Oh yeah Halloween is fun, but just like any bender, there’s always The Morning After. Sure, I enjoyed binging on scary stories and horror movies, but you know, these days, nothing is as frightening as Reality.
The reality for Chico is mismanagement. Staff is only concerned with their own salaries and benefits, and council is led by Staff, like a pig with a brass ring in it’s nose.
It’s a mutual back-scratching: Staff gets their salaries and sweet benefits for which they pay very little, and Council members get generous campaign donations at election time.
Our society is so messed up right now, people are desperate to believe. They believe the lies politicians make, even after Watergate. And they forget, how easily we all forget.
In 2018, Andrew Coolidge voted with the liberals on council to declare a “Shelter Crisis”, which started us on the road to Perdition (welcome to Perdition, California). So, here we are today, despite promises made to us by Coolidge and the other “conservatives” on council, we offer more services to the “homeless” than we did 4 years ago, but we still have a judge holding us by the pubic hairs, saying we are not doing enough.
Coolidge landed on his ass in November of that year, getting thrown out by angry voters who complained that he had sold them out. I was shocked myself that he would support the SCD – when Coolidge ran in 2014, he expressed total disgust for homeless people, telling a group of Chico Taxpayer members that he had taught his children to call Chico Plaza “Bum Park”. But I knew why he’d voted for the SCD – that vote came with $4 million, to be spent at the discretion of council – which means, at the discretion of Staff.
While Chico was apparently rid of Coolidge, we were stuck with the SCD. Declaring that there are not enough shelter beds, even though there were and are consistently empty beds at the Torres Shelter, meant that we had to let the bums take over our parks, creek ways and other public open spaces. All the sudden, public urination/defecation, littering, nudity, and simply TAKING public property were legal, according to City Manager Mark Orme and Public Works Director Erik Gustafson, who claimed the bums had 4th and 14th Amendment rights to kick the public off of public lands.
I know people were mad at Coolidge, including Rob Berry over at Chico First, who made very disparaging remarks about Coolidge. So, again, I was surprised when Coolidge threw his hat in for the 2020 election, and idiots like Berry just ate it up and endorsed him. Berry even mentioned the SCD vote, but for some reason, he believed Coolidge had mended his ways, and would get us out of the onerous declaration. And last June, after many promises, Council majority threw out the SCD. I thought that was It.
So I’m standing here scratching my head over council’s recent decision to reinstitute the SCD. They are moving forward with plans to remove a children’s rec facility from the public fairgrounds to build a “homeless village” of some kind. What the hell? Maybe I watched too much sci-fi over the holiday, I’m starting to wonder if they were all replaced by bots.
I already informed my district representative, Kasey Reynolds, that I will not be supporting her in 2022. In about exactly a year, she’ll be on the ballot. By then, the districts will be redrawn – I believe they’ve hired a consultant and that is all going on right now behind closed doors. That’s why they were so quick to fill Huber and Denlay-Klingbeil’s seats with their own conservative picks. The liberals got to do the gerrymandering last time, so now, as Reynolds assured me in an email last year, the conservatives will have their way.
Piss on the voters/taxpayers.
Coolidge is so confident of his position in the Catbird Seat, he’s proposed multiple new taxes. He wants a one-cent sales tax increase on a general measure, which means the money will be spent at the whim of council and Staff. He has also said he wants the sales tax revenues to secure bonds. He mentioned “road bonds,” but since council and Staff actually pursued a Pension Obligation Bond illegally, I don’t believe roads are their concern. The only real debt the city has right now is the Unfunded Actuarial Liability, a.k.a., the “pension deficit”.
Still in shock that the voters would reinstate this total jackass, not to mention, Sean Morgan, I was very happy to hear there’s a rough beast coming round toward Coolidge. I didn’t watch last night’s meeting, but I’ll probably take a look at it, just to see this gal walk up and make a declaration of her own – Morgan Kennedy of “Chico Voters” is going to circulate a petition for Coolidge’s recall.
I’ll tell you what, after two totally disappointing and humiliating recall efforts in the last year, I’m back to thinking recalls are risky. For one thing, it’s probably wise to gauge the support in the community before you pay the lawyer and the printer and grease all the other palms required. Secondly, you should have a good candidate for replacement of the recalled individual. Third, are you sure you just can’t wait for election time and put your energy, money and time into a good election campaign? In future, these are questions I will ask before I ever get involved in another recall.
And before I sign another recall petition, I’ll have to look into who is running the recall, and what are their motives. I haven’t been following social media, cause it’s so ugly, so I had never heard of Morgan Kennedy.
“We are a group that is concerned with fiscal responsibility, ” she stated at a press conference held today (11/3/21) at City Hall. I don’t know if that’s her real motive, but judging from stuff she’s written in past, I have to suspect this is really an effort to bust up the conservative majority on council. This article from Chico Sol, written by Kennedy, shows she has a very keen interest in upsetting what she sees to be the conservative agenda.
http://chicosol.org/tag/one-chico/
I’m sick of the “Battle for Chico”. Neither the Chico First freaks or the needle exchange junkies represent the town I live in. They’re just the loudest mouths out there, it’s rule by mob these days. While the rest of us quietly do our jobs, pay our taxes, and try to keep our kids from getting swallowed up by the quagmire our town has turned into.
Another deal breaker is that she’s trying to say that Coolidge can be recalled by the town at large when he was very clearly elected by the voters of District 5. She’s arguing with the county clerk, this I see to be a sign of incompetence.
So I will not, and I hope you will not, be distracted by this ridiculous attempt to fool the voters. It’s true, Coolidge was legally elected, his office is not the issue. It’s what he and the other council members and Staff are attempting – to saddle the citizens of Chico with new and unfathomable debt.
Kennedy complains that the skating rink is fiscally irresponsible. She sees, as I have, that people are pissed about that. It’s funny what gets people’s attention. She’s trying to get in your head. But she won’t talk about the $1 million+ the city just allocated to “fund a homeless solution…” , whatever the fuck that means. She won’t talk about the $1 million+ the city is handing over to “guarantee” air service. She’s not talking about the ridiculous exchange of sewage for water from Paradise. She’s not talking about the asinine deal with PG&E. She’s not talking about the pensions. She’s not talking about any of the real financial issues that are coming before council, she, like Staff and council, thinks she can get you with nothing but a carrot.
Don’t bite!
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Dear Juanita, Can I be president of your fan club? Every word you said is so, so true but will anyone listen and do something about it???
Good question Kery.
Harken back to the last election. CARD spent a bunch of taxpayer money to run a parcel tax measure. My friends and I were really afraid it would pass, but we were pleasantly surprised when members of the public showed up at CARD’s “informational meetings”, asking pointy questions. At one meeting, Dave Howell got CARD manager Ann Willmann to admit that CARD would use the money to secure millions in bonds, and that their only real debt at present is their pension deficit. Other people pointed out that the tax would be regressive, hitting low-income people the hardest. And a lot of people made it clear they were not happy with CARD management. I was really impressed by the voters, they threw that parcel tax out with the trash.
The Chico Police Officers Association backed that tax, along with the SEIU. To me that makes it pretty clear it was all about sustaining CalPERS. Those two unions put about $63,000 into that election, and lost pretty decisively.
Unfortunately, the city of Chico will be using taxpayer money to fund this campaign, let your district rep know what you think of that.