KEN CHURCHILL IS RUNNING FOR SONOMA COUNTY SUPERVISOR
This is from his website and focuses on his opponent, James Gore. Below his info see more information on how James Gore was relieved of his duties at the Department of Agriculture (he officially resigned).
"Yesterday I received the latest James Gore mailer. It is a well produced piece that I am sure a lot of people will find impressive. That is if you don’t know the true story. In it James talks about his 5 Point Plan.
Number 1 of his Plan is titled Creating Jobs. It says “As Vice President of a successful company, he represented California agriculture on trade and affairs while gaining extensive experience managing staff and budgets.”
The company they are talking about is JBC International, a lobbying firm that represented the wine industry, a chemical company and association of collection attorneys. James never talks about his work as a registered Washington lobbyist, but that is what he was from 2006 to 2010 before he went to work for the government.
To find out more about JBC International I ran a Dun and Bradstreet report and low and behold it turns out that JBC is essentially out of business and has an unsatisfied court judgment against them in the amount of $645,000. One would think James is aware of that, but it does not keep him from touting his accomplishments with the firm which looks like it was run by a family and James was the low man on the totem pole. But if he wants to claim he managed their budgets, I am not going to argue with him.
Number 3 of his 5 Point Plan is titled Reforming Pensions and Fixing Roads. Sound familiar? Yes, one week before the election James has become a pension reformer and will use the savings to fix our roads.
But what he says about pensions shows he knows NOTHING about how they work. He said “The County has made great strides to reduce unfunded pension liabilities”.
There are several problems with this statement. First, the Supervisors have accomplished very little in terms of pension reform. In fact, they simply were forced to adopt the state pension reforms and they changed formulas for new hires.
Second, he obviously does not know what an unfunded liability is. Unfunded liabilities are the retirement benefits that are owed to retirees and employees for work already performed. There are 2 ways to reduce the unfunded liability. The first is to cut retiree pensions, which would be a horrible thing to do and is also illegal. The second and only other way to reduce the unfunded liabilities is for the pension funds investments to return greater than the 7.5% assumed rate of return over many years. That is something the Supervisors do not control.
The most common untruth James tells is that he was a “presidential appointee”. I am not sure how he landed the government job, but he was appointed to the NRCS by the Secretary of Agriculture, NOT President Obama.
I told the Press Democrat they should vet all the candidates when they released the report on Pete Foppiano’s tax problems. Unfortunately, they did not take my advice when it came to James and his false claims.
I have tried to run a positive campaign based upon the issues. But I thought you should all know more about James and how he is suffering from a serious case of resume inflation and in my opinion is not qualified for the job of Supervisor.
Sincerely,
Ken Churchill
www.votechurchill.com
Ken Churchill for Supervisor · United States
You can also keep up with Ken Churchill for Supervisor on Facebook.
_________________________________
Info on James Gore's abrupt resignation from his appointed position because millions of dollars in payments went to farmers who were long dead.
"A federal audit released last year showed $10.6 million in improper payments were made by NRCS from 2008 to April 2012 while James Gore was Assistant Chief. Both Gore and his Chief resigned."
Links:
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-503
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/the-government-gave-dead-farmers-more
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/audit-usda-has-paid-millions-dead-farmers-f6C10791319
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/30/watchdog-report-finds-millions-in-govt-payments-to-dead-farmers/
http://votegore.com/about-james/
Natural Resources Conservation Service
Agency overview
Formed
April 20, 1932
Preceding Agency
Soil Conservation Service, Soil Erosion Service
Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
Employees
Approx 12,000
Agency executives
Jason Weller, Chief
James Gore, Assistant Chief
Parent agency
Department of Agriculture
Website
www.nrcs.usda.gov
This is from his website and focuses on his opponent, James Gore. Below his info see more information on how James Gore was relieved of his duties at the Department of Agriculture (he officially resigned).
"Yesterday I received the latest James Gore mailer. It is a well produced piece that I am sure a lot of people will find impressive. That is if you don’t know the true story. In it James talks about his 5 Point Plan.
Number 1 of his Plan is titled Creating Jobs. It says “As Vice President of a successful company, he represented California agriculture on trade and affairs while gaining extensive experience managing staff and budgets.”
The company they are talking about is JBC International, a lobbying firm that represented the wine industry, a chemical company and association of collection attorneys. James never talks about his work as a registered Washington lobbyist, but that is what he was from 2006 to 2010 before he went to work for the government.
To find out more about JBC International I ran a Dun and Bradstreet report and low and behold it turns out that JBC is essentially out of business and has an unsatisfied court judgment against them in the amount of $645,000. One would think James is aware of that, but it does not keep him from touting his accomplishments with the firm which looks like it was run by a family and James was the low man on the totem pole. But if he wants to claim he managed their budgets, I am not going to argue with him.
Number 3 of his 5 Point Plan is titled Reforming Pensions and Fixing Roads. Sound familiar? Yes, one week before the election James has become a pension reformer and will use the savings to fix our roads.
But what he says about pensions shows he knows NOTHING about how they work. He said “The County has made great strides to reduce unfunded pension liabilities”.
There are several problems with this statement. First, the Supervisors have accomplished very little in terms of pension reform. In fact, they simply were forced to adopt the state pension reforms and they changed formulas for new hires.
Second, he obviously does not know what an unfunded liability is. Unfunded liabilities are the retirement benefits that are owed to retirees and employees for work already performed. There are 2 ways to reduce the unfunded liability. The first is to cut retiree pensions, which would be a horrible thing to do and is also illegal. The second and only other way to reduce the unfunded liabilities is for the pension funds investments to return greater than the 7.5% assumed rate of return over many years. That is something the Supervisors do not control.
The most common untruth James tells is that he was a “presidential appointee”. I am not sure how he landed the government job, but he was appointed to the NRCS by the Secretary of Agriculture, NOT President Obama.
I told the Press Democrat they should vet all the candidates when they released the report on Pete Foppiano’s tax problems. Unfortunately, they did not take my advice when it came to James and his false claims.
I have tried to run a positive campaign based upon the issues. But I thought you should all know more about James and how he is suffering from a serious case of resume inflation and in my opinion is not qualified for the job of Supervisor.
Sincerely,
Ken Churchill
www.votechurchill.com
Ken Churchill for Supervisor · United States
You can also keep up with Ken Churchill for Supervisor on Facebook.
_________________________________
Info on James Gore's abrupt resignation from his appointed position because millions of dollars in payments went to farmers who were long dead.
"A federal audit released last year showed $10.6 million in improper payments were made by NRCS from 2008 to April 2012 while James Gore was Assistant Chief. Both Gore and his Chief resigned."
Links:
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-503
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/the-government-gave-dead-farmers-more
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/audit-usda-has-paid-millions-dead-farmers-f6C10791319
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/30/watchdog-report-finds-millions-in-govt-payments-to-dead-farmers/
http://votegore.com/about-james/
Natural Resources Conservation Service
Agency overview
Formed
April 20, 1932
Preceding Agency
Soil Conservation Service, Soil Erosion Service
Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
Employees
Approx 12,000
Agency executives
Jason Weller, Chief
James Gore, Assistant Chief
Parent agency
Department of Agriculture
Website
www.nrcs.usda.gov
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