Those pesky rules!

The proponents of Measure H are really running a hard campaign, and they aren’t letting rules get in their way. The flyer I received the other day is full of those promises they can’t make for a simple measure.

That first line is really troubling, insinuating the city only has $3 million in the road fund. The city received 10’s of millions in emergency funding for the Camp Fire and later for COVID, over $12 million in American Rescue Plan Funding just two months ago. And they claim there’s only $3 million for road maintenance? Meanwhile, they “allocate” pension funding out of all the funds, including the roads fund. Barbara Martin, who was just promoted to Administrative Services Director, told me that a percentage of payroll for each department fund is allocated to the Pension Stabilization Trust. That, remember, is in addition to the “payroll’ share, going to the annual “catch-up” payments made at the end of the fiscal year.

The second claim, housing – I think I covered that pretty well in my last post. They’ve already given over $32 million in emergency funds to developers to build low-income housing that isn’t needed, which will tank the housing market for a few years before attracting thousands of new residents with whom we will have to share our deteriorating infrastructure. ‘Nuff said?

Public Safety? What does this paragraph even mean? It’s so full of vague phrases – “increase proactive policing”… “expand training”…”protect 911 emergency response times“…? No, they can’t make specific promises, but what the hell are they even insinuating here? I really don’t think they could tell us, they’re just saying what they think the voters want to hear. Their promises aren’t worth the flyer their printed on. A 2/3’s measure would have specific amounts dedicated to specific programs, written directly into the ballot measure.

I saw a sign like this in Kasey Reynold’s front yard. In the ballot measure, it says she’s not supposed to campaign, as a council member, but I guess that doesn’t include her yard. The only others I’ve seen were being removed by a Cal Trans worker from the public right-of-way along Hwy 32.

“Make Chico Better” ? That’s their slogan, I think it’s really weak and insulting. First of all, Reynolds, along with Morgan, Coolidge and Tandon, signed the Shelter Crisis Designation, and then proceeded to lumber through that Warren vs Chico lawsuit like Godzilla in a Lego village. That has led us to the state of perdition we find ourselves in, and every time they promise us they’re going to fix it, the judge hits the entire town with a cease and desist order. Our parks are trashed because of decisions council has made, and we’re on the hook for $1.5 million/year to maintain the $3 million pallet shelters for the next 5 years? They can’t even tell us, but they expect us to raise our sales tax to pay for it. They’re not saying anything about that in their flyers or signs or social media.

Furthermore, it’s insulting in that we’ve watched them reeling in the money hand over fist, do they really think we believe they don’t have enough money to fix our roads? They just raised sewer rates (Dave corrected me, it was 67%, not 60 as I reported) but they need sales tax too? They’ve been permitting unprecedented levels of new housing – most of which will generate new property taxes, permanent prop tax that will increase incrementally every year – but they still need a sales tax increase? They think we don’t know about the “catch-up” payments? They sure don’t mention that either. I hate being treated like I just fell of a turnip truck.

We have to ask ourselves, when will it stop? Here’s that answer – when we vote NO on Measure H.

And finally, here’s a tactic that really made me disgusted with the H proponents – they just won’t follow the rules. I found these pictures at the Yes on H Facebook, identified as a city employee taking a group of kids door-to-door to hand out Yes on H flyers and signs. I asked the clerk, and she said that while city employees are allowed to do what they want on their own time, they’ve been informed that they are not allowed to wear their city “uniform”. Look closer at the picture – not only is the city employee pictured wearing a city logo shirt, he’s got them on three of the four kids.

https://www.facebook.com/YesOnHChico

I think H proponents should have to remove these pictures from their Facebook site, but I’m not going to pull the clerk’s ear any further, I trust her to do whatever is appropriate. The city of Chico put this measure on the ballot, and they make and enforce all the rules for the campaign.