As we watch “the homeless” overwhelm our parks and public areas, and Chico PD arrests more and more transients for burglary and assault, the Chico city council is actually thinking about rescinding the “sit-and-lie” ordinance soon. I watched a video of county supervisor candidate Sue Hilderbrand claiming that transients should be allowed to do anything in public places that the rest of us do in our homes. The state is considering forcing the mentally ill into treatment. Gavin Newsom wants to penalize cities that are not, in his opinion, doing enough to house the homeless.
Meanwhile, according to Dan Walters,
“billions of dollars meant to reduce repeat criminal activity by improving local jails and probation services were siphoned off for other purposes.”
You know what other purposes – “the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) was pressuring local governments to contribute more money to offset the system’s investment losses during the Great Recession, and to pay for pension benefit increases.”
Walters reports that CalMatters published a similar article about the 1967 Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, which was meant “to depopulate the state’s mental hospitals, curb involuntary commitments and divert the mentally ill into local treatment programs.
“However, the promises of the 1967 Lanterman-Petris-Short act to create a network of easily accessible local mental health services were never kept. The money that had been saved from closing mental hospitals was swallowed up in state budgets approved by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan and his successors from both parties.”
And those promises continue to be ignored, you can look at the Butte County Behavioral Department website for yourself:
https://www.buttecounty.net/behavioralhealth/
For one department – one department in a county of less than 300,000 people – with nearly a $100 million budget, I’m not impressed. I don’t see any directory of mental health professionals. I do see a number you can call if you’re experiencing a crisis, but I don’t see any programs – like AA – that can help a person avoid crisis. And while they’ve promised a “street crisis team,” I have yet to see county workers walking the parks or other public areas in Chico to counsel anybody toward getting off the street.
Look here – you can see where the Behavioral Health Budget goes.
https://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Counties/County.aspx?entityid=4&year=2014
You see the highest paid employee in Butte County, with a salary of almost $290,000/year and a benefits package of almost $50,000, is the Behavioral Health Director. Two BCBH employees make over $200,000/year, just in salary. If you search “Behavioral Health”, you find 66 pages of salaries – including the lower paid interns and “extra help” who actually work with the patients.
The funding they “saved” by not providing hospitalization for people in mental crisis has gone to management salaries, benefits, and, the county pension deficit.
Like Walters says, “We should keep the 1967 mental health law, the Local Control Funding Formula and realignment in mind the next time the state’s politicians tell us they are enacting a transformative solution to a pressing problem.” And, the next time our city or county leaders tell us they need more revenue to solve a problem, we should say NO! and vote them all out of office.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Dear Juanita. Your article reminded me of the concept every college economics student learns about the “politics of the poor.” A young student, like myself, would incorrectly assume politicians would use funds earmarked to help the poor for programs to do so. Once I left the cocoon of college I was disappointed to learn politicians use taxpayer funds to assist political allies as well as causes that help them stay in power. The money never trickles down to the people who are in need. Once again, you have exposed the misuse of taxpayer funds by elected officials.
Thanks Scott, you remind me how naive I was as a college age voter, how uninformed. It was easy to believe the politicians’ promises. College age voters need more resources, we need to go to the campus with this information.
This is how politics works.