Where is the Measure H money being used? Because all that sidewalk work is being paid for out of other funds.

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.