I was looking at a friend’s Facebook page, when I saw a notification from the City of Chico Facebook – “City of Chico Celebrates second anniversary of Measure H”, insinuating that all that roadwork on the southeast end of town is being paid for with Measure H money. No, it’s not, it’s being paid for with state and federal grants of all kinds, as well as ADA money. Don’t take my word for it – read the budget yourself. It’s good for you, like cod liver oil. We also pay for the fulltime employee tasked with pumping out bullshit on the city Facebook page!
Type “pension” into the F-search and prepare to have your mind blown. You’ll see that they siphon the CalPERS “catch-up” payments out of every department fund, including the Measure H fund. This year the payment was over $18 million – that’s more than half of what they claimed they would receive from Measure H.
Measure H is in trouble. When I read the comments on the city’s posting I was glad to see that I’m not the only one who sees through the bullshit. Here’s a sampling, verbatim.
“Stop building new roads for developers and fix the potholes on the existing roads! Drive around Chico and see how many “invisible” crosswalks you see…”
“There was no reason to spend $24 million widening that seldom used road except to support Valleys Edge…” Yes, the developers should pay for work necessary to support their subdivisions, like all those new entryways poured into that field alongside Bruce. They also used Measure H money to resurface (NAME THE ROAD)
“They will be using some Home Depot asphalt going around in city trucks patching holes. I’ve seen 2 guys going around a couple weeks back and not even 2 days later the holes were back open…“
Actually, they typically use the leftover asphalt (“slobbers”) from the new roads they’re putting into new subdivisions and apartment complexes around town. They have to get the asphalt out of the truck before it gets hard, or it will screw up the equipment, so they dump it wherever they can. And then it’s all over passing cars, and the hole is back within a week.
“That $54m could go into fixing a lot of potholes around town. We are taxed to the bone and yet not one single improvement has been made. Roads are crap…”
“Want an itemized list of where the money is really going, millions of dollars were allocated for camp fire victims but spent on project in Chico.” ( NOTE: in the 2024-25 budget they are still listing victim’s fire fund money, claiming that the city was a victim because of evacuees, but that the money can’t be spent on regular budget items like streets or sewer – does that make sense?)
“can they show us the receipts? Id like to know EXACTLY where the money is spent.” (Look at the budget.)
“lol is this a joke it was suppose to go to increasing fire department and law enforcement – maybe have more than 3 jail sheriff at night” (here is some obvious confusion with county measure H – did they choose ‘H’ for both measures so there would be this kind of confusion? We’ll never know. )
One person suggests “let’s not piss it all away...” to which another answers, “they will“
I didn’t get every comment, but I sure as hell didn’t see any positive comments about the way the city is spending Measure H money. Looks like Chico citizens have next to no faith or trust in their city “leaders”. And yeah, I looked at the commenters’ facebook pages – this is a pretty cross-cut section of Chicoans, from working class people who are having serious problems trying to pay their bills, to well-heeled people who have to drive their nice cars over shredded streets to woke idiots who just hate the “conservatives” no matter what they do. People are PISSED OFF.
And city staff obviously feels the heat. This is the reason for those fucking insulting signs – “Thank you Chico Voters!” “Your measure H dollars at work”. That’s a lie, and you can see it in the budget. This is why the city has resorted to, again, spending taxpayer dollars to sell a tax measure to the taxpayers.
Don’t eat shit, demand better. You get what you will accept.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
why was the dig at “woke idiots” necessary because you feel like they “hate conservatives no matter what they do”?
ever thought hmm, maybe these conservatives in charge are the actual idiots and these “woke idiots” might have a point this time – maybe even in some other things.
Hi “David” – funny, you use the same email as “Greg”, who commented on my last post but did not further engage when I answered their question.
I’m sorry about calling a person a “woke idiot” – I was responding to their comment that the “conservatives” should be thrown off council. What did they mean by “conservatives”? Why do people label each other without listening to what the person is saying? Why do we get hung up on name calling, instead of addressing the subject at hand – is the city of Chico making proper use of Measure H revenues?
What, exactly, do you mean when you use “conservative”? I look it up today and I see it’s mostly been politicized. When I say “conservative” I mean “marked by moderation or caution” – what’s wrong with that? I don’t see “moderation or caution” in the spending of Measure H monies – why blame the conservatives? They’re “in charge”? Since when have we had moderation or caution in Downtown Chico?
Frankly, I don’t really like the new definition of “woke” – I was using it sarcastically. To me it means “not asleep”.