The Jesus Center has been serving the local homeless population for over 25 years. Complaints about the behavior of their clients started rolling in almost immediately. Neighboring businesses felt under siege by drunken panhandlers, vandalism, break-ins, public urination and defecation,  and worst of all, increasingly violent behavior.

Some longtime businesses closed or left the area,  pointing to the growing transient population as the reason.

Here’s my experience – my husband and I bought  an old Craftsman near the intersection of Park and 12th Avenues. The first time I saw it, one evening about 8 pm, there was a huge disheveled man standing on the sideporch,  urinating into the overgrown camelia bushes.

We bought it anyway,  and the neighbors were thrilled. It was a grand old houae, badly neglected for years, and they all thrilled to the notion of having someone living in it again.

We put a lot into saving that old house, it started attracting a lot of attention.  Within a couple of weeks we had a group of 30 – something bachelor friends who said they’d been waiting for somebody to fix it up, and we rented it to them.

The  first week they werein the house, our tenant Mike came home from work one evening to find a transient rifling their recycling can, leaving garbage all over the porch.

It is an old wrap around porch, with low Windows and patio doors that let right into bedrooms. One bathroom window, although very beautiful and an original part of the house, just had to go after I discovered how easy it was to pry open.

We owned that rental for about 10 years. One day I was raking the yard in between tenants,  my husband was inside painting,  and a reeking old man stumbled up to me, made a grab for my rake, and told me, “I do it, you pay…”

I told him I didn’t need help, that’s when he made a grab for me and invited me into the concealed sideyard for some romance.

My husband happened along just as I was about to lay the business end of that rake upside the man’s head. When he saw my husband the man sobered up and asked him for $20 to rake the yard – like nothing ever happened.  He continued to act same whenever he encountered us at the house.

He happened along one day as we spoke to our new tenants  – a group of four 20-something’s,  including an elementary school teacher. I told them about the man – too late! One of the women had already encountered him on the porch late one evening – he told her his friend lived in the house and gave him permission to sleep there. Luckily this group was older and more experienced, they told him they would call the cops.

Whenever we’d turn that house over we’d be eating tacos at Dukes Liquors or sandwiches at Chico Locker.  We had friends of various trades helping us, including our carpenter friend Charles Kidd. One day as Chuck was at the window at Dukes,  this crazy-drunk old woman – you know, their face is blood red with alcohol poisoning — steps up and starts screaming obscenities at Chuck, threatening him with an ass kicking. Charles,  a very sensitive man, just stared at her.

One day I watched Charles hand a local homeless man a brand new pair of shoes. A family man with a mortgage, Chuck was not rich, but he’d seem the old guy sitting at the door of Chico Natural without shoes, so he’d got in his truck and drove to Payless Shoes on Mangrove,  bought the guy a pair of low sneakers,  and driven back to put them on his feet.

Ha ha, how ironic – Chuck is a carpenter!

So what was going through his mind as this woman hurled spit and expletives into his face? His family – they had bought a house just two blocks the other side of Park Avenue,  and he was afraid to let his kids walk to school.

Jesus said turn the other cheek. I’m sorry to disagree but I think that’s enabling behavior.  Twenty years later, and the complaints about the Jesus Center are still pouring in.

I had to laugh when I read JC director Laura Cootsoona’s recent response to allegations – including that of city code enforcer Leo “I’m gonna stickittoya” Depaola – that the JC is out of compliance.

Do you love that – this woman is told she is out of compliance by the chief of code enforcement and she just says, “nuh-uh!” Don’t you wish you could do that?

And then Cootsoona used the opportunity to lobby for relocation of the center at the Silver Dollar fairgrounds,  on city owned property adjacent to the racetrack.

Why would she think it’s okay to locate a problem like that to a commercial zone? She refuses to take responsibility for her clients, claiming that was never part of the use permit. But she expects to take the operation to the county fair grounds?

Stay tuned – something stinks.

Shasta County jail gets 60 new beds for $1 million – Sheriff calls it a great  deal – I agree.

That’s  $16,000 for what amounts to a single housing unit for someone who needs to get off the street.

Meanwhile the city of Chico spends a half million remodeling council chambers,  staff excusing a $25,000 cost overrun because they hadn’t saved the chamber wiring diagrams and therefore had to “rip out walls” for a simple computer upgrade.

While we might actually see some benefits of less criminals on Chico streets from Shasta County jail reducing overcrowding,  I have to wonder who benefits from the chamber remodel?

Something weird happened at city council the other night, after closed session. Council was discussing the sale of city-owned property at the fairgrounds, formerly the location of the BMX track, to the Jesus Center. Proponents of this move say that this will consolidate city services in one location, but what I suspect is , there are people who want the Jesus Center off Park Avenue.

In today’s Enterprise record Carl Ory gives an explanation. Apparently there was a disagreement about how the discussion should take place.

Ory claims that mayor Sean Morgan was out of order in dismissing Ory’s motion to have a public conversation on this topic.

So Ory, along with counselors randal stone and ann Schwab, walked out of closed session. The other four counselors voted to discuss the issue in public at a future meeting.

I think that’s appropriate, I’m glad they decided to do that. I would like to hear more about everybody’s motives in this discussion.

I think both sides have motives they aren’t being honest about now. I think the Liberals have been told that there will be more money made available to the Jesus Center through both public and private donations and grants if they move to the fairgrounds facility. I have to wonder if they’ve been essentially offered a bribe to get off Park Avenue. I think the conservatives who took over the Jesus Center had that in mind from the beginning. I believe there are Property Owners, Realtors, and banks that would profit from getting Park Avenue cleaned up.

What stinks as far as I’m concerned is that I don’t believe the public Fairgrounds is an appropriate place for a transient facility. The fairgrounds was a great place for a kid’s BMX track.

Tonight Chico city council will discuss, and most likely approve, another 3% contribution from city employees toward their own pensions.

Big f****** deal. These people are not even paying 10%. They make salaries in excess of $100,000 a year some of them in excess of $200,000 a year.

They work in a town where the average family lives on less than 50,000. With their salaries they jack up the price of housing, gas, groceries, daycare and everything else working people need to live.

This is also part of their new move Chico forward campaign. Move cheat code for word is being fronted by Chamber of Commerce shil Katie Simmons, because  it is illegal for the city 2 run a tax increase campaign. In fact, Brian Nakamura, after he left Chico, was fired from the city of Rancho Cordova for using City money to make a slick pamphlet distributed to Rancho Cordova voters asking them for a sales tax increase.

So they have their little shill do their work for them . But they can still offer support, such as these limp-wristed efforts towards making employees pay for the out-of-control pensions.

If they truly want to move Chico forward, they need to bring in some jobs that are not in the public sector. They need to bring in good paying jobs so that citizens can participate in the economy.

Speaking of workers, have you seen the little s*** checks that are being built over on Humboldt Road? I saw a story about them in the enterprise-record so I emailed reporter Laura arseny asking her if she knew what the rent would be on these tiny little houses. She responded to me that the Builder did not want her to include the rent price in the story. She offered me his Facebook link. I’ll get back to you with that. But Builder Tim Simons, who is working on the project, doesn’t build affordable.

The city is moving into dangerous water I predict they will put the sales tax increase on the ballot in a special election in 2019. That is another reason why none of the council members will mention it, they know it will be poison to their chances of reelection in future.

I am surprised that neither Mark Sorensen nor Annette filmer have offered their opinion regarding a sales tax increase, they’re safe, they’re not running for reelection. Is it that they don’t believe we need a sales tax increase? Or are they just too big of pussies to ask for it straight in front of the public?

We’ll see who’s who as this issue moves forward.

League of Women Voters, in a joint venture with Chico State University Office of Civic engagement and Chico Associated students, is holding a forum for US District 1 , currently represented by Doug Lamalfa. The Forum will be held at Chico State University in the Harlan Adams theater on Monday April 30th at 7 p.m.

Lamalfa has six Challengers. 5 will attend the Forum. They are Greg Cheadle, Republican , Audrey Denny, Democrat, Lewis Elbinger Green Party, Jessica Holcomb Democrat, Marty Walters Democrat, and David Peterson Democrat.

Neither Lamalfa nor Peterson will be in attendance, citing scheduling conflicts.

Frankly I think that’s great. Instead of standing there attacking Lamalfa, these people will actually have to talk among themselves, and maybe even discuss real issues.

Maybe the little pussy hat fascists will stay home.

The Forum will be videotaped and will be available on the Butte County website.

For more information contact Rose Kelly at 530 3 2 1 4441

Sorry for any glitches or spelling errors I had to dictate this to my phone.

As if in response to my  wishes, the League of Women Voters will host a forum for District 2 and 3 supervisor candidates at Marsh Junior High School on May 9th at 6:30 p.m. in the multipurpose room.

All five supervisorial candidates have indicated they will participate.

That’s incumbent Larry Wahl and challenger Debra Lucero for district 2, and Norm Rosene, Tami Ritter, and Bob Evans for District 3. Maureen Kirk announced a few months ago that she did not intend to run for reelection.

Bring your notebooks. I swear  to Gawd, note takers scare the shit out of these people.

Back to the Giants game.

Yesterday my husband and I were running errands and working on our rentals. We had our tools and supplies and our dogs in our truck and we needed a few things at the grocery store. So, we pulled over at Mangrove Safeway and I planned to stay  the truck while my husband went into the store.

As my husband was getting out of the truck a homeless man wandered up to us and asked my husband if he might have some money that he could spare. My husband said no and I leaned forward and told him that panhandling is illegal , and I asked him to get away from our truck because our dogs were barking. We also had tools in the back of our truck and I’ve seen the same kind of stuff in piles of bum trash in the park.

That’s when the bum became belligerent and told me he didn’t have to get away from my truck. Then he accused us of trying to run over him by pulling into the parking space. At that point I became angry and pulled out my cell phone and told him I was going to call the police . Bum started yelling at my husband, “control your woman Bro !” and my  husband decided to move the truck to another parking spot.

As my husband pulled out of the parking place we were in and drove around towards another Shady spot, Bum wandered over towards the gas station, screaming at us as he went.

At this point my husband became worried about leaving us alone while he went into the store. I told him I had my cell phone, and I’d be on my best behavior and stay in the truck. That reassured him and he went into the store.

Bum went his way and didn’t return but I spent the rest of the day wondering why I bother to shop in Chico. Mangrove Safeway is getting as bad as Bidwell Park. We see bums stationed at the entrances everytime we go shopping. They panhandle us when we park our bicycle and we always feel that if we are not polite to them they’ll vandalize our bicycle  when we’re in the store. Now we encounter this guy, wandering freely through the parking lot, panhandling us while we’re there, and then what? Stealing out of our truck while we’re in the store, that’s what.

Well yesterday I got tired of being polite. I guess I felt safe because I was inside my truck with a couple of dogs that could eat your face off. This guy was not fazed.

No I didn’t call the police you know how many times I’ve reported this stuff.

I reported cars being broken into at the disc golf course and the entrance to the park on Centennial Way, and now there are paper signs, warning people not to leave their valuables in their car at these locations. At the disc golf course at Peregrine point, we noticed someone had already torn down one of the signs yesterday. We also noticed a fresh pile of broken car window glass.

What will I do about it? I’ll report it to my County Supervisor, again. We need to ask our County supervisors to stop rubber stamping the programs that bring these people in here.

And since there’s an election coming up and there are signs for Norm Rosene and Tammy Ritter all over my neighborhood I thought I would ask them about it too. If I get any response from these people I’ll be sure to post it.

Tonight Chico City Council will hear a report about how great the gas tax increase is. Public Works $taffer Brendan Ottoboni will give a report on how much money the city will receive and what project this will pay for.

http://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=285&meta_id=58717

$1.7 million for a ” Cold-in Place-Recycle ” of .70 miles of Esplanade.

A “cold in place recycle” means they will strip off 2 – 4 inches of existing asphalt, grind it, mix it with one or another “binding additive”, and smear it right back down on the existing base. According to “Pavement Interactive,”

http://www.pavementinteractive.org/cold-in-place-recycling/

this procedure is appropriate for streets with a stable base. Have you driven Chico streets lately? Hear that rumbling under your tires, sometimes it sounds like broken crockery? That’s the base, and it’s not stable. Roads all over Chico need to be scraped down a good two feet, and relaid. But here Ottoboni tells us, it’s just going to be another Band-aid job. 

$1.7 million for less than a mile of pavement? Does anybody ever think to ask why so much money? It’s because of the system of “cost allocation,” by which funds that are restricted to one use, like road repairs, are siphoned out to pay for salaries and benefits of people who have nothing to do with fixing the roads. Like city mangler Mark Orme – just for signing Ottoboni’s report, Orme got money out of the road fund. 

I think he should get his ass out there with a mop, start moving some tar. 

I could think of some good use for tar right now.