Chico Taxpayers Association

Another nail in the coffin of Downtown Chico with the pending closure of longtime business Collier Hardware. Think it has to do anything with the atmosphere the city has allowed to foment Downtown?

Today an overdose death at Chico Plaza – who is actually surprised when they read these reports? When my husband and I drove through Drugtown yesterday, I looked across the Plaza – I wouldn’t have got out of my car on a bet. Tents scattered around what used to be a “public” bathroom. More tents at City Hall. Dirty half dressed creeps staggering around in a state of hangover, waiting for their turn in the “public” toilet. To get high? They look like they live from one fix to the next. Morning looks like my dad after 6 days on the road – the come down. By afternoon everybody is bubbling along, just got their “medicine”. By evening they’re really high, and really nuts.

If you want to find out what night time in Drugtown is like, read Butte County Accidents and Crimes Facebook, I don’t recommend seeing it for yourself.

Maybe we should ask Mayor Kasey Reynolds how long she thinks her business – a candy store within a block of the Plaza – will last. Like Collier and Northern Star Mills and Richardson Furniture and Osers, I remember being in Shuberts as a child. I have a Grange cook book of my grandmothers, from the 1930’s, with an ad showing the same logo they still use today. I have a family album with pictures of old Chico High, CSUC buildings that don’t exist anymore, and a really bitchin’ shot of Hooker Oak before it was nothing but a stump.

Wow, how Chico has changed in my lifetime. I think we’ve all noticed how radically it’s changed in just the last 10 years. To think my family really enjoyed Downtown Chico, many businesses. My husband and sons and I enjoyed events like Friday night concert and Farmers Market – remember the conga line for a piece of fudge at Christmas preview? Remember Nut Cracker ballet in store windows? When I go down to the city center these days, all I have are memories of what it was.

How many more nails will it take to close the coffin on a great little town? Can we stop it?

As for our current drug and mental health crisis, we have to stop voting for people who put the bums before the citizens – we need more “whimsy” on council? How does an idiot like that get elected? Obvious answer – idiot voters, too lazy to study the real issues, and look at what other towns are doing, right or wrong. Voters need to know what they want before they vote, and then keep demanding it.

As for the physical state of our city, we need to demand that the city put a moratorium on new development until we get existing parts of town on schedule for infrastructure improvements. We need to get our sewer system fixed – whole parts of town, including the city center, are sitting on failing sewer and water pipes. Other whole parts of town are not even hooked up to sewer, with old septic tanks leaching into the ground. Think what that means in a heavy rain storm. Our streets are in a state of emergency, parts of town have no drainage or sidewalks.

I honestly believe we need an outside agency to come in and test our drinking water. We also need a good audit of our drinking water supply before we build new subdivisions.

To accomplish this we need a city attorney who is qualified to advise us toward better planning decisions – why did our city attorney allow council to put Valley’s Edge on the ballot if it wasn’t a legal measure? Was it illegal? Do we trust our current city attorney to advise us any further?

Of course Council hires the city attorney – so we need to communicate to our city council reps what we want out of a city attorney. We need a person who is qualified and has a proven record in municipal law. I don’t know where they’ve got the past couple of city attorneys – it would be nice to have more sunshine into this process.

But none of that is going to happen if we don’t demand it.

I got the wind knocked out of me about two weeks ago when we found out a friend of ours had died of an overdose at the Safe Space Shelter. We had known the young man since he was born, his parents and grandparents being long time friends. He was a friend of my older son, and he spent a lot of time with us. We spent a lot of time with his family, camping trips, Easter egg hunts, and we never missed Pancakes for Peace.

I am angry. I watched our town turn into an “Unsafe Space” over the span of this young man’s life. I tried to get the attention of my council representative, telling her about things I’d seen – obvious examples of a laissez faire policy on drug possession and use. She was not interested in pursuing the conversation publicly. While heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine are all very illegal in the state of California, as is public intoxication, the city of Chico has a “council them and move them along” policy when it comes to enforcing the laws against public use and distribution of illegal substances.

Low barrier shelters have become the modern opium den.

In 2020 Oregon tried an “experiment” with decriminalizing drugs. An “experiment” using humans for test subjects.

Apr 10, 2024 — Oregon decriminalized drugs in 2020 with a goal of addressing the root issues of drug users’ addictions by putting them into recovery programs .  “a health-based approach to addiction and overdose is more effective, humane, and cost-effective than criminal punishments.” That short-lived experiment has now been called off, with Oregon’s legislature voting to recriminalize drug possession. 

https://www.innovatingjustice.org/publications/drugs-recriminalized-oregon

Even proponents admit it was a failure, citing a “brutal spike in overdose deaths” following the implementation of Measure 110.

But Chico continues a policy of counsel and move them along. It’s a fact, and everybody knows, we have a serious drug problem in Chico, with overdoses becoming almost routine.

Where are the drugs coming from? I can’t believe they are not being transported by the armies of the night that live undocumented in various illegal encampments around town. If you spend enough time Downtown or in Bidwell Park you will see people making drug deals right in the middle of Downtown Plaza.

Drugs are also common at Butte County jail. The news has reported both incidents of drugs being smuggled in, and overdoses, often deadly. The jail is just another layer of the drug trade in Butte County. And it’s overcrowded, so oftentimes dangerous people are being released right back into the county to continue to use and move drugs.

One guy who has been popping up in the police logs for years, arrested over and over, has led Chico PD on several car chases in stolen cars. Once he hit a gas meter and shut down two blocks surrounding Hooker Oak School. But he kept being summarily released, only to be caught again within months, same thing. Finally they found him with drugs taped to his butt!

Apparently, strip searches were not routine on check-in, but they finally found some reason to search him, and there were drugs in his shorts. It sounds ridiculous, but I can’t believe that wasn’t his motive the entire time, transporting drugs into the jail. I don’t know if they’ve changed that policy.

The city of Chico takes a very defeatist attitude toward the situation. They have been bitch slapped by the court, they say. The police and sheriff complain about overcrowding and not having enough staff, despite 10’s of millions received from various grants and emergency funding. The Behavioral Health Department complains they don’t have enough money to pay the kind of salaries it takes to get “good” people. They have a budget that rivals the White House.

Being angry doesn’t bring our friend back, but I’ll tell his story as often as I can and I’ll blame it on the city of Chico, County of Butte, and Safe Space Shelter for the rest of my life.