Yesterday, having reported an illegal camp in Middle Bidwell Park to city of Chico officials, my husband and I walked over to the site to find that the campers seemed to be gone but had left mounds of trash behind. In fact, we encountered more trash yesterday than we’d seen the day before.
These pictures were taken yesterday morning.
Here’s the pile we encountered Thursday December 29, still there – notice the dismantled bikes. Somebody had added – a real estate sign? – to the pile.
We noticed new piles, clothes, trash bags, kipple of all kinds.
I wonder if they steal from each other, and here’s somebody’s stuff that has been rifled and left.
This is located about a block or two from my home, my tenant’s home. We’ve always locked everything up – Chico was never that nice of a town that you could leave your valuables unlocked, that’s been known for some time.
But lately we’ve been hearing about weird stuff, stuff that goes beyond home security. One guy was caught stealing a woman’s panties off her back yard clothesline, in broad daylight. Her husband caught him in the garage, having broken in through a back door to steal a bike.
A man on the website Nextdoor reported someone had torn the door off a storage shed in his side yard, but said there was nothing of value, so nothing was taken. Lucky him! I had been bothering my husband to buy one of those metal sheds at Home Depot for our tenant’s bikes, so she wouldn’t have to keep them in her laundry room. He laughed and told me, “that’s like telling the transients, ‘look, here’s some stuff for you…'” He’s right, these people can just rip the door off a shed, hidden in your back yard, you and all your neighbors gone off to work.
As I’ve said, Chico is not a nice little town anymore. How do we fight this? Report it, report it, report it. Demand action. I’ll e-mail city manager Mark Orme and ask him who is responsible for cleaning up this mess and when that will be done. I’ll cc both news editors as well as my third district supervisor Maureen Kirk. I may cc the entire council, but Reanette Fillmer is the one who has shown the most interest in this issue.
Please join me in reporting illegal campers. Follow up – if you still see the problem the next day, politely ask what has been done or why nothing has been done. Don’t be intimidated by their polite refusal to do anything – send your e-mail conversation here, and I’ll print it verbatim.
- Mark Orme, city manager – mark.orme@chicoca.gov
- Sean Morgan, mayor – sean.morgan@chicoca.gov
- Reanette Fillmer, vice mayor – reanette.fillmer@chicoca.gov
- Maureen Kirk, Butte County Supervisor District 3 – mkirk@buttecounty.net
- Larry Wahl, Butte County Supervisor District 2 – lwahl@buttecounty.net
- David Little, editor Chico Enterprise Record – dlittle@chicoer.com
NOTE: As of Sunday Jan 1 the trash is gone. I don’t know who picked it up but will thank Orme for staff’s response.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
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