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.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
As usual short term thinking by the council. It’s always been this way. Remember when they put the senior apartments next to the Graduate Bar? The Grad said this wasn’t going to work, the council ignored them. Well it didn’t work, noise complaints started as soon the seniors moved in, requiring the Bar to change. Building houses near the airport. We also have the thieves using the bike paths to evade police. Yet they are building more bike paths. This is why I’m very pessimistic about the future of Chico.
Thanks Jim, how soon we forget.