Councilmember John Capoccia Suggests His Claim In The Mountain Views News That "Measure UUT Is Not Raising Your Utility Tax" Might Not Be Entirely True

~ The Great Tax Fighter ~

I was included in an interesting exchange of emails yesterday between Councilmember John Capoccia and SierraMadreNews.net publisher Bill Coburn. Mr. Capoccia had forwarded the first part of his apparently 3 chapter screed on why Measure UUT is a good thing to both of us esteemed on-line publishers, and had requested that we run it on our respective news sites.

I don't know about Bill, but I had no idea that our city funded adjudicated and highly partisan weekly newspaper, "The Mountain Views News," was already running Capoccia's piece. Naturally when I later found out that was the case I was both a bit irked and very glad I didn't post it here. I should have been told, and it really does smack of a dirty trick.

As you might recall, John Capoccia ran for his City Council seat as a stalwart fiscal conservative who would bring the wild spending downtown under control. He was real big on that. And where he really stepped out and strutted his stuff was on the extension of the Utility User Tax. He was adamantly opposed to our having to pay the highest utility taxes in California, and in 2012 he rode that mighty wave all the way to political success and a City Council seat.

Sadly, once elected John Capoccia never met a rate, fee or tax increase he didn't want to vote for. He flipped way higher than Joe Mosca ever even dreamed of doing. And today he is pushing for Measure UUT like it is his own health benefits and retirement package that are at stake. Which, of course, is not the case.

Unlike the SMPOA and other municipal employee unions calling the shots on both this utility tax increase and at City Hall these days, the poor guy won't see a single thin dime of it.

The Great Tax Fighter's legacy will be, should he succeed, a city with eight more years of double digit utility taxes plus insanely high municipal employee health plan costs. Both of which lead the entire State of California.

Who could have imagined this would be the case when he was saying things like the following in March of 2012?

For the upcoming April 10 election, Sierra Madre voters will weigh in on two Ballot Measures.  Measure 12-1 will authorize an increase to the Utility Users Tax (UUT) from the current ten percent to twelve percent on July 1, 2013 and delay the sunset dates by four years.  Measure 12-2 is a companion “advisory” measure, which is intended to allow voters to advise the council to spend the increase in the UUT on public safety.

As a candidate for Sierra Madre City Council, I want voters to know where I stand - I recommend a NO vote on both measures. Now is NOT the time for voters to authorize the increase and extend the sunset.  Let me make one thing perfectly clear – Voting NO on Measure 12-1 WILL NOT reduce the current UUT revenue stream, and it WILL NOT jeopardize Public Safety in any way!

Why should anyone be surprised that another Sierra Madre pol wasn't telling us the truth about his real intentions? The list of such people is a long and sad one.

But I digress. Let's get to yesterday's e-mail exchange, because that is where the new information is. It really is quite revealing. With Bill Coburn on copy, this is the request for publication that we received from John Capoccia. And then a bit more. Here John actually tells a little truth. It is good to see he stills knows what that is.

The sentence from John Capoccia's editorial being referred to here reads: "Measure UUT is not raising your utility tax rate."

Capoccia: Bill and John, Attached is the first of a three part editorial in support of Measure UUT. Please post on your respective website/blog as you feel appropriate. Please call if you have questions. Thanks.

Crawford: Here is a question. The 2012 vote is currently the law, put into place by a 60% vote of the people. That calls for an 8% UUT in 2015. How can this not be a UUT increase as you state in your second sentence? Going to 10% is a 25% increase. This seems misleading, to be generous. 

Coburn: And here all this time, I thought the UUT in 2012 was defeated.

Crawford: Good point. That is why the UUT starts to sunset in 2015, which was the stated will of 60% of the voters in this town. Some do find that inconvenient. It also makes the 2nd sentence in Councilmember Capoccia's " editorial" untrue. 

Coburn: He does have a point, though, John.  How do you counter that, Mr. Capoccia?

Crawford: It is as if the people who voted as Mr Capoccia wanted them to in 2012 no longer count. 

Capoccia: Sure, your point is well taken and it's out there.  I don't have a problem with you calling it a tax increase. I've made my argument, no need to repeat myself. Let the voters decide.  Perhaps some will change their mind and vote differently this time.

Crawford: It is a tax increase. To say otherwise is to deny the validity of the 60% of the people who killed the UUT extension in 2012. In my opinion that is what Measure UUT is really about. Employee contracts, benefits and pensions. The poor old library is just the hostage. 

Capoccia: I do understand your point of view, and I'm sure a lot of voters agree with you.

Tomorrow we will be discussing the "UUT Fact Sheet" that the City of Sierra Madre illegally included in the water bills of a lot of people in town. This so-called "fact sheet" being little more than partisan political propaganda designed to get the people of this town to vote themselves a 25% utility tax increase in a few weeks. With a lot of the claims made there being untrue.

Mr. Capoccia and others might "understand your point of view," but in the mad rush to fund city employee pensions and out of this world costly health benefits they have shown that there is little they will not do. City Hall has now revealed itself as being rather ruthless. Especially when it comes to confiscating your money.

In my opinion the people responsible for the inclusion of this political document in the water bills of many people in town have now opened Sierra Madre up to both lawsuits and a potential investigation by the District Attorney.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Sierra Madre Has the Single Most Expensive Individual City Employee Health Insurance Plan In California

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(Mod: Transparent California.com is honing in on Sierra Madre like a coyote on a toy poodle. Researcher Robert Fellner has now discovered that the single most expensive city employee health plan in the State of California today is a product of our City Hall. With plenty of close seconds to go along with it. Couple this with the fact that Sierra Madre also has the highest utility tax rates in the entire state - link - and you should begin to see a pattern developing. The City of Sierra Madre recently gave away some of the most expensive benefit packages ever, and didn't think to tell you about it. And now they want you to vote yourself a 25% Utility User Tax increase to pay for it?)

State and local government spending on health insurance grew by twice the national rate for 2012 (link): One of the more alarming data points I have come across while compiling the necessary records for the Transparent California website (link) has been the large sums of money spent on health insurance for public employees. As our site groups together the cost of pension payouts and health insurance in order to present the information in a uniform and understandable manner, the cost of individual health plans was not something we were particularly focusing on.

However, in the course of formatting and uploading the necessary records to TransparentCalifornia.com, several agencies jumped out at me due to their alarmingly expensive health insurance plans. First, it was the $20k+ plans in Corte Madera, Calif. (link) and the Contra Costa Community College District. Then I saw the $30k+ plans in Beverly Hills (link).

Finally, I came across what remains the most expensive plan I have seen to date — a $37,815 health insurance plan for the Water Superintendent (link) of Sierra Madre, California.

I suspected this was not a problem isolated to the handful of agencies whose numbers happened to catch my attention but, rather, indicative of a systemic problem likely to be found in many other public agencies. This sets up a situation where taxpayers are effectively taxed twice for these plans — initially, to fund the public employee’s compensation itself and, again, when they find themselves paying an artificially inflated premium for their own health insurance.

Pew Research (link) confirms these suspicions. In 2012, state and local government spending on health care increased by 8 percent; double the amount total U.S. healthcare spending grew during that same time period. The larger trend is terrifying — state and local government spending on health insurance premiums has increased an inflation-adjusted 444% from 1987 to 2012. The agencies above are merely symptoms of a much larger problem.

The farther the distance between consumer and provider, the less reason either has to economize, which is a factor in the out-of-control prices we see nationwide in the health-care sector. When a government is willing to spend $37,815 of your money on one health plan, what financial incentive does an insurance company or anyone in the medical system have to work on lowering prices?

While there are a plethora of factors responsible for the current health-care crisis in this country, the third-party-payer system, especially when that third party is using other people’s money, like a government agency does, is one of the core issues that demands immediate attention.

(Mod: A few questions here. Why are we paying the highest employee health insurance packages in California? Didn't City Hall tell us they were cutting costs, including jobs and benefits? And why has this been kept hidden from us? It certainly doesn't bode well for the passage of Measure UUT in April's election.)

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

The Planning Commission Tells Adele Chang To Bury Her Houses, Says Nothing About Her Being In Them

Of course, it will take a really big shovel

For a while there it looked like we were watching an SMTV3 replay of a Planning Commission meeting from last summer. There was the bizarrely supercilious Adele Chang, along with starchy CETT attorney Dr. Sues (despite criticism from certain quarters we are going to insist on calling him that), just rattling on and on about how their immense cheese box McMansions are actually French Provincial Santa Barbara blah-de-blah and blah blah whatever. All while the gentlemen and lady of the PC, looking like they have just about endured all they are going to take from these fools, and certainly sick of being so ruthlessly patronized, seemingly about to explode. In other words, it really did seem just like a rerun.

But then a magic moment arrived. Upon being told by Dr. Sues that he "couldn't say that" about something, usually properly buttoned up Planning Commission member Manish Desai suddenly exploded and said, "I will say anything I want." And just like that the spell was broken. Adele Chang and Dr. Sues never recovered the control of that meeting they so badly needed to hustle their McBoxes. CETT hirelings, hear Sierra Madre roar.

After that the CETT SET was in complete retreat. Here is how the comments ran on this blog as Adele Chang's case collapsed in ruins around her ears:

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 7:45 PM
It's Adele time! More crappy reconfigurations of the same old McMansions.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 7:47 PM
Good to see Adele is still talking down to the Planning Commission. That approach has worked so well for her over the last two years.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 7:51 PM
Adele hasn't made that McMansion any smaller. She has just attempted to disguise it.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 7:52 PM
It is not a cottage, Adele. It is one hell of a big barn.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 7:53 PM
She looks like Cruella DeVille.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 7:56 PM
I think the members of the Planning Commission will be sending a Bromance Bouquet of roses to Johnny Harabedian for hooking them up with another round of romantic evenings with Adele.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 8:02 PM
It's a whole new stupid approach. Showing pictures of quaint French cottages and claiming her new designs for three car garage McMansions are somehow the same.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 8:07 PM
Adele designs French cottages that look like an entire city block. Is Napoleon moving to Sierra Madre?

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 8:13 PM
You've missed the point. Adele is a comedian. This is her bit.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 8:25 PM
John Hutt just told the PC that Adele's French cottages look like minimum security prisons.

AnonymousMarch 6, 2014 at 8:26 PM
He is good. Lose the fake facades. Quit pretending those houses come from France.

And on it went. The CETTlings were tossed, gored and left lying on the floor as a warning to the unwise.

But do you know what was even worse for the CETTs? After having to absorb about 30 minutes of some quite energetic Planning Commission venting, Adele Chang and Dr. Sues then had to hear their solution. And that was they needed to bury their cheesed up big box McMansions in the ground so nobody could see very much of them.

Something certainly not what an architect of Adele's advanced reputation is used to hearing. That isn't how people regard her work in other places (link). Not by a long shot.

Oh, alright. So they didn't say it quite that way. What the Planning Commission did do was revive their year-old "subterranean solution." Something that Adele claimed far too quickly to have not heard about before.

The idea being that CETT would need to bury much of their unseemly McBox "massing" below the ground, and only leave the upper level visible. All while designing that small part in a way that would blend in with the natural ambiance of our hillsides. Kind of like one of the Duck Dynasty guys in a camouflage suit. In other words, the PC told them make their creations as invisible to Sierra Madre as humanly possible.

It gets no better. I don't know how it was at your house, but here the missus and I just laughed and laughed. The best reality TV we've seen in months. It was that funny.

Noah Green gets even more post card criticism

There are some rumblings in the community about just how short a time Noah Green has lived in Sierra Madre. The commonly shared notion being that if someone wants to be elected to our City Council, which is the ultimate governmental authority in town, you need to have been here for at least a little while.

And what has made the situation worse is that on his campaign postcard Noah appears to have tried and airbrush away his unfortunate newbie status. Here is what he says:

Noah married his wife, and the couple moved to Sierra Madre several years ago.

The  Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of the word "several" goes like this:

sev·er·al - adjective \ˈsev-rəl, ˈse-və-\ : more than two but not very many.

Now this being The Tattler and all, we take this kind of stuff very seriously. Here is what one blog commenter had to say yesterday about this unfortunate situation.

Misrepresentation on a job application or a resume is a serious offense. Can't that get you fired, Mr. Green? Your post card lists you as having lived in Sierra Madre for several years. Were you renting before you bought your Woodland property June 2012? Why does this matter? Because it matters? Yesterday some post asked why it matters? Well, you seriously need some connection with the town you want to represent and that only comes with investing time in the community. Save the fluff. Not interested!

It would seem that Mr. Green has not lived here for the several years he claims. It also appears that he hasn't even been residing in town for a couple of them.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

The One Cratergate McMansions Process Grinds On

Do you want fries with that?

As I am sure you are aware, the Planning Commission had previously rejected Adele Chang's crass and vast 5.5 bathroom water hog McMansions at a place the people who actually live in Sierra Madre call One Carter. City Staff preferring Stonegate.

Me? I've taken to calling the unhappy site One Cratergate. But whatever name you choose to hang upon it, the very unnecessary process surrounding that place just grinds on and on. Yet another instance where our city's elected officials either neglected to honor their legal and moral obligations to the people of this town, or decided to go for the money instead.

Tonight the Planning Commission will conduct what is being called a "workshop" to discuss some of the flagrant design flaws with the architect of the currently proposed three McMansions for One Cratergate. With many more just like them in waiting in the wings should these be approved.

This workshop is the result of the denial of these projects by the Planning Commission, the applicant’s appeal to the City Council, and the council deciding to send the projects back to the commission rather than doing anything too meaningful about it themselves.

The residents of Sierra Madre have done a great job identifying the legally based protections that are in place here for hillside locales like One Carter. All the City Council really needed to do was implement the protections that already exist in our city's laws by backing up the Planning Commission's decision on this McMansion situation. But for whatever unexplained reasons they chose not to do that.

I take little pleasure in saying this, but the real law in Sierra Madre is, as always, money. City Hall wants the development impact fees building McMansions at One Carter would bring. That number being somewhere in the $1.1 million range, or $43,000 in impact fees per each of the 27 planned homes. There are currently pensions and especially city employee retirement health benefit packages to fund, which we the taxpayers are now paying some of the highest rates in the state to provide. All because those people who supposedly work for us need to feather their nests, and our City Council lacks the integrity or will to oppose them.

This is what is really guiding a lot of the decisions being made downtown these days. From water rate increases, to the 25% utility tax increases on the ballot for April, to the many fees associated with development and life in general here, it is all about financially propping up what has become a very expensive city government. And rather than protect the unique character of our village, we're being sold out instead for cash.

It really is a lousy deal for those who actually live in this town.

Can the Planning Commission make a negative finding on "Stonegate" and actually see it get backed up by the City Council? After all, this CETT - Adele Chang McMansion situation has been going on for longer than Noah Green has lived in town. A final decision is going to have to be made some day.

And even if the Planning Commission again does the people's business properly and honors our hillside regulations and ordinances, is there any guarantee that their decision will be respected once these McMansions are appealed back to the City Council for the inevitable next round?

After all, had the City Council wanted to, all they would have needed to do the last time these projects were before them was to just say "No." Because that is what the Planning Commission had decided.

Instead the City Council created this unnecessary process, some of which plays out tonight. Which to me indicates that they are actually in favor building these McMansions at One Carter. You know, because of the money that would bring in.

Quite possibly the City Council's loyalties are with this city's employee organizations, and not the citizenry. They just don't want anyone to think that is actually the case. So on and on (and on) it all goes.

The Planning Commission meeting is tonight at 7. A lot of people are going to attend.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Postcard Panic: Noah Green Is In Favor Of More Water

Hello dolly

I am not sure how a City Council campaign could be conducted in any worse a way. From those naked Facebook selfies to his bold postcard proclamation this week that he supports more water, Noah Green's campaign for City Council has been something of a trainwreck.

And then there is this magical sentence that, should it ever come to happen, would make Sierra Madre's yellow water seem like something out of a golden era. One that we'd gladly sell our fiduciary souls to the SGVMWD to bring back.

Recycling/Grey Water - This would install recycling facilities in homes and businesses to help replenish our groundwater and to recharge our existing wells.

As much as I am in favor of using whatever means possible to help our city deal with the effects of the 500 Year Drought, I am not certain that filling our currently near empty wells and aquifers with gray water is the solution any of us should be hoping for right now. There has simply got to be a better way.

I am not sure that Noah quite understands the whole gray water concept. Though he does go on to state that he is in favor of more water, which is probably a better thing than the alternative.

And did you know that the reason Sierra Madre is an "independent entity" is because we the residents pay the highest utility taxes in California? Here I thought that money went to help pay for emergency services such as our police, fire and paramedic departments. This does makes you wonder exactly who or what we've been paying a million dollars a year in ransom to all of these years for our independence. Perhaps a militarily adventurous Pasadena?

Or that Noah would like to see all of the empty stores downtown filled up with new businesses? A rather bold statement, and one that could cost him the votes of those many politically active people in town who want those storefronts to remain empty. Folks that up until now were probably quite happy with current Chamber of Commerce Vice President Noah Green as our downtown has never had as many vacant shops as it does today.

I really don't think that there can be much doubt. We are truly living in troubled times.

A former Sierra Madre Mayor levels heavy criticism at our Police Department

Please note the second comment.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Sierra Madre City Manger Elaine Aguilar Versus Transparent California.com - Round No. Two

Let there be taxes!

Last Thursday we posted an article called "Why do Sierra Madre’s City Employees Receive Better Benefits than the City Manager of Beverly Hills?" (link). It was picked up and relayed by several much larger sites out there in the blogosphere, and that brought many new readers to The Tattler.

As we prepare to take this blog to a larger and more regional SGV perspective later this spring, it is gratifying to know that we can attract an audience from out there beyond the Michillinda Curtain. Many of Sierra Madre's problems are hardly unique, and our experiences here can resonate with other communities as well. Small city governmental dysfunction is in no way limited to us, and people need to know that. We think it could be quite a lively regional niche as well. Certainly here in tiny Sierra Madre we have been blessed with an ideal metaphor for the problems many face.

I digress. The topic we dealt with last Thursday was the issue of health benefit costs being given to City of Sierra Madre employees. What the people at Transparent California discovered was that these benefit packages, given to our city's employee unions as part of certain negotiated labor agreements, are among the most highly priced in the State of California.

This is something that has shocked many people here in Sierra Madre. Especially when you consider that we are being asked to vote ourselves a 25% utility tax increase in April, ostensibly to fund a city government that claims it has shed all of its unnecessarily expenses. We now know that this is not the case.

Elaine Aguilar did respond to Transparent California. Not in a very public sort of way, however. Rather her response was tacked on at the end of her most recent City Manager Report, which is only available on the City's somewhat obscure website.

This report is something that she puts together to edify the members of our City Council. It can also be found by we the people, however. You just need to know where to look.

Here is what she had to say:

Total Compensation Comparison: Historically, the Sierra Madre City Council has made policy decisions to keep City of Sierra Madre employee salaries at below market-rate levels, while providing a competitive benefit package. Overall this has kept Sierra Madre's employee related expenses down in two ways:

- First, for most employees, Sierra Madre's "total compensation" (salary plus benefits) remains the lowest or the second lowest, as compared to the same position in neighboring cities.

- Secondly, this approach results in reducing the City's current and future CalPERS retirement liability.

Additionally, as the case with the last two department head and the Police Captain hires, the medical benefits enabled the City to recruit experienced managers all the while keeping the City's OPEB (other post employment benefits) liabilities down since these employees will not qualify for retiree benefits.

One question that occurred to me here is if these medical benefit packages are so economically down-market and petite, how is it they can attract "experienced managers?" Experienced managers presumably being people who can recognize a crap health care package when they see one. As talent bait goes, weak health benefits are something few people would find attractive.

Elaine continues in a moment. Please note that this is where her somewhat opaque arguments unravel in an apples versus oranges kind of way.

However … even with the competitive benefit packages, the City of Sierra Madre ranks either last or second to last in total compensation as compared to the five neighboring agencies.

The data utilized in this report was downloaded from TransparentCalifornia.com for the 2012 calendar year, which only reports the total cost per employee. Based on the data downloaded from TransparentCalifornia.com, the Sierra Madre (sic) had the average lowest cost per employee in 2012.

Elaine's efforts to quell any possible concern over her employee contract negotiating expertise goes on for a little while longer. She then provides several pages of information cherry picked from the Transparent California website. She asserts that these back up her claim that everything is just fine, and you people should now just move on.

If you wish to read Elaine's entire exegesis, you can do so by clicking here, then clicking on the "City Manager's Report to City Council for February 28, 2014," and then finally scrolling down 8 pages until you get to what I cited above. Note that the report is initially marked as being only 6 pages. The stuff we're talking about today comes after that.

However, should you decide to do so you won't find any answers to the questions we raised here on The Tattler last Thursday. Such as how it is that a fairly recently hired (and certainly not an "experienced manager") Administrative Assistant was paid $35,000 in 2012, yet had a health care plan worth $33,500. An amount that even surpasses the $31,000 in health benefits paid to the City Manager of Beverly Hills, the owner of the previous TCC record for overly generous taxpayer funded health benefits.

I forwarded Elaine's City Manager Report to Robert Fellner. Robert is the Project Manager at Transparent California that first broke the news about Sierra Madre's current penchant for paying outlandishly large health benefits to just about anyone who walks through our City Hall doors. Experienced manager or not. Here are the points he makes.

- (Elaine Aguilar) uses the terms “employee compensation” and “total cost per employee” interchangeably, which is incorrect.

- We only report cash employees received and the cost of their retirement contributions and medical insurance provided by agency.

- We do not report the total cost – which would include things like disability, workman’s comp insurance, employee assistance programs, state unemployment insurance, Medicare payments, etc.

- But way worse than that is her including all the part time and seasonal workers in her “total cost per employee” figure of 36k. It’s incredibly misleading, at best.

It is not surprising that Elaine's standard issue malarkey didn't impress an analyst skilled in the art of ferreting out the financial malfeasance of small time government agencies like our City Hall. What is concerning is that she thought it wouldn't be found out and questioned.

Welcome to Sierra Madre. Home of the highest utility taxes and most expensive employee health care benefits in the entire state of California. It is no coincidence.

Preserve Mater Dolorosa Monastery Stop the Housing Project News

(Mod: We received the latest newsletter from the Coalition to Preserve Mater Dolorosa and Stop the Housing Project. There is some important information here, and we thought it should be posted here it in its entirety so that you can check it out.)

Dear Supporters: The Coalition to Preserve Mater Dolorosa and Stop the Housing Project was formed for the sole purpose of preserving the beautiful open space that is currently a part of the Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center.  Our position has been that the last thing Sierra Madre needs is another unwanted housing project, which is why we are currently in discussions with Mater Dolorosa to provide an alternative for them.

As you know, City Council elections will be held on April 8th in which you will be choosing three candidates to represent our treasured city. This could be one of the most important elections in a long time as many significant issues are facing our city today. Among these issues, Sierra Madre residents will have to decide whether to preserve the charm and character that makes Sierra Madre unique or whether we want to over-develop our city and basically emulate the same trend that is occurring in Arcadia and elsewhere. A housing project at Mater Dolorosa will open the floodgates to the transformation of the city we love.

That being said, there are many issues other than the development of a housing project at Mater Dolorosa that will affect Sierra Madre residents. While we don’t feel it is appropriate to endorse any particular candidate, we do feel an obligation to let our supporters know that one of the candidates for city council, Denise Delmar, is on our Steering Committee and has given her time and energy towards the particular issue that is the reason for the creation of our coalition – and that is preserving the last large open space in Sierra Madre and preventing a housing project at Mater Dolorosa. Denise has been one of the key leaders of this effort. If you wish to support Denise or request a sign, you can do so at her website at www.ElectDelmar.com.

We intend to solicit each of the other candidates' views as well about preserving the open space at Mater Dolorosa and publicize those views on our website before the election. We also encourage you to explore with all the candidates any other issues that are important to you as you decide which candidates to vote for on April 8th.

Steering  Committee - Coalition to Preserve Mater Dolorosa and Stop the Housing Project

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Yes, the City of Sierra Madre Really Does Have the Highest Utility Taxes in California

Sierra Madre has, overall, the highest utility taxes in the State of California. They are not just high, they are shockingly high. We will be talking about this a lot in the run up to April's election. With fourth man Noah Green's campaign having ground to what is pretty much a halt, the three new City Councilmembers are already for all intents and purposes elected. Which leaves only the fate of Measure UUT in question.

Today we are posting two charts from a report called Utility User Tax Facts, which was prepared in August of 2013 by a website called CaliforniaCityFinance.com (link). The first chart, which I've posted just above, shows the range of utility tax rates charged, and from all across California. To find Sierra Madre on this graphic, you would need to look all the way to the far right hand side of the chart. At 10% we would appear to be among those taxed at the very highest rates in the state.

And had City Hall ever taken advantage of the 12% utility tax option as Mayors Buchanan and Walsh had hoped to do, you can see by this graphic that Sierra Madre would have literally been "off the chart."

So, you ask, how can we tell for certain that the City of Sierra Madre truly does have the highest utility taxes in California? Because you do know that there actually is a city that beats our 10% UUT rate by a full percentage point. That would be Culver City and yes, they do have an 11% UUT rate. In the categories that they do tax at this extremely high rate, they are reigning the utility tax kings. Even we can't touch that. Though we could have had we gone with that 12% rate Walsh and Buchanan wanted.

Using the MuniServices UUT tracker (link), we can identify exactly what the utility tax categories are in Culver City. Here are their numbers:

Culver City
Telephone (includes Intrastate, Interstate, Int'l, Wireless) - 11%
Electricity - 11%
Natural Gas - 11%
CATV - 11%
Water - 11%

Sierra Madre doesn't have an 11% utility user tax. Again, ours is mainly 10%. So how can we be the highest in the state, you ask? Here are our numbers:

City of Sierra Madre
Telephone (includes Wireless, Intrastate, Interstate, Int'l) - 10%
CATV - 10%
Electricity - 10%
Natural Gas - 10%
Water - 8%
Sanitation (sewers) - 8%
Solid Waste (garbage) - 10%

As you can see, while Culver City taxes five utility categories, the City of Sierra Madre taxes seven. Or every possible utility that can be taxed. This is how we maintain our position as the City that taxes its residents more for utilities than any other in California. We tax for two full extra classifications, and when combined that is more than enough to keep us at #1 in the most taxed for utilities category.

If you refer to the "Cities and Counties With UUTs" chart I've included above, you will get to witness two more interesting facts that will help to highlight just how extreme utility taxes in Sierra Madre are right now. For both residents and our largely at-risk small businesses as well.

In the category of sewers, only 4% of California's population is charged a utility tax. Out of the 154 cities taxing utility usage, just 13 of them do so for the use of city sewers. We are one of them.

And where we are extra special is in the 10% utility tax we charge for garbage. Only 1% of the residents in this state are socked with a utility tax for garbage removal. We are one of only ten cities doing that.

One other category where we are especially uncommon is water. While the chart shows that 21% of all California residents get hit with utility taxes on water, we are still in a special class. Ask yourself this. How many of those 83 cities that charge a utility tax in this category do so on water they themselves are selling to their residents?

In other words, the City of Sierra Madre taxes the exact same water that it sells to its customers. Our City Hall is working both ends of the transaction. I can't imagine there are that many cities capable of doing that.

Why are our utility taxes so high, and why is the City forcing us to endure a do-over UUT vote this April? After all, we did vote ourselves some utility tax relief in 2012, and overwhelmingly so. Which, when you think about it, also makes City Hall's do-over Measure UUT vote an unacknowledged attempt to raise utility taxes 25% in 2015.

City employee pensions could be one reason, and certainly benefits such as health care would be another. Sierra Madre, a city of less than 11,000 people, has a municipal government that apparently believes it needs to run its employee compensation affairs like the City of Los Angeles. This could be why City Hall failed to negotiate good deals for we the taxpayers with our city employee unions, and in the final result gave them among the richest benefit packages in the state.

This also clearly contributes to our having the highest utility taxes in California. This despite what the two pro-UUT City Council candidates holding our Police Department and library hostage have been telling you.

But that is a topic for another day. As one person posting on The Tattler commented last week, this pig is just too good to eat at one sitting.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Tattler Sunday Question: Is An Endorsement By A Pig Appropriate In A Sierra Madre Election?

Will Neil say "Tax me Goose?"

I was looking over the somewhat sparsely populated Gene Goss for City Council Facebook page last evening, and there were two things in particular that caught my eye. Both had to do with campaign endorsements. Gene's first claim of prestigious political support was written about in this way:

Gene Goss: I am pleased to announce that SierraMadreNews.net has endorsed me for City Council. I am very honored to receive their support!

This claim of endorsement, which includes a link to the actual SierraMadreNews.net website, was made back on February 26. Being a curious fellow with a burning need to know, I clicked on that link. And after having looked over the entire SMNews.net page quite carefully, I could find no endorsement there of Mr. Goss. Or any other City Council candidate for that matter.

There was a press release about twenty Sierra Madre couples renewing their marriage vows at a Valentine's Day Rotary Club function. As you certainly must know, nothing says enduring love more than a room filled with Rotarians. Dress up in appropriate business attire and try it sometime. But I digress.

Now perhaps the normally phlegmatic Gene Goss was very excited by this possible SMNews.net endorsement, and wanted everyone to know all about so prestigious a political coup. Even before it actually occurred. We have all fallen prey to overeagerness at times. But Gene's claim was posted to his Facebook page a full week ago. You'd think this endorsement would have happened by now.

It also must be pointed out that while Gene states that he is proud to have received "their endorsement," as far as I know SierraMadreNews.net is still just Bill "Rooster" Coburn. And unless Bill has added some new personalities to the rather grumpy one he has had for a while now, we are talking about a single person here. Hopefully Bill only votes once.

However, a potentially far more influential endorsement is also claimed by Professor Goss. This one allegedly coming from Sierra Madre's most widely beloved four legged creature, the celebrated Neil the Pig.

Now I can understand why a candidate whose tax crazy campaign is not exactly lighting up anyone's life might feel the need to turn to the animal kingdom for support. But this particular endorsement does raise a question or two, at least in my mind.

The first deals with the issue of overweening anthropomorphic assumptions and the possibly detrimental denial by Mr. Goss of Neil's sense of pigness. Here is how WikiFur (Wikipedia for animals) defines it (link):

Anthropomorphic is a word which literally means "human shaped" (from the Greek anthrōpos (human being) + morphē (shape). It is used to describe a concept called anthropomorphism, or ascribing human characteristics to non-human beings or objects. Typically, this is used in reference to deities, which are usually given the form of humans. However, the word can apply to any non-human thing, including animals, plants, and inanimate objects … In a literary sense, there is a difference between ascribing human traits to an object (anthropomorphism), or to an abstract concept (personification).

We all like to imagine that our animal friends have certain human characteristics. I mean, who among us hasn't asked a cat or dog for their opinion about something. But is this really appropriate in an election? Can we really say that a pig has made a choice in a City Council election? That is without interfering with the right of that pig to be who he is, and all that he has ever hoped to be?

Now you might think I am attempting some form of dry humor here, but really I'm not. Because by claiming that Neil the Pig has endorsed Gene Goss for City Council, you have put him into the unfortunate position of working against his own interests. Something Neil is completely helpless to do anything about.

Last November the Sierra Madre Weekly printed an excellent article titled, "Portly pot belly pig prevails over politics - Neil the Pig stays in Sierra Madre" (link). As you review this piece note the role played by major Gene Goss political backer Mayor Nancy Walsh. As anyone can clearly see, Mayor Walsh is no friend to Neil the Pig.

Some likened it to Charlotte's Web, but a Sierra Madre porcine's predicament went far and beyond anything E.B. White could have written or imagined.

The whole episode actually started out as a simple request from resident Dr. Katherine Emerson about a rather noisy rooster in a neighbor's yard that had been disturbing the peace for some time and waking people up at all hours apparently.

According to Emerson, she had contacted the city several times and got no results two months ago when she complained about the rooster's existence ... which is a violation of city ordinance.

Emerson, who 'phoned the city on Tuesday last week was told by City Manager Elaine Aguilar that the situation was "being handled."

Within 2 hours of that phone conversation, the Pasadena Humane Society was at Emerson's door complete with a citation to have her pet pot belly pig Neil removed from the City of Sierra Madre limits due to a "code violation." Emerson told Beacon Media, "that would have killed Neil ... a modern day Charlotte's Web indeed."

Emerson said this wasn't a mere coincidence. "The City had never before contacted me about Neil, or any code violation." Emerson also stated that she feels Elaine Aguilar is "not doing her job," and believes the decision to target Neil was politically motivated due to upcoming elections. "Even the Mayor (Nancy Walsh) was not on Neil's side," Emerson said.

Now if you were Neil the Pig, would you endorse a candidate who is strongly supported by a Mayor that, just a few months back, was perfectly willing to see you heartlessly deported from what had been your happy home for 17 years? Something that, as Neil's caretaker Dr. Katherine Emerson asserts, could have sent him to an untimely death? I certainly hope not.

Politics is just not clean enough for the likes of Neil to be involved.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Moody's Shocker: Sierra Madre's Water Bonds Will Remain Junk Even After Water Rates Are Raised

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Back during the run up to the 61% water cost increase recently foisted upon the residents of Sierra Madre, there was something City Hall promised this rate hike would accomplish. That being to improve the Moody's Investors Service rating of our at risk water bonds. By paying a large amount more for water, ratepayers here would at last satisfy all applicable bond covenant requirements, and bring our Moody's bond profile back up to respectability.

This was deemed crucial by the fiscal finaglers running this town, and seen as the way of getting us out from behind an eight ball of many millions of dollars in water bond debt. Debt that is financially crippling Sierra Madre's water company, and so much else in this community. Pay more for water said City Hall, and everything will become right again. Or at least that is what they were promising.

Mayor Nancy Walsh, in an August of 2013 interview with the Pasadena Star News, which was given prior to our most recent water rate increase being approved, shared the following reasons for raising the cost of the wet stuff to those living here in Sierra Madre (link).

Sierra Madre expects to raise water rates once again: Mayor Nancy Walsh said Wednesday that residents can expect future water-rate increases to offset the city’s low credit rating. Though a current study determining the effects of water rates is still under review, “no doubt there will be an increase” again, she said. 

“We need to make sure we’re good on our bond covenant,” the mayor said.

When the rates were discussed in 2010, Walsh was a council member and advocated an initial rate increase of 15 percent, followed by 3 percent increases the next four years. That proposal angered residents and the council ultimately approved 7.5 percent, Walsh said.

“I did not support the rate that was proposed, but I was outvoted,” she said of the 7.5 percent increase. “In the end, I had to vote for it. Any money helped.”

“Shortly after, our credit was downgraded,” Walsh said. “This is really talking about our credit. It’s our No. 1 priority.”

That seems pretty clear, right? Raise the water rates 61%, refurbish our troubled water bond covenants, and life would be good again. Our bond ratings would recover, opening the door to the refinancing of our sadly out of whack water bonds.

As an example, the interest rate on our 2003 Water Bonds is at a very high 5.3%. And since the financial geniuses running this town back then decided it would be best to pay only the interest on that controversial $6 million dollar bond issue, we now find ourselves having unnecessarily added another $9 million dollars in hard debt. Bringing the total debt load on just the 2003 bonds alone to nearly $15 million dollars.

And it wasn't just Mayor Nancy Walsh who said that we needed to raise water rates to repair our Moody's water bond ratings. Our hard working City Staff was getting the word out as well. This from the vast stacks of water rate propaganda to be found on the City of Sierra Madre website:

Without proper revenue to cover operational expenses, which include the City’s bond covenants, the City’s Water Fund credit and bond rating could further deteriorate. In September 2011 Moody’s investor service downgraded the City’s Water Enterprise bond to an A3 rating from an A1 rating. The rationale for the downgrade was insufficient debt service coverage levels and slow implementation of increased rates.

So water rates were raised substantially, and now our bond ratings have returned to health, right? As promised? Well, not quite. This from a press release issued by Moody's Investors Service on Thursday (link).

Rating Action: Moody's confirms Sierra Madre (CA) water revenue bonds at Ba1; removes from review - Global Credit Research - 27 Feb 2014 - $2.6M debt affected 

New York, February 27, 2014 -- Moody's Investors Service has confirmed the Ba1 rating on the City of Sierra Madre (CA) Water Enterprise's 1998 Revenue Bonds, of which there is currently about $2.6 million outstanding. The enterprise has an additional $7.9 million in outstanding debt not rated by Moody's but considered in our analysis, including $6.8 million Series 2003 parity bonds. The 1998 bonds are secured by a senior lien on the net revenues of the water enterprise. Concurrently, we have removed the rating from review. 

The rating was placed under review for further possible downgrade on December 12, 2013 in anticipation of the outcome of Proposition 218 rate increase protest. The protest failed and a rate increase ordinance has been adopted by the city.

So rather than our ratings recovering, Moody's has instead mired our water bonds at the exact same junk level they were before the rate hike. These bonds will still be considered very risky by investors, even though the cost of water in Sierra Madre has been radically increased.

Here is that original Moody's announcement (link) dropping our water bond ratings to junk. It was released in December of 2013, prior to our latest water rate hike:

Rating Action: Moody's downgrades Sierra Madre (CA) water revenue bonds to Ba1 from A3; rating placed on review for further downgrade- Global Credit Research - 12 Dec 2013 - $3M debt affected

New York, December 12, 2013 -- Moody's Investors Service has downgraded to Ba1 from A3 the City of Sierra Madre (CA) water enterprise's 1998 Revenue Bonds, of which there is currently about $3 million outstanding. The enterprise has an additional $8.1 million in outstanding debt not rated by Moody's but considered in our analysis, including $6.75 million Series 2003 parity bonds. The 1998 bonds are secured by a senior lien on the net revenues of the water enterprise. 

Concurrently, we have placed the rating under review for possible further downgrade, pending the outcome of Proposition 218 rate increase process scheduled for late January 2014.

So it appears that all we got out of this from Moody's was a decision to not drop our water bonds to an even deeper level of junk. Is that worth paying 61% more for water?

How is it our water rates were substantially raised, and the Prop 218 protest effort thwarted, yet Moody's still has our water bonds rated at exactly the same junk level? Wasn't raising water rates supposed to remedy this situation, making the refinancing of all of our water bonds at a lower interest rate economically feasible?

Apparently the message from City Hall last fall, and what is really going on, are once again very far apart. In other words, we are about to endure a 61% water rate increase, yet our water bonds will remain rated mired at the same level of junk as before.

And because of this junk rating there will now be no refinancing at any lower interest rate. Nobody gives favorable interest rates for junk bonds. We will continue to pay nearly a million dollars a year in bond debt service, and much of it at the very expensive 2003 level interest rate of 5.3%.

That is not among the results we were promised by when our community leaders were campaigning to raise our water rates last fall.

Add yet one more cause for City Hall's credibility crisis.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Tony Brandenburg: Where is the Outrage?

Renatta REM'n?

One Mule for Sister Renny 
Back in the 2010-2011 school year Renatta Cooper was the School Board President, and her co-pilot was a talking mule named Mr. Ed Honowitz. I mention this because in the cast of characters that follows, these two were calling the shots.

Loco Mosquitos
There was a great deal going on in the district. In Sierra Madre a pair of pesky parents named the Brandenburgs were asking a bunch of questions about hazardous materials that were strewn around the Sierra Middle School campus and about an ominous retaining wall that was holding back several metric tons of soil and lurking above the classroom bungalows that housed a group of preschoolers at the Sierra Madre Elementary Campus.

For more than two years the couple had been calling the PUSD hired building contractors (and who are remarkably no longer around), the Sierra Madre Fire Department, the Sierra Madre Building Inspector, OSHA, the PUSD Chief of Maintenance (also remarkably no longer around), the principals, the Board of Education and anyone else they could, in order to ensure safety for the children at the Sierra Madre public schools.

As this was occurring, a second grade teacher had been designated by the school as an "Inclusion Teacher." This is a position which generally offers more money, classroom aides, and support services. She became the Brandenburg child's teacher. She had begun her role by stating to a staff member that she was going to "fix the problem" and did so by allowing an environment of hysteria, gossip, and discrimination to fester, boil, and then explode.

When the smoke cleared enough for us - the Brandenburgs - to see, our seven year old autistic child had been petitioned out of his class by our neighbors, friends, and acquaintances. People we believed were our supports on the PUSD staff betrayed our child and family. The former Director of Special Education Elizabeth Blanco, the former Superintendent Edwin Diaz, and then current Board Vice President Ed Honowitz, along with former school Principal (and current cushy retirement recipient) Gayle Blumel, and teacher (the then teacher of the Brandenburg's son) United Teachers of Pasadena  Area Director Yolanda Munoz may have all shared confidential information about the autistic child with community parents. Some of whom were on the Sierra Madre PTA and Sierra Madre School Site Council.

The ensuing storm and bullying by the Sierra Madre community is now well documented on the internet and, sadly, has been repeated in other communities across the world. However, for what it's worth, parents of autistic children and children with emotional needs and regulatory challenges have found strength in what we've gone through, and we consistently meet people who thank us for doing and saying what they are uncomfortable saying.

We have been tireless advocates for these children, and will continue to be.

The Marshall Plan
In any event, as the crisis began to unravel at the beginning of the 2010/2011 school year, we realized that the upper campus was not a safe place for our middle child due to contaminants and dust which adversely impacted his asthma. We moved him to the school his older sister attended, Marshall Fundamental. It is a middle school/high school in PUSD.

Marshall Fundamental, unlike the Sierra Madre campuses, is a gated school. This is, and has been one of our safety concerns for Sierra Madre. It is no longer a torch we carry, and I can only say that I have tried to see one built for the safety of the children from predatory adults and adult bullies. Good luck with that.

A Predator on Campus
Not that it matters much to keep away the danger from without,  when there is danger from within.

Marshall also employs four security staff. I don't know if this is typical among the PUSD schools, but I assume it is because over the years there have been issues that have arisen about security.The security staff in 2014 have been very pleasant and helpful to me, as a parent.

However, in 2010/2011 there was something going on under the surface, and ended with a security guard in jail, and the sexual abuse of 16 year old girl.

On March 17, 2011 the story broke. Sort of. It got some coverage locally, but most of the information available was spotty.

Brian Charles covered the story for the Pasadena Star News (click here) -

Felony sexual assault charges have been filed against Shawn "J Silky" Johnson, a 30-year-old security guard at Marshall Fundamental School in Pasadena, according to documents provided Friday by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office … 

The charges stem from a March 3 incident where Johnson sent text messages to a 16-year-old female student at Marshall and arranged a meeting outside of school, said Scott Phelps, a PUSD board member, and school board liaison to Marshall Fundamental …

"The school acted quickly to place the employee on leave and launch an investigation immediately upon hearing that there may have been improper behavior," said Binti Harvey, PUSD spokeswoman in a statement released Friday. "The matter was subsequently referred to the Pasadena Police Department, and a criminal investigation is now under way." …

While the PUSD learned of Johnson's actions on March 9, the district didn't release any information to the public until Friday.

It is close to three years later, but even now the outcome of the case is unclear. I asked a PUSD official who stated that the security employee was "Immediately put in jail when it was discovered. I assume conviction later as I think they had texts between guy and student."

Still, I was not able to find any follow up articles. I do remember when the story broke, however because shortly before it did our children came home shortly and shared that they had heard hushed whispers between students, that students were talking, and that something bad had occurred.

Though they were younger than the student, they knew who she was. They shared concerns that the girl was being talked about, teased, and ridiculed. Then the child was no longer at the school.

We made numerous calls to the school and shared our concern that the child receive counseling. We also requested a school-wide anti-bullying program be implemented immediately.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Nada.

PUSD Bully Central 
It was clear to us that bullying was rampant throughout the district and the immediate school communities via the internet.

We were dealing with it ourselves, with frequent pummeling leveled at us by pusddad, and a few Sierra Madre community members who changed their names more often than they wax their mustaches. That stuff was all over the  Pasadena Meekly and the Sierra Madre Patch.

Those were left un-moderated because, hey, it was an entertaining bloodbath and it was driving up the web traffic of those sites. Go community based bullying!

See, the people doing the bullying were too knowledgeable about our situation to be from outside of the school community. By that I mean that they were working with our child, and/or were being fed information from an administrative level. They have never come forward to admit what they've done because now they know we will call them all out.

These are the people who set the bar for the children, and who set the example for what acceptable internet behavior looks like. Is it any wonder that the behavior transfers right back into the school.

Something to consider in the pattern of bullying. I have watched how Renatta Cooper speaks to people she doesn't like, and I can read the writing on the wall. As long as the Board President treats the Board, staff, and the outsider parents the way I have observed, that pattern of behavior can be expected to continue elsewhere in the district.

As it has toward the staff via newspaper editorials and propaganda masked as articles, so shall the cycle continue to trickle right on down to the kids.

As far as I am concerned, Renatta Cooper lacks the respect necessary to serve the communities she was elected to serve. She will never step down. I don't believe she gives a crap about any of us.

Chewin' the Fat
And remember, when all of this stuff went terribly wrong in the lives of a number of PUSD families, our Board President was Renatta Cooper, the Vice President was Ed Honowitz, and that Superintendent was Edwin Diaz. Diaz suddenly resigned on February 23, 2011 with a statement that caught many people by surprise.  Not me.  He was still acting superintendent as far as I can tell.

At that time, the top interest of Peter Dreier and the Pasadena Weekly was the continuing saga of the two board members that Petey helped fund. Apparently they went rogue on him. So the verbiage focused on complaints about the schism on the board. Everything was about Ramon Miramontes this, and Scott Phelps that. Not anything about this child at Marshall, though. Nothing.

And Now For Something Completely Useless
Sooner or later these quasi-political groups are going to need to stop lying to the public about their party affiliations. ACT and IIPK would like to convey the belief that they are non-partisan. That is simply untrue. Additionally, they continue to follow the lead of their nutty professor, and harbor the same passive-aggressive grudges.

Now, there is no love for the IIPK in my heart. I have a list of their steering committee and found a  number of people on the list that were directly or indirectly involved in the mob mentality that targeted my child back in 2010. That apparently is OK. Only some children deserve the IIPK love, I suppose.

Anyhow, the IIPK had no updates to its bulletins after the Eight Guiding Principles spiel they ran up the Pasadena City Council's proboscis last year.  Until Blow Dreier attacked Ramon Miramontes, that is. Then the venom came out fast and furious. Bam.

Not just one, but two pieces hostile toward Miramontes in one week (click here and here). Tell me this isn't an openly political group. I'll tell you that at least two of the people directly involved in IIPK were involved in what happened to my child. It was a foul-up we weren't supposed to figure out.

The saga of Ramon Miramontes’ questionable “contract” with PUSD continues, as reflected in new revelations disclosed in articles in the Pasadena Weekly and the Pasadena Star-News last week.  Both the Pasadena Weekly article, “A closer look”,  and the Star-News article, “Pasadena Unified School Board President halts Consulting Contract with former School Board member“, report on the controversy over an alleged agreement between PUSD Superintendent Jon Gundry and Miramontes to have the former school board member get paid as a consultant to the district soon after he left the board.

More of it can be found at the above links, but it doesn't really tread new ground. However, Since Steve Cole's public comment at the January 30th Board meeting seem to supersede the Dreier article, Miramontes may want to have his attorney take a close look at the footage to see if there are other geese to cook. Sooner or later one of them will squawk and cough up the plumpest hen in the hen-house.

In any event, a female child was assaulted at a PUSD school in 2011. Assaults on women may be so commonplace at Accidental College that it's numbed the dumb, but I again ask. Where is the outrage?

Here's the Outrage 
In an essentially ignored story run last week, the now 19 year-old young woman has filed a lawsuit against PUSD. Posted by Michelle Mowad and picked up by the Altadena Patch (click here).

A young woman is suing Pasadena Unified School District and a former PUSD security guard who she alleges sexually abused her when she was a student at Marshall Fundamental High School.

The 19-year-old plaintiff, identified in the Los Angeles Superior Court complaint filed Monday as Jane Doe, alleges sexual abuse of a minor, negligence and breach of a district's mandatory duty to supervise and protect students.

According to the suit, the plaintiff was 16 when she was in the 11th grade at Marshall Fundamental High during the 2010-11 school year. The guard, Shawn Johnson, was 30 and ... In early March 2011......picked up the girl and drove her to an isolated location where he "manipulated, sexually assaulted and sexually abused her," the suit states. Instead of protecting the plaintiff, Johnson "took advantage of the minor," according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges that the PUSD negligently hired, supervised and retained Johnson. The girl confided in her father in March 2011, but did not do so earlier because of alleged threats of retaliation by Johnson, the suit states.

No monetary amount is enough, but I sincerely hope this young woman is able to teach a well deserved lesson to PUSD about the value of our most precious commodity. Apparently, it's been lost in the flotsam and jetsam.

I hope that she can find peace in her life.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Why do Sierra Madre’s City Employees Receive Better Benefits than the City Manager of Beverly Hills?

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On February 8th we posted an article titled "Why Is Sierra Madre's Employee Benefits Report AWOL?" (link). The story was about an excellent resource known as Transparent California.com, and the rather disturbing fact that the City of Sierra Madre had refused to supply information about employee compensation to them in the manner required by state law. Something that they then made very clear on their website. Every city in California is required by state law to make that information upon request, no matter who asks. We got called out.

Being the kind of guy I am, I filled out the form letter provided by Transparent California.com and sent it off to Sierra Madre's City Manger, Elaine Aguilar. Obviously the request made by that website was perfectly legit, and by not complying with their request our City Hall was in clear violation of California's Public Records Act. Specifically CPRA 6253.9 which states “records must be provided in their original, electronic format when requested as such.”

This is what I sent to Elaine:

Please obey California's public records law - As a concerned California resident, I am writing to let you know that you should obey California's public records law, California's Govt. Code §§ 6250-6270, and fulfill the public records request you have previously received from Transparent California. Please email the records to records@transparentcalifornia.com.

Here is the reply I received back from Ms. Aguilar:

On July 11th, the City of Sierra Madre notified Transparent California that the records were available, after receiving a request for the records to be provided electronically (verses "hard copies") -- the records were provided on July 15, 2013; and Transparent California responded indicating that they had received the information.    I wanted to let you know that the City of Sierra Madre had responded in compliance with the California public records law.  Last week we noticed that they were indicating that the City had not responded, so we resent the information. Thank you, Elaine

Unfortunately, the devil is once again in the details. And as is the case with much of what our City Manager tells us, we have been thrown something of a curve ball. So I got in touch with Robert Fellner, who is project manager at Transparent California. I wanted to hear their side of the story.

I forwarded to Robert the note I had received from Elaine, and he kindly provided me with an email trail between Transparent California.com and City Hall extending over eight months.

Here are the two e-mails of most interest to us today. Note Elaine's pique.

I am forwarding a long chain of emails which provides evidence that the City of Sierra Madre provided the information you requested.  Your own email (July 15th at 9:52 am) states that you received the information requested.  However, the current Transparent California website indicates that Sierra Madre “refused to provide the information”.   This statement is inaccurate and misleading to the public.  Sierra Madre provided the information in a timely manner and in compliance with the law.   Please refrain from publishing untrue statements about the City and I respectfully request that reference be retracted from the website. 

Additionally, just to follow-up, I am aware that the data was resent to you last week; but we have not received confirmation that you received the re-sent data. 

Lastly, if I should be directing my email to someone else at Transparent California, please provide the contact information. Sincerely, Elaine Aguilar City Manager

Elaine was quite obviously upset because we had posted the Transparent California.com noncompliance notification here on The Tattler. The one stating that her City Hall had refused to comply with California's Public Records Act. Something that had been revealed on the TCC site, and for all to see. It was not the result she'd hoped for.

Mr. Fellner was having none of that. He shot back the following e-mail to Elaine:

Ms. Aguilar, The requested records were provided to us a few days ago by a Ms. Cox, they will be uploaded to the site as soon as is possible.

The thread you sent me demonstrates what is, at the very least, a violation of California’s Public Records Act in spirit, if not the letter of the law, by refusing to provide a copy of the requested record in its original, electronic format. As is made explicitly clear in § 6253.9(a).

I would not be particularly proud of that exchange. Especially in light of the fact that the requested format was provided in less than 24 hours when we followed up this time around. Sincerely, Robert Fellner - Project Manager, Transparent California

Please note that it was only after we revealed this situation here on The Tattler earlier this month that the City of Sierra Madre finally complied with state transparency laws and correctly sent Transparent California the information they had requested.

Elaine had apparently refused to provide the documents in the required format for months. This is a direct violation of CPRA 6253.9, which, as I noted above, states “records must be provided in their original, electronic format when requested as such.” Obviously, the PDF conversion she sent back in July of 2013 was not in the original format. In other words, the records Elaine provided were conversions, not originals, and as such a violation of State Law.

The distinction is important because by sending employee salary and benefits in an unusable format, Transparent Caifornia.com would find it nearly impossible to post that information to their site. State law requires that this kind of information be sent in a way that can actually be used. Raising the suspicion that there might be something in that information our City Manager would prefer not be made available to the public.

In other words, the purpose was to thwart the purpose of TCC's request – to upload Sierra Madre's salary and benefits information onto a public online database.

Personally I am not surprised by this. I have sent several PRA requests to Elaine, only to receive a lot of inconsequential nonsense in return. Most of it in the form of email giving her opinions about my request. Our beloved City Hall, which likes to claim it is as transparent as they can possibly be, is about as opaque as a mud puddle when it comes to sharing information they'd prefer that you not know about.

So here is the big question:

Why did City Hall try so hard to keep this information hidden?

It seems possible to me that this was done because there's something going on in Sierra Madre that any sentient taxpayer should be outraged about. Here is how Robert Fellner put it in an e-mail to me on Tuesday.

Chris Cimino, the Deputy Policy Works Director with a base pay of $81,493 received a health insurance plan that cost $36,175 in 2012. 

Jose Reynoso’s plan cost over $37,800. This is disgusting. This is what your taxes are being used for.

That is the most expensive health insurance plan I’ve ever seen. And we have covered every City, County, School, and College in the State.

I knew things were bad, but not quite that bad. As taxpayers paying the highest overall utility taxes in California, it seems quite obvious that things are extremely out of whack here. But this?

It has always been my belief that Measure UUT, which for all intents and purposes will raise our utility taxes a full 25% next year over what the voters decided in April of 2012, is about funding employee benefits and pensions. And not all of that nonsense we've been hearing from the likes of Goss and Green. Now we have some clear proof.

More from Robert Fellner:

Jennifer Kay Peterson – Admin Assistant was paid $35,000 for 2012. Her health plan alone was $33,500.

I have filtered the data to include only Full Time employees. I have omitted anyone whose “Base Pay” is below the “Average Salary minimum” as well as eliminating those with the phrase “Part-Time” in their job description and those who receive neither a health care plan or retirement contribution of any kind.

We are left with 53 full time employees. Average compensation (salary plus retirement contributions and health insurance) for these full time employees is $102,376. I got to imagine that is much higher than average taxpayer’s income in your town.

As Robert also pointed out to me, the City Manager of Beverly Hills receives $31,000 in health benefits. This was previously the highest they had ever seen for a health insurance plan. That is, before they looked into Sierra Madre.

Think about it. An administrative assistant in Sierra Madre gets more money for her health plan than the City Manager of Beverly Hills. As it is with our utility taxes, we are once again paying the highest amounts of any city in the state.

You are invited to read all about it yourself on the TransparentCalifornia.com website by clicking here.

Somehow I think we're about to become famous.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

A Little Sierra Madre History Lesson

Former Mayor John Buchanan

I have a theory about the mixed range of reactions to the Noah Green controversy here in Sierra Madre. Many are troubled, some embarrassed, while others see it as an indication that Mr. Green is just not very serious guy. Certainly not someone up to the complex demands of the City Council gig.

But there are some who have no problem with Naughty Noah's antics, and wonder what the fuss is all about. It is those that I would like to focus on today. That indifference to accepted moral precepts is part of a pattern that has been with this town for quite some time. And is certainly still with us today.

Not all that long ago there was a blog in town called The Sierra Madre Cumquat. There was also another one with a name so vile that it cannot be repeated here. Though neither ever achieved anywheres near the readership The Tattler currently has, they did have sizable and devoted followings. Some of which was made up of actual elected officials here in Sierra Madre. They certainly found a home with many who claimed to be at the heart of our local fashionable society.

And these sites would often use pornographic or homoerotic imagery to degrade and humiliate people from many walks of life in this town, including those who were not politicians and never dreamed of becoming one. Just regular people who supported Measure V. These are the people the Cumquat and its unnamable counterpart blog fiercely attacked.

Yet despite all of that, then Mayor John Buchanan saw fit to use the influence of his office to endorse this Cumquat blog, and did so in an article that was published on the front page of the January 14, 2007 edition of the Pasadena Star News.

In this article, entitled "Blog makes Sierra Madre politics a laughing matter," Mayor Buchanan was quoted this way:

Even Sierra Madre Mayor John Buchanan answered (Cumquat Publisher Jim) Snider's online request for an interview, producing a piece Buchanan called "light-hearted and fun."

Buchanan was a fan of the site even before he was chosen as the subject of one of its posts. He said a political environment like Sierra Madre's, where "substantial tension" exists, is exactly where Web sites like the Cumquat can flourish.

"They provide a kind of comic relief that all human beings need to cope with life on a day-to-day basis," Buchanan said. "A little humor and a little poking fun is good for politicians so we can maintain a perspective."

Not everyone saw the Cumquat in quite the same way as Mayor Buchanan. One of those people, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist from the Los Angeles Times by the name of Steve Lopez, had a decidedly different take on this matter.

In an April 1, 2007 L.A. Times column entitled "Sierra Madre Fears for its Treasure," Lopez described what he found on the Cumquat and elsewhere. I have removed the names of those mentioned in this column (you will see why), and I am not posting the entire piece here. However, if you are curious and wish to read the whole thing you can link to it by clicking here.

Each time I drive back to Sierra Madre I half expect the town to be gone. I figure it must have been a movie set or existed only in a dream, but there it is each time. Postcard perfect.

You settle in at a sidewalk table with a cup of joe from the homey Bean Town cafe and feel like you're in a remote mountain hamlet, the San Gabriels towering overhead and well-scrubbed villagers strolling by without a care, perhaps on their way to the Huck Finn Fishing Derby or Wistaria Festival. 

Or so it always seemed.

But it turns out that looks can be deceiving. Beneath its charming veneer, the town of 10,000 is in a dither over two development proposals: a 72-unit residential and commercial project and a 55-unit residential deal.

Measure V -- which would give citizens approval power on large developments -- is supported by, among others, (name deleted), a columnist for the Observer. In an apparent attempt at humor, an anonymous blogger who's adopted a pen name that can't run in a family newspaper, likened Henderson, who is black, to Aunt Jemima.

Another blogger, known as the Sierra Madre Cumquat, reported -- in one of the lamest stabs at satire I've seen in a while -- that Councilman (name deleted) had opened a bathhouse for young men, superimposing his photo over what looked like a gay orgy. The same website made up a story that pornographic images of Measure V supporter (name deleted) had been released on YouTube.

"It's so vile," said (name deleted), an author who has lived in Sierra Madre for nearly 50 years and speaks with a very proper Aussie accent. "I don't look at the blogging, but there are people around town who monitor it and let me know."

When I told (name deleted) that DowntownDirt.org didn't appear to be as satirical as other sites and instead seemed devoted to jabbing the Observer, she scoffed. DowntownDirt has a space devoted to "lively, spirited and civilized debate," on which a February entry by "Cumquat" asked "how long it's been" since (name deleted) "had an orgasm."

Makes you wonder if there are any grown-ups left in town.

That gives you a taste of what was going on at the time. Those running the "NO on Measure V" campaign, financed to the tune of $180,000 in developer and Realtor money, had incorporated into their efforts attempts to humiliate their opponents through the kinds of Internet smear attacks described by Steve Lopez in his column. 

And the then Mayor of Sierra Madre, John Buchanan, a leading light in the campaign to defeat Measure V, endorsed the most well-known of the two sites engaged in that effort, something that sent hundreds of curious readers The Cumquat's way.  

Now call it a coincidence if you like, or fate, but that core community of anti-Measure V political activists, those who had no problem with the Cumquat back then, or even supported it in some ways, are today key proponents of Measure UUT. This same core group of political activists also supports the two pro-Measure UUT candidates running in April's election.

Kind of serendipitous if you think about it. And it would certainly explain why certain folks have had no problems with the antics of Noah Green. And continue to support him despite his now widespread notoriety.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com