Every time I go out to do errands around town I see another homeless camp has sprung up. The problem is, the city has to notice every new camp, and then they just go somewhere that hasn’t been noticed.
Meanwhile, “Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Sacramento because it has “allowed, created and enabled a public safety crisis” by not enforcing its homelessness laws.“
Where the hell is Mike Ramsey in all this? He recently celebrated 45 years as our county District Attorney. Ramsey is the longest serving DA in California, but I don’t think we should be glad about that. Ramsey brags about being an environmental watchdog – why hasn’t he stepped in on the illegal camps?
How did Chico get caught in this legal mousetrap? In 2018 four council members, including current Mayor Andrew Coolidge, signed the “Shelter Crisis Designation,” receiving over $4 million from the state for doing so. Where did that money go? No, really, I’m asking – any idea exactly where that money went? Where are the beds? Where are the services? According to the city website, “4 days ago Torres Shelter, located at 101 Silver Dollar Way: 49 open beds. Pallet Shelter, located at 2280 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Pkwy: 18 pallet shelters available.“
67 empty beds – why are there all these tents around town? Some of them are in the public right-of-way, blocking sidewalks, accumulating the usual trash cloud. Some of them are on private property – there’s a growing encampment on MLK Parkway, on Chico Unified Property. Why isn’t Chico Unified evicting these illegal tenants? The veterinary clinic across the street closed their 24 hour emergency services for the past year, only recently reinstating that service, because they had transients setting up shop in their bathroom in the middle of the night, and refusing to leave their waiting room. Having only a couple of employees on duty was dangerous, so they just ended their overnight service. I think the closest alternative was in Anderson.
We’ve had to use their emergency services when our dog got sick in the middle of the night. We met a man who had driven his dog into town in his RV, knowing he would need a place to sleep while they treated his dog – he told my husband, “people have been rattling my door all night…” I think the vet and all their patients should sue the city and the school district, I would if I needed service in the middle of the night and was turned away because of the transients.
I recently read a letter from Mark Gailey, saying we were all overreacting to the transients, trying to tell us that Downtown Chico is perfectly safe. He’s full of shit. Every time my husband and I go Downtown, we see something weird and unsafe. On a recent unavoidable trip to the city center, my husband and I watched a disheveled wide-eyed lady, sitting on a bench on Main Street, a bedsheet full of something on her lap. As I was asking myself out loud why that woman wasn’t being served by one or another of the agencies that have sprung up to collect the Homeless Industrial Complex money, a man walked by her without so much as noticing her. Suddenly she came to life and popped up from her perch to follow along behind him. He noticed her and glanced behind nervously, walked a little faster. As she passed the motel she picked up a loose brick from a crumbling planter and started to quicken her pace behind the man. He walked faster. As he approached the intersection ahead he suddenly vaulted across the street. The woman stopped as suddenly as she had began, abruptly dropped the brick on the sidewalk, and entered the University Inn lobby. You better have your radar on when you are out and about in Chico, especially after dark.
You have never really been a victim until you’ve had a cop or other person ask you, “what the heck were you doing there (at night, strange part of town, alone, especially a woman) anyway?” That’s how I feel about Downtown Chico – not worth the risk. Not worth the humiliation of somebody asking you what the hell you were thinking, going Downtown. When it happens to Mark Gailey, let’s all make a collective promise not to say that to him.
And as of now, let’s hope somebody will challenge Ramsey for District Attorney soon.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
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