Chico Taxpayers Association

Wow, I been AWOL – missed all of April? Even April Fool’s Day Chico City Council meeting? Yep, I been busy, I got pots on the stove and irons in the fire.

I still look at the agendas when I get a chance to sit down (I have a timer going off right now, for two different chores) – looking over a Finance Committee report from February, I found a $12,846,466.00 payment to CalPERS.

Let me spell that out – twelve MILLION, eight hundred, forty six thousand, four hundred and sixty-six dollars. Now read it out loud. Repeat it to a friend, see if their eyeballs pop out. Cause if they don’t, you need to throw a bucket of cold water on their lobster tail and read it again. That’s a lot of fucking money folks, and we’re paying it.

See the agenda item below, for the CalPERS Unfunded Liability Reserve, created by employees to pay their own CalPERS deficit. Were you asked about this? No. They take the money from the General Fund, as of last June they had taken over $8 million. They took another $14 million+ over the last quarter, made the $12 million+ payment, and were left with over $9 million toward next year. Part of that money was Measure H. Here’s the agenda item from that Finance Committee meeting report.

903 CalPERS Unfunded Liability Reserve 6/30/24; (Actuarial) available balance 8,476,829; revenues 14,131,113 ; expenditures 12,846,466; xfers in/out 0 available balance 2/28/25 9,761,476. (includes the modified adopted figures from the report).

In the same report, there is another fund, 904, the Pension Stabilization Trust, through which they transfer the money from the General Fund. It’s like a laundering scheme. You really have to watch those walnut shells to see where that pea is going.

904 Pension Stabilization Trust 5/30/24 available balance 7,378,750 revenues 147,225 expenditures 11,406 xfers in/out 0 available balance 7,514,569 Modified adopted budget Revenues 0 expenditures 0 xfers in/out 764,035 available balance 8,142,785

Next year they intend to pay more than $18 million. That payment is in addition to their salaries and the payroll payments we make to CalPERS. These are the “catch up payments” that go to the deficit left by the completely ridiculous shares they pay toward their own retirement.

So think about this – we are paying these fuckers TWICE, once while they are “working”, and again while they go off to a plush retirement. And many of them take a “retirement job,” usually in the public sector, that adds to their pension, driving up the cost, for which they pay NOTHING.

If you’re not pissed off yet, you need to stick a fucking pin in your ass, just to see if you’re still alive.

Here’s one for you Scott – thanks for keeping me on my toes, Old Buddy. Chico PD and Fire Department are the biggest piggies in the trough. They generate over half the pension deficit. They need to pay a more rational and practical share of their own benefits, NOW. The cops need to write “mandatory overtime” out of the contracts. They need to “doff and don” on their own dimes. Etc. Read the cop contracts – they will complain loudly about the fire department “sleeping and playing video games” on the clock, but you should see the kind of crap their union demands in their contracts. The contracts are available on the city website, let me know if you have trouble finding them.

But yeah, we need a major overhaul of the city fire department, especially after the Park Fire. They sleep on the job because they are scheduled to work whole days on, instead of being given an 8 hour shift. Things need to be said Folks. And I’m sayin’ ’em. Scuse my French.

That is a question I’ve asked myself and maybe you guys about one thousand times – why do we put up with this shake-down? Here’s a good read –

https://www.naturalnews.com/2025-03-24-scam-income-tax-purchase-tax-property-tax.html

“Citizens are subjected to multiple layers of taxation on their income, spending, possessions, and estate – including income tax, sales tax, property tax and estate tax –which is unjust and exploitative.” Again, I’ll say, it’s a SHAKE DOWN! They do it because THEY CAN! They do it because WE ALLOW THEM TO DO IT.

In Chico I believe Measure H passed because most of our voters here are either public employees or attached to public employees, who are the only people who are benefitting from that measure. The signs you saw on Bruce Road were probably paid for with Measure H money, but the rest of that job was funded with state and federal grants. Measure H goes into the General Fund which is completely unrestricted, only to be transferred into the Pension Stabilization Trust.

The city claims they are taking in about $24 million a year off Measure H – look at the budget – they just spent $18 million on the pension deficit.

Here’s another question – why do we pay for parking Downtown, when there’s no guarantee of security or any added convenience? Not to mention retail areas all over Chico that provide FREE PARKING.

A friend of mine just found out how much Chico PD is worth – the victim of a hit and run accident, he turned to the cops for help. I’m sorry, I learned a few years ago – the cops like to think of themselves as victims, they don’t have any time to help anybody else. When I asked a cop a question after we’d called him to report a crime, he said exactly this – “I don’t care....” I think that pretty much sums it up.

You don’t get what you pay for, you get what you are willing to accept.

My neighbor gets the Sunday print edition of the Enterprise Record, which he hands over to me as soon as he has read the stuff he’s interested in – mostly the obits. I read it slowly, as I spread it out under my cat dishes. Yeah, the obits are always interesting, but I like the editorial page.

Seems Editor Mike Wolcott is concerned about what he sees as an unfair negative impression “social media” is spreading about Chico. Retired CSUC public information officer Joe Wills joined in, insinuating misinformation is being spread around about our fair city.

Two guys who have made their living making bad things look good, that’s just too funny. Wolcott is not a journalist, he’s an ad salesman. Selling ads depends on making your advertisers happy, not investigative journalism. Wills is a “damage control” wizard. He worked for Chico State when Playboy declared the college “Number One Party School” over out of control parties, through the Pioneer Days riot, various hazing scandals and drinking deaths, years of Halloween, racist attacks, and other dark days. He was the guy who had to put the fire out with the media and convince parents from other towns that Chico State was a good place to send their 18 year old kids. These two have made their careers out of turning shit into Shinola.

I get most of my news from Butte County Fires and Crimes on Facebook. They have 24 hour reports about what is actually going on in Chico, including weather and road closures, with submissions from members who send in photos, videos, official alerts from local agencies, even ring camera footage. No, they’re not journalists, but they have a lot more current useful information. And yeah, you see a lot of negative stuff you don’t see in Wolcott’s paper or on local news – shootings, car thefts, break-ins, doorstep thefts, etc, etc, etc. Having these two men tell us we are making this crap up is just insulting.

It’s a fact that the crime rate in Chico has gone up dramatically over the last 10 years while the city has hired more cops and raised their salaries and benefits to unsustainable heights.

It’s a fact that the Shelter Crisis Designation has cost Chico Taxpayers millions of dollars, money down a legal rabbit hole, with no end in sight, just homeless camps popping up all over town and drugs overdoses becoming every day ordinary.

It’s a fact that while housing construction has continued unabated the price of those houses has continued to go up, out of reach for working people.

It’s a fact that while new housing is being built on the fringes of the city with new roads and new sewer lines, older neighborhoods are suffering from blight and neglect, potholed roads and inadequate or nonexistent sewer lines.

It’s a fact that while the city divvied out American Rescue funding to design and build “parklets” for Downtown businesses, the sewer lines running under Downtown streets, more than 100 years old, are in dire need of replacement, and no funding in sight.

I’m sorry Mike, you’d have to be a magician to put lipstick on that pig.

I had an experience at the Raley’s on Skyway yesterday that made me decide I won’t be shopping there anymore. I had a similar experience at Safeway a few years ago and have not shopped there since, even though that store was located an easy bike ride or walk from my house.

I’ve been shopping at Raley’s on Skyway for about 35 years. It’s more expensive, but traditionally their in-store brands are cheaper and they have always had good sales. Their produce has usually been better than the discount stores. For the last couple of years we’ve been taking advantage of their online coupons.

I won’t talk about the decline of customer service, that’s probably a matter of my own opinion. I won’t talk about their prices, which have always been higher than other stores. But what I saw yesterday is becoming a public safety problem.

As we moved toward the shortest checkout line, we noticed the man in front of us was pretty wildly dressed – he was wearing mismatched clothes, layered on, shorts over pants, etc, and he had a pile of clothing in his cart. He pushed his cart past the checker and began sorting his purchases, all mingled in the pile of clothes, out onto the counter. He handed the checker a plastic card. The checker ran the card and told the man it was no good. The man insisted he run the card again. No good again. My husband and I looked around the room, the other checkers had longer lines, so we stood patiently while the checker tried the card again. He finally called a manager over, and as the manager passed the customer’s cart, he dug into the pile of clothing, pulling out a huge bottle of what I would call Rotgut – cheap vodka with high alcohol content. “Have you paid for this …?” asked the manager. The man became defensive – “that’s mine, I brought that in here...” The bottle looked sealed from where I was standing, but the manager just placed it right back in the cart as he took the purchases that the man was not able to pay for – including more booze.

As the shoplifter left the store unhindered, my husband asked our checker, “so you’re not going to call the police, you’re just going to let that guy leave the store with that stolen bottle of vodka?”

The manager answered, saying they had no proof the man had stolen the bottle. Here’s what I think – the manager just didn’t want to be bothered. He knew he would have to hold the man in the store while he waited for cops who might not show up for hours. Then he would be convinced to drop the charges because he had no proof.

Here’s what I think Raley’s needs to do – they need to re-institute “floor walkers” as “risk management”. When they see people like this man come into the store with a cart full of stuff, they need to engage these people and watch them more closely. A polite “may I help you” would do alot to drive these serial shoplifters out of stores.

Instead they tack the cost of these crimes onto the price of your groceries. That’s the economic problem.

Here’s why it’s a public safety problem – when I witnessed a shoplifter stealing bottles of wine off the shelves at Safeway on Mangrove, he almost knocked my kids and I down trying to run out of the store. The manager gave pursuit, I felt like things were in control. But as I left Mangove Plaza with my purchases, there was the shoplifter, laying on the sidewalk next to Kwando, having polished off two big bottles of cheap wine, laying there in a puddle. The manager had just kicked him out of the store with the booze, didn’t even call the cops to escort him off the property.

“Drunk in public” is a crime. Shoplifting is a crime. Drunk driving is a crime – are you also aware, it’s illegal to ride your bike drunk. Why is Chico so soft on booze crimes?

Furthermore I’ll ask, why would a grocery store like Raley’s have such a hoooooooge booze section? Competing with Bev Mo? Maybe grocery stores shouldn’t be allowed to sell hard liquor?

Ask yourself why you put up with this stuff.

Such a kerfuffle about allowing cameras into “the Oval” – wow, it’s about time. We finally see how these people wheel and deal at our expense. We finally see that they are no better than a pack of playground bullies. This is why other presidents have kept us out, I hope Trump will continue to open these meetings.

I think we should have cameras posted all over the White House, maybe even body cams on politicians. Why would anybody think it’s okay for these people to work behind closed doors? Making decisions that could ruin our economy, start wars, while holding the American public off by the forehead?

That was what January 6th was all about, letting these demagogues know they are not better than us, they don’t represent us, and they need to get off their high horses and do their jobs.

We’re not children, and we need to stop allowing these people to shove us out of the discussion. In Chico, we are kept out of the major discussions while our town continues to slip into the toilet. The biggest economic topic in our town is the employee contracts. We do not know what deals are made between council members and employees because collective bargaining rules keep the public out of the meetings.

A few years ago, a scheduling change put a bargaining session with Chico Police Officers Association in the room where another meeting had been scheduled When I walked in the door expecting the Economic Development Committee, a Chico police officer jumped out of her chair with an alarmed look on her face and quickly pushed me out the door, then escorted me out of the building. Not so much as an “excuse me... “, just told me I had to leave because the meeting was “restricted…” Just outside the building I caught City Clerk Debbie Presson and Ass Clerk Dani pushing a fully loaded catering cart, covered with sandwich meat and bread, into the meeting. Yep, that’s the tempo, low and slow… no public allowed at their little union parties.

Citizens are also kicked out of council meetings for the “closed agenda” meetings between council and employee union representatives. Why? What don’t they want us to see or hear?

Here’s a thought to take away – the employee unions are the biggest contributors in every council election. PG&E is another huge contributor. What are council’s real priorities?

Another nail in the coffin of Downtown Chico with the pending closure of longtime business Collier Hardware. Think it has to do anything with the atmosphere the city has allowed to foment Downtown?

Today an overdose death at Chico Plaza – who is actually surprised when they read these reports? When my husband and I drove through Drugtown yesterday, I looked across the Plaza – I wouldn’t have got out of my car on a bet. Tents scattered around what used to be a “public” bathroom. More tents at City Hall. Dirty half dressed creeps staggering around in a state of hangover, waiting for their turn in the “public” toilet. To get high? They look like they live from one fix to the next. Morning looks like my dad after 6 days on the road – the come down. By afternoon everybody is bubbling along, just got their “medicine”. By evening they’re really high, and really nuts.

If you want to find out what night time in Drugtown is like, read Butte County Accidents and Crimes Facebook, I don’t recommend seeing it for yourself.

Maybe we should ask Mayor Kasey Reynolds how long she thinks her business – a candy store within a block of the Plaza – will last. Like Collier and Northern Star Mills and Richardson Furniture and Osers, I remember being in Shuberts as a child. I have a Grange cook book of my grandmothers, from the 1930’s, with an ad showing the same logo they still use today. I have a family album with pictures of old Chico High, CSUC buildings that don’t exist anymore, and a really bitchin’ shot of Hooker Oak before it was nothing but a stump.

Wow, how Chico has changed in my lifetime. I think we’ve all noticed how radically it’s changed in just the last 10 years. To think my family really enjoyed Downtown Chico, many businesses. My husband and sons and I enjoyed events like Friday night concert and Farmers Market – remember the conga line for a piece of fudge at Christmas preview? Remember Nut Cracker ballet in store windows? When I go down to the city center these days, all I have are memories of what it was.

How many more nails will it take to close the coffin on a great little town? Can we stop it?

As for our current drug and mental health crisis, we have to stop voting for people who put the bums before the citizens – we need more “whimsy” on council? How does an idiot like that get elected? Obvious answer – idiot voters, too lazy to study the real issues, and look at what other towns are doing, right or wrong. Voters need to know what they want before they vote, and then keep demanding it.

As for the physical state of our city, we need to demand that the city put a moratorium on new development until we get existing parts of town on schedule for infrastructure improvements. We need to get our sewer system fixed – whole parts of town, including the city center, are sitting on failing sewer and water pipes. Other whole parts of town are not even hooked up to sewer, with old septic tanks leaching into the ground. Think what that means in a heavy rain storm. Our streets are in a state of emergency, parts of town have no drainage or sidewalks.

I honestly believe we need an outside agency to come in and test our drinking water. We also need a good audit of our drinking water supply before we build new subdivisions.

To accomplish this we need a city attorney who is qualified to advise us toward better planning decisions – why did our city attorney allow council to put Valley’s Edge on the ballot if it wasn’t a legal measure? Was it illegal? Do we trust our current city attorney to advise us any further?

Of course Council hires the city attorney – so we need to communicate to our city council reps what we want out of a city attorney. We need a person who is qualified and has a proven record in municipal law. I don’t know where they’ve got the past couple of city attorneys – it would be nice to have more sunshine into this process.

But none of that is going to happen if we don’t demand it.

I got the wind knocked out of me about two weeks ago when we found out a friend of ours had died of an overdose at the Safe Space Shelter. We had known the young man since he was born, his parents and grandparents being long time friends. He was a friend of my older son, and he spent a lot of time with us. We spent a lot of time with his family, camping trips, Easter egg hunts, and we never missed Pancakes for Peace.

I am angry. I watched our town turn into an “Unsafe Space” over the span of this young man’s life. I tried to get the attention of my council representative, telling her about things I’d seen – obvious examples of a laissez faire policy on drug possession and use. She was not interested in pursuing the conversation publicly. While heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine are all very illegal in the state of California, as is public intoxication, the city of Chico has a “council them and move them along” policy when it comes to enforcing the laws against public use and distribution of illegal substances.

Low barrier shelters have become the modern opium den.

In 2020 Oregon tried an “experiment” with decriminalizing drugs. An “experiment” using humans for test subjects.

Apr 10, 2024 — Oregon decriminalized drugs in 2020 with a goal of addressing the root issues of drug users’ addictions by putting them into recovery programs .  “a health-based approach to addiction and overdose is more effective, humane, and cost-effective than criminal punishments.” That short-lived experiment has now been called off, with Oregon’s legislature voting to recriminalize drug possession. 

https://www.innovatingjustice.org/publications/drugs-recriminalized-oregon

Even proponents admit it was a failure, citing a “brutal spike in overdose deaths” following the implementation of Measure 110.

But Chico continues a policy of counsel and move them along. It’s a fact, and everybody knows, we have a serious drug problem in Chico, with overdoses becoming almost routine.

Where are the drugs coming from? I can’t believe they are not being transported by the armies of the night that live undocumented in various illegal encampments around town. If you spend enough time Downtown or in Bidwell Park you will see people making drug deals right in the middle of Downtown Plaza.

Drugs are also common at Butte County jail. The news has reported both incidents of drugs being smuggled in, and overdoses, often deadly. The jail is just another layer of the drug trade in Butte County. And it’s overcrowded, so oftentimes dangerous people are being released right back into the county to continue to use and move drugs.

One guy who has been popping up in the police logs for years, arrested over and over, has led Chico PD on several car chases in stolen cars. Once he hit a gas meter and shut down two blocks surrounding Hooker Oak School. But he kept being summarily released, only to be caught again within months, same thing. Finally they found him with drugs taped to his butt!

Apparently, strip searches were not routine on check-in, but they finally found some reason to search him, and there were drugs in his shorts. It sounds ridiculous, but I can’t believe that wasn’t his motive the entire time, transporting drugs into the jail. I don’t know if they’ve changed that policy.

The city of Chico takes a very defeatist attitude toward the situation. They have been bitch slapped by the court, they say. The police and sheriff complain about overcrowding and not having enough staff, despite 10’s of millions received from various grants and emergency funding. The Behavioral Health Department complains they don’t have enough money to pay the kind of salaries it takes to get “good” people. They have a budget that rivals the White House.

Being angry doesn’t bring our friend back, but I’ll tell his story as often as I can and I’ll blame it on the city of Chico, County of Butte, and Safe Space Shelter for the rest of my life.

You saw it on the news, “your tax dollars at work,” they finally open the road – it’s a piece of crap!

Last night, my husband and I did something we haven’t done in a long time – we went out at night. We haven’t been out in Chico for years – the atmosphere has gotten very unpleasant. All our favorite restaurants have closed. Downtown is a crime scene. And then you have the drunks! Who wants to be a statistic?

But last night some cousins of mine were driving to town for a high school basketball game on the South End of town, so we drove over to say Hello. Great game, I saw my teenage cousin for the first time – I picked her out of the crowd, because she looked like my grandfather, who also played basketball for the same school. It was fun. We’ll do it again.

It was good to get out, and it took us out to Bruce Road, which we had not used since it was closed for the widening.

First of all, contrary to the signs and what the city of Chico has said, Measure H funds were not a viable part of this job. Most of the money – ask Mike Mangas over at KRCR news – came from federal and state grants that have been in place for almost 10 years. The city is being dishonest about the amount and use of Measure H funds – maybe Measure H funds paid for the lies on those signs?

Measure H goes into the General Fund, and despite claims of “accounting” for these funds, we only have reports from the Finance Department. They can do whatever they want with money in the General Fund. It’s like pouring a glass of water into Chico Creek and telling people you know where that glass of water went.

Okay, you know you love this one – here’s Richard Lewis describing how the city of Chico spends money.

So let’s get back to Bruce Road. As soon as we rolled onto the new surface, on a new set of tires we just bought in October, we felt like we were on a dirt road crossing the canyon in an old stage coach. Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump! The surface of the road is riddled with bumps and lumps. The cement was not properly poured. My husband, a contractor who has been on major jobsites all over Chico, remarked that they must have poured it on the hottest day of the year. Thinking back, that’s when they poured it – when we had triple digits. Temperature and humidity really matter when you pour concrete.

The city uses the same contractor for all these jobs. They don’t use the top-rated concrete company in town, they make and set their own cement. Cement is an important job that needs to be done right, by a company that ONLY does cement. Instead the city goes cheap-ass with a construction company that makes it’s own cement. CHEAP-ASS!

As we bounced along the road, I heard Neil Young, warbling along – “It’s a piece of crap…”

With video of the carnage going on in and around Los Angeles on the news every morning, I heard today on The National Desk that the feds are threatening to cut emergency funding until the state legislature gets a better plan for fire control/prevention.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said “State and local officials were derelict in their responsibilities”. People are calling for the resignations of both Governor Newsom and LA mayor Karen Bass. I would like to add a few names to that list: Chico City Manager Mark Sorensen, Chico Parks and Natural Resources Manager Linda Herman, and Public Works Director Erik Gustafson. As well as the CAO of Butte County and the Public Works Director.

I don’t care about Bass – that’s LA’s problem. But after the Camp Fire, Governor Newsom promised to add to the Cal Fire fire prevention teams – that never materialized. He did nothing to help LaMalfa pass his Fix Our Forests bill . Likewise, neither Butte County nor the City of Chico have done anything about major fire hazards within their jurisdictions, despite major fires over the last 7 years that have caused evacuations. The city of Chico left dead vegetation and standing dead trees in Bidwell Park after the Stony Fire (2018) and refused to take a proactive stance against illegal activities in the park.

Butte County board of supervisors recently rejected plans to clear brush from or improve Doe Mill Road, denying that it is a designated fire evacuation route. Then why were people directed by law enforcement to use that road to get out of the Park Fire evacuation zones? It was a major route out of the Camp Fire, along with Garland Road. Both Doe Mill and Garland are so narrow in sections that two way traffic is nearly impossible. The surfaces of these roads make it dangerous for sedans. Brush lines miles of roadway – imagine driving through burning brush on a one lane dirt road with a conga line of hysterical evacuees right behind you.

How can we force changes to Chico policies? Call for the resignations of Sorensen, Herman, as well as Butte County CAO Andy “Maximo” Pickett and Works Director Joshua Pack. These people are derelict in their duties. Email your city and county district “leaders” and tell them they’re next if they don’t start hiring some better people at more rational salaries.

And when they tell you they don’t have the money, ask your county supervisor where they where they got $57 million for their latest pension bond payment. Chico’s annual payment has reached $18 million. That’s where your infrastructure funding has gone.

Time to GET MAD folks, GET REALLY MAD, and channel your anger at those who are the problem – your government officials.

Last week I posted the “Butte County Pension-Obligation-Bond-Payment-Strategy-Summary” You may recall, the county signed onto two pension obligation bonds in 2004 with the specific purpose of using debt to pay debt – like taking out a new credit card to pay your old credit card. County staff and supervisors told us they would make enough money off these bonds to both pay the debt service on the bonds AND make larger payments toward the pension deficit. They told us they would save money because the bond rate was lower than the rate CalPERS is charging us for the pension deficit.

But you see here

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2024/10/24/whats-the-real-reasoning-behind-butte-county-measure-h-a-billion-dollar-budget-with-57-million-year-in-pension-bond-payments-projected-by-2030/

that since they instituted the POB, the pension deficit has ROCKETED. “In June 2024, the Chico Enterprise-Record reported that Butte County’s pension deficit was growing and that the budgeted payment for the year was about $18 million. The deficit grew by $28 million over the 2021-22 period.”

Grew $28 million? That’s their plan? Wow, that’s some “strategizing” they’re doing over in O-ville.

How did that happen? Ask your county supervisor why they raise their own salaries every year. And read this again –