Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

  • Home
  • Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes A Public Interest Group formed to keep people informed

Little off-topic but worthwhile endeavor.
02/02/2022

Little off-topic but worthwhile endeavor.

23/01/2022

Has anyone seen the survey sent out by the City ?

To those select few who have received it... what are your thoughts?

Worth the $40,000.00 of Tax Payers money?

12/01/2022

Willows City Council Meeting tonight was interesting. You should check out the face book live if you weren't watching it.
3 Council Members were served with Intent to recall documents. The Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Kerri Warren.
Stay tuned here for updates.......Maybe they'll listen to the public they serve now.

08/12/2021

Willows City Council hires pricy Los Angeles firm to regulate local business licenses
By Forrest Sprague
Spokesman for Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

Willows: Sometimes you just can’t make stuff up. This is one of those times.
According to the recent Wastewater Rate Study (completed by a consultant at the cost of $42,000 to ratepayers), our town of Willows has just over 250 businesses operating within the city limits. The average cost of a business license in Willows is around $30 per year, generating approximately $7,500 of annual revenue to the City.
Of course, this amount is in addition to the sales tax, sewer fees, equipment inventory tax, occupancy taxes, and other fees paid by those enterprises that provide goods, services, and jobs for our community.
But new City Manager Marti Brown has her suspicions. She says, “…there is a high probability that there are businesses operating within the City Limits…without licenses, resulting in revenue loss to the City.” Clearly, Ms. Brown must think that this travesty cannot continue.
Ms. Brown also says that no City employee, apparently not even she, is capable of managing the business license renewal process. Really? In a town of 6,000 with 250 businesses? Seriously?
So what is her recommendation and the City Council’s solution to the problem? Well, they decided to follow what has become a pattern: Spend taxpayer money to hire yet another pricy “consulting” firm from Los Angeles to conduct a “study.” (Sound familiar? It’s not going to end well, is it.)
But the price of this latest study is surreal. This “Fee Analysis and Comparative Study” will cost Willows taxpayers…wait for it… $32,000.
Yes! The Willows City Council has decided to spend more than four times as much money to analyze and study the license process than the license fees actually generate! No one could make this up, right?
Newly appointed Councilman Robert Griffith made the motion to approve City Manager Brown’s recommendation. To nobody’s surprise, Vice-mayor Gary Hansen leaped to second the action. The only clear-thinking Council Member, Jeff Williams, actually represented the community by voting NO on the absurd proposal.
According the City Manager Brown’s staff report and the Los Angeles company’s website, the “services” provided by this firm will also include:
• Identifying and ensuring that “entities subject to taxation are properly registered”;
• “Process renewal application”;
And because business owners have nothing better to do with their time…
• “Audit businesses for under-reporting.”
Then they will “draft a series of possible business tax restructuring options” for the City Council’s consideration. Translated, these weasel words mean that once again, the City Council wants to penalize anyone for doing business here. (But not before first generously rewarding big-city consultants to target Willows businesses.)
Upon the appointment of City Manager Marti Brown, Mayor Larry Domenighini said, “She will be a good fit for the City of Willows. I look forward to her long tenure.”
Vice-mayor Gary Hansen accurately boasted that she hit the ground running. “I welcome her to the permanent City Manager position.”
But then, these two guys also want you to believe that a downtown business with one toilet, one sink, and a coffee pot, open weekdays, uses a lot more water and generates more sewage than a family living in an apartment 24/7. Based on that, they voted to raise sewer fees on businesses by over 100% while giving huge fee reductions to out of town apartment owners.
So can we really trust their opinions? Like I said, you can’t make this stuff up. Please stay tuned—there is more to come.
# # #



Marti Brown’s photo as posted on the City of Willows website

20/10/2021

Whose interest does the Willows City Council protect?

Answer: It is not the citizens!

Opinion by Forrest Sprague

Spokesman for Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

WILLOWS: Soon after his first election to the State Senate in 1993, my boss, Senator Maurice Johannessen and I soon felt like our efforts in the legislature might be an exercise in futility. He had some great ideas for initiating change—at least we and many others thought they were great ideas. But we soon discovered that the legislative process did not serve the best interests of the public.

Instead, the state lawmaking body was dominated by legislators whose first priority was to protect the selfish interests of the state’s herd of bureaucrats. Sadly, that same toxic mindset has infected the majority of the Willows City Council. They have forgotten they were elected to represent the best interests of the general public.

Council members Domenighini, Hansen, and Warren have chosen to cater to and protect the City’s bloated bureaucracy that feeds itself frequently and generously from the pockets of Willows’ citizens. Rather than representing their constituents, they have opted to represent the City’s bureaucratic power structure, much to the harm of Willows taxpaying citizens.

There is an intense and richly deserved distrust in the overall management of the City, and a complete lack of confidence in the City Council’s ability or even desire to make changes for the better. At this point, their objective has been to mindlessly rubber stamp the wishes of the Roseville-based, highly paid City lawyer.

It appears that their lawyer’s purpose is to protect City bureaucrats by stonewalling, withholding public information, and stifling free access to public records. For example, according to Council Member Domenighini, for many weeks, only the lawyer was allowed to know how much a consulting firm was paid for their services. Even the Council was kept in the dark! And they were fine with that.

But we now know that the out-of-town “consultants” were given an astonishing $41,000 to finagle a new sewer rate to make rich apartment owners even richer while harshly penalizing local businesses, families and neighbors. Apparently the consultants in charge of the fee increase study also botched the calculations for new billing amounts. Will they be held accountable? Not likely!

The main take away from my seven years of working in the Sacramento political process was simple and profound: there is no better disinfectant for rotten politics than sunlight and transparency. For me, doing my part in shedding light was motivation to stay in the battle in Sacramento. That is the same motivation I have for the citizens of Willows.

The law intended to enforce transparency is the Public Records Act. The PRA requires that city accounting and other records be made available upon request. This is a pesky little law that the City routinely blocks, slow-walks, stonewalls, dances around, and, when all else fails, simply ignores.

One case in point is that for over two years and continuing, the City has doggedly refused to provide documentation showing the actual costs to maintain the sewer system. Another example is their withholding the records that prove what City has done with $1.2 million of building permit fees. The list goes on and on.

How can this all be remedied? First and foremost, it takes an informed and active public. One small organization like ours can only do so much. Learn the issues, and with your knowledge, insist on a few basic standards the Council must uphold:

First, the City Council and staff should immediately begin to conduct the City’s business by the rule of law—not by the marching orders from their lawyer.

Next, the Council members must honor their obligations to protect their constituents’ best interests—not the City’s self-serving bureaucrats. It appears that currently the senior Council members want to protect City staff and consultants from any accountability for the misuse of public funds and property.

Third, we should hold our elected officials responsible for refusing to hold their subordinates accountable for failing to follow the laws meant to protect the public’s best interests.

As best as we can tell, only Councilman Jeff Williams is working to accomplish those objectives. Jeff continues to ask for transparency and accountability, but his efforts are met with criticism and ridicule by Council members, hired consultants, and city staff determined to maintain the status quo.

Starting with the next City Council meeting, we will begin exposing other examples of the misuse of public funds and property by city staff and consultants. Then to ensure transparency, we will request a member of the Council to follow up on the problem and report their findings during subsequent council meetings. If they fail to follow through, we will shine the sunlight on the matter. Then and only then, can the local political system become disinfected.

11/10/2021

I hope everyone is planning to attend tomorrow nights City Council Meeting! It's important to show Council and Staff that
WE ARE PAYING ATTENTION!!!
5 P.M. City Hall

09/10/2021

TIME CHANGE FOR SPECIAL MEETING

The special meeting scheduled for Tuesday October 12th at 5:30 PM. has been changed.

Meeting time is now set to start at 5:00 PM.

This is the meeting for interviewing prospects to fill the vacant Council seat! This is obviously VERY important. Lets all show up so we can see who the Council chooses to fill Joe Fleshers seat. ALOT going on in our City right now folks. and it's not ALL good.

Please attend this special meeting and get involved!! Use your voice! Help us save our City

09/10/2021

Willows sewer bills are botched and City-owned parcels are still unlawfully exempted

By Forrest Sprague
Spokesman for Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

Willows: It seems that with our present City Council, bad situations always get worse. The rollout of the new sewer rates is a good example. We don’t have all the details yet because the City and County bureaucrats are still mystified as to what happened and who is responsible for the debacle. But here is what we know at this point:

Many property and business owners are outraged over the new sewer rates listed on their property tax bills. Some who have owned vacant lots without a sewer connection are now being assessed for sewer usage. (Unfortunately, though unfair, this could be lawful with no recourse for property owners.)

Some downtown building owners, whose tenants pay the sewer fee through their water bill, are also being assessed the fee on their property tax bill. So is the City double dipping, hoping that no one will notice?

One owner of a four unit apartment has historically paid under $2,000 a year for the service. Due to the reduced rates adopted by the City Council last August, rates were supposed to go down for multi-family complexes. Instead, this year the building owner’s sewer bill shot up to a whopping $7,000.

Because of an agreement the Northeast Willows Community Service District has with the City of Willows, the rates were not supposed to climb in that area until next year. But according to their County Supervisor, some of his constituents are complaining that their fees went up this year anyway.

All the while, the City officials are telling the County tax folks that the city-owned properties are exempt from paying sewer fees. This unlawful practice, which has gone on for decades, was eliminated with the passage of Proposition 218 in 1996. The attorneys from the California League of Cities wrote this:

“If special assessments are to be used to finance capital improvements or certain services, property owned by a public agency [meaning the City] must now shoulder its proportionate share of the cost of such improvements or services notwithstanding the impact of such assessment on such agency.” (Emphasis added)

Is this just another example of City staff’s and the Council’s ignorance of the law, or are they again knowingly breaking the law, hoping no one will notice that either?

Now to her credit, the new City Manager Marti Brown is trying to make some sense out of the accounting of expenditures from the Sewer Fund. She has hired yet another outside financial consultant to help. And last week she recommended that the Council approve the reallocation of $175,000 from General Fund to pay the Public Works employees for their non-sewer related tasks. This helps correct another unlawful practice that has gone on for decades—charging the Sewer Fund for what should have been paid from the General Fund.

However, we question her logic behind awarding a $75,000 contact to a firm to perform the maintenance of the in-town portion of the sewer system. A review of the last 10 years of the Public Works employees’ timecards show that they spend less than 100 hours per year maintaining the in-town underground sewer infrastructure. Paying $750 per hour for this service looks pretty pricey. Until we review the final contact the City has with the firm, we will remain skeptical whether this was a wise and warranted decision by the Council. As the twists in these issues are unraveled, we will keep you posted.

In the meantime, many are asking, “Can the senior members of the Council spell RECALL?” We wonder.

07/10/2021

If you don't call the City to report an error on your tax bill, it will NOT automatically be corrected.

30/09/2021

Willows new sewer fees promotes high-density, low-income apartments

Opinion by Forrest Sprague,
Spokesman for Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

Willows: When government increases taxes and fees on a business enterprise, its activity will probably be reduced. But when government offers tax or fee reductions for any industry, their production will most likely expand.

In addition to the law of supply and demand, those two factors also will affect the Willows housing market. A recent decision made by the Willows City Council certainly paves the way for high-density, low-income apartment projects, so we can expect to see more of them popping up very soon.

Many will remember that on August 12, 2021, the senior members of City Council voted to adjust our sewer fees. So if you already own or want to buy a single-family home in Willows, you will pay more sewer fees. And if you own or want to start a business here you will pay more for the service. Only the junior Council member Jeff Williams had the wisdom and foresight to oppose the measure.

To justify lowering sewer fees on multi-family complexes, both Council members Domenighini and Hansen used the same unconvincing excuse. They want us to believe that a family living in an apartment, who takes showers, cooks, and washes dishes 30 days a month, uses less water than a downtown business open around 40 hours a week that has a toilet, a small sink and a coffee pot. That’s ridiculous gentlemen!

Now wealthy corporations, most from out of town, that already own or want to build low-income, multi-family complexes in Willows will enjoy huge sewer fee reductions! While increasing housing costs on families and operating costs on local businesses, the Willows City Council voted to make it easier on apartment landlords by saving them tens of thousands in their annual expenses!

Some know that Willows city staff has diverted more than $600,000 of building permit fees already collected from homeowners living north of the GCID irrigation canal. Those permit fees were first intended for street and infrastructure upgrades in the northern portion of town. Instead, the City used those building permit fees to improve the Basin Street development to the south of the canal.

To benefit that project even more, last year the Willows Planning Commission approved the application to rezone part of the Basin Street property to allow an 80-unit, low-income apartment project. The question then becomes: Will it be financially feasible to operate that complex? You bet! The Council’s recent reduction in sewer fees for apartment owners makes that project probable.

Also, another out-of-town corporation is now working with Glenn County to develop a 32-unit, low-income apartment project in Northeast Willows. Although the present owner would prefer to build single-family homes on the four parcels, he can’t afford the associated costs.

Due to Glenn County’s building restrictions, the charges from California Water Service, and the recent conditions imposed on the project by the City, putting just four houses on his property is no longer financially viable. Therefore the current owner wants to sell the land.

Recently, the Willows City Engineer told an interested out-of-town buyer, a land development company that specializes in high-density, low-income apartments, “…the City’s Wastewater Treatment Plant currently has the capacity to serve the project.” Another deciding factor is whether it will be affordable to operate an apartment complex once it’s built. Reduced sewer fees will help.

And while all of this has been going on in Willows, in Sacramento Governor Gavin Newsom signed a host of new housing laws that promise to limit, if not end, the building of single-family homes. In their place, the law changes are intended to generate more and more multi-family complexes.

These new laws are designed to ease local zoning requirements to allow more high-density housing. So now developers can build up to four living units on lots previously zoned for single-family homes. Sadly, there is very little the City or neighbors can do to stop this change in land use. And the state is funneling more money into low-income, high-density housing.

Moreover, the state is offering other incentives to local governments that comply with the Governor Newsome’s housing goals. So under certain conditions, in some cities as many as 10 living units can be built on a single parcel.

Some doubt that this was intentional. But without doubt, the City Council sewer rate “adjustment” will certainly accelerate the housing goals of the Newsom regime here in Willows. My guess is that these sewer fee adjustments were enthusiastically celebrated in Sacramento.

Well done Council members Domenighini, Hansen and Warren! Well done indeed!

30/09/2021

MASSIVE TAX BILL ERRORS NEED YOUR ATTENTION NOW.

Hello All,
The tax bills have been sent out and a majority of them are incorrect. We have reported errors of peoples taxes going from $1700.00 to over $7000.00 a year, amongst other incorrect amounts. So if you have not opened your tax bill you need to do so right away. If you have your taxes being paid by your mortgage company and have an error YOU NEED TO NOTIFY THEM RIGHT AWAY. Take your tax bill to the assessors office if you suspect an error.

20/09/2021

Applications now available for Willows City Council

By Forrest Sprague
Spokesman for Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

No doubt you heard that Joe Flesher recently resigned from the Willows City Council. We can only speculate as to the reasons why. There are two possible ways to fill the vacancy–either through a special election or by City Council appointment. The Council has chosen to appoint using one of four processes to do so:

1. They can appoint the next highest vote getter from the last election. This process is the most logical, fair and least politically biased, and therefore the least likely to be chosen by this current Council.
2. The Council could invite all unsuccessful candidates from the last election to submit an application and the other members can choose from those people. This is also logical, but still open to political prejudices.
3. They can nominate candidates that they want and then choose one of the nominees. This process is certain to produce political clones of the three longest servicing members.
4. Or the Council can invite all eligible citizens who would like to serve, and the Council can choose from those. But this will also allow for favoritism and cherry picking.
Council member Jeff Williams, who does his own thinking, made a motion for Option 1, to appoint the highest vote getter from the last election. As sad as it was predictable, the motion died for lack of a second.
To no one’s surprise, and no doubt at the prodding of the highly paid city lawyer, Council members Larry/Gary/Kerri have chosen the last alternative. This option enables them to retain the Gari/Lary/Kerry voting block and continue to rubber stamp the wishes of the City’s increasingly wealthy lawyer.
If a non-Kary/Lerri/Garry member were to fill the vacancy, it is entirely possible that Willows taxpayers would find out secrets that the Gerri/Karry/Larie team has so faithfully kept hidden—also probably at the bidding of their city lawyer.

Secrets like: How many tens of thousands did the “consultants” that the city “lawyer” hired to do the sewer rate “study” get paid? That’s just for starts.

What are the actual costs to maintain the city sewer system? Whatever happened to the $1.2 million plus extracted in building permit fees? Where has all the money gone? And WHY is all that kept top-secret?

As a little joke, I have referred to the three rhyming Council Members by various renditions of their names to demonstrate that in their group thinking, they are actually interchangeable. Each of them parrots the other in public hearings—and they are likely to vote precisely as instructed by the lawyer who charges thousands of taxpayer dollars for his time.

Once again we have to play the hand we were dealt, so we do encourage Willows citizens who want to help mop up the mess created by City officials and politicians, to submit an application for the vacancy on the City Council.

You can complete an easy-fill application available online from the cityofwillows.org website. Applications must be submitted to the Willows City Clerk by Thursday, September 23, no later than 4:30 PM.

Special consideration will be given to candidates named Mary, Barry, Harry, Jerry, Terry, Sherry, Perry, Curly or Moe—just kidding; I made up the last two.

14/09/2021

so... tonight is a City Council meeting at 7 pm at City Hall. If you have read the Agenda for tonights meeting, you will see that they are going to decide just HOW to replace Joe Flesher. Anyone who is interested in filling this seat to try to balance our current Council is STRONGLY urged to fill out an application. Who knows what kind of "tactics" will be used to fill Mr. Fleshers seat. Property Owners have heard rumblings of Casey Hofehenke fillng this vacancy. Casey is a very articulate, intelligent young man who would bring a breath of fresh air to the Council! Casey cares about our City! Let's show him some support!

13/09/2021

NO SEWER RATE INCREASE FOR NORTHEAST WILLOWS RATEPAYERS FOR 2021-2022 TAX ROLL



With a shortage of the required protest letters turned in to the City of Willows for the Proposed Sewer Rate Increase, the sewer rate increase will take affect. The Willows City Council voted 4 to 1 to approve the sewer rate increase. All but one Councilman voted to approve the sewer rate hike. Jeff Williams being the only Council member who voted NO. The City Rate Payers will see this increase on their upcoming Tax Bill.



Those who WON'T see the increase this next tax year, are the rate payers in Northeast Willows Community Services District. Thanks to some guidance from Forrest Sprague, they have won a small victory. It seems the Community Service District and the City of Willows have a Joint Powers Agreement/Contract stating the City MUST notify the District no later than May 15th of any given year of their intent to increase the sewer fees for the upcoming tax year. The City of Willows failed to notify the District of any such increase, therefore, Rate Payers in Northeast Willows sewer fees will NOT be increased this year.



Northeast Willows Community Services District has some new Directors this year, as well as, a new President. Randy Galbraith will move into Ray Crabtrees' position as President. Ray will be taking a seat as a Director and we thank him for his many years of service to Northeast Willows.

New Directors include, Dennis Asbury, Rick Allen, and Lisa Davis. Also coming on board as District secretary, is Adele (Foley) Lee.



The Board will continue to advocate for the Tax Payers in Northeast Willows, and encourage others to come and attend a meeting, and learn what we are doing for our Community. We welcome your input, suggestions and ideas! The Board meets every second Wednesday of each month at 5:15pm in the Glenn County Public Works Building at 777 N. Colusa Street in Willows and ALL are welcome to attend! We may have won the battle, but we have much more to accomplish. If we all work together.... WE CAN MAKE CHANGE

25/08/2021

What is behind the character assassination of Jeff Williams?

By Forrest Sprague
Spokesman for Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes

WILLOWS: Ronald Reagan once said, “Destroy someone's reputation, and you don't have to talk about what he stands for.’’ Unfortunately, it seems that our City Council and its lawyer have adopted that saying as a strategy.

I am referring to the Council’s apparent intention to censure and thereby destroy the reputation of a man whose integrity is his trademark. That man is Councilmember Jeff Williams, who, until being defamed, enjoyed a well-deserved reputation of being upstanding, honest, and ethical.

As you consider what this Council is contemplating, ask yourself, is it mere coincidence that Jeff is the single voice on the Council that speaks for us, his constituents? The other four represent interests of the City government, and do their best to conceal actual bureaucratic wrongdoing while saddling ratepayers with the huge financial consequences of the misconduct.

And we certainly know that Mr. Williams ran afoul of city lawyer David G. Ritchie long before being elected to City Council.

So let’s review the motives that might be behind the character assassination of Councilman Williams.

Last summer, when Council meetings were closed to the public because of Covid, Jeff properly requested his comments to be read into the record. But those comments were critical of the City’s conduct, and the city lawyer by fiat denied Mr. Williams’ request.

During election season last fall, City employees illegally placed “Yes on H” signs on city-owned property. Seeing that this was a questionable activity, Mr. Williams emailed City lawyer David Ritchie, attached a photo of the signs, and added the question, “Is this legal?” The accurate answer, “No it isn’t,” would have put the City and Wayne Peabody in a legal pickle, and the lawyer simply dodged the question.

And there are other answers the City Council and their lawyer are refusing to provide to Mr. Williams and the public, as well. For instance:

Who approved diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in building permit fees intended for infrastructure improvements in the northern portion of the city, to the Basin Street project on the south end of town?

Who came up with the hare-brained idea to shift the cost of replacing already damaged and deteriorated city-owned sidewalks onto the property owner?

Is it mere coincidence that Jeff is the one council member to question shocking City expenditures such as the check for $111,000 written to Ritchie’s law firm for one month’s legal services?

How have the $1.2 million of building permit impact fees been spent?

There are more questions being evaded:

What are the actual costs of the maintenance and operations of the city sewer system? And why is an answer to that question so carefully avoided?

Who agreed to hire expensive Los Angeles area consultants to complete the Wastewater Rate Study? How much is that Study costing the ratepayer?

(According to Mayor Domenighini, the city lawyer alone knows the cost. If that is true, then it was the lawyer who hired them and negotiated that probably outrageously expensive contract.)

Who decided to drastically reduce the sewer fees for million dollar corporations owning large apartment complexes while drastically increasing those fees on families and businesses in Willows?

These are just some of the questions that only Councilman Jeff Williams is asking. But the City and its lawyer don’t want anyone to know the answers. So what better way is there to censor, or silence Mr. Williams, than to publicly censure, or reprimand him?

As I was composing this article, the City Clerk emailed the world the heavily redacted Report of Investigation about Mr. Williams’ conduct. Undoubtedly any positive or favorable comments about Jeff are stricken. Instead, all the comments that question his integrity will remain available to the public. And the outside lawyer hired to conduct the “investigation,” who collected over $6,000 for his work, admits that all of the witnesses he interviewed were “biased against Williams”!

Character assassination is common in Washington DC and Sacramento, but it does not belong in Willows.

Jeff Williams, a man who has lived and worked in this town with an unblemished reputation for over 60 years, is being dragged before the City Council to be “censured” for behavior that most of us would consider both kind and courteous.

Facebook is abuzz with outrage over this transparently political move and with sheer disdain for the City Council. This ugly strategy is fooling no one.

I am writing this before the Council votes on this matter, and since anything is possible, they may do the right thing and dismiss it. The problem, of course, is that irreparable and permanent damage has already been done to one of Willows’s most honest and upstanding citizens. Shame!

In closing, let me quote Dolores Cooper, a political outsider who said it was her pleasure to speak to the integrity of someone she knows well:

“I worked with Jeff for about 20 years in the local CHP office. Jeff is honest, trustworthy, and dedicated to the truth. He put honesty and safety of our officers above everything else. Jeff is above reproach. I think it is terrible to censure Jeff in any way.”

I can’t say it any better than that.

Address


Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Property Owners Opposed to Unfair Taxes posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

  • Address
  • Alerts
  • Claim ownership or report listing

  • Want your business to be the top-listed Media Company?

Share