I think most Chicoans would agree with me – our town is suffering an unbelievable crime wave. Today it really hit me – I went to buy socks at Walmart, and I had to ring a bell for assistance, because socks and underwear are now in glass, locked cases. I had to point to the pack of socks I wanted and then wait for the employee to take out a key and hand me the socks. Maybe I’m the last one to know – I found a lot of articles about it online, dating back about a year.
“There’s a good reason that specific Walmart has added security to stockings and underpants: theft.”
But not all Walmart stores are doing it, just those stores that are seeing significant losses due to theft.
“‘Some products are subject to additional security. Those determinations are made on a store-by-store basis,’ Walmart headquarters said in a statement to Bring Me The News. “
So, hmm, Chico a hotbed of sock and underwear thieves, very interesting… uh, I mean, embarrassing. I knew cars and bikes are hot items, but socks and underwear? That’s troubling on a number of levels. First of all, whether it’s a loss, or loss prevention, the additional cost will be added to every pair of socks and skivvies we buy. Second, these people walk out of Walmart and into our neighborhoods, stealing packages off of our porches, parts from our cars, tools, etc. Posts I’ve seen on social media express frustration with Chico PD’s handling of the problem. Store owners as well as residents are left to take matters into their own hands.
So Walmart responds by hiring additional security and locking up everyday items. I’ll guess other stores are doing it too. I’d also guess that the discount stores have a bigger problem with shoplifting because of the reclassification of thefts of less than $950 as misdemeanors. The added employee costs, as well as the specialized equipment, along with the inevitable losses, are tacked onto our purchases.
That’s just another aspect of the inflation we’ve been seeing, in everything. A sales tax increase is just adding insult to injury. Let your district representative know what’s going on in your neck of the Chico woods, and how you feel about paying more for less.
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?
I made fun of Kami Denlay-Klingbeil yesterday, but I’ll say she’s right about one thing – Chico has a horrible drug problem. Part of the problem is lack of enforcement, part of the problem is the transients who move the stuff. And I’ll agree with Denlay-Klingbeil again that there are not enough treatment facilities in our area.
You might have heard about two different recent drug busts involving heroin, fentanyl, and crank. The bigger one made headlines all over the state:
Twenty-five pounds of crank – that should send a shiver right up your spine. Because it’s not just being used in the transient camps, it’s finding it’s way into social circles all over town. This guy was also carrying heroine and fentanyl, the use of which among young people here in town is going way up.
What the news pieces did not cover is Shawn Nowlin’s long history of run-ins with local law enforcement, including past felony drug charges, and the usual failures to appear. In 2016 he was finally sentenced for those offenses – including a felony committed while he was out on bail from a previous charge. He received 5 years of drug court probation, with orders to attend a substance abuse class and a 12 step program. Wow, that should make the average criminal shivver in their boots! That probation was supposed to be up in November of this year. Nowlin didn’t make it. I have to wonder, is this his first offense since 2016, or just the first time he’s been caught?
The same week Nowlin was arrested, an 18 year old boy from Oroville was arrested not only for possession of fentanyl, but accused of selling it to kids at the junior high. Those kids had to be taken to the ER, luckily they all recovered.
But who knows what will happen to the kid who did the dealing – will he get drug probation, so he can go out and do it again? Will he receive “treatment”?
Chico City Council recently discussed the Butte County Behavioral Health budget – over $73 million/year – but they didn’t discuss how BCBH gets that money. They get it for bringing mental patients, drug patients, and freshly released convicts into our community. But they provide little to nothing in services. The money goes into salaries and benefits. Look at the state salary database for Butte County here:
This information is for 2019, showing that the county enjoyed a budget of about $134 million/year. I think you’ll be surprised at some of the salaries – our CEO clocks in at a salary of about $250,000/year, with a $59,000 benefits package – total comp over $300,000, for the CEO of Butte County. Scratching your head yet?
Then you see the problem with BCBH – their director is the second highest paid employee in Butte County at about $240,000/year salary with another $54,000 in benefits. Scroll down – a “contract physician” in the Behavioral Health Department makes $216,000/year, with a $59,000 package. Scroll a few pages – I counted 18 BCBH employees making more than $100,000/year, plus benefits packages of at least $25,000 each. These people are all pure administrators, they don’t go out on the streets with the “crisis teams”. Some of them don’t even work in Butte County, they are more like consultants.
So, you can see part of the reason for the revolving door at the jail. And why Chico PD has a policy to “counsel and move them along” even if they are sitting there with a needle hanging out of their arm. We have hardcore drug addicts and really, really seriously mentally ill people living in our parks, local motels, shelters, and they are not getting any help from the public sector. The only people interested in “helping” them are people like Shawn Nowlin.
Send a link of this post to Kami Denlay Klingbeil. If she really wants to do something about this mess, she needs to start needling the county for further audit of their BCBH budget.
While the Facebook groups are all a-twitter about an “action” council took at this past Tuesday meeting, the Shelter Crisis Designation has NOT been rescinded. From Action News out of Redding:
“A city council declaration is creating some confusion about the state of Chico’s homeless problem.
Chico city officials say that the action taken by council during Tuesday’s meeting did not officially rescind the shelter crisis declaration.
‘There would have to be a vehicle that came back to the city council in the same form as what actually put it in place, and that’s a resolution,’ said Chico city manager, Mark Orme.
Orme says council would have to adopt that resolution to get rid of the 2018 crisis declaration.“
According to this article, the SCD was set to expire in June anyway. So why do they have to adopt a resolution, why can’t they just refuse to renew it? And, will they have to give back any/all of the money? When the liberals got Andrew Coolidge to sign on to this mess in 2018, city Staff received almost $5 million.
Kami Denlay (married name Klingbeil) seems very confused in her comments to Ch 7.
“When asked about the potential financial impacts ending the declaration could cause, Denlay says, ‘That’s part of the tricky part with all of this, is we’ve been asking for a long time for really detailed funding, because it’s complicated to see what streams come into the county, what comes from the state, the feds, what are the requirements for all of the funding, and every funding stream has totally different requirements, some may be tied to the declaration in part, some might be solely tied to the declaration, some may not be at all. And we get to see that because it’s complicated and we’ve never gotten a straight answer, we’re going to get straight answers now,’ said Denlay.“
I knew she didn’t understand half of what goes on Downtown, I don’t think any of them have a rat’s ass of an idea what they are doing. They allow themselves to be led by Orme. Denlay Klingbeil claims, “we’ve never gotten a straight answer …”
Straight answer from whom? City Manager Mark Orme and his staff brought forward this proposal in the first place. Is Denlay Klingbeil accusing Orme of not giving council straight answers?
I’ve been asking my district rep Kasey Reynolds about the SCD for months, but I have never got a straight answer. When I actually phoned her at her business, Shuberts, I was shocked that she wanted to talk while she was at work. I was also shocked at the angry rant she went into, expressing how much “hate” (her word) she has for the various programs like Project Room Key. She went on and on about that. But she would not answer my questions about funding. She also told me she was waiting for information from the city attorney, and that she’d get back to me about that. End of conversation. I’ve emailed her several times since then, asking for those answers, but she has never responded. If I ever talk to her on the phone again, I’ll be sure to record the conversation. Reynolds was like a flaming bat out of hell, she went all over the place, but no answers.
So I’ll be interested in how this conversation plays out. Here’s what I’d like to see – Mark Orme being handed his hat.
This man was sentenced recently for vandalism and “hate crimes” for painting a swastika. Just now? After running the streets of Chico for 15 years, arrested multiple times for crimes that escalated in violence. Here’s the first case in his Butte County Superior Court File, from 2006 – possession of a deadly weapon.
He was fined and sentenced for charges including failure to appear, but only after this case made it’s way through the court for TWO YEARS. In the meantime, he was charged three more times in 2007, and three times in 2008, for possession of drugs, failure to appear, vandalism, and “willful disobedience of court order...”
Willful disobedience to the court means to me this person is not willing to live within the law, and that should mean he needs to be institutionalized. Instead, the judge released him to go on to a felony weapon possession in 2009, for which he was acquitted? But two more arrests in 2010 result in a felony conviction for “negligent discharge of a firearm...”
Of course he was right back out on the streets in 2012, this time arrested for “elder or dependent adult abuse…“
His sheet goes on like this until 2019, when he FINALLY comes up for psychiatric evaluation – after the vandalism bender that included the swastika. The court determined he was competent to stand trial, and gave him 6 years for a “hate crime“.
15 years with a record like that, but they finally send him up for 6 years over “hate crimes”. Toward whom? His residence in Chico seems to me one long, extended orgy of hatred toward humankind.
Why does “hate” have to be directed at a certain kind of people before it is a crime? Twice this guy was arrested for “elder or dependent adult abuse“, but no conviction? I’m going to guess the victim had no family, felt intimidated, and dropped the charges. I can see the first time being a wash, but what was Ramsey thinking when this guy was brought in a second time for a charge like that? But he gets six years for scrawling a symbol he doesn’t even understand on a wall. There’s ugly, nasty, threatening vandalism all over town. In one night someone busted out car windows at the Enloe parking lot while the owners worked diligently inside to save people’s lives. That is hateful – why aren’t we seeing more arrests and convictions?
Oh, but gee golly, they are finally clearing the camps at One Mile, I guess we’re supposed to give them a basket of kudos for that!
Here’s one of my favorite lines, from Yeats, by way of Didion, by way of Me – “What rough beast, it’s hour come round at last, slouches toward Chico to be born?”
It’s hard not to obsess about the transient camps when they are the first thing you see driving out of your neighborhood. We have to contrive NOT to drive by tents as we go out and about town. Living just a couple of blocks from Bidwell Park is like having a salt patch on a burn, rub it in, rub it in. Having to read letters like this in the paper is a Super Burn.
ENTERPRISE RECORD, 12/12/2020
Merry Christmas, here’s a fine for being homeless.
Is stunning lack of empathy a conservative trait?
Our community members are hurting. They have been burned out, priced out, and driven outdoors. As winter approaches they are living in tents in the park because we have a lack of affordable housing, a lack of shelter space, and a lack of social services in this county.
The conservative “solution” to this problem isn’t to create more space and services, it is to levy a fine on people whose backs are already against the wall. What do they think this is going to accomplish apart from creating a criminal class, and putting the police into contact with a population they have dealt with notoriously poorly in the past?
Can the conservatives not see the ridiculous, and by that I mean worthy of ridicule, nature of their “solution”? These people aren’t rolling in dough, if they were they’d have a house to go too.
I keep hearing conservatives say homeless people are simply lazy and need to pull themselves up. Really? The numbers of homeless are rising nationwide. Did all of these people suddenly decide to abandon their homes and be lazy? Or perhaps is there some systemic pressure that is putting people on the streets en masse?
Speaking of lazy, this conservative “emergency resolution” is about the laziest piece of legislating I’ve ever seen. If this is the best the conservative majority can come up with, Chico is in for a long 2 years.
— Bob Howard, Los Molinos
The first burn is having met Bob Howard as “Mad Bob,” a musician who made his home in Los Molinos years back, but still thinks he is allowed to complain about what we are doing in Chico. Bob doesn’t have to look at these people, he can live in his romantic imagination – they’re just vagabonds, free spirits! They’re not going to rob his garage while he’s at work, or sell his kid crank at the playground, or stand across the street staring at his wife or college age daughter while they yank off in the bushes.
The second burn is in agreeing with him somewhat – the new parks ordinance is a lazy and worthless piece of legislation. Read it yourself, I don’t think you need to be a lawyer to see it has no teeth whatsoever, just another discretionary law. Like, move along Buddy, and if I catch you beating off in the bushes outside this sorority house again… well… I’ll counsel you and move you along… again…
You heard another musician say this. “Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss.” And the beards have, indeed, all grown longer overnight. The “conservatives” have done quite the about-face, all the sudden we have to find “some place for them to go.”
A friend of mine was expressing frustration with a situation in his neighborhood. He lives very near the old Louisiana Pacific lumber yard, where he has seen transients camping for years. People seem to forget how many fires have been started there – an entire building burned down one winter – by transients. My friend and a neighbor of his have not only called the fires in but have run over to the site with picks and shovels to beat the flames back themselves. Right in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood, the city allows illegal campers to threaten homes with elderly and children inside. I’d have to ask Mad Bob – whose backs are against the wall here?
Why aren’t these arsonists jailed? If you listen to the Chico side of the story, it’s because county DA Mike Ramsey won’t prosecute Chico Muni Code violations. Well, isn’t arson a federal offense? I would guess Ramsey is sick of trying to prosecute for urinating/defecating in public, littering and illegal camping because those are only misdemeanors. With our pathetically inadequate jail and now COVID, they would just be processed and released. But I can’t believe he won’t prosecute for starting illegal fires. A local transient who fire bombed a college girl’s bedroom was arrested and held, but illegal campers who threaten people’s homes are not? My friend says the fires are put out and the transients just disappear, no one is held accountable. I believe this is a Chico problem, starting with cops who are unwilling to do their jobs and council members who are unwilling to push them to do their jobs because the Chico Police Officers Association is a big player in every local election.
But yesterday I realized that the real lynchpin to this entire problem is the Shelter Crisis Designation, and the annual pot of money received for declaring it. Here’s a question for your district rep: why aren’t they discussing that declaration, and overturning it? Ask if they are still receiving the grant for this designation, and if so, what are they spending it on?
I’ll get back to you with my rep’s response, you do same.
Well, you know how I love to say “I told you so…” So, I told you so – despite a lot of tough talk out of the local conservatives, the bum camps have not disappeared from our parks and waterways, in fact, there are more tents in both Bidwell Park and the “Devil’s Triangle” next to the Pine/Cypress bridge today than there were a week ago. The “urgency” ordinance passed last Tuesday by our new, conservative SUPER MAJORITY is toothless. I even got one of the conservatives to say it – “we can’t clear the camps until wefind someplace for them to go…”
The real problem, according to Chico PD officer Scott Zuchin, is County DA Mike Ramsey’s refusal to prosecute for Chico Municipal Code offenses.
As Zuchin reported on Chico First Facebook, “Unless something has changed, any misdemeanor violations of CMC Chapter 9 are filed by the city attorney. The DA won’t prosecute Chico CMC’s. That was the problem from the beginning of adding camping and waterways. Infractions were meaningless and misdemeanors were not getting filed. With regard to being an enforcement tool, the camping and waterways ordinances were a failure.”
Well, there it is, from a guy who actually is charged with enforcing the laws – they’re unenforceable if there’s no cooperation between the county DA and the city attorney. I’m no lawyer, but I forced myself to read the entire ordinance, along with the old ordinance, and I already saw it was vague and left too much discretion to both arresting officers and the court, including the DA.
Lawyer Rob Berry seems to agree, but he constantly lets the city out of any responsibility for the problem. “That is true, but that, like drug adn mental treatment, is a failure that does not belong to the City of Chico. Our job is to establish and enforce constitutional laws for the benefit of the general welfare of our citizens. Jails, prosecution and the penal codes belong to the county and state. We have to continue to work to find a way to not make them meaningless. By the way, violation of camping and dumping ordinances are also violations of various state and federal laws. The problem is enforcement and meaningful consequences. If a law that makes perfect sense cannot be enforced, we need to change that. Let’s make sure, as a first step, that Chico is not the bottleneck to those changes.”
Rob, old Dog, Chico Staff wrote the ordinance, and the boobs on council passed it. Staff also recommended the Shelter Crisis Declaration and the Consolidation of Services at the fairgrounds. That netted the city over $8 million in state (and federal?) funding.
Zuchin reiterates his statement, this time explaining the city attorney’s role in this mess. “I totally agree. In this case it will be up to the city attorney to file charges on misdemeanor CMC violations. Problem solved. Use of state and federal laws are obviously another option. However, it will then by up to our local DA or state prosecutor to file the charges. It is my experience that our DA did not file 647e PC or 602 PC violations related to camping. Why? Because the city adopted their own camping and waterway ordinances. So, the problem with enforcement was the city attorney would not file the misdo CMC violations and the DA wouldn’t file penal code violations. That was my experience but perhaps things have changed in the 4 years since I was involved in that process.”
Zuchin admits he’s been out of that loop eversince he got reassigned and hopefully neutered after unloading his service revolver in the back of a 16 year old girl’s head. But I’ll tell you what, things have only changed for the worse. Now we have Sheriff Corey Honea telling us the jail is over capacity because of COVID, even while he’s been sitting on a $44 million grant since 2015, money that was supposed to be used to expand the jail. I’ll guess that has been whittled away on over-generous salaries and benefits. The county also has an awesome pension deficit, a pot of money melts like butter around here.
All Berry can do is agree. “No, you are stating the status quo correctly. But this must change. A city has the right and the duty to protect it’s own parks, and has a mandatory duty to the state and feds to protect waterways. Everyone is failing to do so. That cannot stand.”
This a far cry from his comments directly after the meeting.
“And that, my friends, is how it’s done.Mayor Coolidge and Vice Mayor Reynolds appointed without drama. On the first significant issue, making the Park Regulations enforceable under misdemeanor penalties, the vote was 5-2. How many times have we been on the losing end of this kind of vote. But not tonight. That was 5-2 despite the illogical and inaccurate musings of Huber and Brown, and the unintelligible “explanation” by City Attorney Jared. We win. Watch us reclaim our parks and waterways.”
“CHANGE IS COMING!!!”
Reminds me of what Ned Pepper says to Rooster Cogburn: “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.” Unfortunately, Rob Berry, neither fat nor one-eyed, is also no Rooster Cogburn.
Berry, a natural mouth piece, has been telling us his new Super Council was going to sweep this problem out the door with their new, Bad Ass Urgency Ordinance. I imagine he feels like a little boy who got a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking.
Frankly, our whole town just got handed a lump of coal.
Tomorrow night our new council will discuss the difference between a “resolution” and an “ordinance”. If you’ve never read Chico Municipal Code, now’s the time. Here’s a link to the section that will be discussed tonight.
“regulations in the City’s Municipal Code listed in Title 12R regarding rules and regulations related to City Parks and Playgrounds cannot be enforced by initiating criminal proceedings because they were adopted by resolution and not ordinance. This action will allow additional enforcement tools to address rules and regulations of the parks which are already on the books.”
The word “enforcement” comes up 11 times in the report and ordinance, with promises of criminal proceedings “by codifying such rules under the enforcement provisions of the Chico Municipal Code by ordinance., but the exact details of how they will enforce the ordinance never come up in either the report or the text of the ordinance.
“Government Code Section 36900(a) states that violation of ‘a city ordinance is a misdemeanor unless by ordinance it is made an infraction. The violation of a city ordinance may be prosecuted by city authorities in the name of the people of the State of California or redressed by civil action.'”
And there it is, “may be”.
Hey, I don’t invent this crap, as I’ve been accused, I just cut-and-paste it out of city documents that are available for everybody to read. Unfortunately, judging from comments made on Engaged! Chico, nobody read the ordinance, they just assume it’s going to be a slam dunk and the tents will disappear from the park as soon as the meeting is over.
From Chico Engaged:
“I 100% support getting back to enforcing our ordinances which will allow all of us to enjoy our beautiful natural resources together. I am pleased to see items such as this one on the agenda and look forward to its successful implementation! Thank you.”
“I fully support enforcement of our laws and ordinances, including in our parks and playgrounds. Let’s get back to not allowing camping, drug use, drinking, etc. in our parks. It’s time they become usable again by the law abiding citizens of this town.”
I have to ask these folks – what exactly do you 100%, fully support? Did you read ANY of the ordinance? The staff report promises, “violations of park rules and regulations may be enforced through not only administrative and civil code enforcement but also by criminal code enforcement and charging of violators with misdemeanors under the Chico Municipal Code.”
I believe the words “may be” indicate this decision is up to the officer on scene, meaning, this ordinance is still discretionary.
According to uslegal.com, “Discretion is the power of a judge, public official or a private party (under authority given by contract, trust or will) to make decisions on various matters based on his/her opinion within general legal guidelines. It is a public official’s power to act in certain circumstances according to personal judgment.” Any city employee is considered a “public official.“
So I went back to current municipal code, where it’s made pretty clear:
The park rangers shall be primarily responsible for enforcing the park rules and regulations adopted in this title, subject to the direction and control of the director. However, the park rangers, shall, from time to time, be assisted in enforcing the park rules and regulations adopted in this title by city police officers.
A violation of the park rules and regulations adopted in this title shall be an infraction punishable by a fine in the manner provided for by Section 1505 of the Charter of the City of Chico.
A fine. Wow, I’m sure transients across Chico are shaking in their stolen boots. Take a look at Section 1505 of the city charter.
Section 1505. Violations; penalties.
A violation of any provision of this Charter or of any ordinance or resolution of the city, or any order issued by any officer, agent or employee of the city pursuant to such ordinance or resolution shall be deemed an infraction unless such provision shall otherwise provide that such violation is a misdemeanor. All infractions shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) or as set by ordinance, and all misdemeanors shall be punished by a fine and/or imprisonment not exceeding the maximum penalty allowed under the general laws of the state for misdemeanors. A minimum penalty, not in excess of the maximum penalty provided for herein, may be adopted by ordinance with respect to any particular violation.
There it is – “a fine and/or imprisonment…” which is determined at the discretion of a city official. It also says “A minimum penalty, not in excess of the maximum penalty provided for herein, may be adopted by ordinance with respect to any particular violation.”
Read the ordinance yourself – there is no “maximum penalty” or any specific action listed in this ordinance. There’s nothing about repeat offenders, nothing about indecent exposure or defecating on the creek, nothing about vandalism or theft. But, here’s an irony – the next agenda item is an ordinance against dumping and prostitution, with specific fines and even threat of arrest.
So, I’ll call this ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CHICO, AMENDING TITLE 12 OF THE CHICO MUNICIPAL CODE BY ADDING CHAPTER 12.18, PARK RULES AND REGULATIONS what it is – another discretionary law that will not be enforced. Just like “sit and lie”.
Of course, this is an “urgency” ordinance, and they’ve put a sunset of “no more than 6 months” on it. So, it’s still in the works. You still have time to chime in on Engaged! and ask them to put some teeth in their new chihuahua.
Well, I don’t know if the needle giveaway happened at Humboldt Park yesterday. I had a stack of chores yesterday morning, including fix my bike, so I didn’t make it over there to check. I looked at various social media sites today, and there was no mention of it, so I’m going to guess it just went away. We’ll see.
My bike looks great, and I’m getting the new tires today – all the freaking way from Holland. I guess they love old bikes in Holland.
I probably won’t ride my bike in Bidwell Park. What a mess. Tents still line the waterways, along with the requisite trash piles. We’ll see how long it takes council to be good on their word, and whether this new police chief – $20,000/year richer than the old police chief – will clean them out. There’s also a discussion scheduled for tomorrow’s meeting about a “sanctioned campground” at the Silver Dollar. We can’t let them take the fairgrounds, make yourself heard on Chico Engaged.
Yesterday I read Natalie Hansen’s interview with Councilors Brown, Schwab and Huber about social media. Brown is full of shit – I not only email them, I make comments on Chico Engaged. Brown has NEVER responded to even the most polite emails. I believe she believes any disagreement is “impolite”. I believe they all look at the sender before they read, and if you’ve criticized them or disagreed with them in past, they just skip your comments. Brown can prove me wrong by reading the Engaged comments out loud. The councilors should have to do that, not the clerk. But Brown has her own agenda, her mind is wrapped up in a Zip-lock bag to keep out any dissenting viewpoints.
So I write the occasional letter to the editor.
The city of Chico is now being sued by a jogger badly injured in 2017 when a huge tree branch fell on her in Lower Bidwell Park. She was trapped for 30 minutes and had major injuries.
The suit alleges the city does not budget for tree maintenance in Lower Park, which is “traversed by tens of thousands of people every year.” The plaintiff was using an established path, alongside “various recreational amenities, including picnic tables and barbecue pits.” According to the suit, many staffers knew the tree, hanging over South Park Drive, was dangerous, but not only failed to prune or remove it, they didn’t bother to place signs or barricades to keep people away from it.
In 2017 the city budgeted about $45,000 toward “Park Tree Maintenance”. This year $57,500. For perspective, my family paid $10,000 to have 16 dead trees removed from our property. Bidwell Park has thousands and thousands of trees, many of them dead or dying.
While staff claims to have been cutting positions and costs, the city manager recently hired another management position for Public Works, at $125,000/yr, plus benefits. He created a new management position – Public Information Officer – and is asking council to approve another full time management position – Homeless Coordinator.
Meanwhile staff is “considering” a fire suppression plan after homes were threatened near Annie’s Glen.
Our city is management top-heavy and it shows. The park is horribly neglected. We need timber cruisers and heavy equipment operators, but we get people who sit in meetings all day.
City manager Mark Orme, who denied to me recently that he runs our town, should be announcing his pick for new Police Chief today. Yes, Orme, a guy who was hired by people long since gone, not elected by the voters, will be choosing our new police chief. As of the Ch 7 news this morning, he was down to three candidates from the six announced earlier this week.
Orme claims he will rely on feedback from a “Community panel” – wouldn’t you think that means interested local folks, Chicoans who care? No, Orme chose his “vast array of this community”, all members of the government. Sheriff Kory Honea, District Attorney “Mark” (hey, Natalie, can you proofread your junk?) Ramsey, “police chiefs from neighboring cities such as Redding and Yuba City, non-sworn Chico Police department employees, and a representative from Chico State Univ Police Dept. were involved.”
In the press release, Orme didn’t name all of them, and here’s a question – how many of them live in Chico? And no introduction to the public? He’s not even naming the candidates.
I’ll tell you why – back in 2015, Orme was vetting candidates for chief, here’s what I found out about one of the guys he was thinking about hiring:
Charges included an illegal speeding ticket quota, spending taxpayer money on vacations and other priveleges for his family, and lying to this employer about seeking other jobs. He was also under fire for the police shooting of an unarmed man. When all this became public in Chico, that candidate ended up being abruptly dropped from the process, and was later asked to resign from his position in SLO.
Here’s what Melissa Daugherty had to say about him:
She added a very important point – Chico is just a jump-off for police chiefs to spike their salary for retirement benefits.
“In all seriousness, it’s going to be interesting following this. One of my main concerns with Gesell is that he’s a career cop who is almost 50, which means he’s nearing that formula where he can retire at 90 percent of his highest salary for the rest of his life. Chico’s last two chiefs cut out at that magic number. What would stop this guy from doing the same?”
Right now I think the public is more interested in this hiring than ever. I don’t remember when the public has been so interested in a public process. But Orme apparently has not engaged any community groups, no Chico First, no Stand Up For Chico, just bureaucrats.
Orme told little Natalie the Reporter that “having the council interview candidates is another way to engage with the public’s interests. If they were voted into office, not only did I get a community panel, but I have community representative giving me feedback.”
Do you really feel represented by this council, which is split almost down the middle in coming up with a “policing policy” for this town? Do you feel represented by Mike Ramsey, who has declared every single officer involved shooting in Chico “justified”? Does Kory Honea represent you?
“All of those perspectives…will help me in my deliberations in choosing the chief.” Orme said.
“Hiring a police chief is the most important hiring decision the city manager will make,” Mayor Ann Schwab said, saying she was pleased that “a wide perspective of the community” was considered in the interview process.
Let’s face it – Orme runs our town, council just sits there waving their hankies. This takes all the pressure off council at election time, and Orme isn’t elected, he does not have to answer to the citizens. They protect each other, and to hell with the public.
Chico Taxpayers Association 