Can you see what’s wrong in this picture?
This was left behind in the areas where we have found illegal campers in middle Bidwell Park. They seem to have moved their tents to a new location, and left their garbage.
The first things that catch my eye are the bike parts. Of course garbage is also disgusting, but there’s more going on here than littering. Is Bidwell Park, like Lindo Channel, a sprawling no man’s land of criminal activity?
The tents had been moved to different, but not new, locations. These well-worn paths usually lead either to an occupied tent or a pile of garbage.
These muddy, beaten paths lead into the tangled mess of non-native overgrowth, frequented by transients.
This is a crime problem – criminals who can pick up and move anytime they want, move in and out of your neighborhood in the dead of night, and disappear into a jungle of a park that runs the entire breadth of town.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
What I also see in your picture that I’ve seen in the park is that they cut or break downed tree branches and build little forts, campsites, whatever you want to call them. It helps to shield them from view, but all a person has to do is walk off the main path and they’ll find these campsites all through the park.
I bet you’ve also noticed, these campsites are old, have been used for years.
Here’s a Bidwell Park staff report from 2013 – if you search for “illegal camping” you will find they issued 98 warnings, but only 54 tickets.
Click to access BPPC_AgendaandReports_13_1028.pdf
Here are blogs written on the subject between 2013 and 2014 from local blogger Jack Lee, who owns a house next to middle park:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/postscripts/2013/10/23/chico-police-officers/
http://www.norcalblogs.com/postscripts/2013/10/23/post-288/
http://www.norcalblogs.com/postscripts/2014/04/01/camp-sites-okd-bidwell-park/
He doesn’t blame the cops, and neither do I – it’s the county, who brings these people here for $550/day in “intergovernmental transfers”
Do me a favor, write Maureen Kirk a note and tell her you know too!
…it’s the county, who brings these people here for $550/day in “intergovernmental transfers”
Do me a favor, write Maureen Kirk a note and tell her you know too!
This is make work welfare for the bureaucrats and other local government employees and NGOs but Maureen and all the other local politicians will never admit that.
I’ll post the rest of my conversation with staff when I get a chance – it’s enough to make you barf.