I love to say “I told you so…“
From The Desert Sun out of Coachella Valley:
“in his first proposed budget, Governor Gavin Newsom said his administration would discuss “linking” transportation funds like these [SB 1] to state housing goals meant to encourage new homebuilding. Newsom framed the proposal more bluntly in a Jan. 10 presentation unveiling the budget proposal.
“’With all this new SB 1 money, if you’re not hitting your goals, I don’t know why you get the money,’ Newsom said.”
Furthermore, Newsome wants to set our housing goals for us.
According to Planetizen editor Melanie Curry, “In his budget speech on Thursday [Jan. 10], Newsom said that the state, presumably the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), will come up with a new way to estimate and allocate housing needs that is more ‘realistic and nuanced’ than the current system wherein each region defines its own regional housing needs and allocates them to cities, frequently based on not much more than local preference,”
Oh no! Local people deciding how they want to live – GEESHY SAKES! We can’t have that!
” In 2016, 97 percent of the state’s cities and counties had not fully met their state-mandated requirement to provide both affordable and above moderate income, or market-rate housing, according to HCD.”
So, unless we agree to their demands for sardine housing for more people to move here to escape cities full of sardine housing, we won’t get back the money they tacked onto our gas prices. Our neighborhood streets are already so bad they’re causing damage to cars. Just yesterday I noticed a new, huge pothole on my street. People are driving into oncoming traffic to avoid potholes – that’s got to be a huge cause of the uptick in accidents reported by city staff.
I’m sorry I don’t have a solution right now. I’ve written to our local legislators about this problem (Gallagher and LaMalfa) and all I’ve got is list serve mailings about being sure to turn in my ROE.
Here’s something interesting. Yesterday I also got a notice of a special meeting for Chico City Council. A special meeting at the Cal Park Lakeside Pavilion, this Saturday Feb 2, to discuss “goal setting”. It looks like an all-day meeting, starting at 8:30 am, with a recess for lunch. The public is invited to attend and may make comments. Here’s an opportunity to let them know what you think of bringing more low-income people here from cities all over California, shoving them into high density housing, and allowing our neighborhood streets to deteriorate while they continue to get outrageous salaries and pay less than 10% of their own retirement cost.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Traffic in Chico has become intolerable in some areas. The police can’t keep up with the crime. Just imagine how much worse it will get as they add thousands of new apartments and houses.
Yes it’s a downward spiral adding more housing to get more funding. Instead we need pension reform.