Tag Archives: Ann Schwab for City Council

People ask me about Ann Schwab living in Forest Ranch – here’s the real sad story

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When I found out Ann Schwab owns a house in Forest Ranch, I thought  that was just outrageously hypocritical of her. Here she is passing ordinances in Chico that don’t apply to her posh pad overlooking the Chico Creek Canyon. Here she is talking about “social equity” – while maintaining a ginormous house that she keeps secret from her homeless minions.

Well, I sure hit a nerve. Here’s the bullshit letter she wrote to the ER in answer to my complaints: 

“Letter writer misstates facts…”  That’s Dave Little’s title – does he ever check ANYTHING out before he puts it in his “newspaper”? 

Here’s her letter: While I don’t expect Juanita Sumner to agree with me on all issues before the City Council, I would appreciate that she state the facts accurately. In her letter to the editor Thursday, she states that my Chico State University salary is twice the median income and that I rent an apartment in Chico for residence requirements. The truth is that I get by on a modest income from my 11-month, three-quarter-time job and the condominium I own in Chico is where I live, day in and day out. Let’s get back to the real issues and stick to the truth. “

Yeah Ann, let’s stick to the truth. This letter is full of little half-truths.  The “fact” I misstated there was, I thought she rented the apartment. She owns it. Well, excuse me, Little Miss One Percent.  She never denies owning the house in Forest Ranch.  The rest is simply misleading – she says I accuse her of making twice the median income, but never states her income. She says she works 11 months – a “three-quarter-time job”. Well, I checked into that – she’s making at least 80 grand a year, and that’s more than twice the median income, around $38,000. That’s “modest”? I guess, by some peoples’ standards. 

She also gets a benefits package, with paid vacation, sick leave, etc, all paid for by college students, their parents, and us, the taxpayers:


http://www.aschico.com/images/cms/18_1_Benefits%20Summary%202010.pdf

I was disgusted, and still am, and now I got the real story. Sheesh! It just gets worse! 

Ann does not live at the Forest Ranch house she co-owns with estranged husband Budd Schwab – according to the Butte County Court index, she’s been legally separated from Budd since 2000. I know, she still talks about him like he’s the best thing since tampons.

From Chico State’s 125th anniversary page, posted last spring, here:   
http://www.csuchico.edu/125/memory-lane/shared/memories/ann-schwab.shtml

“When I remember my days at Chico State, some of the happiest are those I spent with my future husband, Budd. I met Budd on the steps of the BMU cafeteria on what I thought was a happy coincidence. I had first seen Budd when he said hello to my friend Susan Whitney outside Butte Hall. They were in Chuck Price’s Introduction to Political Science class and Susan mentioned to Budd that her friend would really like to get to know him. A couple of weeks later, Budd and his friend Steve Billings, who were in the habit of watching who was going in and out of the BMU from the second story of the library, saw Susan and me going into the BMU (probably to have one of those wonderful grilled mushroom and cheese sandwiches!), and they conveniently ran into us on the steps coming out of the cafeteria. After going to a football game we had our first date at the Sicilian Café.”

This just written a year ago about a man she’s been legally separated from for over 10 years. A man who is living in a house she co-owns with his girlfriend and their child.  Cut the crap Ann! 

Why would she hide these facts if she’s not embarrassed? And should be. She’s living a fucking lie, right in front of everybody. 

The friend who dumped this on me was trying to get me to lay off Ann. This person expected me to feel pity for this woman who foists her perverted values on a entire city of people. She demands “social equity” from employers, but she doesn’t demand much from a guy who made some pretty serious promises in front of a pulpit.  What a mess this woman is. She doesn’t have the sense to stand up for her own marriage, but she wants to represent our city?  I got one question – how’s she going to hide those horns Budd put on her?

Try this! The “Orange Juanita”

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I remember having my first Orange Julius – they had a huge stand at the State Fair. That taste was just, magical. And, it was made with orange juice, so my gramma would let us have them without any questions. We had peaches and plums and persimmons and figs and pomegranates at home, but we didn’t have oranges, so she’d let us drink those things until we puked. 

When I went to college, they made me take a nutrition class, and that’s when I found out how much sugar is added to the Orange Julius, and I quit them on the spot.  I had not had one for years when my husband took us to the State Fair, and there was the Orange Julius stand. It still tasted magical, like freshly battered  corn dogs and cotton candy right off the spinner instead of that pre-made stuff that sits in bags for gawdknowshowlong. 

Of course the true ingredients of the Orange Julius are held like a state secret by current owners Dairy Queen. But, stubborn me, I finally figured out something close enough, and probably healthier – I like to call it, “the Orange Juanita.” 

See, you start with yogurt – there’s a no-brainer.   I’m always looking for a new way to eat yogurt, keeps those little monsters in my lower intestine happy. To this I add a good whollop of (okay I’ll admit it) sugar-sweetened juice. I like that Mexican juice, Jumex, that comes in the aseptic cartons at Raleys. You’ll find it in the “Mexican food section.” My favorite is the pureed banana and strawberry, cause yeah, I’ve tried juicing bananas, and I just felt really stupid as I scraped that crap out of my juicer filter.  I don’t know how the folks at Jumex do it, but they do, and it’s great. Unfortunately, they also add sugar, but not half as much as you’ll find in the average breakfast cereal or pre-sweetened yogurt. I use unsweetened yogurt and unsweetened orange juice, so a little sugar, if you don’t mind my saying, makes the medicine go down. A cup and a half smoothie keeps me happy til lunchtime. 

I actually found a recipe online, a guy who adds powdered sugar!  This man is obviously not in it for his health, but more power to him. Life’s too short to bitch yourself crazy, I always say. Bitch at your public leaders instead, they’re a mess. 

Hope everybody is having a great weekend!

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I have been so busy this week, I can’t even remember what I did.  Between chores and visitors and unexpected illnesses, I’ve been trying to order some signs for the “No on Measure J” campaign. Whew-ieeee, what a week I’ve had.  I won’t bore you with the details, cause I know you’ve all had a three-ring circus or two run across your living room rug.

I hope to have some signs pretty soon. The folks at the print shop have been really wonderful, I’ve seen their work around town, and I think we will get some very nice signs.

I’m also trying to plan a Taxpayer’s Association meeting, and hoping to get the signs before then. I will keep everybody posted here and at chicotaxpayers@wordpress.com.

Well, this may be the last nice weekend to hang out in the yard and soak up the sun around the old Intex pool, so I’m headed outside. There’s a fundraiser for Butte Humane Society over at One Mile, and while passing by, I saw some tricks I must show Biscuit!  I  hope you are all having a lovely weekend!   Bark Bark!

I lost 15 pounds – I challenge Ann Schwab to lose 25 pounds by January 1 or forfeit her taxpayer provided health insurance.

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 I’m not usually one to brag – but poke, prod, bait and nag – I’ll do that, and if my accomplishments will serve as a stick to others, then I don’t mind.

I have finally lost that 14 pounds I been bitching about. No kidding! The last four pounds came off at some point over the last two weeks, just when I’d got tired of weighing myself only to find I was stuck at 119. That’s how things work for me – as soon as I think it’s not going to happen, there it is. 

Here’s a tip – juice and yogurt for breakfast. I like Nancy’s plain yogurt. I eat it straight, but mostly I put it in everything.  In the morning, I fill a stem glass with whatever fruit juice I got – like the juice I made from those apples I was yapping about yesterday – and stir in a heaping tablespoon of yogurt. I like Nancy’s, cause it just stirs right in, nice and creamy smooth. And Nancy’s has all the natural bacterial cultures you need to properly digest your food and keep from getting a traffic jam in your colon – whoa-whoa-WHOA!

Another one of my favorite yogurt recipes  is buttermilk ranch dressing.  I start with grated parmesan cheese – a quarter to a half cup, depending on how much I have handy, it’s so expensive. But it’s “hard” cheese, and that’s better for you than soft cheeses like cheddar and mozzarella.  Then I add a few cloves of minced garlic – I like to use Graham Kerr’s trick, smash it with my knife blade, and then the skins come right off and there you have it. Then some dried ground oregano, black pepper,  a “dash”  of lemon juice, and another of “wooster” sauce.  Make that two dashes of wooster. Then you add about a cup of yogurt. If you want you can use mayonaise, but that’s soooo bad for you, I’d advise against it. 

Last the buttermilk, whipped in with a fork. Buttermilk is lower in fat than “sweet” whole milk, and it also has natural cultures that help your body digest it’s food, like yogurt. Plus, it adds that nice, tart flavor. It makes the dressing bubble, it’s very active. I put it in the fridge in the morning, and by dinner time it’s got a head on it, all floating with black pepper bits. 

Here’s my lunch trick – make extra salad for dinner, and put the leftover in a cute little clear plastic container, all red and green and crunchy looking! Put it right in front of the fridge, so when you open that door at noon, when the temp is up around 90, you will slobber at the sight of it. Slop on some of that buttermilk dressing, and before you know it, you’ve polished off the whole container, and you’re not that hungry anymore. For protein, add some shredded lunch meat and cheese. And I’ll tell you a secret – I allow myself some of those Chinese crunchy noodles. I know – back slider! 

But I’ll tell you what, I’ve reached my personal goal and I feel better.  According to the Center for Disease Prevention, I was still within the healthy range for my height, but I was heading pretty quickly toward “overweight” if I didn’t change my habits. I’d been gaining too fast.  I see this happening to people all around me, and I’d like to inspire them to take a few steps toward better health.   Especially Ann Schwab – we pay her health insurance, I want that woman to lose weight.  Here’s the challenge – Ann, you need to lose 25 pounds by January 1, or forfeit your city health insurance plan.  I’m doing it for your own good – you know, just like you are banning plastic bags and corporate person hood, for my own good.  I like to call that, “Tough Like”. 

How to “opt out” of Market Value Place

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 I know I said I’d never mention the MVP again, but something came up.

I have been getting inquiries here and there, on my blog, as well as out and about. People really hate that thing, there’s websites devoted to getting rid of crap like that. People want to know how to opt out, and they ask me how I’m doing in my  efforts to get the publisher to print that opt-out information in the circular. 

I didn’t attend the last meeting of the Sustainability Task Force because life is too short. But, I’ve been trying to keep in touch with Linda Herman and the other members on this issue – why bring something up, if you don’t follow it through? That’s what my dad used to call, “half-assing it”.  So, last week, when I got a copy from a tenant who complained they’d like to get rid of it, I opened it up to look for the opt-out information – still NOTHING.  I e-mailed Linda Herman about this, and she said she’d also been looking, and also found NOTHING. So, she promised she’d get to work on a letter to the ER from the STF committee. Now that’s what I call Bureaucracy in Action!  

I’d already cc’d Enterprise Record editor  David Little and advertising manager Fred Crosthwaite with my e-mail. Crosthwaite responded to me today. He said, 

Juanita,

To opt- out of the MVP please contact or email

Jenny Jurdana at jjurdana@chicoer.com

Please send your address and request to opt- out it generally takes 2 weeks for your address to cycle of the mail list once

The address is taken off the list.

Please call me if you have any further questions

 Thanks

 Fred

Fred is a nice guy, and I appreciate his attention to this detail. It shouldn’t really be his job, but he’s trying to handle it the best he can. See, it’s nobody’s job because there’s never been any opt-out policy. The ER has been scrambling to come up with one. They have never tried to deny that’s the law.  The problem being, they still have not printed the information  in the MVP, and that’s the whole point. They just don’t seem to get it. 

I must again give STF member BT Chapman credit – he points this out to Fred in his e-mail response.

 

“The larger issue I believe is around the alleged law that says that there is to be published (in the  weekly mvp), instructions on how to opt out. “

But he calls it “the alleged law” – Mr. Chapman has still not bothered to look it up for himself, call the postmaster, or otherwise research it, but he  casts asparagus on my credibility by using the word “alleged“.  I don’t know what his problem is, but I can’t really pick on the guy – he was one of the two STF members who voted against the bag ban. 

The last word on this, for today, is that I’m still waiting for that opt-out  information to appear where it should, in the outer shell wrapper of that pile of inserts and ads known as Market Value Place. I’ll keep you posted, you do same. 

 

 

My 16 year old son just caught Budd Schwab posting a sign on my property!

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My son caught Budd Schwab in my yard today, and asked him what he was doing. Budd said “somebody” at my house had requested a sign. My son told him NO, and that we’d just found one posted illegally. The Budd-ster got into his Campus Bicycles vehicle, half-owned by his wife, Chico Mayor Ann Schwab, and took his shiny act right down the road. 

I’m going to make a complaint to the city clerk, and then I’m going to talk to a friend of mine about a complaint with the FPPC.

and Budd,  stay away from my kids. 

Schwab supporters post sign illegally in front of my house

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This sign, placed illegally by an Ann Schwab supporter, is an example of how NOT to place a campaign sign. The phone pole is the boundary to the public right of way, if you look hard, you can see they’ve placed it right under the wheels of my mail carrier’s vehicle.

My husband came home from some errands yesterday to find some joker had placed an Ann Schwab sign in front of my house.

I’ve just been looking into getting some signs printed for the “No on Measure J” campaign, and I must say, whoever did this must be financially well-off enough to literally throw money in the street.  This sign stood in front of my house for less than two hours, and now it’s in my garage, where nobody can see it. I guess whoever it is got the satisfaction of doing something ILLEGAL and getting away with it, and if that’s worth money to them, well, good for them.

I don’t have that kind of money to throw down, sorry. Signs are expensive – the cheapest little signs I’ve found, printed online, are about $3.30 a piece. That’s three tacos, which would constitute my lunch and a snack for later. $3.30 is more than I pay for a pound of boneless chicken. $3.30 is about a gallon of gas, which really goes somewhere in my little car. $3.30 is still money to me, I don’t go around throwing it on the ground.

See, this is just what I’ve been trying to tell you – money means nothing to Ann Schwab and her friends, they are swimming in it. They can throw away a perfectly good campaign sign just for the shits and giggles of harassing somebody.

Well, I’ll tell you what – today I am going to take $3.30 to the store, and buy me a can of red spray paint and give my Ann Schwab sign a little makeover. I’ll post that too. But I post my signs legally and on my own property, which is more than I can say for Ann Schwab and her crowd.

Hey folks, send me pictures of  illegally posted signs, and I’ll post them too. Dave Kelley is all over the place, I’ve heard from property owners that have taken his signs down.  There are also signs in the public right of way – you can remove those.   Let’s take pictures, and then if you don’t have any other use for the signs, I’ll take them to remake “No on Measure J” signs out of them.

Who are the “One Percent”? Ask Ann Schwab.

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For years now, I’ve felt Ann Schwab is a hypocrite who tells people what they want to hear in order to get elected. I have long felt that she is more interested in her own personal gain than any fuzzy feel-good notions of sustainability.

One doubt I have about Ann’s sincerity is that while she blabs a bunch of New Urban, sustainable ya-ya,  she maintains a huge home in Forest Ranch. I believe she keeps her tiny Chico apartment only to satisfy the legal requirements.  I found out about the house in Forest Ranch from Lon Glazner, who casually mentioned it in his blog, Commission Impossible. Then, one day, I was at the Forest Ranch store, and there came Schwab’s husband Budd, in his Campus Bicycles pick-up. He turned in, passed the store and headed up the road, then came back a few minutes later with his dog, the dog who is pictured on Ann’s website. He went into the post office and came out carrying mail, then went right back up the road. I had to know so I followed him. I got the address and I’ve researched it, and sure enough, Ann Schwab is half owner of that huge house overlooking Chico Creek canyon.


http://www.city-data.com/butte-county-ca/D/Dear-Abby-Road-1.html

Pardon me Ann, but your hypocri-slip is showing.  Yes, there’s a chimney on the house. A chimney that is not subject to Ann’s Chico wood burning ban. Neither is the house subject to Ann’s RECO ordinance, which requires all kinds of retrofits on the sale of an older home in Chico.  Nor will the Forest Ranch store – which, by the way, is a very nice little place to have lunch and pick up some groceries –  be subject to the plastic bag ban. Although, I don’t think they use plastic bags there, anyway. Personal choice, and all that.

The apartment Ann owns in Chico is assessed at less than $100,000, while the home in Forest Ranch is assessed at almost $400,000. The nearly $4,000 a year she pays in property taxes on the Big House goes entirely to the county of Butte – Chico gets what, 45 percent of the $900 or so she pays on her apartment?

She owns half the bicycle shop, but I doubt she owns the space, and therefore, pays little in the way of property taxes there.  Here’s Ann’s Form 700, filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission, that is supposed to tell what she owns and any income, investments, gifts, or other profits she gets and where they come from:


http://www.fppc.ca.gov/form700/2010/City/A-E/R_Schwab_Ann.pdf

Unless she’s in violation of the reporting rules, she either lives in the Forest Ranch house or uses it as a “vacation house”. The FPPC rules say you have to list any properties you own other than your main residence and a vacation home. Like here, Mary Flynn had to list all her rentals:


http://www.fppc.ca.gov/form700/2011/City/A-E/R_Goloff_Mary_Louise.pdf

See where Mary had to list all her wedding gifts –  nice life for a retired school teacher turned city councilor, my good geeshy sakes!

And then there’s Ann, who presents us a picture of the Good Life, to be sure. A  big house on a large lot overlooking Chico Creek canyon, with a little apartment in town to use for whatever she pleases – how ginchee!  And a stock market player – get aload of those investments. Although that’s funny – for a gal who’s so hot onto Sustainability, she sure takes a payout from the oil industry – look over the forms on that link again.

Over $10,000 – somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000 -  in  Kinder Morgan Energy Partners – “We own an interest in or operate approximately 75,000 miles of pipelines and 180 terminals. Our pipelines transport natural gas, refined petroleum products, crude oil, carbon dioxide (CO2) and more. We also store or handle a variety of products and materials at our terminals such as gasoline, jet fuel, ethanol, coal, petroleum coke and steel.” 

Another $10,000 – 100,000  into Enterprise Products Partnerships LP who are in the very lucrative industry of natural gas transportation and storage – with customers like PG&E, regular benefactors of actions taken by Schwab’s Sustainability Task Force. I wonder if that’s a conflict of interest? 

How about  the stock she owns in Amgen? Did she own that stock when she voted several years ago to spend around $19,000 on a bid to get Amgen to host their annual Amgen professional bike tour here in Chico?  To compete with heavily touristed areas like Tahoe and the wine country? We didn’t have a chance. They took our money and turned us down. What was she thinking? Your guess is as good, or as bad, as mine.

Rambling along here, we see Ann still works at the university, listing her salary as somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000 a year. Somewhere, hmmmm. That on top of her income from the bike store – somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000.  A combined stock market value somewhere  between $35,000 and $350,000. Quite vague, to be sure, but setting her annual income well over $100,000 plus per year. To those of us Earth dwellers living on the median income around $40,000 a year, that’s a lot of moolah, Baby. That’s the One Percent. 

You’d think this gal could afford to get her own health insurance, wouldn’t you? A lot of people don’t know this – and they act shocked and disbelieving when I tell them – council members get not only a modest salary, but a health package that includes FICA, workman’s comp, and medical, dental and vision insurance.  According to city Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy, councilors each receive a salary of $7,800 a year, with Ann as mayor receiving $9,240. They also each get their choice of “higher” and “lower” benefits plans – ranging from Andy Holcombe’s roughly $8,700 plan, to Ann’s roughly $21,000 plan. Yes, we spend, to be exact, $21,465.41 on a health insurance package for Ann Schwab and her husband. 

But, I’ll say, each councilor contributes a little something from their paycheck, just like everybody else.  The budget policy reads as follows:

Budget Policy I.1.b.    City Council Health Insurance. Councilmembers shall be covered by the City’s employee health insurance plans.  Councilmembers shall contribute two percent of their Council pay for the City’s lower benefit plan and four percent of their Council pay for the City’s higher benefit plan.  The City contribution shall be the difference between the Councilmember contribution and the total premium.  The City Manager is authorized to determine which plan shall be designated as the lower benefit plan and which plan shall be designated as the higher benefit plan.  Consistent with employee health insurance coverage, dental and vision insurance shall be included in the health insurance coverage with no additional payment by Councilmembers.

You see it says, “two percent” and “four percent” – “ of their Council pay…” - not of their benefits package, but of the much smaller figure of their salary. So, Ann contributes what, four percent of $9000 – that’s only $360, and the other $21,105 is paid by US.  Remember  - and I don’t think we need to quote statistics here, we all know this is true – over half the households in Chico live on $40,000 a year or less. How many of us can afford a $21,000 insurance policy for our family?

What the heck is going on here?

LAME, Linda!

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I got a response from Linda Herman to yesterday’s e-mail, regarding the Market Value Place. Bear with me a little longer on this, and I swear, I will never mention it again.

The meeting at which I asked the Sustainability Task Force for help with these mailers was August 6.  Herman informs me, as of yesterday, September 4, that  she received a call from the Enterprise Record the day before that meeting, but didn’t listen to the message because the indicator light on her city office phone has been malfunctioning.  The caller, an ER employee named Renee, said “She had seen the agenda and wanted us to know that they already let people ‘opt out’.”  But, Herman says, “ I had called her back to ask if this information was printed on the MVP piece but hadn’t heard back.” So, a group of people sat for over 45 minutes having a discussion about something without all the facts. Herman didn’t even bother to get a copy of the gd thing and look at it for herself – she had to ask the ER! 

I’m going to say it – LAME LINDA! This is what we get for $85,000/yr plus benefits? She may as well have said, “The dog ate my phone…” Maybe Renee could do her job for her. 

The meeting was August 6. At that time, committee member BT Chapman, who voiced more concern over “offending the Enterprise Record” than offending the planet, said he “knew somebody”down at the ER, and he’d talk to them about it. That, frankly, was all I wanted. I told the committee I felt I had been treated badly when I’d called the ER and asked to opt out because I was a nobody, and that I believed the clout of the mayor and the committee would get the publisher to do something. 

Chapman seemed to agree, but  went home and didn’t bother to make the call for over two weeks – August 21. By that time, I had already been directing readers to e-mail Editor David Little. One woman had already reported to me that she’d had success through that route – Little had responded very sweetly and told her it would be taken care of. But he didn’t tell her to call circulation, he told her to e-mail Fred Crosthwaite, who responded promptly that her name would be removed.  So,  I  e-mailed Little and Crosthwaite  myself, and voila! I haven’t had that stack of crap in my box for two weeks straight. 

But Chapman says the woman he talked to at the ER, a gal named Janette, told him “that a call to circulation (879 7888) is all it takes to opt out.” Anybody can see here, they don’t have an opt out policy, they’re just scrambling to make one up.  Chapman goes on to say, “ But then I asked if in fact there was a regulation requiring an opt out clause and phone number to be printed in the MVP..” Oh, that’s great – he’s asking the perps if they are breaking the law! Go BT, you go get ‘em Boy! 

Chapman says, “Jeanette said she did not know but would research and get back to me.  Sure enough today in the after noon I received a call and janette said it will take two weeks but an opt out clause will be published in the MVP..”

And get a load of this, “She indicated that one may have to search inside the paper to find it but it will be there from now on.”  Uh huh, “search inside the paper…” I get it, uh huh. 

Chapman concludes, “Wow! This sounds too simple to be true but I guess all we can do now is take her at her word and be on the look out for the clause and follow-up if it doesn’t appear.”  Oh, isn’t that cute? The old bastard thinks HE did it! 

You don’t have to search the pages of the Market Value Place – here’s the “opt out information” – dlittle@chicoer.co or fcrosthwaite@chicoer.com. That will do it. Or I guess you could  call Janette at 879-7888 – tell her Juanita said HOWDEE! 

Go Tell It On The Mountain

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Two weeks have gone by now with no Market Value Place in my mail box. Excuse me, but as a housewife who spends a lot of time dealing with trash, this is a pissant victory for me.

Market Value Place is that ugly pile of dead trees with slick advertising that is plopped in your mailbox every week. I know, there’s other mailers, but MVP is a PIG! It’s huge and messy, wads up your box, and sheesh, the TREEMANITY of it.

Ann Schwab will be Downtown tonight, beating a drum for her bag ban, but does she really know what goes on at the Neal Road dump?  If they let you dig into that thing, like archaeology, I’d bet my last bippy you’d find whole layers of fresh looking newsprint, just laying there, waiting to see the sun again. And, I’m also guessing, a layer made almost completely of paper grocery bags, many of them printed with “Trader Joe’s” eclectic news-style print.  This I guess because I see those Trader Joe’s bags most prominently sticking out of people’s trash and recycling cans on trash day. My neighbor  comes out every Sunday when she cleans out her kitchen with an armful of TJ’s bags, by trash day her recycling bin is flowing over with them. 

My son said it best when he read up on this issue: “Using paper bags to carry your groceries is like wiping your ass with a $20 bill.”  I love a child with a sense of value and the gumption to say what he’s thinking.  The boy loves trees, he loves the wilderness. When he came across his first clear cut, I swear to Boudica, I saw the fire in his belly. I didn’t have to tell him that was wrong, he knew as soon as he saw it. 

Unfortunately, Ann Schwab does not have this grasp on “right and wrong.” She is led not by a sense of moral scruples, but by the sense that keeps her butt in that chair – “tell ‘em what they want to hear!”  She’s all big talk on Sustainability – did you know, that committee has been running on at the mouth  for over three years, and the only “accomplishment” they’ve made is to get SMART meters installed on our homes by way of the RECO ordinance? The Sustainability Task Force is nothing but a circle jerk, a bunch of hypocrites sitting around patting each other on the back for being so sustainable!

This is what I realized when I took my junk mail problem to Ann Schwab. She listened politely, the gang all chimed in, and then they agendized it for further committee action. Action? Sitting around in a room once a month slobbering all over yourselves? They’re like mole rats – the privileged few go outside, the rest eat their crap, happily. 

When I took my junk mail issue to the STF, I was genuinely trying to deal with a problem. I feel the junk mail issue is at least as important as the plastic bag issue, especially since there’s a law in place and certain mailers are point blank ignoring the law. Especially when the mail originates in your own town.  I thought the mayor would have enough clout to contact the Enterprise Record and simple ask them to follow the law. I was floored when she just hem-hawed around and said she’d “look into it.” 

So, I sent the e-mail below  to Linda Herman and Ann Schwab telling them I’d already done their job, no thank you very much. I don’t like the idea of Linda Herman milking another $85,000 plus benies out of my problems. 

Linda, Ann,

 I’d like to make a formal request that you “un-agendize” my Market Value Place “junk mailer” issue. 
 
I’ve solved the problem myself,  with help from people who read my blog, we put pressure where it was needed. I found that an e-mail to Enterprise Record Editor David Little at dlittle@chicoer.com will do the trick, especially if you have other people to back you up. He refers you to Fred Crosthwaite, at fcrosthwaite@chicoer.com.  I wrote to them and have not received MVP in my mailbox for two weeks. 
 
 I don’t see the need for more “agendizing” or “discussing”.   My blog readers and I just dealt with it, rather than sitting around for hours and hours talking about it.  I had come to the Sustainability Task Force for that “back up,” and I didn’t get it. I was surprised and disappointed. Not one member of the task force wrote to Little to my knowledge, but I got perfect strangers to do so, and it worked. Something that simple, that’s all I asked of your committee, and that was too much? 
 
Thank you for unagendizing this issue – I don’t want any more $taff time spent on something I already took care of myself for free – sincerely, Juanita Sumner