Chico Taxpayers Association

I received a note from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association as well as the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPA) sponsors that a lawsuit is still proceeding through the Supreme Court that attempts to take the TPA off the November 2024 ballot before the voters even have a chance to consider it. Your governor and legislature at work!

Chico Taxpayers Association has joined a coalition of other groups to submit an “amicus letter” to the court on behalf of the TPA, I’ll keep you posted.

According to City Manager Mark Sorensen, Measure H, the one-cent sales tax increase passed by the city of Chico in November 2022, is “in danger” if voters are allowed to pass the Taxpayer Protection Act in November ’24. The city is quickly preparing a correction measure for the 2024 ballot. The city’s new measure would have to run on the same ballot with the TPA or they risk losing years of revenue. That’s right, without knowing if the TPA will actually even make the ballot, the city of Chico has authorized $100,000 for a new ballot measure.

The TPA would require two corrections in the text of Measure H – 1) a duration, or sunset date, and 2) “the inclusion of a particular phrase“. Sorensen didn’t say, but according to the staff report, the required phrase would be, “ for general government use.“

Sorensen didn’t want to mention the “general use” phrase out loud because that was not how they sold Measure H. As you see in the following press release, issued February 2023, they continued to claim that Measure H revenues would be spent on infrastructure and public safety.

Click to access city_of_chico_press_release_-_measure_h_2-27-23_wattachments.pdf

“This measure specifically supports the Chico community, and the dollars stay here locally.” said Vice Mayor, Kasey Reynolds. “Groceries, rent, and prescription medications will not be taxed. Chico visitors will pay their fair share, so residents won’t shoulder the entire cost. The State cannot take this funding, all Measure H funds will be locally controlled in Chico.

“The additional funds will be allocated by the City Council during the regular annual budget hearings in
May and June of 2023. Some of the concepts for utilizing the funds generated through Measure H are focused on public safety and infrastructure and may include:
• Maintenance and reconstruction of roads and sidewalks.
• Maintenance of parks, open spaces, trees and vegetation management.
• Maintain neighborhood police patrols, protect 911 emergency response times, preserve the
number of on-duty firefighters and police officers, and enhance emergency and disaster
preparedness ADD Repair and maintain storm drains

Some people are easily fooled – “Some of the concepts for utilizing the funds...” How many people would have voted for H if they admitted point blank in the ballot text that the money would be “for general government use”? Like paying the pension deficit, or getting out of various lawsuits they’ve blundered us into? Another $235,000 for the Downtown Skating Rink?

Opposition, like myself, reminded everyone that because H was a 50%+1 measure, it goes to the General Fund. Council can make their promises, but they have no legal obligation to spend that money on infrastructure or public safety. Actually, the road and sidewalk work currently being done around town is mostly paid for out of state and federal grants. They’re using Paradise disaster money for a Downtown remodel.

When they first started discussing this tax publicly, former finance manager Chris Constantin said older streets all over town needed complete replacement due to years of neglect, projecting the cost at 100’s of millions. At the rate they’re going, a pothole patch here, a slurry there, that will be the day.

Meanwhile, council allocated over $18 million from the General Fund into the Pension Stabilization Trust, for this year’s “catch-up” payment toward the CalPERS pension deficit. Only a couple of years ago, it was $11 million, now it’s over $18 million – you have to ask, where is that money coming from?

H was a 50%+1 measure because a consultant, paid with money out of the General Fund, told city council and staff that a 2/3’s measure had to have specific restrictions on use, like police or roads. Having attended those morning meetings since Sorensen was a council member, I know their biggest problem with a 2/3’s measure was the restriction on spending. At the same time, they discussed the pension deficit as the biggest financial problem facing the city, and tried to pass an illegal Pension Obligation Bond. They are desperate to pay down the city’s pension deficit, under intense pressure from the employee unions who finance our local elections.

So no, they don’t want to talk about the “general use” clause, those chickenshits. That’s really the meat of this issue. The voters were promised specific uses for the money, when it was a General Fund measure.

The city is doing road work all over town. Think that’s Measure H money? Guess again. Here’s a line I cut and paste from this week’s city council agenda. These agendas are supposed to be loaded in such a way that they can be copied and shared. Try to read the following.

The 2024 Road Rehabilitatjol acquisi{ion pu.rchase price of $36,275 wiil be funded through Gas Tax funds (307), street Facility lmprovement funds'(3osi”iropr;il i;;il#e Repracement funds (943).

In the old days, I would have contacted staff and told them it had been loaded incorrectly and they would have fixed it. But these days, given the burden Council has placed on the clerk’s office, these onerous, overloaded, and oftentimes facetious agenda items all have to be loaded onto these agendas and mailed out by three people. I know they get sweet salaries and benefits, but there’s a limit to what three old ladies can do in eight hours. So, I’ll just go back and forth from screen to screen and type it. The things I do to get you people to pay attention. Here’s what it’s supposed to look like.

“ The 2024 Road Rehabilitation acquisition purchase price of $36,275 will be funded through Gas Tax funds (307), street Facility lmprovement funds (308) and Public Infrastructure Replacement funds (943).”

Read it – no, they’re not paying for all this necessary updating with Measure H funding, like they promised. And here’s the other thing – they are 30 years behind in this work, the ADA was passed in 1990. Instead of fixing the older parts of town, tax money has been going into streets, sidewalks and gutters for new subdivisions. Developers are supposed to pay for the new infrastructure out of their developer fees, which they pass along to new home buyers. Who knows where that money goes? Somebody ask Greg Webb, who, along with two other developers, successfully sued the city of Chico for about $500,000 in fees that they were able to prove had not been used on infrastructure for their subdivisions.

So, the city of Chico, 30 years behind, is playing catch-up, using gas tax funding that is supposed to be used to maintain all of our city streets, to bring old streets in crumbling, neglected parts of town, up to par. There’s obviously a big difference in cost between maintaining and rebuilding. The ADA project will require tearing out concrete, plumbing, and lights in many parts of town, along with the purchase of private property to complete the task.

This kind of catch-up work is always more costly, more time-consuming, and really irritating and inconvenient for people who have to get up every day and drive to work.

This city just ignores it’s responsibility to maintain and cries for more money whenever the inevitable happens. With all this going on, they still intend to spend COVID and Camp Fire money on a total revamp of Downtown. They will be narrowing the streets, eliminating car lanes, adding wider bike lanes and sidewalks. Even though I didn’t see anything about sewers in the written plans, my council rep Kasey Reynolds assures me that they will be replacing all the sewer lines Downtown as well.

Meanwhile, you will continue to trip on the section of blown out sidewalk in front of your house until you move to a newer neighborhood. Becca will continue to pay to have her failing septic tank pumped because the sewer lines a block from her house have yet to be completed.

So, I have to ask – are you people happy with Measure H? Are you getting anything out of Measure H? Let me know here.