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Meet serial criminal Joseph Hammett – he’ll be out on bail in your neighborhood before you know it!

2 Oct
Below is the story of a serial criminal,  a guy who has a history of petty crimes in our town, but is still running around loose, committing more crimes. The first story, posted the other day in the Enterprise Record:
Man arrested after car, foot chase

By Staff Reports

POSTED: 09/30/15, 7:25 AM PDT \| UPDATED: 2 HRS AGO0 COMMENTS

Chico >> Items stolen from two vehicles in Chico were found after a Butte County Sheriff deputy detained a man and a woman early Tuesday morning.

Deputy Josh Brazzi was patrolling an area in west Chico around 3 a.m. when he spotted a white Honda Civic speeding in the Dayton Road and Pomona Avenue area, according to a press release.

The vehicle sped into an apartment complex at 851 Pomona Ave., and the male driver and female passenger ran from the vehicle.

Brazzi was able to detain both subjects after a brief foot chase, and later found items in the Honda reportedly stolen from two vehicles earlier in the evening, including a surveying laser worth about $3,500.

Driver Joseph Hammett, 24, was booked into Butte County Jail on charges of burglary, possession of stolen property and driving on a suspended license. He was out on bail for vehicle theft.

The female passenger was interviewed and released.

Notice it says, “He was out on bail for vehicle theft.”

“vehicle theft” usually means, he stole a car. Stealing from a car is called “vehicle burglary.”   Stealing a car would usually be a felony, simply because of the dollar value of the car. Why this man would be out on parole after his history is beyond me. Here’s a court filing regarding similar a similar charge from 2013.

http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/C075371.PDF

On August 30, 2013, a Chico police officer observed defendant Joseph Eugene Hammett, whom the officer knew to be on parole. After conducting a parole search, the officer ran a records check which revealed that the bicycle in defendant’s possession had been reported stolen.1 1 Because the matter was resolved by plea, our statement of facts is taken from the probation officer’s report.

Defendant pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property. (Pen. Code, § 496, subd. (a).) In exchange, a prior prison term allegation (id., § 667.5, subd. (b)) was dismissed with a Harvey waiver.2 Defendant was sentenced to county jail (Pen. Code, § 1170, subd. (h)(1), (2)) for the upper term of three years, awarded 52 days of custody credits and 52 days of conduct credits (id., § 4019), ordered to make restitution to the victim, and ordered to pay a $280 restitution fine (id., § 1202.4), a $40 court operations fee (id., § 1465.8, subd. (a)(1)), and a $30 court facilities assessment (Gov. Code, § 70373). We appointed counsel to represent defendant on appeal. Counsel filed an opening brief that sets forth the facts of the case and requests this court to review the record and determine whether there are any arguable issues on appeal. (People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436.) Defendant was advised by counsel of the right to file a supplemental brief within 30 days of the date of filing of the opening brief. More than 30 days have elapsed, and we have received no communication from defendant. Having undertaken an examination of the entire record, we find no arguable error that would result in a disposition more favorable to defendant. DISPOSITION The judgment is affirmed.

Notice, right in the beginning, it says, he was already on parole at the time of this incident.

Why are serial criminals walking our streets, committing new crimes? 

Reading over this report, I see the district attorney isn’t really taking these people seriously. My husband recently got BUSTED! He was taking a load to the dump without a tarp over it, and there was a CHP officer with a very satisfied smile on his face waiting along Neal Road. That’s right Honey, it was a TARP STING!

We got the ticket the other day – 200 fucking dollars. For not having a tarp over a load of old bicycle parts and other junk. He had an old hockey net tied over the top, thinking, they just wanted you to tie it down. No, CHP said, it had to be a tarp!  $200 fucking dollars!

But this guy is out stealing bikes, breaking into cars, stealing cars – and he gets out with about a $300 slap on the wrist.

Old Yiddish Proverb: When the fish stinks, it’s the head of the fish that stinks. We have a many-headed fish in Butte County, starting with the county board of supervisors, and including our CAO, our DA, and our city council, city managers, and police chief. 

And, I love that “0 comments” on the article – where’s Rick Clements? Where’s dbski4it? Where’s the outrage? 

U-6, labor force participation, the poverty rate, and the New One Percent

28 Sep

I was just questioning the affordability of Cal Water’s proposed rate increase, here:

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2015/09/23/are-cal-waters-rates-affordable-for-butte-county/

Since then I’ve been seeing more evidence that NONE of California can afford to foot the bill for Cal Water’s champagne lifestyle anymore. Read Dan Walters, here, in the Sac Bee, published just the other day.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/dan-walters/article36719727.html

Walters is talking about our “true unemployment rate” or U-6, “which counts not only workers who are officially unemployed, but those ‘marginally attached’ to the labor force and those involuntarily working part-time.”

In Chico, for example, we have hundreds of part-time CARD workers, who by a decision of the board, were cut to 28 hours or less so that CARD would not have to pay Obamacare on these people. Meanwhile, roughly 33 CARD management employees enjoy fully paid packages running as much as $23,000  a year and full retirement at age 55 – for which they pay nothing. 

Walters reports, “Our U-6 rate is 14 percent, down a bit from the recession but still the nation’s second-highest, topped only by Nevada’s 15.2 percent.”

And here’s something I had never heard before – Walters compares our unemployment figure with our employment figure – the “labor force participation rate”. 

“Finally, the true employment picture is affected by the “labor force participation rate,” the percentage of those in the prime working age group (16-64) working or seeking work. Ours is 62.3 percent, the lowest level in 40 years.”

So, “When more than a third of potential workers sit on the sidelines, the official unemployment rate, or even U-6, look much better than they truly are. The true underemployment rate may be closer to 20 percent.”

That sounds more like Chico to me, where most of the people I know are not as employed as they would like to be – construction workers who are not getting 40 hours a week even in this supposed “building boom” we’ve been hearing about, salespeople who are not making enough sales to earn a living, retail workers who are held to less than 30 hours a week because their boss, like CARD, can’t afford Obamacare. 

I talked about the poverty rate in Chico in a recent blog – that’s people living below the poverty level ($24,000/year for a family of four). Chico’s poverty rate is higher that California – 23% compared to 17% statewide. That’s according to

http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/INC110213/00,0613014

Statistics are tough – we aren’t counting all those street people, this is information given by households to the Census Bureau. “Household” meaning a group living under one roof. We also have the State Franchise Tax Board, the IRS, the Social Service administration and the welfare agencies. According to all those people, Chico is poor by state standards, even with all those public salaries over $100,000/year – it takes a lot of poor people to balance out Mike Ramsey and Mark Orme. 

So, we’re poor for California – according to Walters, California is poor by national standards.

Back to the poverty rate. It’s not only higher than the national rate, but as the California Budget and Policy Center points out, the data indicate that 22.7 percent of the state’s children are living in poverty, and they are nearly a third of all officially impoverished Californians.

As dark as that situation may sound, it’s actually worse. By the Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure, which uses broader factors including the cost of living – especially housing – 23.4 percent of Californians are impoverished.

Those data are bolstered by two other factoids. Nearly a third of California’s 39 million residents are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the federal-state health care program for the poor, and nearly 60 percent of K-12 students qualify for reduced-price or free lunches due to low family incomes.

According to the Census Bureau, a lot of Chicoans have no healthcare insurance, more than the state average, so yeah, we have a lot of people who are eligible/enrolled in Medi-Cal. 

I found another “factoid” site when I was looking at all these figures, the California Employment Development Department:

http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/cgi/databrowsing/localAreaProfileQSMoreResult.asp?menuChoice=localAreaPro&criteria=high+wage+occupations&categoryType=employment&geogArea=0621017020&more=More

Above you will find the “High Wage Occupations” in Chico. Are you surprised to find it is mostly doctors and other medical professionals? Of course not, that’s come up before – doctors are the highest tier of the new One Percent who own most of the wealth in America, followed by professional athletes.

Are you surprised to find “Chief Executives” at Number Four in Chico? That includes public and private enterprises. In Butte County as well as Chico, I will throw out a guess – most of these positions are in the public sector, Dave Little just ran an editorial about it.

I would also include the “quasi-public” sector – the utility companies, like Cal Water and PG&E. Cal Water management pay nothing toward their benefits and pension, I haven’t been able  to find out about PG&E. 

The One Percent, vs the Ninety-Nine Percent who are too stupid to get it? 

 

How many ordinances do we need to clean up the park and get rid of the criminals?

15 Sep

Today I had some errands Downtown, so I set off on my bike about 1pm, on the usual trek through lower Bidwell Park and over the creek via various trails, bridges and subways. As the park becomes more overgrown and the trails deteriorate it’s become more of a gauntlet.

I have never liked the subway at Annie’s Glen. I wanted to believe it would encourage more, hmmmm, should I say appropriate use, of that part of the park, and provide a safe passage over a very busy car zone, but I knew it would become a pee-smelling dungeon of horror.

I was trying to get a good picture when a cyclist entered the tunnel and I got out of the way.

I couldn’t get a better picture of the tags, the litter, or the still wet puddles of pee.

The tunnel is dark and the light shining in at the end washes the shot. I didn’t want to stand around down there too long – it stinks, and you have to be careful somebody doesn’t come along and run you over. As I was standing there, a man carrying a dirty back pack and covered in grime himself, slowed to a stop and said “Hi” way too friendly. I got on my bike and left.

The whole park gives me the creeps. Overgrown weeds, stands of dead trees, fallen piles of dead limbs, and overgrown poison oak as far as the eye can see. Long used trails, both paved and unpaved, undermined by gophers.

Here the bike trail is crumbling into the weeds.

Here the paved bike trail is crumbling into the weeds.

 

Broken pavement is dangerous for bikes and pedestrians, a real liability for the city of Chico.

Broken pavement is dangerous for bikes and pedestrians, a real liability for the city of Chico.

I wanted to take more pictures, but I’ll tell you what – I don’t feel safe milling around Bidwell Park by myself, anywhere in the park, any time of day. Every time I stopped to hold my  camera to my face, I could hear some cop saying, “well, you really got to keep an eye out for yourself Ma’am…”  I felt uncomfortable taking my hand off my bike to steady the camera.

It’s not just the park, of course.  How about that sign on the post office annex on Vallombrosa – after it’s been open 24 hours for years, they’re closing it at 10pm, until 7am, “due to security concerns.” How many of our personal freedoms will we end up handing over to these creeps? 

Clean and Safe, a group started by Downtown business owners, in partnership with the city of Chico, Chico Police, Chico Chamber and Downtown Business Association, held a press conference to talk about a general feeling of insecurity around town, the rise in crime, and the filth in our public areas. They’re asking citizens to come out for a creek clean-up this weekend.

I’ve participated in public clean-ups run by Butte Environmental Council, but I feel this has become a job that goes way beyond the scope of a feel-good volunteer weekend. They’re talking about deconstructing homeless camps, dealing with human feces, old bedding and clothes that could be contaminated with bed bugs and scabies, hypodermic needles, and all kinds of questionable debris. 

Here’s a red light – they want all participants to sign a waiver of liability.  BEC has never asked me to sign anything like that. 

I did stop at One Mile to take a picture of the work being done there at the parking lot. They’ve contracted with Butte County sheriff for low-risk “home release” inmates. Wow, this is just the kind of work they should be doing all over the park.

Here at the parking lot at One Mile they've cleaned away non-native species and just plain dead stuff.

Here at the parking lot at One Mile they’ve cleaned away non-native species and just plain dead stuff.

 

Here's a pile of Vinca they've just rolled away - Vinca is non-native, pushes out natives, and makes a great hiding place for rats.

Here’s a pile of Vinca they’ve just rolled away – Vinca is non-native, pushes out natives, and makes a great hiding place for rats.

 

Wow! There's the usual pile of broken beer bottles.

Wow! There’s the usual pile of broken beer bottles at center.

 

Here's our crew - "home-release" inmates from Butte County jail.

Here’s our crew. The guy in the reflective vest is jumping up and down on a pile of stuff they’ve loaded into the dumpster. 

While I love what they’re doing, I wish they would move it along a little. It’s been going on for a few weeks now. These people are obviously not professionals. It’s a physically demanding job, they should have better equipment, better shoes and clothes too. They move like people who are doing it for free. 

Some friends of ours who live in Forest Ranch got their entire five acres swept like this by a professional outfit with industrial power tools, arranged through Butte Fire Safe Council. It cost them $900 and it was done in three days.

Looking at Bidwell Park right now, you see what would be considered egregious fire code violations only 15 minutes into the hills. That park cuts a swath right through some of the most heavily populated areas of our town.

The overgrowth and neglect of public properties just invites camping and other illegal activities being reported throughout the park and other water ways in town.  The park and creeks serve as highways for criminals to predate our neighborhoods. 

Cleaning up their camps just allows them to come back and make a new mess. 

I feel the police need to be more aggressive in their sweeps of these areas. I think they should do a different section of park or water way every day, and use the kind of lines used in cadaver searches – line up arms’ length apart with people from fence to creek, and literally beat the bushes. They should continue this aggressive policy until they stop finding people camping in these areas.  I don’t know what they’re doing, but we keep seeing pictures of extensive, filthy abandoned camps under bridges and other obvious places, camps that were obviously built and lived in over a long period of time, at least a week – but we wait until they leave and then we clean it up?  

 

I’m assuming this is what is behind Clean and Safe’s efforts to get a new ordinance, extending the Sit and Lie ordinance, which was written specifically only for Downtown Chico, to creeks and other public greenways. I don’t know how many ordinances they will have to pass before things get better. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Maureen Kirk for taking action on the Cal Water rate hike – time to put some heat to Mayor Sorensen’s seat

2 Sep

Third District Supervisor Maureen Kirk has filed paperwork with the CPUC to become a “party” to the recent rate increase application made by Cal Water.  She’s been keeping me informed of the process. Here is a notice about the first hearing on the matter. Of course it will take place in San Francisco.

 

9/21/15
9:00 a.m.
ALJ McKinney
Comr Sandoval

A.15-07-015 (PHC) – In the Matter of the Application of CALIFORNIA WATER SERVICE COMPANY (U60W), a California corporation, for an order (1) authorizing it to increase rates for water service by $94,838,100 or 16.5% in test year 2017, (2) authorizing it to increase rates by $22,959,600 or 3.4% on January 1, 2018, and $22,588,200 or 3.3% on January 1, 2019, in accordance with the Rate Case Plan, and (3) adopting other related rulings and relief necessary to implement the Commission’s ratemaking policies,
Commission Courtroom, San Francisco

The pre-hearing conference is the first open forum in the general proceeding. Its purpose is to determine the potentially affected parties, specific issues, and to develop a preliminary filing and hearing schedule. After the conference, the Administrative Law Judge issues a scoping memo that lists the issues raised during the pre-hearing conference and a schedule for addressing these issues in the general proceeding.

Section (a) of Rule 1.4 of the CPUC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure provides the ways in which an interested person/organization can become a party to a proceeding. 

(a) A person may become a party to a proceeding by:

(1) filing an application (other than an application for rehearing pursuant to Rule 16.1), petition, or complaint; (the term “application is not referring to a form, it is a formal document that the party creates and submits to the CPUC)

(2) filing (i) a protest or response to an application (other than an application for rehearing pursuant to Rule 16.1) or petition, or (ii) comments in response to a rulemaking;

(3) making an oral motion to become a party at a prehearing conference or hearing; or

(4) filing a motion to become a party.

As such, this 9/21 Prehearing Conference is one forum at which Butte County (or any other affected entity) can request to participate as a Party.

I think this is a job for the Mayor, or the Vice Mayor, the City Manager, Assistant City Manager, or some other paid representative of the city. I will send this notice to Mayor Sorensen and City Manager Orme. For one thing, I was just reading over the rules for their travel expenses, and they can afford a lot better hotel than me. For another thing, as elected officials and staffers, they will get a lot better reception from the CPUC people than I would.

I was very disappointed with Sorensen’s limp-wristed motion at last night’s council meeting – a presentation from Cal Water? You mean, an opportunity for Cal Water to pitch the rate hike? 

I informed Mayor Sorensen about the application for this rate hike back in early July, days after it was filed. I sent him the case information and contact information.

Since I informed Supervisor Kirk she’s filed the paperwork to become a “party” and she’s needling the county to apply for “Intervenor” status and formally oppose this rate hike.  

The city of Marysville had a presentation from Cal Water August 18. Directly after that presentation they voted unanimously to apply for “Intervenor” status and formally oppose the rate hike.

Meanwhile Sorensen is only now asking to agendize a presentation?  

It’s time to write those e-mails, tell him we want Intervenor status, we want a formal protest.

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How will Obama’s “Cadillac health plan tax” affect city of Chico?

1 Sep

 

I heard the term “Cadillac Plan” in reference to public and quasi-public pensions and healthcare plans a few years ago. These are “defined benefits” plans – as it was explained to me, this means, the pensioneer is guaranteed payment, no matter the economy. Meaning, we, the taxpayers, are on the hook for these benefits that we were never allowed any oversight in negotiating, no matter that our jobs are headed overseas, and our homes are threatened with foreclosure.

Let’s face it – we never would have agreed to pensions or healthcare benefits for which the employee pays little to nothing, and  we certainly would have chortled and guffawed at pensions of 70 – 90 percent, available at age 50-55. But we weren’t consulted. 

These contracts are still negotiated behind closed doors without public  oversight. They show us what they’re doing, between sessions,  but it’s not like we’re allowed to push some button and throw the whole thing out when it sounds crazy. And how would we know – have you seen the kind of double-talk these things are written in? 

Steady public pressure has made slow changes. “New hires,” meaning those newly hired employees who have never worked for any public agency, are now required to pay 50 percent of their own pension and benefits. The police department has taken in a couple of new recruits from the academy over the last few months, but Chico mostly hires people who are already in the stream, and they are allowed to go on paying 9 – 12 percent.

The police recently agreed to pay 12 percent, up from ZERO percent, only if they were given generous pay raises. Right now they are pushing for a “step system” with automatic salary increases, salary minimums, and “compaction” increases – whenever a subordinate’s salary comes within a certain distance of their supervisor’s salary, the super’s salary automatically increases. Salary increases raise their pension and benefits expenses – for employees who have been “in the system,”  over 30 percent of that expense is shouldered by the taxpayers, the rest still rides on a bucking bronc of a stock market. Cal Pers is demanding more be paid by the employer/employee every year. So far our “fiscally conservative“council majority is allowing the employee to ride pretty cheap, while the taxpayer is expected  to pay more to run along behind the truck. 

Or, in this case, the Cadillac Escalade. 

The other day I finally heard about the “Cadillac Plan Tax.” Wow, how did I miss this? I know, I usually am skeptical of taxes, but this one might just pass the mustard for me. It seems, health care plans worth more than $10,200 for an individual and more than about $27,000 for a family will be subject to a (sit down) 40 percent tax.

Am I hearing, tax the public workers?

That’s what the unions heard way back in 2010. They went to Obama, who gave them a reprieve til 2018. So, that’s why we’ve been hearing about it again – they’re reprieve is about to expire, and the unions are beating the drums to get it dumped. Here’s an interesting article on that, from 2010:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/details-emerge-on-white-house-labor-health-care-agreement

But, here’s the thing. It’s not a tax on public workers, it’s a tax on their employers. Oh, shit – that’s US! Here’s an article I found from about a year ago – the state of Vermont was predicting it would cost them $9 million a year.

http://vtdigger.org/2014/11/24/cadillac-health-plan-tax-expected-cost-state-9-million-start/

And here’s Obama, trying to modify our behavior again:

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150302/NEWS/150309985

But the tax also was viewed as a way to reduce the number of health plans that have little cost-sharing and premium contributions, which some argue contribute to the overuse of healthcare. President Barack Obama has been quoted as saying the excise tax will discourage “these really fancy plans that end up driving up costs.” Lavish executive-level health plans and collegiate benefit packages, like Harvard University’s, have been oft-cited targets.

But oh oh, he might have got his pants caught on his own pitchfork – 

“However, many collectively bargained policies fall into the Cadillac bracket as well.”

And here’s the truth – public employees pay less and get more than the taxpayers.

The Health Affairs study, published Monday, sought specifics about what kind of health benefit packages unions provide for employees. People with union plans have lesser out-of-pocket obligations and don’t pay as much per month toward their premium as others with employer-based insurance, but the surprise was “the magnitude of the differences for certain things,” said Jon Gabel, a healthcare fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago and one of the study’s authors.

For instance, families in collectively bargained plans paid about $828 per year toward their premium, or about $69 per month, according to the study’s surveyed data. That compared to $4,565 for the average employer-sponsored family plan, or about $380 per month, according to 2013 data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

I don’t know if this pending doom scenario has caught on yet with our city council. The last time I looked, council members were getting packages in excess of $10,000. They choose the package they want, and only pay 2 percent of their salaries – the mayor only makes about $9,000, so he pays about $180 a year for a policy worth about $21,000.  Other councilors get similar policies but pay less because they make smaller salaries. Who wrote that? Will they pare packages down? Or will we pay more? 

I’ll try to keep an eye on this. 

 

 

Marysville City Council votes unanimously to formally oppose Cal Water rate case – let’s try to get the city of Chico to do same

20 Aug

From our friends at Marysville for Reasonable Water Rates

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marysville-For-Reasonable-Water-Rates/176321489194208?fref=nf

MARYSVILLE IS LOOKING AT AN EXTRA $846 CAL WATER CHARGE PER HOUSEHOLD/BUSINESS

PLEASE SHARE!!!!!!

First the good news: The Marysville City Council voted 5-0 for Intervener Status in this General Rate Case for Cal Water. That means the City will formally oppose the rate increase. FINALLY the Marysville City Council is taking a strong stand. 

The numbers just didn’t add up in Cal Water’s presentation before the council. They never do. (Like they constantly say the average water bill in Marysville is $39.) The audience and the Council questioned it.

Mayor Samayoa asked some very pointed questions. The Mayor called them on the numbers not adding up. Power Point slides were not matching the words coming out of their mouths. Let’s just say….coming to Marysville does not mean that you are in PO-DUNK, USA. We are not as stupid as they would like us to be.
During the Cal Water presentation they explained that every ratepayer in Marysville will be looking at an extra $846 charge for infrastructure. They tout that they have been serving Marysville for over 80 years. Where has the money gone? To those huge million dollar salaries for their executives? To support the San Jose Corp building? To the Cal Water Shareholders? Obviously not into our pipes and infrastructure.

This $846 charge will be per household/business. It will not pay for a drop of water. It is to pay for repairs and upgrades that should have been done over the past 80 years.

Councilman Simmons asked a very good question. He asked if the other cities that Cal Water is proposing to “combine” with Marysville (as one unit to establish rates) do not meet their conservation quota, does that mean that all of the cities in that unit will be penalized (WRAM etc)? Cal Water did not answer with words. Councilman Simmons’ question was met with silence. So, the answer would be YES!! If another city has major repairs or updates, that would impact the rates in Marysville.

Marysville needs to fight back. We cannot leave that fight up to the City Council. The people have to finally get lathered-up and speak-up. A Formal Complaint to CPUC will take the signatures of 40 plus ratepayers. Are ya ready to sign?

We will begin gathering information for the steps to take back our water system. Stay tuned here for updates.

Wouldn’t it be great if Mayor Mark Sorensen and the Chico City Council would take a stand too? 

Write to Mayor Sorensen at mark.sorensen@chicoca.gov and ask him to agendize this discussion. 

When will the crime problem stop getting worse and start getting better? The evidence says it’s still getting worse

19 Aug

This morning, riding bikes in a markedly deteriorating Bidwell Park, my husband and I found evidence of car break-ins at the parking area there at the gate above 5 Mile, where Centennial hits Chico Canyon.

I was shocked that a person had just driven right up and parked on top of an obvious crime scene.

I was shocked that a person had just driven right up and parked on top of an obvious crime scene.

 

From the piles of glass, it looked like at least four cars had been violated.

From the piles of glass, it looked like at least four cars had been violated.

As my husband was snapping the photos, a neighbor came along with her large German shepherd. She asked us what was going on. We pointed out the glass on the ground, and she seemed shocked. I don’t think she would have noticed it if we hadn’t pointed it out to her.

I was shocked that people would just drive up and park their cars at the scene of the crime and wander off down that trail.

I’m not reporting this to Chico PD, because I don’t know any of the details, and I would assume that the owners of the cars would report it.  But, I’m reporting it to you, and I hope the word gets out.

I’m not going to assume anything, except that several cars had their windows busted out in this spot. I’m guessing it wasn’t a rash of people locking their keys in the car. I’m also guessing that it happened at the same time, quickly, because the glass looked all the same, as though it hadn’t been laying there very long. I’m no Columbo, but I’ll guess if you park there the chances are pretty good your car will be broken into, I think that’s a pretty safe guess.

Later in the morning my husband took me to a North Chico hardware store, and overheard the cashier telling the customer ahead of us that he should never leave valuables in his car, and always lock it up when he was going to be away from it for any amount of time.  Car break-ins are becoming common all over town.

We heard a lot about the “carjacking” over on Vallombrosa.  I’m not sure what separates “carjacking” from “car theft,” unless it’s the fact that the victim actually made contact with the thief, chasing the car as it sped off. In one early report, I heard the car was left running in front of her house, unattended. Later it was said the keys were left in it. She said she just went into the house to get a few things, etc. I hate to go all Jack Webb on you, but the cops have the discretion to cite a person for leaving their car keys in the car, and I’m pretty sure the insurance company takes a dim view of that kind of behavior. Leaving a car running unattended is a threat to public safety.

Wake Up People!

The car broken into across the street from my house had a purse left laying right on the seat in full view – her window was smashed so fast a woman looking out a window across the street didn’t even see it. She just saw a man walking away.   A friend of my kid’s left his IPOD on the seat of his car at Bear Hole, in full view, and his wallet under the seat. His window was broken out and both were taken from his car.

I think this is a matter of professionals who know how to get into your car quick, know what to take and how to cash it in. I’ve heard some interesting chatter about various ways thieves break into cars, but for the “smash and grab,” they’re not after the car, they’re after valuables they  can carry away in a backpack.

So, you think you’d see people walking around with little hammers or something – those would be heavy and hard to conceal. And pretty damned incriminating. There’s a funny little trick these thieves use – tempered glass from broken automobile spark plugs. They’re called “ninja rocks”, and as of 2003, the California penal codes lists them as “burglary tools.” But they’re alot easier to conceal, and probably just about as easy to discard on the run.

Want to see how fast it happens? Watch this video:

and here’s Part II, where he busts a toilet with a sledge hammer – this guy is a scientist!

I’m guessing these are common around Chico. I’m guessing many of the “street people” we see weaving their way through town and along Chico Creek are professional criminals who find the homeless highway a very convenient getaway, going from town to town, stealing as a way to make ends meet.

The cashier at  the hardware store told the man ahead of us, “we need to clean them out.” There was something sinister in the young man’s face as he said that.  I remember Lloyd Brown – beaten to death by two drunken Butte College Students who discovered him sleeping in an alley. I don’t want that kind of campaign.

The cops have gotten raises, and the city is talking seriously about hiring more cops. The county Behavioral Health Department got over a million dollars in grants to deal with the mentally ill, and have recently closed escrow on a new Chico Behavioral Health Center. Why are we still having this problem with “street people”?

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I’ve had enough of David Little’s bullying

15 Aug

NOTE: I’ve closed comments on this post because last night I got a mail box full of pictures of obese police officers. Unfortunately, they were all real, but none of them were Chico cops so I didn’t see the point. That wasn’t the subject of the post – David Little edited my opinion because he didn’t like what I thought of his actions. That’s not good editing, I’ve written to too many other papers where the editor had a difference of opinion with me, and said so, but printed my letter verbatim. 

But, sorry for the baby temper tantrum – I’ll go on writing letters to the ER, we’ll see if Little will continue to print them, and how.

The Enterprise Record printed a letter with my name on it two days ago, but it wasn’t the original letter I sent them over a week ago. Here’s the letter I sent.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 7:29 AM, juanita sumner wrote:

In October of last year, right before a city election, I asked the city clerk and council why the campaign reports were no longer available online. Reports that had been easily available for years had suddenly vanished,  the current filings had also disappeared.   

The clerk responded [read her full response at chicotaxpayers.com ] ,   “There is no regulation requiring the documents to be uploaded to the City’s website unless an agency has implemented mandatory electronic filings (Gov. Code § 84601(d)). ” She acted as though I was harassing her.  The reports were restored to the website briefly, but disappeared again sometime after the November election. 

In her response to my inquiry, the clerk said that the city was going to have a new system “up and running by the first of the year”, but here we are again, with the reports in disarray. The old system worked beautifully right up until October of 2014. 

I’d like to thank Randall Stone for raising this issue to the public. I’m very concerned that neither the Mayor nor  the Editor think this is any of the public’s business. 

This problem lies in the charter – the clerk works for council, not the voters. I’m with Jim Matthews – the charter needs to be changed to make the clerk an elected official so that person is answerable to the voters. 

Juanita Sumner, Chico

I was starting to wonder what had happened to it when David Little got back to me the following Monday:

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 09:01:19 -0700
Subject: Re: letter to editor
From: letters@chicoer.com
To: juanita sumner

Regarding the line “I’m very concerned that neither the mayor nor the editor think this is any of the public’s business,” that will be deleted from your letter for print unless you can show me precisely where that was said. At least in the case of our editorial, you are drastically changing our words.

David Little, editor
Chico Enterprise-Record, Oroville Mercury-Register
400 E. Park Ave., Chico, CA 95927
Telephone: 530-896-7793
Twitter: @ER_DavidLittle

Why is this guy such a creep? Please note, I didn’t use anybody’s words. I didn’t put quotation marks around that line, he did. It was not a quote, it was my opinion. That’s what the opinion page is for.

I’ll say here, the letter Stephanie Taber wrote criticizing Randall Stone has mistakes. For one thing, she refers to Todd Boothe’s public Facebook page as a private e-mail, saying Stone had disclosed a private e-mail. That’s a lot different than what Stone had done – alert the public to a vicious and demented member of the police department who was behaving very inappropriately on a website that could be seen by anybody who searched his name. 

But I’ve been through this with Little before – he’s not a journalist, he’s a propagandist. Here he doesn’t like my opinion, so he edits it. Or, in this case, forces me to edit.  I didn’t want his edit, so I had to rewrite my letter.  I apologized to the asshole and sent a rewrite – and later I felt really cheap. 

I’ll never write another letter to the Enterprise Record. I’ve had enough of David Little. He’s a bully who uses his position to further his and his friends’ agendas.  I don’t read the Enterprise Record anymore, there are so many better newspapers locally and throughout the state. Channel 7 (KRCR) even carries stories that the ER misses on a regular basis, check out their website here:

http://www.krcrtv.com/

One of the worst things about the ER is Topix. Little announced a few years back that because of rude remarks and personal attacks, Topix was being closed to folks who do not have a google, twitter or facebook account. Did the ugly attacks stop? No. They’ve kicked Rick Clements off a couple of times, only to let him back on – I’m going to throw this out there – Larry Wahl is a very good friend of Rick Clements. 

People don’t like the way I talk – at least I don’t spread misinformation. Little ran a letter weeks ago from a woman who said I called Chico PD officers “fat.” I asked Little to ask her to “show precisely where that was said“, but he didn’t answer me back. 

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Jim Matthews: change management positions to elected offices, vote out $taffers who show arrogance toward the public

5 Aug

From yesterday’s Enterprise Record:

Make city department heads elected positions

I am very concerned about the recent behavior of Chico City Clerk Debbie Presson by hiding important documents and information from the public. It is her job to protect and serve the voters in Chico, and she isn’t doing it. As taxpayers we deserve better of our highly paid city officials.

Perhaps we need to change all of the management positions at the city to elected offices. That way we can vote out people who show such arrogance toward the public.

— Jim Matthews, Chico

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No, Debbie Presson is not going to post the 460’s – is she doing it on purpose? or just incompetent?

4 Aug

Here’s the original post from October 2014 –

Juanita Sumner's avatarChico Taxpayers Association

RE: CPOA 460 late, no reports available online

Debbie Presson
Attachment
10/23/14

Documents

To: Chris Constantin, Mark Sorensen, Mark Orme, dlittle@chicoer.com
Cc: juanita sumner
1 attachment (1484.4 KB)
Download 2014_Political Reform Act.pdf (1484.4 KB)
2014_Political Reform Act.pdf
View online
Download as zip

I would like to respond to Ms. Sumner’s latest email regarding a process that is regulated by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC).   While I don’t expect Ms. Sumner to print my response nor include the documents that are attached (which have been OCR’d in order for the reader to copy and paste from the documents), I feel it is important to respond so that accurate information (with documentation) can be presented to the public instead of being provided with vitriol that is not meant to inform our citizenry but instead to disparage those individuals Ms. Sumner writes about.   I also recognize by trying to provide this information that I only open myself up to…

View original post 1,004 more words

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