Chico Taxpayers Association

Coming home from Winco the other day, my husband and I were almost hit on Vallonbrosa by a Ford F350 swerving to avoid a gi-normous pothole. This letter popped right into my head.

I saw the signs at Humboldt and Stilson Canyon Roads – newly surfaced and paved with Measure H money. How many city dwellers do these roads serve?

Meanwhile, the street in front of my house, in an old well-populated neighborhood annexed over 20 years ago, is not only crumbling, but long stretches have no sidewalks or drains. Thirty years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, pedestrians are forced into the street, to compete with cars and bikes – all dodging the enormous puddles and serial potholes created by years of no maintenance. Every time I ride my old bike around the hood I watch drivers swerving into oncoming traffic to miss various road hazards.

Driving over to patronize various South Chico businesses,, I see the traffic is backing up as expected around the Bruce Road corridor, adding almost an hour to the trip, eating my gas as I sit, polluting the hot summer air. A sign on Springfield Avenue boasts that widening is being done with Measure H money, even though it’s obviously necessitated by new development. They’re asking for state grants to widen Hwy 32 for the Fogarty subdivision. Why aren’t developer fees paying for those projects?

One last question – how do I get on the list for some Measure H funds on my street? The street I pay taxes on needs complete resurfacing, not just slop-job pothole patches. I’m still waiting to see the benefits of that garbage tax they foisted on us 10 years ago.

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

Today (5/21/24) the city is having a special 1pm council meeting – one topic they will undoubtedly discuss is the $30 million+ drop in revenues compared to this time a year ago.

From KRCR News: “Sales tax revenues citywide are down eight percent, but for the Downtown North area, between First and Fifth streets, sales tax revenue is up 2.3 percent.”

Wow, THIRTY MILLION. Even with their one-cent sales tax, not to mention hundreds of millions in Camp Fire and COVID disaster relief money. They pissed that money away like a bunch of drunks with their dad’s credit card. Sometimes Sean Morgan even reminds me of Ed Helm.

You remember where that money went – yep, stuff like a skating rink, parklets for bars, plans for Downtown remodels – it’s just been a hayride for consultants these past five or six years. And the city claims sales tax revenues have actually been up for the Downtown sector. Wow, 2.3% – they’re bragging about that while the rest of town is down 8%?

Tom Van Overbeek, speaking on the local news, seemed to think it’s okay that while the rest of town is down, Downtown is on the up. He doesn’t mention how much money has been poured into that tiny grid, how many empty storefronts there are, and how many businesses are complaining about changes the city has made. City Plaza is (again) full of tents and trash, the streets are about to be torn out to accommodate a new sewer system, and more businesses are leaving. This man is in total denial.

“The recession has not materialized, people’s sense of anxiety about that has gone down They’re going out and buying drinks and going shopping,” said Chico council member Tom Van Overbeek. “There’ve been a number of initiatives to make the downtown cleaner, safer, and more interesting. We put up historical signs, we have police patrols now; Downtown Chico Business Association (DCBA) has been active in getting people downtown.”

But could Downtown pay for itself? Starting with a complete rehaul of the sewer system and then a new “streets plan”? Is Van Overbeek telling us Downtown generates enough sales tax to pay for that stuff? On restaurants, bars, and expensive crap shops?

Meanwhile, in the rest of town, I hear the usual complaints – mostly about the condition of the streets. Sure, potholes and fissures are bad for your tires and your car in general. They’re dangerous because people drive crazy to avoid them. Cycling around town also presents a lot of dangers that are not overcome by a white stripe painted along the side of the road. While the city is planning to spend millions on bike lanes Downtown, they seem to forget that people live elsewhere in town, on streets that are not conducive to cycling. I know a lot of people, like myself, that walk, drive, and cycle, and we’re not happy with the condition of the streets. That’s bad for business – it’s a lot easier to shop online, and plenty of nearby towns with nicer retail areas.

That brings us to the issue of pedestrian safety. In fact, the ADA, which requires sidewalks and street crossings suitable for people in wheelchairs, was passed in 1990 – 34 years ago. There are commercial and residential areas all over Chico that have no sidewalks, seriously damaged sidewalks, and damaged street crossings. Especially shocking to me are the TRIP HAZARDS, in the form of broken curbs, sink holes in the middle of crossings, and overgrown, unmaintained city street trees with roots that have lifted whole sections of sidewalks and streets.

Meanwhile, Downtown sidewalks have been redone twice in my recent memory, including the bulbing of the corners and the Studebaker strips.

Another huge problem all over town is lack of drainage – I’ve driven around town and seen entire blocks of both commercial and residential streets with not one drain. In my neighborhood that amounts to puddles the size of ponds that sit and stink for a week after a rainstorm. This forces pedestrians and bikes out in the street – thank you City of Chico. It also causes flooding and damage in yards. The people across the street from me all pay for flood insurance because the city has never placed drains along our street except in front of new subdivisions. When we were annexed over 20 years ago we were promised we’d get the full menu of city services, but all we’ve had so far are sewer hook-ups and the resulting shoddy patch jobs – future potholes.

So yeah, I’m angry about the work done on Humboldt and Stilson Canyon Road, and I’m wondering how many other questionable projects have been funded with Measure H while my neighborhood street – Old Chico! – voided the warranty on my new tire! “Excessive Road Hazard”!

I know others out there are similarly disgruntled, I hope they’ll write letters to the paper, I plan to.

I got a comment here about road work done with Measure H money – in Stilson canyon? Sure enough, when my husband and I checked it out, we saw that the city had not only resurfaced Humboldt Road but Stilson Canyon Road.

Stilson Canyon is a neighborhood of luxury homes in Chico California offering an assortment of beautiful styles, varying sizes and affordable prices to choose from. Stilson Canyon single-family homes for sale range in square footage from around 2,000 square feet to over 6,600 square feet and in price from approximately $479,000 to $2,349,000.

According to the city map, some of this neighborhood is in the city of Chico, but this sign shows that most of them live in the county.

You can see from this point, there is nothing, no housing, along that section of newly paved road. There are no city residents on Humboldt Road either. Who was served by this project – paid for with Measure H funding? This type of project should be funded with property taxes, and these people all pay property taxes to the county. Why are Measure H funds being used? Well, some very influential people live in this neighborhood, is about all I can figure.

A few weeks ago I got a cranky comment from “Susan” regarding the sales tax measure Butte County Supervisors are considering putting on the ballot in November. I’d expected it – just a few months ago, media shills were using the same old “county cutting library hours” bullshit to drum up support for a possible county parcel tax. I knew they’d switch to a sales tax – a general sales tax only needs 50%+1 to pass. Can you smell the chicken shit?

This past weekend, the news outlets picked up the story – again, showing pictures of Butte County library.

The library isn’t the problem – why don’t the news shills ask the real questions? How much is Butte County’s pension deficit? When did they pass that illegal pension bond? Bill Connelly told me it was back in the early 2000’s, and it was passed without voter approval, which is illegal. How has that worked out? Apparently it was implemented in 2004, but the county pension deficit continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Look how much the county is laying out both in regular and “catch-up” payments from their illegal pension obligation bond.

https://www.buttecounty.net/DocumentCenter/View/1551/Pension-Obligation-Bond-Payment-Strategy-Summary-PDF

According to this report

Cal PERS is short about $465 BILLION. How much of that is Butte County’s unfunded liability? As you can see on page 78 of the report, despite the pension obligation bond and the millions Butte County has paid into the deficit year after year, the county’s liability has grown over $30 million since 2018.

Here’s a question your news reporters should be asking – how much are we paying these people to run our apple cart off the road?

Andy “Maximo” Picket, County Chief Admin Officer – as of 2022, he was making a “regular” salary of $242,255.00. Add “extra pay” for a salary of over $257,000/year. Add the benefits package of $67,751.00 for a grand total of $324,543.00.

The board of supes can raise their salaries on a vote, giving themselves about $1,000 raise every year. In 2020, they lowered their salaries about $2,000, but as of 2022 the salary was back to about $62,000/year, same as 2021, and growing again. You would probably be more surprised at the generous benefits packages that they are allowed to choose for themselves. Like City Council members, they pay a small percentage of their salary toward their benefits packages, which currently range from about $18,000/year to about $33,000/year per member. They also get “other pay” – you can ask them about that, I won’t speculate. Connelly somehow wrangled his total salary to over $75,000, add his benefits package for total compensation of over $95,000. Teeter managed to get himself over $100,000.

Which means, given the few thousand dollars a year they pay toward their benefits, they each have personal pension deficits that are part of the county’s total unfunded liability.

Holy shit, no wonder they can’t keep the library open.