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Chico Finance Committee will have an OPEN MEETING tomorrow – sewer rate increase, sales tax increase, CalPERS pension debt update

22 Feb

Wow – tomorrow the city of Chico is having an OPEN MEETING! I feel like I’m waking up from a bad dream. Just last week I sent a note to my district representative, Worthless Reynolds, asking her why she had agreed to chair a CLOSED Internal Affairs Commission meeting AFTER THE STATE MANDATE HAD BEEN DROPPED. She never got back to me.

So gee, it was a big surprise to get this agenda from the clerk.

https://chico.ca.us/sites/main/files/file-attachments/2.23.22_fc_agenda_packet.pdf?1645208231

And wow, here it is: “The agenda is also attached.  Please note this meeting is being held in person at the Council Chamber Building… ” I just about crapped myself with glee.

And just in time for some stuff that needs to be discussed with the public in attendance – a sewer rate analysis, a presentation from the consultant who is going to run the tax increase campaign, and a “CalPERS costs update”.

The sewer rate analysis is the beginning of a rate increase(s) for those of you on sewer. The city has been eeking up the sewer rates eversince Dan Nguyen-tan, Scott Gruendl, and Colleen Jarvis were on council. Staff complains they don’t get enough money to properly maintain the sewer – actually, the problem, according to people like former city council member Mark Sorensen, is that the sewer fund has been “dipped into” to pay salaries and pensions that don’t have anything to do with the sewer system. That’s called “allocation” – just type that, or “Chad Wolford”, into the search bar at the upper right of the blog and you’ll see I’ve written a lot about that here.

They’re going to tell us it’s because the sewer is over-whelmed – that is a lie. During the Paradise evacuation, they told us the sewer was running at less than half capacity, but still tried to say the evacuees were overwhelming it. Keep an eye on this conversation, it’s going to be full of shit.

Then we’ll hear from consultants Clifford Moss about their “PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY” regarding the sales tax increase measure. Meaning, the pitch they will give us to make us want to raise our own taxes. Please note – this is being done with $91,000 in taxpayer money. The irony is so rich it’s giving me the farts.

And then, the piece de resistance – finance department staffer Barbara Martin will give us the most recent “actuarial report released by CalPERS, the results of the recent Asset Liability Management (ALM) process CalPERS completed and steps that have been taken to manage costs.” This is important, because this is the reason for both the sewer rate and sales tax rate increases. Here’s the report from CalPERS. There are several videos here, if you really want to see why Chico is turning into a total shithole, watch this. There will be a quiz.

https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/about/organization/facts-at-a-glance/asset-liability-management

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Recipe for a pension deficit

3 Feb

Employer Share Employee Base Share Employee Cost Sharing Total Employee Contribution  “Classic”                                               “Pepra” – employees hired after 2013
CME 7.54% 8% + 6% = 14.00%         CME 7.54% 7.50% + 6% = 13.50%CPSA 7.54% 8% + 6% = 14.00%        CPSA 7.54% 7.50% + 6% = 13.50%CNF 10.54% 8% + 3% = 11.00%        CNF 10.54% 7.50% + 3% = 10.50%DIR 10.54% 8% + 3% = 11.00%         DIR 10.54% 7.50% + 3% = 10.50%L39 10.54% 8% + 3% = 11.00%         L39 10.54% 7.50% + 3% = 10.50%SEIU 10.54% 8% + 3% = 11.00%       SEIU 10.54% 7.50% + 3% = 10.50%UPEC 6.86% 8% + 6.68% = 14.68% UPEC 6.86% 7.50% + 6.68% = 14.18%

CalPERS SAFETY – Classic                  CalPERS SAFETY – PEPRAEmployer Share Employee Base Share Employee Cost Sharing Total Employee ContributionCFSM 19.42% 9% + 3% = 12.00%      CFSM 19.42% 13.75% + 3% = 16.75%CPM 19.42% 9% + 3% = 12.00%        CPM 19.42% 13.75% + 3% = 16.75%CPOA* 13.42% 9% + 9% = 18.00%    CPOA* 13.42% 13.75% + 9% = 22.75%IAFF 19.42% 9% + 3% = 12.00%         IAFF 19.42% 13.75% + 3% = 16.75%

Gee, scuse me, but this above is what an answer from City of Chico Human Resources staff looks like. I asked the HR staffer for the most recent figures on the shares employees pay toward their own benefits, and she sent me a spread sheet. I’m not accusing her of anything, but it’s just about impossible to cut-and-paste a spread sheet. First she tried to pretend she didn’t understand the question, it took me a couple of days, asking the same question over and over until she sent me this chart. I guess she thought she was throwing toothpicks at a vampire.

So, here, let’s sort that mess out.

Let’s take the management unit, CME – meaning, Mark Orme and other department heads (public safety management, as you see further down, is separate). The chart is divided between “Classic” and “PEPRA” employees – Classic being, employees hired before 2013.

“Classic” Employer Share – 7.54%

Employee “base” share – 8%

Employee Cost Sharing – 6% – this is the amount of the former “Employer Share” that the employees have agreed to pay.

See there – the total “contribution” for management staff, some of the highest paid city employees – Employer + Employee contributions – is only 21.54%. For salaries in excess of $100,000/yr. Orme makes over $200,000, and only pays 14%, or $28,000/year. The taxpayers add another $15,080. For a pension of 70% of his highest year’s salary, or $140,000. Plus Cost of Living Increase. Plus benefits.

That kids, is why we have a pension deficit. Orme’s personal deficit is about $70,000. He’s been working for Chico since 2013. He started at a salary of about $189,000, increasing to his current “base pay” of $207,000/yr. He started out paying NOTHING toward his pension or benefits. That’s right, until the last few years, MANAGEMENT PAID NOTHING. Pressure from groups like ours led to tiny incremental increases, but the damage was done. A guy with a $189,000 starting salary, paying nothing, but expecting 70% of his highest year’s salary in pension – how can that be sustainable? And he knew exactly what he was doing, they all do.

While Orme keeps crowing that he and other employees now pay more of the “employers” share, they’re also getting salary increases that more than cover their increased shares. Of course that raises the debt, and the taxpayers are still on the hook for as much as 80% of the total cost.

Here’s a note for you “defund the cops” folks – the cops and fire department pay more than anybody. Look at the chart.

CPOA* Classic: Employer Share -13.42%; Employee base share – 13.75%; + Employee Cost Share – 9% = Total employee contribution – 22.75% The total contribution is almost 36%. Of course, that still creates a deficit. And again – the “employer share” is deceiving, we, “the employers” are on the hook for the deficit too. Including interest. And Cost of Living Increase.

So, if all this is confusing, let me give you a picture: You’re in an 8 foot hole on the beach, and the sand is crumbling in around your head. You shovel and scrape as fast as you can, but the sand is quickly building around your ankles. Suddenly you notice a person – Mark Orme – on top, shoveling sand right in on you. Faster and faster. You notice a group of seven others – that would be council – shoveling right along with him. That’s the pension deficit folks, and we can’t wait for Orme to bring us a ladder.

The tax measure he’s bringing us is just more sand.

COVID inflation hits the poor hardest – meanwhile, Chico gets ready to increase sewer rates, again…

28 Jan
California’s poor face new dilemma: inflation

“There’s no question that the massive shutdown in much of the state’s economy, ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom to battle the pandemic, made things worse for the millions of Californians already feeling economic distress.“

Yes, the shutdown, not COVID, has been the main source of our miseries in California. In Newsom’s California, the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.

“While most workers in upper-income brackets could adjust by continuing to work from home, Californians in low-wage service sectors such as hotels and restaurants saw their jobs disappear.“

California has the highest gas tax in the nation – although, sometimes Pennsylvania edges us by a percentage of a cent. Ironically, both Pennsylvania and California are listed in the bottom 10 as far as roads go. Of course the price of gas affects everything.

“Overall, living costs in California and the four other Pacific Rim states are up 8.2% in the last two years, driven by especially sharp jumps in the costs of food, energy and automobile fuel, PPIC calculated.“

And not necessarily in that order – the price of gas drives up the cost of food and all other commodities. And they’ve admitted, as we buy more, they raise the prices, so it’s obviously manipulated with the blessing of the government. Think ENRON SCANDAL.

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/enron-scandal-summary/

What is the city of Chico doing to help the poor? Well, at present they sit in closed meetings discussing tax increases. The Finance Committee meeting at which they discussed their plans to raise sewer fees via such schemes as a “volume tax” or lease/sales of the sewer plant was closed to the public, as admitted by the clerk. The rest of the meeting was continued to a special meeting scheduled for this coming Monday (1/31/22). They held their discussion of the Community Grant Block Funding awards, but went right ahead and discussed the sewer taxes in a closed meeting. I can’t believe people don’t see that as a blatant move to keep us from knowing what is actually going on with city finances.

Here’s a blast from the past – an article from the Humboldt Times Standard, about a 2011 sewer increase – 22%. Read the article – it sounds like the city didn’t really inform the public, and people were not aware that they could protest the rate hike formally.

Chico sewer fees to increase by 22 percent

Sorensen and Schwab are no longer on council, but nothing much has changed in how council operates. And that would be Staff.

City staff reports not everybody has adequate internet participate in remote meetings, but Council continues to close the meetings anyway – all the while discussing ways to raise our taxes

22 Jan

In the early 2000’s, the phone company came through our mid-Chico neighborhood, replacing the phone lines. They were out there for about two weeks, our service was interrupted, and we were able to chat with them about what was going on. The senior technician told me, “people all over this town are paying for internet, but they’re not getting it.” He said the phone lines were over 50 years old, and starting to crumble. He said we were lucky to get phone service.

Well, now that he had mentioned it, we realized – since we had moved into that house in 2001, we’d immediately found that we got better reception for our phone in the front yard. We also noticed that many of our neighbors would stand in their front yards, talking on their cell phones. It was an “a-HA!” moment.

We were new to internet, it hadn’t occurred to us – our internet would be out for days at a time, and we just figured that was par for the course.

Here we are, 2022, and it hasn’t changed much. We have better phone service, but our internet is still sketchy, we’ve had to learn to turn devices on and off to reconnect. I found out how weak it really is when I tried to participate in Zoom meetings after the city closed meetings to the public in 2020. I just couldn’t get into the meetings a lot of the time, and while staff was sympathetic, they couldn’t help me – they don’t run the internet.

When I tried to “attend” a Finance Committee meeting last year, I was unable to get in. I called the clerk on my phone as instructed, but neither she nor the IT guy could get me in. When they informed committee members via email (which is funny, they could get my emails but I couldn’t get into the meeting), Randall Stone was the only member who seemed concerned. Meanwhile, Sean Morgan observed, “she must have poor internet...” – as if that was my fault?

Fast forward to Mark Orme’s scheme to sell us internet service. Orme is planning to use COVID relief money to get into the internet business – $4.8 million – telling us he can offer it at a more affordable rate. While I don’t understand the mechanics of this proposal, it’s very clear – staff and council know we don’t all have equal access, but they keep closing the meetings and telling us we can “participate” via Zoom.

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/local/chico-city-council-unanimously-votes-to-approve-the-interim-broadband-master-plan-moving-closer-to/article_adcd2f6a-8a18-52e2-bd9b-bbb1665c40a2.html

According to the city’s consultant ($$$$), there’s not only gaps in service, it’s based on how much you can pay. So they are shutting out people who could least afford all the taxes they are bringing up in their closed meetings.

“There are gaps in affordability in Chico and there are gaps in service availability meaning that it is not ubiquitous. There are different pricings and different availabilities in different areas of town based on the infrastructure available,” said EntryPoint Networks Solution Services Director Bruce Patterson.

That’s right, “based on the infrastructure available…” So yes, we’ve been paying for service we don’t get, and with Staff’s knowledge.

Patterson says the average person pays per megabit is around 70 cents but says he’s seen cities using this same model that people pay as little as 3 cents per megabit.

And here finance director Scott Dowell admits those of us who don’t have good internet are “at a disadvantage…” This isn’t what they said when I was struggling to get into that meeting.

“You are at a disadvantage if you do not have a speedy, reliable internet service. We’re almost shifting the concept that, shouldn’t we treat internet service as a utility that everyone should have access to at a reasonable price?” says Dowell during a phone interview with KRCR Tuesday morning.

I’m fed up with the closed meetings. When I complained to my district rep, Kasey Reynolds, she just shrugged it off. “We discussed meetings last night, we will be having the next two by zoom (while the Governor has indoor mask mandate still) then returning to in person meetings. Trust me I would rather be in person too i hate zoom!“

She has obviously heard the consultant’s report regarding the state of our internet infrastructure and service, but she unapologetically tells me that meetings will remain closed for another month, while they put the tax measure on the ballot. Having hired a consultant with taxpayer money already, in closed meetings. I’d like to see the screen door bust her right across the ass next November, but I don’t have the money to run against her, I’m hoping some good candidate will step forward. We’ll see.

So I did what I usually do, I wrote a letter to the editor.

As the city of Chico uses taxpayer money to pursue a sales tax increase measure, discusses a consumption-based sewer tax, and anticipates a state-wide rental tax, they continue to work in meetings closed to the public. Staff and council claim the meetings are available on Zoom, even while acknowledging that internet service in Chico is not equitable.

According to the city’s consultant, “There are gaps in affordability in Chico and there are gaps in service availability meaning that it is not ubiquitous… based on the infrastructure available.”

When I tried to participate in a morning Finance Committee meeting via Zoom last year, I made it clear to Staff and committee members that I was not able to sign into the meeting, it kept cutting out. Sean Morgan observed, “she must have poor internet.” But the meeting went on anyway.

Council and Staff are well aware that Chicoans do not have equal access to internet, but they continue to close meetings to the public. Furthermore, committee meetings, even though it is possible, are not recorded for further viewing. When one member of the public asked about this, the clerk informed him that is not required. That is council’s decision.

Furthermore, council and committee members are allowed to review and redact anything they do not want in the minutes, keeping the minutes held up for months at a time.

“Taxation without representation – the quandary of a populace that is required by law to pay taxes but has no say in the matter.“

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

 

Chico City Staff (Orme) is duping the taxpayers into paying a lot more of the pensions than they are telling us

17 Jan

I was cleaning my computer files and found this report from a January 2018 Council agenda. I’ve contacted Jamie Cannon in the city Human Resouces Department and asked her to direct me to a more recent report with current figures, I’ll post any response I get from her.

http://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=280&meta_id=57592

This is an old report but it shows how the city’s (taxpayers’) contribution GOES UP AUTOMATICALLY EVERY YEAR, with no input from the taxpayers, while any increase in employee share has to be bargained and approved by the employees.

This report also shows that we pay ALL OF THE UNFUNDED LIABILITY, WHICH MEANS, WE’RE PAYING MORE SHARE THAN IS REPORTED IN THE “REGULAR” PAYMENTS. They don’t include the UAL when they figure shares, they exclude it and just leave the taxpayers to pick it up. The whooooooole thing!

Tomorrow night council will consider asking employees to pay part of the city’s payroll share – 3 – 6%. But no mention of what a consultant told the Finance Committee in September 2020 – “each year the city makes two types of payments to CalPERS – the ‘normal cost’ or ‘payroll’, and the ‘extra’ payments toward the Unfunded Actuarial Liability (UAL)…”

https://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?meta_id=79891

Look at the city’s share of the cost, and compare it to the employee shares, and then join me in demanding that the employees pay not only bigger shares toward the payroll share but pay the same share of the UAL.

Chico Staff and Council using the COnVID scam to shut the public out of meetings – meanwhile, they’re using OUR money to hire a tax measure consultant

14 Jan

Another COVID shut down – are you getting sick of it yet? Being told to wear TWO MASKS? Being told to vax-vax-vax, then BOOSTER? Then mask anyway? Get OUT!

Don’t worry, while we’re sitting around wringing our hands, Rand Paul is kicking the shit out of COVID.

Here Paul takes Fauci on over his fascist “take down” tactic – using his $420,000 salary, to “take down any scientists who disagree with him.” Paul reads directly from emails between Fauci and friends. Fauci protests like a teenager, “you just attack me...” But, as Paul asserts, Fauci’s own email trail confirms it. Hearing his own words, Fauci just keeps protesting that Paul is out to get him. “You keep distorting the truth!” protests Fauci, as Paul reads verbatim the private emails between Fauci and other “scientists”. Fauci claims this is a personal attack – wow, just like the personal attacks he initiated against doctors from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford?

What a world we are living in. Yes, politicians are using COVID for political gain. And as a power tool, they just like to screw people!

Right now, Chico City Council is using taxpayer money like a power tool, to hire a consultant to screw a sales tax increase up our collective ass. And they’re doing it in closed meetings, under cover of COnVID. I’m going to go back to calling it “COnVID” because that’s what it is – a big CON job, a SCAM, a FLEECING of the American public. With no real science behind it, Chico City Council used hysterical calls for reinstitution of the mandates to shut down “public” meetings, oh gee, just as they are hiring a tax consultant?

Here’s a good morning stretch exercise – put both hands back there on your ass. Find your tailbone. Run your finger up from there – that’s your backbone. Learn to use it, and write to your council now, tell them to get their hands out of your purse.

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Mark Orme’s sales tax increase measure: With salaries well in excess of $100,000/year, the people who really make and implement these decisions are well-insulated from any negative impacts. In fact, they directly benefit from any increase in taxes

6 Jan

Here’s another letter writer who does not support the city’s sales tax increase measure. From the Chico Enterprise Record:

Don’t trust this council with more money

As a current taxpayer in Chico,, I do not support the proposed sales tax put forth by the city council’s conservatives. They already can’t manage the current city budget, what makes them think they can take on more responsibility? For example, millions of dollars are spent on Chico PD “overtime” pay and for Chico Firefighter’s “disability claims” right before they retire. They need to do a better job of examining loopholes and the exploitation of city funds by these groups.

This city does not need more money: what we need are people who know how to manage city funds in ways that actually support the community and address issues such as homelessness, poverty, climate change, etc. — Alicia Trider, Chico CA

I’m so glad this person is familiar with the police and fire contracts. People need to read this stuff, we are on the hook for it. The cop and fire contracts are very generous, I’ve written here about it many times. Here are a couple of posts from last year that proved very enlightening:

Q & A for your district rep: What is CTO?
CTO = “compensated time off”
Take a cup of OT and add a cup and a half of CTO, pour in some STO, and you get an IOU
Look at the calisthenics these people go through to spike their last year’s earnings and, subsequently, their pensions.

I don’t know if Trider actually read the contracts, as I have many times, but if she did, she’d find all kinds of stuff that just raises the cost of public safety for no other reason than PURE GREED.

Trider goes on to list her priorities, which put her at 180 degrees from previous letter writers. So, this sales tax measure has already raised hackles on both sides of the aisle, as I expected. The skating rink also raised hackles on both sides of the aisle, as did using taxpayer money to hire a consultant to push the measure. So far, Staff and Council seem to be putting their foot in their own doo-doo at every turn. In fact, I’d say, Council keeps stepping in Mark Orme’s doo-doo.

A tax increase is a negative for everybody – business owners and consumers are connected at the hip. Businesses need healthy consumers, and consumers need healthy businesses. Raising taxes eats people’s “disposable income,” and that means less money to spend to support local businesses. I’m not threatening to leave – think you’re gonna get rid of me that easily? I’ll just take my business elsewhere. In 2012, when disgraced ex-city-manager Brian Nakamura and despicable ex-city-manager Tom Lando initiated this conversation, I discovered online shopping, and I love it. I also enjoy a trip to Oregon now and then, where they have NO SALES TAX.

Well, I should say, this measure would be a negative for almost everybody. With salaries well in excess of $100,000/year, the people who really make and implement these decisions are well-insulated from any negative impacts. In fact, they directly benefit from any increase in taxes.

Write to your district rep, include the whole council, ask them to pull out of this dive before it’s too late.

If we allow the city’s sales tax measure to pass, the taxpayers will be on the hook for the outrageous pensions and benefits forever

3 Jan

A couple of letter writers weighed in recently on the proposed sales tax increase measure our city manager and council are moving toward the ballot. I don’t want to get too confident, but I’m starting to wonder if this measure will be the slam dunk the city is hoping for.

From the Enterprise Record:

More jobs, no tax increase
Here’s a novel idea. Have Chico’s “less fortunate” get jobs and become self reliant (like the rest of us) and we won’t need a city sales tax increase.— Jeff Saine, Chico

Long time local newscaster and well-known meteorologist Anthony Watts included the measure in his 2022 predictions:

Forecasts for 2022
No. 1: The legislature will pass and Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an “exit tax” on people leaving the state for a better life. They’ll tax U-Haul, Ryder, Bekins, United Van Lines, etc. on any out-of-state move contract. This will create a black-market for clandestine movers. It will also create a reverse “Grapes of Wrath” effect; people loading up their vehicles and leaving the state to escape the “great depression” of California.

No. 2: State sanctioned theft of electricity becomes the new normal. On Jan. 27, 2022, The CPUC will approve the new NEM3 system that will create the highest solar tax in the country and hugely reduce the bill credit solar customers get for selling electricity back to the grid. It also imposes new fees for the “privilege” of connecting to the grid. NEM3 will pay 25 cents on the dollar per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by home and small business solar owners, where under NEM2 it was 95 cents on the dollar. The result; a huge drop in installed solar on existing homes, and black-market electricians to wire solar to directly power homes instead of the grid.

No. 3: “Climate change” will be blamed for Nos. 1 and 2. Newsom and/or some idiot lawmaker will say “climate change” is the real reason people are leaving the state, and “climate change” is the reason we must steal electricity from your solar panels without fairly compensating homeowners.

No. 4: If it makes the ballot, the proposed 1% sales tax in Chico will fail spectacularly in November.— Anthony Watts, Chico

I’m fairly certain this measure will make the ballot, but I’d like to believe it will fail. Now that the city is hiring a consultant to peddle it, it’s up to us to make sure the voters get both sides of the story. Important facts have been left out of the media interpretations of this measure – most important, staff and council members have already talked about using the revenues from this measure to secure bonds, including a Pension Obligation Bond. Bonds are permanent debt. As of now the city has no bond debt. The only real obligation against the city is the pension deficit, and who’s responsible for that is negotiable. If we allow this measure to pass, we’ll be on the hook for the pensions forever.

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Crime is most certainly on the rise in Chico – ask your gas station attendant

22 Dec

For years now crime has been on the rise in Chico, and city “leaders” have repeatedly tried to deny that fact while also telling us we need to give the cops more money, higher salaries, and “defined benefits” for all their sacrifice. Our city Staff and Council also refuse to believe that the Shelter Crisis Designation they just reinstituted has anything to do with it.

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/news/Chico-sees-a-rise-in-gas-station-robberies-575958411.html

Just after 6 a.m. the station in Chico located next to the Co-Op was robbed and the suspect got away. This same gas station was robbed exactly one week ago at just after 1 a.m. where the suspect also got away.

Simply put, we have criminals moving freely all over town while you can’t get a cop when you need one. It’s the funniest thing – the more we increase the cop budget, the more cops we hire, the more crime we seem to get. It reminds me of Looney Tunes – Elmer Fudd sticks his gun in the knot hole and it comes out pointed at him.

Chico Police tell Action News Now, they typically see an increase in crime during the holiday season and say their patrol teams are aware of these robberies and are working to keep adequate officers staffed for patrols to protect the community. They believe this gas station was targeted twice because it has late hours and a lot of foot traffic in general due to it being in the heart of downtown.

Here we see that the police are aware of the problem but don’t post a cop to watch the station? Are they saying this business shouldn’t exist, or at least that they shouldn’t try to provide service 24 hours a day? Cause that would mean the cops would have to provide service 24 hours a day? Maybe folks living and doing business Downtown should expect to shelter in place after dark?

This is insubordination on the part of Chico PD. They’ve allowed Downtown Chico to become a crime zone. And council just keeps handing then raises and hiring new positions. Cops use criminals to keep the rest of us in line, keep us paying our taxes.

Well, it’s raining, and not donuts. You know what that means for the rinky-dink.

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As a “last minute effort to house” people, the Torres Shelter is handing out tents

2 Dec

Chico Enterprise Record 12/2/21

CHICO — A program assisting unhoused people with shelter access ended earlier than expected causing 36 people occupying 26 rooms at the Town House Motel to be evicted by Nov. 30. Five of the parties could not find shelter within their 15-day eviction notice, and were given tents as last minute effort to house them by local shelters.

The program to which this story refers used to be called Project Room Key. Local shelters worked with local motels to get rooms for “unhoused” persons whenever the local shelters could not house them, for whatever reason. Here they insinuate COVID is the reason.

The Butte United Shelter Program was created in July 2021 by United Way of California and True North Shelter Team to protect unhoused people who have no option to self-quarantine by providing them temporary shelter and access to housing resources.

In years past, the program, with very little supervision, was a disaster. I think they were taking advantage of local motels to dump drug users that the shelters wouldn’t take, but that’s just a guess. Rooms at motels were trashed, other guests were harassed, and the troublemakers refused to leave the premises when asked. Last year, in a very candid phone conversation, my district rep Kasey Reynolds told me, “I hate Project Room Key.”

Well, does she advocate giving them tents and sending them to Bidwell Park or other city owned land?

It seems to me there is a more sensible option than just putting them out. These people need proper supervision. This is why churches stopped participating – none of the agencies or groups that advocate for the “unhoused” would provide supervision, or clean up the mess left next morning.

City manager Mark Orme created a new position in 2020 – Homeless Coordinator – and hired his friend Joy Amaro, with a salary over $100,000/year. Amaro apparently found some conflict in the job, and almost immediately quit to head over to a “non-profit” called True North Housing Alliance. True North is now running Torres Shelter, and have administered and now closed the motel program. They boast a “19% success rate.” What?

The Torres Shelter sits on city land and gets public funding from both the city and the county. The shelter director gets a salary – at last I checked, when Brad Montgomery ran the place, it was about $65,000, plus benefits. They also routinely have empty beds but still turn folks away.

I don’t know what kind of person would brag of any kind of “success” here. I don’t know what kind of idiot would give a transient an tent and send them on their way. Furthermore, what kind of public official would condone this arrangement? And ask yourself – who keeps voting these people into office?

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