Another year is coming to a close, I like to scroll over to “Archives” and see what I was doing a year ago.
At this time last year I was posting a lot of pictures of bums camping in Bidwell Park. I’ll tell you what – my husband still hits the park trails with my dog every morning, and even though the weather is dryer than this time last year, he hasn’t found any campers in our section of the park. Yesterday, feeling guilty about taking a shorter walk the day before, he took Biscuit down into the depths, following the meandering bum trails through the overgrowth – not even a trash pile.
One morning about a month ago he found the remains of a camp, but by the time we mounted up on our bike to head to the grocery store later that morning, the camp had been cleaned by a group called Chico Community Watch. They have a city staffer as liaison, kind of a supervisor – which means we essentially pay this volunteer group over $100,000 a year plus pension and benefits.
Jack Lee, in his blog Post Scripts, has an interesting interview with member Trevor Skaggs here:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/postscripts/2017/10/11/story-pending-chico-community-watch/
The interesting part of the interview is where Skaggs essentially admits that when providing any kind of service for the transients, “ you kind of setup a slippery slope, you are providing services that make Chico an amenable place for individuals to migrate here from other locations. “
Yes, I feel volunteers like this just exacerbate the problem, while allowing highly compensated city staff to shirk their responsibilities. Why would I want to pay the property taxes that support salaries over $100,000, plus very generous benefits packages, and then wade into the park and pick up human filth?
And it’s not just the city of Chico – Chico Area Recreation District is currently in talks to take over maintenance of Bidwell Park. CARD has a $7.2 million budget projected for 2018, $5.2 million spent on salaries and benefits, mostly for about 30 full time employees, who have managed to rack up over $1.7 million in pension deficit. Will they expect volunteers to clean up after the bums?
They will pursue a bond or assessment on our homes in 2018, but haven’t announced yet whether it will be on the general ballot or a mailed ballot.
I don’t think it’s a permanent solution either – they might chase the bums out of Bidwell Park – temporarily – but they just move to other parts of town. North Chico has had two sprawling homeless camps, one near a trailer park mostly inhabited by elderly people. Residents reported not only illegal camping but public defecation and urination in their door yards, and even threats from transients.
Chico has become a destination on the Hobo Highway, and we need to stop offering the services that are bringing them here. How about a few services for tax paying residents?
Here’s the street out front of my house – when do I get some services?
So yes, I plan to go on complaining about the transient problem in 2018. That’s a resolution.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Sounds like maid service!
All joking aside, you are right – I’ve been elsewhere, I’ve talked to others who have made the same observation – towns that do not offer services do not have the disproportionate population of transients you find in towns that do offer services.
Chico most certainly does have a disproportionate transient population.
I agree – whenever we travel, I’m reminded that Chico has more bums than other towns the same size. And, looking at citi-data.com, I see towns with fewer bums also have lower rates of burglaries and assaults, two crimes that have been on the increase in Chico over the last couple of years.
Looking further, I realized these proportions are related to services offered – look at the crime rates in Oroville, where the Butte County psychiatric facility is located.
http://www.city-data.com/city/Oroville-California.html
Notice the “per hundred thousand” line – Oroville, for a town it’s size, is very violent.