Chico Taxpayers Association

Suzanne asked, “Upcoming (Nov 2024) ballot will have another Measure H to vote on. So, Chico will have another sales tax increase??? Say it isn’t so“

I emoted on that briefly here –

I asked the question “for what”. Today I read an article in the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association newsletter “Taxing Times” that answered that question.

Tim Bittle, Chief Counsel of HJTA writes, “As local governments demand that voters approve higher taxes, we thought it would be interesting to see how they’re spending the tax dollars you already give them.” He tells the story of a Bay Area Housing Bond (covering nine Bay Area counties) that was dropped from the November ballot because polls showed the measure would lose.

I think a lot of voters would agree that “The greatest need of most local governments is not to build housing, but to balance their budgets – budgets bloated with high employee salary, health insurance and pension costs.” But I wasn’t surprised to read that in the Bay Area’s proposed bond district, “more than 11,000 county and city employees receive $300,000 or more in annual compensation, in fact, a large percentage of that receive more than $400,000/year.”

So here’s Chico already having passed a one-cent sales tax measure, and now Butte County wants to put another cent on top of that. I hear Suzanne asking me right now, how many Chico and Butte County staffers are members of the $300K Club? Good question Suzanne, thank you.

I always check Transparent California because their figures are mostly up-to-date and have compared favorably with the Secretary of States publicpay.gov site.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/butte-county/

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/chico/

There you have 8 county and 6 city employees who are members of the $300K Club. How about the county staff sergeant who turns a $114,000 salary into almost $450,000 in compensation – does he live at the sheriff station? Look at the compensation packages, wow, just imagine going to the hospital with that kind of insurance.

Transparent California also lists the individual’s Pension Debt, meaning, their share of the awesome doom that hangs over our local government finances. The unrealistic employee payroll contribution isn’t spit on the griddle, especially with the compounding interest on the unpaid portion. And they want to stick the taxpayers with the big nasty mess they’ve left. Like that roommate that never kicks in on the groceries. Or the rent. Or the utility bills.

The payments are siphoned out of every department, at the expense of infrastructure and other services. The city of Chico budgeted $18 million toward this year’s “catch-up” payment. Next year it will be over $20 million, and more every year.

Adding gas to the fire are the constant salary increases – after the voters passed the city’s Measure H, our manager and his head secretary took two salary increases adding up to 11% over the next year. Head Secretary will be making $198,000 in salary, which will add her to the $300K Club.

So, do you think we should give them more money? Of course you know my answer – NO on H.

No I don’t go to many meetings anymore – I had to blow off the last Ad Hoc development committee meeting to get some work done in my own life. Frankly, I’m tired of going to meetings and sitting through hours of reports and discussions without any chance to participate. At the development committee, the public was not allowed to raise a hand or participate in the discussion. Questions from the public had to be written down, and then the committee can decide whether or not to ask or answer them. There is no agenda and there are no staffers keeping notes.

Bill Brouhard is using this committee for his own gain, or at least, trying to. He’s a land broker, of course he wants more development. He’s using his bully pulpit to try and convince us we don’t have enough housing. Meanwhile, on next week’s agenda, another new housing subdivision comes up for approval. It’s just plain crazy!

Speaking of crazy, I asked a few questions about CARE Court in my last post, and Scott Kennelly came around to tell me I needed to go to a Butte County Behavioral Health Board Meeting. No, thank you, Mr. Time Vampire. I did my own research, and wow, was I shocked. Here’s an article from last year, where Kennelly explains why CARE Court is a moot issue. “having little or no practical relevance, typically because the subject is too uncertain to allow a decision.” I found this news story from a year ago, when Newsom made the mandate for all counties to implement CARE Court.

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/butte-county-explains-next-steps-towards-mental-health-courts/article_156bab86-34c0-11ed-b6ba-17d6927f029d.html

According to Kennelly, “At any time someone in care court can say they don’t want anything to do with this and walk, there’s no teeth…” And, at the time, Kennelly complained that BCBH did not have the staff or funding to implement it.

But what I found most distressing when I read more into this subject, CARE Court is not an option for drug or alcohol abuse, it only applies to the very mentally ill. Drug abuse will get a person sent to Drug Court, but only “nonviolent offenders whose were charged with a low-level crime such as drug possession.”

Seven counties implemented CARE Court last year, ahead of the state mandate.

https://www.cerescourier.com/news/local/care-court-and-running-so-how-effective-it/

“Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court creates a new civil judicial division that handles petitions to get people with untreated schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders into county treatment programs. These individuals can be housed or unhoused. People with only substance use disorders, depression or other mental health issues do not qualify for CARE Court.“

Of the 30 petitioners, the article cites 12 “taken off the streets” without really explaining what that meant. Stanislaus County Assistant Chief Executive reads my mind – “I think at times people thought it was a silver bullet (for homelessness).” I naively thought it was the beginning of getting people off the street. I’ve dealt with friends, family and their circle of friends living on the street, and I honestly believe most people are on the street because of drugs, alcohol, and the mental and physical health issues related to substance abuse. But Kennelly is right – you can’t force people into drug treatment, that’s still against the law. I know I’ve never had the nerve, as bad as I wanted to, to tie somebody up and hold them against their will, force their meds down their throat, I could never do it. So we’re back to jail and prison, and overcrowding that has them right back on the street. No wonder Kennelly didn’t want to elaborate here, he has no solution.

Why do we even have a Behavioral Health Department?

Yeah, I know – the county has put a sales tax measure on the ballot – again, Measure H, a one cent sales tax. This of course means 2 cents on every dollar for Chico.

This comes as Chico’s retail sector is taking a dump, Downtown is about to undergo a total sewer revamp, and crime is ever on the rise. Oroville is also suffering daily reports of violent crime.

The other day my husband and I made a final decision – we’re not shopping at Safeway anymore, at all. For years we enjoyed the Safeway on Mangrove, walking or biking down to pick up household needs almost every day. But as we’ve watched prices go up, we’ve watched the Safeway near our house fall into decay. We’ve seen shoplifters, even intoxicated people actually opening and drinking liquor inside the store. We’ve watched management escort these people into the parking lot and leave them – leaving customers to deal with them? One guy, two bottles in hand, just walked over to Kwando, laid down on the sidewalk, drank himself sick, and passed out. For the past few years we’ve been reading one story after another about how Safeway management refuse to press charges for increasingly violent shoplifters. We notice there has to be another victim involved before the perpetrator is arrested, and it usually has to be bad.

Wow, when I think, my grandma used to shop at the Safeway on Nord, I get the shivvers. What a dump that place has become, it’s scary, I wouldn’t pull over there to make a 9-1-1 call.

Downtown is starting to look very bad. On that note, Tom Van Overbeek has called for a discussion at next week’s council meeting about abandoned, neglected, and unmaintained buildings – he doesn’t specify a particular part of town but you know he means Downtown and that’s where the focus will be.

There’s another meeting of the Ad Hoc development committee chaired by Van Overbeek and Addison Winslow – 2:30 Tuesday Sept 17. We’ll see what they have to say.

Valley’s Edge is not dead, Bill Brouhard is absolutely determined to shove it right down Chico’s throat, damn the voters. Mr. Brouhard told a gathering of the city’s new Ad Hoc Committee on Growth and Development that he believes developers should lead the conversation. He’s convinced City Council to establish an “Ad Hoc Committee on Growth and Development,” of which he is a member. He’s brought in reinforcement – a team of realtors to drive in his point: Chico doesn’t have enough housing.

At the second meeting of this committee, Chico real estate agents Brent and Derrick took turns trying to convince us that Chico doesn’t have enough housing, and that’s why housing is so expensive right now. But they also explained that people aren’t buying because interest rates are so high – if interest rates weren’t so high, people could afford more expensive houses. Of course, if interest rates go down, buyers come flocking in, and then there’s not enough houses, so prices go up.

Talk about circular reasoning – I hope you left your breadcrumbs, cause we been here before. At least twice in my adult life, City of Chico council, staff, and development community have told us that we needed to “build more housing for starter families” and “more affordable housing“. Followed by benders of annexation and development, government programs to encourage people to borrow more money for houses they couldn’t afford, and finally by the housing crashes of 1990 and 2008. Both causing major recessions that affected the housing market and the general economy for many years thereafter.

The above description is from my memory. Here’s the AI Overview generated by my search — The 2008 recession was caused by a number of factors, including a housing bubble, low interest rates, and government policies that encouraged home ownership:

• Housing bubble (a period when house prices rise beyond what is considered reasonable or sustainable, usually due to demand, speculation, or overzealous investing) – The housing bubble was a major driver of the economy before the recession, leading to record levels of residential construction.  
• Low interest rates – Mortgages were given to unqualified borrowers at low interest rates, which led to asset bubbles and a housing price crash when borrowers were unable to repay.  
• Government policies – Government policies encouraged home ownership, even for those who could not afford it, which led to lax lending standards and unsustainable housing prices.  
• Record household debt – The decades before the crisis saw record levels of household debt, which led to a balance sheet recession when housing prices began to fall.  
• Homebuilding decline – The housing market crash led to a decline in homebuilding, which reduced the supply of new homes.  
• Seller’s market – The lack of supply and increased demand created a seller’s market, which led to increased home prices.  

The 2008 recession was the worst economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression.

Yep, that’s exactly how I remember it, and it’s what I’ve seen again over the last couple of years. First, “record levels of residential construction.” Chico has been building like crazy (unfortunately, not on Brouhard’s land). But you see, prices have not gone down. And here we are, again – “Seller’s market – The lack of supply and increased demand created a seller’s market, which led to increased home prices...” If you put up the For Sale sign, they will come. Brent and Derrick report people are back to bidding right now in Chico, and homes are going for more than asking price.

Our development community, encouraged by our “city leaders”, keeps stepping in the same pile of shit they’ve stepped in again and again. They keep telling us building will bring down the price of housing, and according to Brent and Derrick, that just brings more people and higher prices. This is a case of circular reasoning if I ever saw one.

Believe what you see, and what I see right now is another housing bubble.