Local housing advocates want to build tiny house villages – why not fix the housing we already have? I believe this is a central component of getting people off the street and into healthy lifestyles.

21 Aug

Since we left our struggling friend, I’m glad to report he’s been sober for two weeks and housed for almost a month. Today we spotted him walking home from the grocery store with bags brimming full of healthy food choices.

He declared that he felt a lot better since he stopped spare-changing for booze and started eating every day. But he needs laundry soap – I’m conflicted, I’m trying to hang tough and not offer charity, but I do have plenty of laundry soap, and maybe an extra bottle of shampoo… but should I? Luckily the conversation turned to his housing situation.

His latest anxiety is that he and his roommate have to come up with rent within a week and a half, and they have no money. He asked if we had any work for him, but given his physical state, he couldn’t work more than a couple of hours before he’d need to quit for the day. In fact, the last time he worked for us, he looked like a plate of baked crap at the end of the day, and he didn’t call us again for over a week. That bought him another two weeks of grace with his landlord, and now he’s back at square one. I was shocked – for one bedroom in a totally run-down crappy apartment building he is charged $400/month.

He did succeed in getting an EBT card, and that qualifies a person for other programs, like rental assistance. He is also eligible for a free cell phone.

One strong observation I’ve made from this experience is that while financial services are necessary, people in crisis also need safe housing options and persistent coaching and counseling. Firm but caring. When we started this journey our friend was incoherent, rambling, paranoid, having hallucinations, alternately thanking us, cursing us, and begging for forgiveness. Today he was anxious, but he was coherent. He looked like he’d gained weight, and walked with a solid stride. He seemed to be on the verge of tears a few times but at one point, as he described his fear of eviction, he stopped himself, saying, “I shouldn’t think about it like that, I should try to think positive.” So we told him to get ahold of the welfare department, using the account he’d already set up for his EBT, to check into getting rental assistance. That seemed to make him feel better, he walked away with his grocery bags to make lunch for himself and his roommate.

As I stood there, I also saw that the area surrounding Chico State and the neighborhoods to the west of town are sub-code and unsafe. I realized it’s one of the oldest parts of town. The streets are completely crapped, I’m guessing the sewer and water lines must be nearly 100 years old. Huge old trees sagging into power lines right outside second story windows.

Some of the old apartment complexes look well-maintained, others are in absolutely – okay, here’s a chance to use a grown-up word – deplorable condition, look like they can’t even be saved, but they’re full of low-income families and single people living 4 – 6 in one apartment.

Instead of permitting new sprawl development in every direction, why isn’t the city upholding the code on longtime commercial housing? As they build out in every direction, the central, older parts of town are just about literally sinking into the sewer.

That is creating blight. Blight is not healthy for anybody. The state of the lower income housing in our city is preventing people from making their lives any better. If you have to work at the lesser paying jobs, you are relegated to Crap Town. It seems like the city just doesn’t care about your quality of life if you don’t make at least $80,000/year.

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Letter to Editor: Do red light cameras stop accidents? Do parking kiosks really make parking Downtown more convenient?

19 Aug

I read a sincere letter in the Enterprise Record last week, a person who had been permanently injured by a red light runner. The writer opined that a red light camera would have prevented the accident. I don’t agree – the statistics don’t support that claim. I don’t believe the city of Chico believes that either, I think they just want the money from the tickets these cameras will generate. These cameras are a sure thing. Despite flaws, such as ticketing drivers for crawling ahead to look for oncoming traffic, they are very difficult to dispute.

Same with the Downtown parking kiosks – these aren’t making anybody’s life easier, but they will probably pay for themselves very quickly. I looked at budget reports dating back to 2018, pre-COVID, and I saw figures indicating, in past, the city made more in parking FINES than meter proceeds. That was with human meter-readers, who obviously can’t be everywhere. These new meters issue a ticket immediately, as soon as your time is up. And one man reported that he was issued a ticket even after he’d re-upped his time using the app. The ironic note there – he had gone Downtown to attend a city meeting. I wish him good luck in disputing that, even though he reportedly had a receipt.

Ever wonder – why do we have to pay to park Downtown? Just Downtown? Those are public streets, like streets all over town. We park for free in any other part of town, commercial or residential – what gives the city of Chico the right to charge us to park Downtown?

And here’s something that we should all wonder about – they are collecting private information. At one meeting, former city manager Mark Orme reported that this app would allow the user to be tracked via their cell phone – “we’ll know how far they had to walk to spend money…” As well as where they shopped/dined/drank, how much they spent, on what? For marketing purposes – will it be sold? How safe is our private information? Public agencies are not immune to cyber security breaches.

https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2023/calpers-responds-to-third-party-breach-of-retiree-information

Here’s my petty gripe – my phone is constantly notifying me that I need to dump apps, that they interfere with the function of my phone. I frankly don’t feel like adding another app. Like my husband asks, how much time does this add to a quick run into Tin Roof for a loaf of bread?

I think these measures are just for the revenues, and the kiosks are just another bullet in the foot for the city of Chico. So I wrote a letter about it.

Can red light cameras stop accidents? The evidence indicates otherwise. Sacramento, for example, has had red light cameras for years but reports, “Over 4000 collisions occur on the streets of Sacramento annually… more than 50 percent occur at traffic signals. Half of those collisions result in injuries.” The CDC reported an “overall” increase in accidents due to rear-end and side-swipe collisions at intersections.

I believe the cameras will be a very effective revenue mechanism for the city of Chico. It’s an instant ticket, with an admitted margin for error, and the burden of proof is on the driver, who typically has no camera.

Likewise for the parking kiosks, which are faster than a parking attendant but also have an admitted margin for error. They will make a great revenue source. Look at budget reports – before COVID, the city showed more revenues from parking tickets than parking meters. Just watch how fast these meters rack up the fines.

Red light cameras will not stop car accidents. The kiosks frustrate daytime shoppers while nighttime restaurant and bar patrons park for free. Neither measure makes sense, but both are sure to make plenty of money to pay for the skating rink and other boondoggles.

Juanita “I’ll be looking both ways and shopping online” Sumner, Chico CA

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Over two weeks of rain predicted for 2023-24 ice rink

17 Aug

Fourteen more days of August, hang in there.

City meetings are largely cancelled – the notice from the June 28 Finance Committee agenda says the next meeting isn’t until September 27. And minutes are months behind – they haven’t posted any minutes for 2023 monthly meetings.

We do know that council has approved funding for another year of the Downtown ice rink despite heavy and increasing financial losses. That based on a slick, pages long “report” produced by $taff at taxpayer expense.

https://chico.ca.us/sites/main/files/file-attachments/6.28.23_fc_agenda_packet.pdf?1687390810

Staff blames losses on rain. Wow, in Winter? Really? Well, I don’t know if Staff has done this, but I looked ahead at various weather sites, even Farmer’s Almanac, and there are nine days between Dec 15 and 31 with more than a 49% chance of rain. Yep, nine days in two weeks, that’s a deal breaker as far as I’m concerned, but council went ahead and approved another year’s funding.

So I’m going back to look at January – six days with more than a 40% chance of rain predicted in the first two weeks. Look it up yourselves, tell me what you find.

A week ago my husband and I realized we can’t afford to run our air conditioner all night in our stuffy apartment so we set our air mattress up and the battery tv outside, under our old E-Z UP. That was about a week ago – it’s rained twice since. Last night about 11 pm, woke up in the middle of X Files to feel rain. I saw one video from North Chico that looked more like January. Anybody see that coming? Weatherman did, and I’m going to trust him from now on.

Chico City Council continues to play their little fiddle while the town collapses into anarchy all around them. They have approved a quarter of a million dollars for a guaranteed flop.

Meanwhile, I just did almost all my Christmas shopping on Amazon Prime day. I’ll do the rest on a quick trip to Oregon. When my 5 year old coffee maker took a crap recently I sat down at my laptop and ordered a new one. When we needed to add more security lights at our rentals, my husband went to Amazon “order again” and within a week we had new security lights posted all over our property.

I like to buy clothes online – there’s free returns if it doesn’t fit. Socks and underwear are just a matter of “order again”. Why would I want to wait while the staffer gets the key to the underwear display, or worse – expose myself to the risk of being run over or pepper-sprayed by an escaping shop lifter?

Oh, by the way, Thanks Lowe’s, for FINALLY ejecting campers from your parking lot after I witnessed a contractor catching a guy going through the back of his truck. I rarely go into the stores these days, I sit and watch the truck while my husband does the shopping. Or we drive to Oregon, only 4 hours to the Medford Lowe’s.

This is Chico, just keepin’ it real. Thanks Dude!

The atmosphere of lawlessness we are now living in will only perpetuate itself – it makes people fucking crazy

12 Aug

My husband and I have been helping an “unhoused” friend. It’s been an eye-opener.

Our first task was to get this person to medical treatment. Drugs, booze and living outside – well duh, that makes a person sick, mentally and physically. Our friend was acting psychotic, and it’s really scary having a person like that in a moving car. When we were trying to get another friend to the hospital one evening he jumped out of the car at a stoplight, jogged off and leapt over somebody’s back fence, disappearing from our sight. We were eventually able to help that person into a happy lifestyle, so we decided to give this friend a chance.

We knew he would not be welcome at Enloe so we went to Ampla. Ampla doctors will see people who don’t have any address, don’t have insurance, and don’t have money. They sat our friend down, signed him up for MediCal and assigned him to a doctor. Things moved along smoothly, and he was in the doctor’s office within 45 minutes. After a brief chat, the doctor gave him a prescription to counteract the effects of coming down from booze and narcotics and told him to come back in within a few days.

And then we were on our own with this guy, who was rational one minute and hysterical the next. We were worried about the medication – we read online that the medication itself was habit forming, but we also noticed the effect it had on our friend. Within 24 hours – two doses of medication – he became himself again, a person we had not seen for about a year.

So we took him to our home for the weekend. We live in a very tiny house. We put him in our bed, because he was starved and sick, and we took turns sleeping on a cot and a pair of those self-inflating camp pads. I’ll say, the medication was like a miracle. For months, this guy had only been sleeping in snatches, drinking booze right out of the bottle to calm his nerves, and then doing drugs with people he didn’t even know. He was filthy and refused to take a shower – he said he was afraid of the shower.

But after one day on the medication, he slept soundly a full eight hours, woke up refreshed and cognizant, and wow – asked if he could borrow a towel. His hair had been unwashed for so long it fell out all over the bathroom floor.

We spent a pleasant couple of days having meals together and talking about the future. We helped him replace his driver’s license and sign up for Cal Fresh – basically, we just drove him to the assigned locations, which are spread out all over town. He was in the process of applying for General Assistance so he could get into a sober living arrangement with some friends who were also trying to get their lives back together.

Here’s the two mistakes we made: we let him talk to his user friends, and we let him supervise his own medication. I really don’t know what else we could do – you’re not allowed to hold a person against their will. We felt he’d stay with us longer if we trusted him, but that was short lived. His girlfriend, who said she was trying to help him, was still using, and as soon as he was out of our sight he was using again. We realized the woman had an interest in keeping him high so she could control him. She took and sold his medication immediately, telling us it was making him “crazy”.

So we finally had to do what all the experts say to do – we cut him off. We told him that as long as he was associating with his druggie friends, we didn’t want anything to do with him. God that was hard, I woke up at night wondering where he was, if we’d ever see him again – would we get another call from jail?

Here’s the surprise – he called us about a week later, we could hear his girlfriend swearing at him from the other end of the line. I’ve dealt with people on coke – I’d bet my last $5 she was on coke. He was sober, and he was asking us for a ride to a friend’s house, to help him move what possessions he had to his new sober living arrangement.

We were still kind of mad at this guy, wondering why we should get involved. He promised us he’d quit the drinking and drugs, and then bailed out acting as though it was all our idea.Then another surprise – my husband said, “Why not…” And I realized, this was no time to be proud or petty. This was our chance to get our friend back, and let me tell you, in times like this, friends are Gold.

So, we got him to the new digs, we talked to his also-struggling new roommates, we looked around at the dump he was moving into, and we pasted big plastic smiles on our faces and shook his hand. No, he’s not out of the woods yet. He has no job, he has food stamps and an ID, but his new roomies are expecting him to come up with $400 a month for rent. We don’t know how this story will end. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s what I learned – neither the city, nor the county, with their huge budgets, will do anything for these people. The director of Butte County Behavioral Health refuses to admit that stable housing is the center of drug/alcohol and mental health treatment. Ya got ta have FRIENDS – you need supervision, you need a clean bed and you need three squares a day.

I don’t see Patrick Newman, or Charles Withuhn, or any of those preachy motherfuckers taking anybody into their homes, giving up their beds, or nurse-maiding a person detoxing off booze and/or drugs. If they’ve done that, they need to talk about it, because that’s the solution. It takes more than handing out food and offering an occasional shower to get people off drugs and into stable permanent housing. It takes a lot more than where you got arrested to make you a productive and positive member of the community.

So, that’s my experience, and here’s what I’ve drawn from it, and past similar experiences. The county and HUD need to step up to provide supervised housing for drug addicts and mentally ill people. When these people commit crimes they need to be committed to these facilities before they are sent to jail. And yeah, they need to be sent to jail – the atmosphere of lawlessness we are now living in will only perpetuate itself – it makes people fucking crazy.

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Stephen Greenhut: Perhaps we can have two important things at once: Greater public trust of police officers and more people willing to take police jobs. Instead of complaining about a public that doesn’t appreciate them, police officials ought to spend more time assuring their departments always are worthy of the appreciation

7 Aug
Better policing might solve the national police-recruiting crisis
This article by Stephen Greenhut might shed some light on Chico’s police crisis.

Chico is in crisis and part of that is the police department. I’ve written here about the salaries and benefits and the amount of the budget that is dedicated to the police department. I’ve bitched about the influence they have over our local elections. Other people are raising concerns over excessive use of force and purchases of military style equipment, not to mention the lawsuits directed at the department.

We’re not alone, cities all over the country are having the same conversations about their police departments. One common retort from city officials is that they are having trouble recruiting cops.

According to Greenhut, “Police spokespeople and high-profile sheriffs and chiefs complain they can’t recruit enough officers largely because the public has grown hostile to officers. They point to efforts to “defund the police.” That’s partially true, but not the entire story.” A southern California police chief uses the word “demonized”.

But Greenhut continues, citing an International Association of Chiefs of Police study from 2019 – “well before the Floyd incident – that detailed far-more mundane reasons that many young people don’t want to be cops. These include the desire for more flexible work hours and the long and difficult application and training process. Such issues have been the subject of police conferences for years.“

I believe overtime is not only a financial but a morale problem. Who can be on their best after 8 hours at an oftentimes very stressful job? Why would anybody want a cop to work overtime? It’s about the money. I believe overtime is part of the culture of our police department, whether you want it or not you take it and shut up.

In Chico, I’ve seen many officers’ annual take-home pay raised by 10’s of thousands of dollars over their base salary with overtime. They have a very generous overtime policy if you ask me, rounding up so many minutes “over shift” into hours of overtime. Their union, the CPOA, also has “mandatory overtime” written into the contracts – and a very complex formula by which they turn unused overtime into “time-off” and unused “time-off” into compensation.

Take a cup of OT and add a cup and a half of CTO, pour in some STO, and you get an IOU

Greenhut also cites our generous pension system as part of the problem – “California’s pension benefits are so generous for officers – allowing them to retire in many departments at age 50 with 90 percent of their final pay – that there’s no incentive to stick around.”

Cops are certainly not underpaid in California. “Many analyses about the shortfalls make reference to low pay, but that’s simply not the case in California. In Orange County, for instance, deputy sheriffs were making around $150,000 a year as early as 2008.” Chico cops take home a minimum of $100,000/year, with overtime and “other pay”, plus their generous benefits packages, police compensation in Chico is closer to $200,000/year. They only pay 15% of their pension and benefits cost, making them the biggest driver of our pension deficit. Chico PD gets well over half the city budget.

Greenhut continues, “It’s worth debunking a few of the other common police-union myths. For starters, police agencies were not defunded. ABC News analyzed police budgets in 109 agencies across the country and found they mostly have increased, with 91 having upped their budgets by at least 2 percent. In 49 agencies, police funding has soared by 10 percent or more. Police spending is soaring.“

This article is a must read for those of us concerned about the direction our police department is taking. Some takeaways –

Police staffing and spending are not directly tied to crime rates. Policing is one part of the equation, but myriad demographic factors arguably play a more significant role.

Militarization of police forces – I’ve covered troubling police use-of-force incidents and found that union protections and circle-the-wagons attitude often thwart accountability… Americans have every right to demand that officers with life-and-death powers are held to the highest standards. Unfortunately, union protections make it difficult to rid departments of overly aggressive officers. Chiefs and sheriffs ought to blame themselves for having insufficiently rooted out the few bad apples in their midst. That’s the real source of public mistrust.

Furthermore, the violent police culture is perpetuated during training – “Community-oriented policing strategies might help departments lure more workers. This is also from that chiefs’ study: “Fast-paced images of officers making forced entries into buildings, rappelling down walls, firing high-powered weapons on the range … were common in recruiting materials. … (T)hose images do not resonate with wide swaths of the population entering the labor market. They said that agencies will be more successful in attracting candidates if they emphasize the service aspect of policing.”

My R Street colleague, retired New York Police Department officer Jillian Snider, notes that ‘even in the most contentious of times, the number of full-time sworn officers has not substantially decreased.’ She points to the need to ‘balance the demands of community members with smart, effective, research-based policing’ and to ‘establish new recruitment strategies, create incentives to attract high-quality candidates, and promote a more positive culture within departments.’”

Greenhut concludes, “Perhaps we can have two important things at once: Greater public trust of police officers and more people willing to take police jobs. Instead of complaining about a public that doesn’t appreciate them, police officials ought to spend more time assuring their departments always are worthy of the appreciation.“

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

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Public works staff wants to continue pouring a quarter of a million/year in taxpayer money for an “experience” that “sets the stage for people to enjoy downtown and come downtown on a more frequent basis” – hey, what about the rest of us?

1 Aug

Tonight Chico City Council will consider another year of funding for the skating rink – staff is asking for a budget allocation of about a quarter million in “start-up” costs. The last two years have cost the taxpayers over a quarter million in “expenses over revenues“.

According to Staff’s report, “In 2021, the program had a negative project cost of $142,557.76, and in 2022, a negative project cost of $188,779.43.”

In previous discussions Public Works staff blamed rain. Oh gee, like that’s a shocker, a rainy winter in Chico. Here’s his new excuse for running a bottom-out waste of taxpayer money.

“Like parks, it is a community feature that provides an experience, which does not necessarily function as a successful business venture. Rather it sets the stage for people to enjoy downtown and come downtown on a more frequent basis. By nature of that, it offers more opportunities for foot traffic and sales of goods.“

Measure H proponents included members of the public works department who were caught going door to door in their city provided uniforms to hand out ‘Yes on H” signs – both workers and signs paid for by the taxpayers. Proponents, including the contractors who get all the city contracts, told us we needed the money sooooo bad, as well as city management staff who admitted that the streets have been neglected for 20 or 30 years and needed hundreds of millions worth of repairs. Now they tell us, it’s okay to flush a quarter of a million a year on “an experience”, for one part of town

Furthermore, the public works manager admits in his report – it’s all about Downtown. Wow, if I owned a business in any other part of Chico I’d be talking to an attorney right now. Actually, I am a landlady, and I feel my neighborhood is on the bottom of the dog heap when it comes to any type of services.

Business owners and residents who do not live in the Blessed District should be outraged – Downtown already takes an undue amount of police attention, that area has always been a distraction for law enforcement. Now our $180,000/year public works director wants a quarter of a million a year for “an experience” for less than 1% of the population – the people who can afford to shop Downtown.

The whole skating rink bamboozle has just been a ploy to get the bums out of Plaza during Christmas shopping season because Downtown sales tax revenues have been going down with every boarded storefront – you can find that in the finance reports filed on the city website. The parking kiosks were just insulting, everybody knows the real problem is the transients/drug addicts/mentally ill, the crime, the daily depredation. But council, at the recommendation of Staff, continues to sign on to the Shelter Crisis Designation that makes Chico just another link in the Homeless Industrial Complex. They continue to play the Whack-a-mole game with Judge England while Chico goes right down the toilet.

And just as many people have predicted, the routing of the camps only produces tiny camplets all over town, that can’t be cleared, without 14 days notice. Gee, why aren’t there any campers at city hall, or Downtown Plaza anymore?

Maybe it’s time for the rest of us to talk to our own lawyer.

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Steve Jackson: “for ALL GSA’s throughout the state, the constitutionality of this fee (tax) has yet to be tested, on its face it appears unconstitutional.”

31 Jul

I like to read other blogs with other people’s observations. I was reading a long-time favorite when I suddenly realized – it’s very depressing, writing about the inevitable growing pains of a small, poorly managed city with huge problems. I’ve been sounding the alarm about overgrowth, poor planning, poor budgeting, and general malfeasance, for years. You start to feel like nobody cares, and nobody’s deserving of your concern.

I get contacted by people with real concerns, people who have been doing their homework and trying to participate in their local decision making, only to be pushed away with a palm to the forehead. Lately our local leaders here in Butte County are stooping to new lows to run taxes under the radar.

Recently I received this comment from Steve Jackson, regarding the Wyandotte Groundwater Sustainability Agency election.

Yesterday afternoon (7/27/23) the Wyandotte GSA held their public protest hearing at the Oroville City Council Chambers. The entire meeting can be viewed on YouTube at “07.27.23 Wyandotte Creek GSA”. Some key takeaways from this protest hearing are:

(1) of the 5000+ residents, many did not receive their protest notifications via US Mail;
(2) the vote was structured such that if you do nothing, it’s considered a “yes” vote in favor of the fee;
(3) for ALL GSA’s throughout the state, the constitutionality of this fee (tax) has yet to be tested, on its face it appears unconstitutional.
(4) a manager will be hired (as a county employee) at full salary to manage this GSA.
(5) Gavin Newsom misspent $2B in COVID money (his staff paid $2B in unemployment benefits to prison inmates, money that has yet to be recouped) yet California cannot pay for groundwater management at the state level…?

For everyone that lived in the (Cal Fire) State Responsibility Area (SRA), you may recall being subject to an unconstitutional “fee” (tax) several years ago. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) took Cal Fire to court over this tax and was eventually successful in overturning it (though the residents that paid the $115 fee annually for several years under protest never received a refund of their tax dollars).

The key takeaway of the GSA “fee” (tax) being imposed on citizens throughout California is this…it’s unconstitutional AND needs to be given it’s day in Court.

Thanks Steve, I will contact Howard Jarvis Association to see if they are aware of the recent well tax and if they have any concerns about it’s legality. This tax was rolled out like the sewer tax that came in the mail right after Thanksgiving weekend – poorly marked, and without a ballot, that notice looked like junk mail. I know, people need to read their mail, but these assessments were done in this matter at the suggestion of a consultant paid with taxpayer money, with the intention of undermining public participation and slipping an illegal tax past the voters.

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People don’t believe me when I say the county gets money for taking in transients – well here’s how transfers work – the sad cases of William Stephenson and Allen Fields

29 Jul

I been driving by the illegal encampment at Depot Park lately partly because we helped a friend move out of that neighborhood and then again because there’s a farm stand out the west side of town that has really good eggs and stuff. So I’ve seen that rambling mess, and I’m getting pretty disgusted with Chico City Council and their Whack-a-mole management plan.

Everybody is calling it that – “whack-a-mole” – after the arcade game, you know the one. The mole pops up, you try to hit it, it disappears and pops out another hole. That’s the scene in Chico, only the transients aren’t really the ones being whacked. Residents report being afraid to use parks, afraid to go out after dark, and, I’m guessing, too disgusted to go Downtown to complain about it.

Our city staff and council would like us to believe they are helpless because of the lawsuit – you know what, I’d like to see the judge enforce that lawsuit. What would that mean, does anybody know? Cause I’m going to guess it would have something to do with the loss of the transfer money the county is getting to bring these people in here in the first place.

Here’s an example of a transfer – right now Placer County residents are up in arms about the transfer of a “sexually violent predator” to their county, and here’s what really sounds WHACK – “as a transient“.

Repeat Sex Offender Will Be Released as ‘Transient’ in Placer County
This guy was re-arrested the last time for possessing child pornography. Want to see him down at One Mile watching your kids?

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/sexually-violent-predator-transient-status-placer-county/103-a2749ba3-0ef1-44d8-b1bc-6e2b3c9a56f7

According to ABC 10, “William Stephenson will be placed into an RV provided by Liberty Healthcare, who said in the release that ‘money is no object.’” Did you read that – “money is no object…” That’s how they always talk about taxpayer money. That’s right, Liberty Healthcare is fully taxpayer funded. Here’s a story from San Diego about a “client” who was placed under Liberty’s supervision – unfortunately they didn’t supervise him. I can’t post the link for some reason but here are some excerpts.

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – A pedophile convicted of molesting four boys was arrested last week on another felony charge.  But that sex offender is not in custody. Instead, Allen Fields is living in Campo being supervised by a program ran by Liberty Healthcare.

Liberty Healthcare is taxpayer funded and, according to the District Attorney, failed to keep the terms of Fields’ release.

The penal code states that sexually violent predators must register every 90 days with law enforcement, something Allen Fields agreed to under the terms of his release in 2014. He has successfully registered every 90 days for 6 years, until now.

Court records show fields was arrested and booked into jail for a felony charge. Three days later, the charges were not filed, and he was released under the supervision of Liberty Healthcare, a for-profit agency that monitors sex offenders.

According to the District Attorney, the failure to make his appointment to register as a sex offender was Liberty Healthcare’s error.

That is the story of a transfer gone bad, and we paid for it. A “for profit” company that is supposed to supervise dangerous sex offenders, but they just don’t? But he gets released into their custody again? This is how the system works, and we’re paying for it.

Every month, our county board of supervisors accepts hundreds of thousands of dollars – amounting to millions annually – in fees for the transfer of mental patients and criminals into Butte County. The supes use the money as they please, distributing it among various county and private providers. Some are sent to our jail from other over-crowded jails, but those are released due to overcrowding at our jail. Some are housed at shelters, others are simply released and directed toward a mish-mash of ineffective “services”, like Liberty Healthcare.

Don’t believe me? Well, fuck you, read the agendas and the budget, it’s all there. And then walk out into the street and look around yourself, open your eyes – this is happening because our elected leaders care more about money to pay ridiculous salaries and benefits than securing our community’s safety. Screw quality of life – we’re living like Whack-a-moles.

VGSA – this process is just an end-run around a ballot measure

28 Jul

NOTE: After I wrote this piece, I saw today’s paper –

Butte County groundwater agencies approve fees; DWR approves plans
This was an end-run around a ballot measure.

the “residents” were unable to stop the board from assessing the tax. I still have some problems with this “district” – which has never been approved by the voters. Read on, and please send your thoughts.

Wednesday night, Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency held their board meeting and public hearing regarding a proposed per acre fee for properties located in their “district”. But, as of now, I can’t find any news of how the balloting went.

I have been exploring their website – here’s the board:

https://www.vinagsa.org/board-members

I had no idea until now that my city of Chico council rep is a member of the Vina agency board. This whole affair has been kept pretty closed.

I had a confusing response from the county staffer assigned to this agency –

Thank you so much for getting the word out!  I am not familiar with Debbie Presson with the City of Chico, my contact there is usually Linda Herman, the Administrative Manager for the City.  Linda is Chico’s Member Agency Management team member, and she reports information to Chico Councilmember Kami Denlay.  Kami is Chico’s Board member for the Vina GSA.

The first thing I’m hearing is that there’s a “Chico Member Agency Management Team”, including Linda Herman, and who else? Furthermore, Denlay is no longer a city council member and is not listed as a member of the VGSA board. And they accuse me of spreading misinformation!

How does Evan Tuchinsky rate as a “stakeholder” – aren’t we all “stakeholders“? How was this whole board set up? By the county of Butte, who is just doing an end run around a ballot measure.

I asked the county gal about the results of the balloting – am I the last one to know? Anybody got any clues? I’ll get back with any response from the county staffer, but that probably won’t be until Monday because today is Flex Friday.

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If you have not received your well tax ballot, please contact Autum Thomas at 530-552-3595. It doesn’t matter whether you have a well or not, you are about to be had.

19 Jul

Well, the well tax issue is a real pisser – that last post went way too viral. I’m sorry I told people to contact city clerk Debbie Presson, but my attempts to contact person or persons behind the Vina Groundwater Sustainability Association were unsuccessful. I figured that since Presson is in charge of city hall ( she approves the bookings), she might know what’s going on. But, she is apparently playing dumb-o. I got this message from Suzanne –

“I contacted D. Presson about this well tax saying we had not rec’d a notice or ballot; her reply is “I am unaware of the proposed well tax.” Can you post a copy of the notice you received?”

Oh there it was, that was my mistake – I called it a ‘tax’ and Suzanne repeated my question to Presson verbatim I assume and Presson won’t acknowledge that it’s a ‘tax’. Some people wouldn’t say ‘shit’ if they had a mouthful. See, it’s a ‘fee’. My bad!

But I’ll tell you what’s weird – I’d emailed and called VGSA when I got the notice – two days before the “information hearing”. I’d sent questions. I got no response until I posted that blog.

Good Morning Juanita,

Thank you for reaching out to the Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA).  Unfortunately the GSA does not have staff to respond to all of the inquiries they are receiving, I work for Butte County Department of Water and Resource Conservation and we’re trying to help the GSA respond to emails and phone calls along with our regular jobs.  

All property owners within the Vina subbasin were mailed the Prop 218 information.  It is proposed that a maximum fee be assessed of $3.09 per acre (prorated), regardless of the land use or water source, to fund the GSA and meet the requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).  Information can be found on the Vina GSA website (www.vinagsa.org), but if you have additional questions please feel free to call me at my office, 530-552-3595.

Thank you,

Autum Thomas, Administrative Analyst, III, Butte County Department of Water & Resource Conservation

There it is, this is coming from Butte County. The county can’t raise this fee without either a petition from the voters, or a group of landlowers has to form the district. The county wants the fee, but they’d have to put it on the ballot. So they’ve asked farmers to form these districts, both the Vina and Tuscan (Durham). That way, they get around the ballot, they can do these sneaky mailed ballots. If you don’t return it, it’s a YES vote. And get a load of this – bigger parcels get a bigger vote! And that includes the landowners who formed the district.

I’ve heard from three other households I know of who say they didn’t receive a ballot, and they admit they may have thrown it away. So I have to pay a tax because my neighbors are ill-informed? Wow, just like the sewer tax the city foisted on us at Christmas.

If you have not received your ballot, please contact Autum Thomas at 530-552-3595.

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