get it. This cheating is very widespread, it’s going on everywhere. There are quite a few more stories but it sounds like there is more juicing going on in the public worker sector than in all of Major League Baseball during the 2000’s.

Pension Crisis in a Nutshell
This gets me to the meat and potatoes of this blog. If your city, municipality, county, transportation agency, etc. belongs to CALPERS then they have to pay a set amount of money annually into the pension fund to cover the costs of their retirees. For most of these municipalities, those costs are somewhat manageable right now, accounting for roughly 10% of their annual budgets. Again, I said somewhat because in 2023 it will balloon to 18% of their total budgets with the increases CALPERS is charging them to participate.

This will become an even bigger issue at some point. Right now we are in a period of economic growth—even though wages aren’t growing—but what happens when we have a major recessionary event? One that lasts several years, like during the Bush/Obama years? My main cause for sounding the alarm now is that cities are already claiming to be strapped for funding to do even basic things like road work. Have you seen a government entity’s pay scale? Guess what? It’s nothing like the private sector; every single year you get an increase, with its steps and columns. In addition to great salary, and benefits, when was the last time the government actually laid off any workers? (Hearing crickets) In the private sector as has been detailed here and elsewhere, when your company has a bad quarter, a percentage of the workforce is terminated.

Again, we have current and future pension funding issues and the number of government workers and retirees continues to grow not shrink. Just think about it. When President Obama or Governor Brown talked about creating jobs, it was the government sector that they were growing most.

Is There Hope
Now how to combat this issue? Well honestly there is no attainable answer. The problem is the unions along with local and state politicians control everything about this. As we have chronicled before, government doesn’t even show future pension obligations on their financial statements. They only care about the current fiscal year. This is GAAP accounting for government entities. Want to change the contribution amounts for state workers? Meet the same fate Gov. Arnold did, when his special election propositions went down in flames. (This election is what caused Arnold to reject any pretense of Republican values.) Try to raise the contribution by the worker by just half a percent, the union and the workers will literally scream bloody murder. If you are a Democrat politician and you try to change the rules for retiree pension plans, may God have mercy on your soul (if you are a believer) because you will most certainly be on the receiving end of several million dollars in attack ads aiding your opponent next election.

Since nothing gets done at the elected level, cities and interest groups choose to push through initiatives for sales tax increases. These increases are packaged and pushed as “we need to hire more police” or “The District Attorney won’t prosecute low level crimes without this tax hike.” This is baloney, because the government doesn’t follow through at all. They use a straw man argument to play to your emotions to get you to agree to a tax hike that funds legacy pension costs. My understanding from the Blog Father is Sacramento County tried to do this with Measure B, the sales tax to fix and repair roads, it BARELY failed at the ballot box. CRA didn’t take a stand on this by the way. (Note: CRA contacted me via the Sith Lord and said they took offense at this remark by Mr. X and did vote to oppose Measure M. I know that CRA never submitted a ballot argument against Measure M but I did.—editor)

My point is they play to your emotion by using fear, the phone may not be answered at 911 because there won’t be any police on the streets, or your house will burn down because the firefighters won’t be able to make it to your house in time. Even trying to chip away at these pension benefits comes with a steep price. John Chiang has been one of the most vocal in California about this, and he is barely registering a blip in the polls for governor. The big question is, what happens when these sales tax increases don’t pass?

Last month, the Legislature actually had several chances to take a crack at mending the pension system. The two hero legislators were John Moorloch from southern California, a Republican, and Steve Glazer from the Bay Area, a Democrat who used to work for Brown, put forth 3 different bills. None got a hearing with the state senate committee charged with overseeing public retirement plans. Glazer wanted a switch from the defined benefit plans to 401k plans to attract a younger work force that maybe doesn’t want to be in civil servant for life. Moorloch wanted to slow down cost of living adjustments until CALPERS gets more solvent. Basically saying the next recession could bankrupt it. The chair of that committee said it best, I want more people on defined benefit plans than 401k plans. Take note, the private sector has very, very, few pension plans left.

In reality, taxes, fees, and fines (like traffic tickets) will be raised and be more plentiful due to cities needing to collect more revenue to balance budgets. This is why your red light (Cooper Cam) violation cost $600. It’s not because they want you to feel financial pain but they need to balance the budget. Sales taxes can help somewhat, but tickets help the most. We will see if Prop 13 survives this CALPERS assault on city budgets as well, I bet it won’t—especially after November.

Don’t forget that should California finally go bankrupt, the Legislature has put the union pensions first in line. As it stands now, by law, retirees will be paid in full before anyone currently working for government gets a dime of state money. I wish someone would take this pension issue to court before we get to the breaking point, as it will likely take 2 federal judges and the Supreme Court to rule this unconstitutional. But in the meantime the public pension racket in California is the union’s golden goose and is untouchable.

Hope I made you think a little,

California’s Ideological Version of the Zombie Apocalypse

Given: The following logical propositions are true:

• Actions have consequences.

• Ideas have consequences.

• Elections have consequences.

Therefore, as we approach the anointing of Gavin Newsom as the next governor of California, I promise that you will see the attacks upon thought and personal beliefs accelerate in ways never seen before in the history of our nation.

Two harbingers of this have already been seen in the legislature—and be warned—they are just the beginning.

California Senate Bill 1146 (2016)

This threatens religious institutions ability to require that students attend daily or weekly chapel services, keep bathrooms and dormitories distinct according to sex, require students to complete theology classes, teach religious ideas in regular coursework, hold corporate prayer at events such as graduation, and so on. In other words, it threatens every practice that makes religious institutions distinct from secular institutions.

“The bill effectively eliminates the religious exemption under current law that allows Christian colleges and universities to operate in accordance with their beliefs, including the freedom to hire only Christian faculty and staff. If passed without amendments, the new law would also very likely disqualify students attending California Christian colleges and universities from eligibility for Cal Grants, a key state-level student aid program.”

California Bill Would Ultimately Erase Religious Schools

Religious leaders and colleges in California claimed victory this week after deflecting a proposed California bill that would have jeopardized state funding for students at religious schools that did not conform to state policy on gay rights.

At stake were hundreds of thousands of dollars in state tuition subsidies for tens of thousands of low-income students attending private religious schools. These subsidies come in the form of Cal Grants that provide substantial subsidies for poor students at private and public colleges.

The bill would have required any school whose students receive Cal Grants to comply with state nondiscrimination law and provide housing for same-sex married couples on an equal basis with heterosexual couples and to provide bathroom access to transgender students based on their chosen gender identity.

As amended, the bill would now be limited to two types of disclosure. First, colleges would have to publicize if they have requested a religious Title IX exemption from the federal government. Second, they would have to report to the state if a student is expelled for morality code violations.

This disclosure-only shift was hailed as a victory by religious schools and their advocates, but the victory may be a fleeting one.

Kristen Soares, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, which opposed the bill in its earlier form, said she expects the bill’s author to be back next year.

“This gives us more time to work on this issue,” Soares said. But, she says, she is under no illusion that this compromise is anything more than a pause .

California legislature balks at pulling grants from religious schools over LGBT issues

Assembly Bill 2943 (2018)

A new bill passed by the California Assembly on Thursday would classify the selling or advertising of gay conversation therapy as a fraudulent business practice.

Assemblyman Evan Low (D) said the practice of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation is ineffective…

California bill would classify gay conversion therapy as a fraudulent practice

A supporter of the concept of the bill, Conor Friedersdorf, wrote in the Los Angeles times, “…to settle what the law really is saying will require a decade of court battles .”

Conversion therapy for gays is awful, but so is California’s bill to ban it

Both the above pieces of legislation (and others I could cite) would be passed under Newsom. Governor Brown may or may not sign the one on Conversion Therapy. The thing you must remember is that all such legislation is just the next step to something else not the end in itself.

Folks, if you are a traditional, orthodox Christian whether you call yourself Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, the State of California has placed you in their crosshairs for the purposes of extinction. You will conform or be persecuted. Sticking to your beliefs and teaching them to your children will have a cost.

The logical next step after private colleges are denied access to the Cal Grant program will be this: if you graduate from an institution that is not eligible for Cal Grants then you will be denied employment in any level of government. This may happen via the backdoor and the State may word the denial in terms of accreditation of institutions or some other weasel words. Perhaps they will require an affirmation of your support for homosexuality or abortion or whatever social issues they wish to attach. It will effectively be a Test Oath to swear allegiance to the power and wisdom of the State.

Truthfully, I’m surprised that current State employees don’t have to do this in some form already. I guess the assumption is that we really believe all the B.S. that they tell us or it just never occurred to them that many of us dissent from the wisdom of the rainbow people in government.

For example, State employees are subjected to sexual harassment training on an annual basis. Employees are required to sign-in at the training but currently no document is required with a signature saying that we agree, support, or affirm all the stuff the legislature says we need to do or believe. If you tune-out about 90 seconds of the one hour presentation then you likely just skipped the token rainbow pug for the year. I foresee the day coming when sitting in the room will not be enough, we will have to sign a pledge to tow the Party Line.

Most folks don’t understand that those elected to the Legislature are not bound by their consciences or oath to support and defend the Constitution; instead, their attitude is if you don’t like what we do then take the issue to court. Otherwise, shut-up and hold on.

The tyranny of the majority is here and they’re coming for you. The ideological version of the zombie apocalypse has begun and it’s an inside job.

The State of Our “gig” Economy

Hi, how is the local economy doing near you? I recently toured some areas in California with the Blog Father and was stunned at what I saw. I saw shopping malls and strip malls opening all over the Sacramento area; however, these are all low paying, barely minimum wage jobs, few of which offer any benefits!

I am old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan, whose modern-day heir is alleged by all you CRA and Tea Party folks to be Theodore Cruz, felt if the economy isn’t adding close 500k jobs a month we were going backwards, not growing! I find it ironic that the US population is 35 percent more than 1980 and adding half that number of jobs is regarded as a thriving economy. No wonder so many college graduates are living with their parents while they pay off their crushing student loan debt.

In the Reagan era, most jobs were decent paying private sector jobs; think factories, office buildings, etc. Now the jobs we are “gaining” are low skilled, low paying jobs, and oh by the way, the job numbers now also include a growing number government jobs, so I guess low wage and government sectors are growing nicely in this “service economy”; at least that is what I saw in sunny California. In the Blog Father’s town, several new government buildings have been added and several more are scheduled to be built. I guess if you owned the local Five Guys, BJ’s, Subway, etc. you are doing better but I argue the economy in general is doing poor and we are living in a mirage economy.

Look at how most corporations such as Intel, Apple, or even Comcast organization their employees. For example, I had Comcast install cable at my house; however, I noticed something funny when the technician showed up. The truck and their identification badges read: O. C. C. Communications, no Comcast logo anywhere. When I questioned this, not wanting to let strangers into my house, they said they were independent contractors used by Comcast for installs and service work. Since they were the only guys knocking on my door during the time the appointment was scheduled I let them in.

These guys do not work for Comcast; instead, they are contracted out and paid by the job, no benefits, or anything. Intel does the same thing, I bet in the Ivory Tower in Folsom, most of those “employees” are not affiliated with Intel at all, just vendors or contractors. The guy who delivered my FedEx package? He works for Package Delivery LLC, not FedEx. Want to take odds he is a contractor as well?

Now there are benefits to having a mostly contracted workforce do not get me wrong. Corporate labor costs become just another fixed expense because the details are somebody else’s problem. This makes product prices lower and outsources compliance to government’s myriad of labor regulations.

Such a workforce could/should be more motivated. Labor suppliers are motivated to perform because they know that their contract could end and they all may be terminated after a set date based on performance. Such an arrangement gives the parent company limited liability exposure if the labor force does poor workmanship.

But now the downside. In such an arrangement, you have no bargaining power, and no rights. If your “contracted employer” wants you gone…adios. You get no healthcare and pay no taxes so you’re on your own to settle up with Uncle Sam at Tax time. You are 100% at the mercy of your contracted company. If the contract goes out for bid and your company doesn’t bid the lowest, you’re out of a job. You are essentially a Labor Ready employee, knowing full well you are 100% disposable and completely at the mercy of your employer.

In our economy, there exists a tier below even this level. This is the “gig economy”.

In a gig economy, temporary, flexible jobs are commonplace and companies tend toward hiring independent contractors and freelancers instead of full-time employees. A gig economy undermines the traditional economy of full-time workers…

Definition: Gig Economy

Examples of the gig economy are companies like Airbnb, Uber and Lyft. Again you are an independent contractor but you are able to work in your spare time, as much or as little as you want.

Here is the problem with this system….government regulation. Well that fear is coming true in California, as the State Supreme Court ruled those workers need to be classified as employees not contractors. Yes folks that Uber ride you take to the airport, used to be $15, likely will be $25 soon.

This is the way it works folks, if you’re no longer a contracted worker then your employer is not going to allow you to wait around in your house for your Uber app to ding saying someone requested a ride. So you will be burning more gasoline driving around aimlessly. Oh what’s that, you want to work the late shift? Sorry we need you to work the morning shift! What’s that you don’t like it? You’re fired. Really the end game here is the State of California wants to allow these folks to unionize and pay more dues into the system to elect more socialists to give them “handouts.” This ruling actually hurts the people who depend on it the most, I’m talking in terms of Uber, Lyft etc. The gig economy allows younger people to work whenever they feel like it and earn a little extra money on the side, like to buy and smoke weed for example, or pay off your student loans, or something.

The gig economy has its place. It’s a nice supplemental income to support your minimum wage paycheck. Also it can be fun to have flexible hours. Lost in all this is the idea that the minimum wage was intended as a training and entry level wage, not something to continue earning for the rest of your adult life. It is not the minimum income to support a family and be a productive member of society.

This court ruling is being aimed at cracking down on big businesses trying to skate employment law, but it’s going to hurt the ones who depend on it most. I learned a lot about how millennial and Gen-X live these past few days. As much as I faulted them for being “live in your parent’s basement types”, boy was I wrong. How does one live on a paycheck of $1,750 gross a month? Especially when an apartment costs $1,100, and you have a car payment, insurance, cell phone, cable bill etc.? Along with $100k in student loan debt? Yeah I would drive for Lyft or Uber too. It’s too bad because the futures of these kids just got set back a decade, or forced them to become government slaves for life.

However if I may address the other side of this coin, the older workers on contract for a big company. This is a horrible way to live life, no benefits, being lied to, and living on a 90-day contract cycle. Some workers exist in a sort of limbo because the company they went to work for doesn’t want to pay medical or other benefits. Even worse, if the company doesn’t meet earnings expectations for its shareholders, your job could well be outsourced. This was the case for Conagra Brands (Chef Boyardee, Reddi-Whip, and Hunts) as they outsourced their entire sales team (over 1,000 jobs) to a Florida outsourcing company. The bottom line is, in today’s regulatory and Wall Street driven world economy, there are two sides to the coin. Heads I win, Tails you lose.

Until next time,

When Your City Has No Leadership and No Plan

By John Slamkowski

I want to take a moment to reflect on what has happened to my hometown of Elk Grove, CA. Several contributors to this blog live in Elk Grove. First some background. Our City was founded on July 1st, 2000, splitting off from being an unincorporated area in Sacramento County. The vote passed overwhelmingly; mostly because the folks pushing hardest made some convincing arguments.

The folks pushing cityhood argued that we (Elk Grove residents) were being overcharged and underserved by the County. The Elk Grove area is represented by one of five county supervisors and the other four could care less about our needs and concerns. Cityhood was advocated to allow residents to control their own destiny instead of being subject to the whims of folks that don’t live here. The cityhood plan was to contract certain services such as law enforcement and leave fire and parks to the Community Services District (CSD) which had been running them for many years while allowing the city council to manage other aspects of a small and fairly rural community.

It was hoped that cityhood would result in less expensive private trash service and a bus system that wasn’t Sacramento County backed Regional Transit (RT). On the surface the thoughts may have resonated well, RT most definitely was not perfect, and one would figure a private trash hauler would be cheaper than a county run one.

For a while things started off rosy. Trash bills went down as Waste Management took over garbage collection. The transition to a new bus service E-TRAN went like any other government takeover….horrific. E-TRAN was the first 100% hybrid bus fleet of its kind and in hot 100-degree Sacramento Valley weather, most of the buses either died or had the air conditioner go out frequently. Additionally, the buses had a very difficult time linking up with the RT buses to commute to downtown. I knew of one example of someone who was a lifeguard at James Rutter School. She would have to catch a bus that left at 6:30 AM just to be able to transfer to an RT bus and get to James Rutter by 11:30! The City also never understood one simple fact, mass transit is a drain on any budget; let alone when you decide to have a local bus as opposed to one administered Countywide. Additionally, no one is ever on those buses when I see them pass by!

A few years after cityhood passed, the carefully balanced cityhood agreement began to be dismantled by the city council. Two of the five council members who were active Sacramento County Sheriff deputies, were able to convince the council to establish its own police department. Before proceeding, I want to make one thing clear; no one writing for this blog is anti-police in any way, but this department is one of the worst run departments in the State of California.

First, when you form a new department, other departments around the area are more than happy to “pass the trash” from them on to you. (This term was used by a former lieutenant at EGPD by the way). Then we hired a police chief who resided full time in Renton, Washington, not Elk Grove. After telling you that, are you surprised our police department gets more complaints filed against it than any other city in Northern California?

The kicker came last year when a former trainee officer filed a discrimination lawsuit regarding his homosexuality against the city naming ¾ of the sergeant and lieutenants, as well as the outgoing chief and incoming chief of police, in addition to the internal affairs officers. Just as a side bar, not a single officer named in the lawsuit was placed on leave, terminated, or was ever investigated. It looks like a 7-figure settlement will be forthcoming. Hard to imagine if that is how they harass their own, what they must think of the average citizen who lives, works, or commutes through here daily.

58 percent of City of Elk Grove Budget is law enforcement
38,104,054/65,605,012=58.1 percent

City of Elk Grove 2017-18 Budget page 28

To make matters worse our City Council began appearing in the local and Northern California papers for all the wrong reasons. Some examples include a midnight vote guaranteeing health care benefits for life for the City Manager and City Attorney. Then one of our finest, Jim Cooper, who was on the council, also serving as a Sac County Sheriff Captain at the time, voted repeatedly on matters involving a contract between the City of Elk Grove and his own Sheriff department, leading to a grand jury investigation…ouch that had to bite. He will forever live in infamy with his Sheriff Deputy and councilmen pal Mike Leary—best known for being arrested after losing election for evicting his former girlfriend from their home and forging a document. Not to mention the City and our Parks, Recreation and Fire District, sued each other for several years regarding who should be in control of the City’s area parks. Like any other lawsuit, when two government entities sue each other, no side won or lost, lawyers got very wealthy, and the citizens got a Pepperidge Farm sausage to the backside.

During this period, city leaders began to see its residents as sources of revenue instead of the people that they were supposed to serve. Under the guise of helping law enforcement, the city installed “Cooper Cams ” at various intersection throughout the city to raise revenue to fund our ever-expending city payroll. The city doubled its utility tax, in part by calling it a tax cut in the ballot argument—which by the way was unopposed by the CRA and Tea Party folks living in our midst. The amount of taxes and fees just to break ground on a residential project rose to about $100,000 per home.

This was all happening during a time of unprecedented growth in this area. Population growth in Elk Grove was the highest in the United States for three years in a row. Most legislators in Sacramento resided in Elk Grove due to its quality of living and small-town feel.

Then the housing bubble popped, and Elk Grove found itself being hit extremely hard by its high concentration of subprime mortgages. This also saw the development of our “going to be better than Roseville Galleria Mall” stopped due to the mall developer’s parent company filing bankruptcy. The blighted area became a heavy topic of future city council elections allowing Steven Detrick and Steve Ly to get elected to the body. Suddenly the city that was known throughout the county as being a renegade town quickly became a part of the good ole boy network. By the way Detrick has more FPPC violations and grand jury investigations than most would have in several lifetimes.

Not long afterwards, voters decided to implement the election of a mayor every two years as opposed to rotating the job amongst the five council members every year. The original proponents of cityhood had purposely setup the rotating system amongst the five councilmen to allow for more sharing of power. No one person could have more sway with voters than another. Being mayor was just one among equals. The other purposeful distinction of cityhood was that candidates for council were elected by all the votes so that they were accountable to all not just represent their district to the exclusion of all else. It was a purposeful rejection of the model used by county supervisors in hopes that the council would act based on what is best for the city not just their little fiefdom.

It seems like since we got an elected Mayor that this city became Los Angeles on steroids. Suddenly strip malls start being built everywhere in central and western Elk Grove (Laguna). Worse yet, the buildings were erected but most never had a tenant, some even sit vacant to this day. It’s almost like the city just wanted property tax revenue as opposed to collecting tax just based on the land.

While that was going on, more disturbingly we began hiring top positions for our city from other cities throughout northern California, none of whom called Elk Grove home. Our City Manager Laura Gil? From ritzy El Dorado Hills. City Economic Director Randy Starbuck? Pittsburg, California. As mentioned earlier, the Police Chief continued to call Renton, Washington home.

When you hire people with no ties to your city, they tend to not have the best intentions. Take Randy Starbuck for example; he worked for this city from 2011-2014, a time where cities’ economies were reviving, and the result of his three years of hard work? 70 new jobs in Elk Grove, the majority being minimum wage jobs. Starbuck was known for the monthly “business trips” to Las Vegas to try to shake down businesses and convince them to come to Elk Grove. He also spent countless hours trying to lobby Major League Soccer to grant Elk Grove a team. Think about that for a couple moments, Las Vegas trips and a major league soccer team….in a town of 175k?

Editor’s note: If soccer is so great, how come nobody talks about the success of the taxpayer funded multimillion dollar facility in Stockton?

I attended the council meeting where Starbuck was grilled and had his fate sealed. I remember the meeting like it was yesterday, he was grinning ear-to-ear talking about how he had recruited Green Acres to open a store here in Elk Grove…..yeah….great success. The council let him have it, as did the actual residents of this town. Reality is, it wasn’t all Cluster***ks fault. The city manager and council share more than a majority of the blame. They allowed this man to run around unchecked and not held accountable. Also, Starbuck was not fired. Instead, he was put on paid leave for the remainder of his contract. Yes, folks we have a typical crony capitalist city out here now.

Despite efforts at economic development, the stores opening in Elk Grove aren’t much better either. We now have four Little Caesars Pizza stores, pretty much every chain restaurant known to man, a Smart and Final, Popeye’s, and a Grocery Store Outlet. Gone are stores such as Bel-Air, The Fresh Market, and Baguettes. Essentially the stores coming in match the clientele moving in, lower middle class and working poor families.

I doubt any legislative staff or legislator calls Elk Grove home anymore. They have all moved to Folsom, Roseville, or downtown. What do two of those cities have in common? They are fighting adding more Section 8 housing within their city limits. Again, I’m not being racist here, just stating the obvious. Look at the Franklin/west of Highway 99 area of Elk Grove; most of the government subsidized, low income housing was built there, and crime has skyrocketed. A friend of mine was hit by a hit and run driver in that area. Upon speaking to a police officer dispatched to take an accident report, he was told “hit and runs are an epidemic in this area now.” Crime being up and hit and runs are a direct result of police officers not chasing bad guys but instead focusing on writing tickets in an effort to close the budget gap in our town. Bringing me to my next point.

Remember how I talked about shopping centers popping up on each available square inch of land in the city? Government buildings are going to start popping up very soon as well. The city council is spending money they don’t have like a couple of drunken congressmen. In the hopper already is a new library (keep in mind we have two already run by the County), an convention center (the Falls Convention center was built less than two years ago and with private funds) an aquatic center (we have 2 water parks already—run by CSD—as well as two privately owned gyms with Olympic sized pools). Apparently, the city needs to have facilities that they can control, or it doesn’t count.

At the January 13, 2016 City Council meeting, staff presented a conceptual Civic Center Master Plan for the southern portion of the Civic Center site that would include an Aquatic Center and Commons, Senior Center/Community Center, Veterans Hall, Children’s museum, Library and botanical gardens/nature preserve. At the meeting, the City Council directed staff to proceed with the completion of the refined Civic Center Master Plan, including a Phase 1 of the project, which includes an Aquatic Center, Senior Center/Community Center and Veterans Hall. The site plan and facilities continue to be refined through design team efforts and public outreach.

These Phase 1 projects are estimated to cost approximately $61 million.

City Planning and Special Projects

By the way, our city council thinks we will get some of the summer Olympics events here if California bids for them. Yup, why would an Olympic swimmer want to swim in sunny southern California with Shamu and Mickey Mouse, when they can choose Elk Grove, that mass of houses in a bedroom community near Sacramento?

We are building a sports complex in sparsely populated east Elk Grove. I’m not upset because I live out there, I’m upset because if you live on the other side of Highway 99—which goes through the center of our town—you are closer to downtown Sacramento than to Grant Line Road.

Elk Grove city employees are seeking input on possible features and amenities at a proposed sports complex on property just south of the city.

City staff at a July 11 workshop will provide a presentation on the 100-acre parcel near the corner of Grant Line and Waterman roads in south Elk Grove.

City Manager Laura Gill said the cost to build all of the elements at the complex is estimated at around $110 million.

Elk Grove Citizen: Sports Complex

Also, rather than pay Sacramento County for animal shelter services at 500k per year, we are going to build our own dog pound for 12 million dollars plus salaries, benefits, and upkeep. Lastly, we will be getting a landfill at some point because…well we could get fees from other cities and municipalities to dump here!

Bid document for Animal Shelter and Community Center

Again, these will all be government administered buildings, which means more government jobs, pensions and benefits paid out later, paid for by bonds and taxpayer dollars right? Or will they be?

Remember that mall that was supposed to get built? Every 6 months we got an update from one or more of our council members saying we will be breaking ground soon. Our Mayor at the time, Gary Davis, said in the Fall of 2018 that the mall would be ready to be up and running.

“Outlet Mall. Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) continues its development and leasing efforts for The Outlet Collection at Elk Grove, which will involve the construction of approximately 775,000 square feet of commercial uses… certificates of occupancy must be issued for 400,000 square feet by November 2018…” City of Elk Grove 2017-18 Budget page 3

City of Elk Grove Budget 2017-18

Steve Detrick told me to my face that city staff were cold calling and already had half the leases spoken for at our state-of-the-art mall that would make every other city jealous.

During the mall talk, an Indian Tribe nobody ever heard of before started looking at Elk Grove to build a casino, yes one of those casinos. We were told again by the same two city councilmen and soon to be Mayor Steve Ly that a possible site could be at the mall, but the casino was just doing fact finding on available options.

Then overnight, the casino was announced. The casino developers promised that between the city and local school district over 132 million would be contributed over 20 years.

The Elk Grove City Council on Sept. 28 unanimously approved a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the Wilton Rancheria. The tribe is proposing a $400 million entertainment and gaming facility on a 35.9-acre site near Highway 99 and Kammerer Road.

If the casino opens for business, the tribe would pay nearly $132 million in recurring and nonrecurring payments to the city and community of Elk Grove during the first 20 years of the MOU.

Elk Grove Citizen: Council Approves Casino Agreement

“The total cumulative payment from the Tribe to the community over 20 years is approximately $132 million. This amount far exceeds that which the City would expect to receive from tax revenues associated with the portion of the mall site upon which the Casino would be built.”

City of Elk Grove 2017-18 Budget page 4

The only good to come of this was that the city’s effort for a local sales tax increase was put on hold for a few years. The casino was coming to Elk Grove in the place of the planned mall….let’s call this exhibit 666 from our three congenital liars on the council. This casino is being built because the city wants to expand and thinks it can legally extort its citizens to do so, via laundering the money through gambling agreements.

I have been harboring my feelings of frustration on the decline of our community for a long time but then the big boom, last straw or whatever you call it occurred when I went to my mailbox the other day and found a city-taxpayer funded glossy with an outline of Elk Grove, the purpose of which was to encourage citizens to spend money inside the lines, so it stays local to fund citywide initiatives. At that point I felt the need to vent on the mismanagement and hypocrisy that passes for local government from people claiming to represent me.

Shop Between the Lines Newsletter

The article makes a point to avoid the Target on the other side of Calvine Road, even though that Target wanted to locate in Elk Grove before being rebuffed. Ditto for both the Lowe’s and Costco. Add the Walmart on Florin Road to that list, Steve Detrick fought it and that propelled him to be a councilmember. Additionally, targeted, ironically are the CarMax and the new Delta Shores Mall by Green Haven. This is rich, both entities wanted to be in Elk Grove. CarMax was willing to make every concession possible, but they were told “NO”, so they built just on the outside of Elk Grove. Delta Shores, a nice brand new shiny mall, should have been here in Elk Grove but instead the council wanted a casino. Full disclosure we are getting a Costco soon, but this is what happens when you have no vision and no plan.