I got a comment here about road work done with Measure H money – in Stilson canyon? Sure enough, when my husband and I checked it out, we saw that the city had not only resurfaced Humboldt Road but Stilson Canyon Road.
Stilson Canyon is a neighborhood of luxury homes in Chico California offering an assortment of beautiful styles, varying sizes and affordable prices to choose from. Stilson Canyon single-family homes for sale range in square footage from around 2,000 square feet to over 6,600 square feet and in price from approximately $479,000 to $2,349,000.
According to the city map, some of this neighborhood is in the city of Chico, but this sign shows that most of them live in the county.
You can see from this point, there is nothing, no housing, along that section of newly paved road. There are no city residents on Humboldt Road either. Who was served by this project – paid for with Measure H funding? This type of project should be funded with property taxes, and these people all pay property taxes to the county. Why are Measure H funds being used? Well, some very influential people live in this neighborhood, is about all I can figure.
A few weeks ago I got a cranky comment from “Susan” regarding the sales tax measure Butte County Supervisors are considering putting on the ballot in November. I’d expected it – just a few months ago, media shills were using the same old “county cutting library hours” bullshit to drum up support for a possible county parcel tax. I knew they’d switch to a sales tax – a general sales tax only needs 50%+1 to pass. Can you smell the chicken shit?
This past weekend, the news outlets picked up the story – again, showing pictures of Butte County library.
The library isn’t the problem – why don’t the news shills ask the real questions? How much is Butte County’s pension deficit? When did they pass that illegal pension bond? Bill Connelly told me it was back in the early 2000’s, and it was passed without voter approval, which is illegal. How has that worked out? Apparently it was implemented in 2004, but the county pension deficit continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Look how much the county is laying out both in regular and “catch-up” payments from their illegal pension obligation bond.
Cal PERS is short about $465 BILLION. How much of that is Butte County’s unfunded liability? As you can see on page 78 of the report, despite the pension obligation bond and the millions Butte County has paid into the deficit year after year, the county’s liability has grown over $30 million since 2018.
Here’s a question your news reporters should be asking – how much are we paying these people to run our apple cart off the road?
Andy “Maximo” Picket, County Chief Admin Officer – as of 2022, he was making a “regular” salary of $242,255.00. Add “extra pay” for a salary of over $257,000/year. Add the benefits package of $67,751.00 for a grand total of $324,543.00.
The board of supes can raise their salaries on a vote, giving themselves about $1,000 raise every year. In 2020, they lowered their salaries about $2,000, but as of 2022 the salary was back to about $62,000/year, same as 2021, and growing again. You would probably be more surprised at the generous benefits packages that they are allowed to choose for themselves. Like City Council members, they pay a small percentage of their salary toward their benefits packages, which currently range from about $18,000/year to about $33,000/year per member. They also get “other pay” – you can ask them about that, I won’t speculate. Connelly somehow wrangled his total salary to over $75,000, add his benefits package for total compensation of over $95,000. Teeter managed to get himself over $100,000.
Which means, given the few thousand dollars a year they pay toward their benefits, they each have personal pension deficits that are part of the county’s total unfunded liability.
Holy shit, no wonder they can’t keep the library open.
According to this article, ” Kratom users rely on this fast-acting formula to enhance their energy levels and overall well-being…” The article mentions nothing about the dangers of Kratom, selling it as an energy supplement.
Here’s what the National Institute on Drug Abuse will tell you about Kratom powder.
Adverse effects range from mild to severe. Some people who use kratom have reported mild side effects, such as nausea, constipation, dizziness and drowsiness.3, 4 In case reports, clinicians report seeing patients with a wide range of very rare but serious adverse effects associated with kratom exposure—including mental and neurological symptoms (confusion, tremors and seizures), heart and lung problems (high blood pressure and slow breathing), gastrointestinal problems (nausea and vomiting) and liver problems.1, 23Researchers continue to study potential adverse effects in humans, animal models and cells, including possible damage to the cardiovascular system.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is more to the point – they call Kratom a “drug of concern”
Kratom is a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia. Consumption of its leaves produces both stimulant effects (in low doses) and sedative effects (in high doses), and can lead to psychotic symptoms, and psychological and physiological dependence. Kratom leaves contain two major psychoactive ingredients (mitragynine and 7-hydroxymytragynine). These leaves are crushed and then smoked, brewed with tea, or placed into gel capsules. Kratom has a long history of use in Southeast Asia. In the U.S., the abuse of kratom has increased markedly in recent years.
At low doses, increased alertness, physical energy, and talkativeness. At high doses, sedation,,Addictive: causes hallucinations, delusion, and confusion,Nausea, itching, sweating, dry mouth, constipation, increased urination, and loss of appetite. Long-term use can cause anorexia, weight loss, and insomnia.
Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is a tree native to Southeast Asia. The leaves contain a chemical called mitragynine, which works like opioids such as morphine.
Kratom has pain-relieving effects like opioid drugs. It also has many of the same serious safety concerns as other opioids.
People commonly use kratom for withdrawal from heroin, morphine, and other opioid drugs, as well as cough, depression, anxiety, and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses. Using kratom can also be unsafe.
Kratom is banned in some states and countries due to serious safety concerns. The US FDA has warned consumers to avoid using products containing kratom.
Despite the above warnings, Kratom continues to be legal. The warnings are true. When our friend used it to get off alcohol and other substances, he vomited his way into very frightening seizures. When we tried to get him to stop using it he acted like an animal and stopped talking to us. We were finally able to get him to a doctor, who told him Kratom was dangerous. She gave him pharmaceuticals that worked – he’s off drugs now, and doing a lot better.
That was a dark time for my husband and I, it’s hard to convince yourself to get involved with friends when they act like they don’t even know you. But this was a friend we wanted to hold on to. So I looked for help. I tried to talk to my city council representative, Kasey Reynolds, about the prevalence of Kratom in the local tobacco and liquor stores, and how it’s used. Many cities across the US and California have banned it. She wouldn’t engage – let’s face it, the city of Chico likes this kind of trade, it’s produces a lot of sales tax revenues.
City council has the power to refuse licenses for alcohol stores and smoke shops. When was the last time you heard of them not approving a new liquor store or smoke shop, despite recent raids by the ABC?
And now Mike Wolcott is running ads for a highly toxic, addictive substance that produces sales tax. What next Mr. Drug Peddler? And he wonders why I won’t subscribe to his little ad rag.
UPDATE: At last night’s council meeting (5/7/24), council approved two new alcohol serving businesses despite the fact that the Alcoholic Beverage Commission (ABC) determined that they were both located “in an area with an undue concentration of alcoholic beverage licenses.” (Downtown Chico) Police Chief Billy Aldridge “did not oppose a determination of public convenience or necessity. ” What does that even mean – ask your council rep if they understand what they’re voting on, I don’t think they particularly care. Both items had been placed on the consent agenda, neither was held for any type of conversation before council agreed unanimously to allow two more alcohol serving businesses within block of each other in the Downtown grid.
According to California Code,
(a) For purposes of Section 23958, “undue concentration” means the case in which the applicant premises for an original or premises-to-premises transfer of any retail license are located in an area where any of the following conditions exist:(1) The applicant premises are located in a crime reporting district that has a 20 percent greater number of reported crimes,as defined in subdivision (c), than the average number of reported crimes as determined from all crime reporting districts within the jurisdiction of the local law enforcement agency.(2) As to on-sale retail license applications, the ratio of on-sale retail licenses to population in the census tract or census division in which the applicant premises are located exceeds the ratio of on-sale retail licenses to population in the county in which the applicant premises are located.(3) As to off-sale retail license applications, the ratio of off-sale retail licenses to population in the census tract or census division in which the applicant premises are located exceeds the ratio of off-sale retail licenses to population in the county in which the applicant premises are located.
I frankly believe those are all excellent reasons to deny an alcohol business to open in a particular area, but the city of Chico seems to be on a bender lately.
I had to renew my driver’s license, I did it online. They asked for voter registration information, even though I know my registration is up to date, I filled it out. I’m not sure what happened, but three days later I got a notice from the county clerk asking me to restate my residence address.
I read it over a few times, I was corn-fused. You can register to vote without a legal residence? With nothing more than cross streets and a brief description? Then excuse me, why the hell do they need my residence address? Assessor parcel number?
Here’s another question – if I can register to vote from a street corner, can I run for office in that district?
Sometimes, I’ll say, I lose faith in the government. How can they guarantee there’s no voter fraud when they allow people to register to vote from a street corner? But I have to provide a physical address in addition to my PO Box number – again, corn-fusing.
I believe voter fraud is real. I don’t believe county clerks across the country have the resources to check every voter. There’s no voter ID anymore, we all vote by mail, so how can they guarantee who’s turning in a ballot, registered at a street corner? Coincidentally, the 2020 election brought in a historic number of voters, “the century’s highest turnout.”
Where did all those new voters come from? Were they eligible to vote in the district in which they registered? How were they informed about the issues, and by whom? Soooo many questions.
But I turned it in with my residence address anyway, because I believe that in order to be eligible to vote in a community, a person should have a somewhat permanent and serious stake in that community. I don’t think a physical residence address, at a real residence, is too much to ask.
I also believe that allowing people to vote without solving the problems that have left them without a physical residence address insinuates that living on the street is acceptable. It’s not. Furthermore, I believe that encouraging them to vote is not done out of any sincere wish to empower them but out of desire to manipulate their political power.
Last I’ll say, it undermines and devalues our elections, and our confidence that our votes make any sort of difference. But I’ll vote anyway, they won’t get rid of me that easily.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: When it comes to municipal finance in California, There’s the cost of pensions, and there’s everything else.
What is the size of chico’s unfunded liability today? A couple of years ago it was more than 100 million dollars. Do I have that right, I’m not trying to be inflammatory?
I don’t think questions are inflammatory, and hey, you’re not that far off! But I didn’t want to bother staff with this question – you only get so many before they cut you off. They act like they pay for their own time! So, I googled it – “city of chico ca current pension liability 2024″
This is the annual report from CalPERS about how much money the city owes for un-supported city wages and benefits. Yes, unsupported – meaning, these positions are not fully funded. The city essentially borrows the money from CalPERS, at incredible rates. CalPERS said they could pay alot of the cost with stock market investments. That hasn’t worked out very well over the past 20 or so years, leaving CalPERS, along with all its “members”, in a heap of shit.
The city has gone along, like many CalPERS members, making the smallest possible payments. The employees pay a tiny fraction of the cost, while the city pays a little bit more – leaving a huge deficit, known as the Unfunded Actuarial Liability. You can look those words up in a dictionary – it means, the city actually didn’t have the money to promise these outrageous salaries and benefits, but they promised them anyway, and now the city is actually liable for the money.
Here’s the best answer I could get for BC – In 2021, the pension deficit was $64,293,003. In 2022, which is the most recent figure given in the report, it was $92,247,723. That’s over $28,000,000 more in a year.
The question is, who is going to pay it now? The city gave us a new tax, Measure H. They claim it’s brought in about $24 million, with which they said they would make all these wonderful road improvements. Instead they’ve budgeted an $18 million payment toward the pension liability. Whoa-ho-ho Nelly! By 2024 it’s projected to be about $25 million.
The payments they’re making are tanking our budget, but they don’t amount to spit on the CalPERS griddle. The problem is, let’s face it – employees need to pay more. Alot more. And Council needs to stop approving new hires – duplicate management positions, a consultant actually told them they are “management top-heavy”. How many $200,000/year management positions does it take to fill a pothole? Look at the staff salaries – I count at least three people in Public Works at over $200,000 in total compensation. Sorensen just created a new management position for Brendan Ottoboni last year.
Instead of asking employees to contribute a rational share, or downsizing management, Council has approved spending another $100,000 trying to save Measure H, which is under threat by the voter-initiated Taxpayer Protection Act. The TPA will overturn Measure H, because the city slid it under the door with less than 53% approval by the voters. The TPA will require 2/3’s approval of all local tax measures. So Mark Sorensen has led City Council to approve an initial $100,000 (we’ll see how many additional “allocations” they make over the next six months) to get that turkey back on the ballot with the required changes, just in case the TPA passes. It will require 2/3’s approval from Chico voters. Last time it got about 52.8%.
So hey BC, they’ve scheduled a “special” Finance Committee meeting for this Wednesday at 8:30am, go in there and ask some questions.
Now that Valley’s Edge is off the table for a while, we should start talking about November. It’s easy to get caught up in the presidential race but there are local and state issues to which we should pay careful attention.
As of now, according to Ballotpedia, the Taxpayer Protection Act, also known as the The California Two-Thirds Legislative Vote and Voter Approval for Fee and Charge Increases Initiative (#21-0042), is scheduled to be on the ballot.
Governor Newsom and members of the California legislature are so worried this measure will stop them from raising taxes they’ve sued to stop it, claiming the TPA is an, “‘unlawful effort to revise our state constitution’ which ‘seeks to eliminate the state’s ability to swiftly respond to emergencies and provide resources for critical services that Californians and communities rely upon.'”
I was trying to read old finance reports, trying to keep track of discussions regarding the TPA and Measure H, when I found some stuff that really blew my mind. I wanted to share it here immediately, but I found links that wouldn’t work and text that would not cut-and-paste. So I contacted the clerk’s office and asked them if they could load it correctly. I received a mailbox full of reports that I will try to share, but it’s going to take a lot of reading. It doesn’t make sense at this point.
In 2020 the city was already crying about lost revenues, when they had over $20 million in settlement money from the Camp Fire. Then came millions more in American Rescue money for COVID. They just recently received another $24 million in PG&E settlement money.
In one report staff says revenues were so low, they talked about deferrig the Cal PERS annual catch-up payment – that would cost them over $500,000 in interest! There were a lot of alarming little details. What I came away with, is that city council is not qualified to handle a budget of that size, and staff is suggesting projects not based on need or the community’s best interests.
Right now, I’m going to get ready to go grocery shopping, I find it’s best to get out and get it over with before the traffic shuts down the south side of town.
I woke up early for the news that Chico voters have very definitely rejected the proposal for Valley’s Edge. I don’t think that land should be developed at all, and the high density they were proposing would have been a disaster. And like my husband reminds me – it offered nothing to our town except sprawl and further strain on infrastructure.
Now the question, what will Brouhard and his investors come back with – we should keep an eye on further developments in this area. It’s currently zoned for much lower density residential.
As of late yesterday, Butte County Recorder Keaton Denlay worried that “Turnout is lower than it has been. In our last Presidential primary we were over 58%, right now we’re sitting at 26%”.
Well, I’ll say, that’s pretty sad. I mailed my ballot two days after I received it, first week in February. My husband and I checked the county website and found our ballots were received by the following Monday. Denlay blames low turnout on the weather – that’s no excuse. I think this election has been a turn-off.
One example – what Adam Schiff did to Katie Porter and Barbara Lee shows us the seamier side of politics – he spent 10’s of millions throwing them under the bus with attack ads, members of his own party, while he very obviously pushed Garvey as his preferred opponent. He really thinks he can demonize Garvey because he voted for Donald Trump. Schiff is a nasty, nasty man, who obviously believes in dirty politics. I’m tired of his “leadership” of our state – a welfare state with the highest taxes in the nation. I’m looking forward to voting for Garvey again. I might even send him 25 bucks.
People blame Don Trump for turning the election negative – they’ve got to be kidding. The mess in Washington is all on Biden. Here’s what I think is really going on – the Democrats are desperately seeking somebody else to run. Michelle Obama’s sudden announcement that she won’t run tells us they’ve been talking about it. And it’s very reminiscent of Barack Obama’s denial that he was going to run in 2008 – he told Tim Russert several times in 2006, very firmly, that he would not run, but by 2007 he was telling Russert why he should be president. Let’s see what happens with the Democrats over the next few months.
Tomorrow the Internal Affairs Committee will discuss a “$60-80 million” remodel of Downtown Chico. They plan to use American Rescue Plan money received after COVID, as well as Measure H revenues. The newspaper also reported the city will use part or all of the $24 million Camp Fire Settlement money. After they dig up the entire sewer system for replacement, they intend to completely redesign streets, eliminating still more parking for restaurant seating and new bike lanes. One plan shows elimination of car lanes.
Since I bought my house, Downtown has been “remodeled” several times, at a cost of millions each time. Seeking to increase parking, one plan turned parallel parking to lateral. After concerns were raised about accidents caused by cars backing out, a subsequent plan changed some streets back to parallel. Seeking to lower the speed at which cars traveled through Downtown, sidewalks were bulbed, putting the pedestrian out in the street as a “traffic calming measure.” At that time, they added a “Studebaker strip, the wheelchair, and high-heel accessible strip of flat walkway which lines the center of downtown crosswalks.” I don’t know if that even exists anymore, the streets are in pretty bad shape. Fancy, expensive concrete garbage bins were set at corners in the Downtown grid – they were so badly vandalized by the night people, they had to be removed. All their “experiments” were paid for by the taxpayers, at the expense of local infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the street in front of my house, annexed over 20 years ago, still needs extensive drainage, sidewalks, and resurfacing. There’s a puddle at the end of my driveway right now, created by years of garbage trucks grinding to a stop out front, that smells like an old fish pond. My tax bill is over $7,000 a year. We’ve had new subdivisions built into people’s back yards up and down my street, but promises of “street work” have never materialized. Many properties on my street, a block from Bidwell Park, are still on septic – the city wants 10’s of thousands to hook up to sewer, in addition to the work done on the owner’s property.
How’s the internet at your house, cause people in my neighborhood are still standing in their driveways to use their cell phones while their kids go to the library to do their homework. My internet providers have told me, there are too many trees in my neighborhood, that my house is too far from the street, and finally, they told us, we’re too far from the tower that is located over in college town? What? Hellooooo? Mark Orme, before he hit the road for sweeter pastures, told us we have no internet in whole sections of Chico. That conversation ended when he sidled out of town.
But Downtown gets a total remodel about every ten years. Hmmmm. I think it’s time to take out the trash.
Sunday my husband and I got out early to do our grocery shopping, to avoid the ever worsening traffic jam on the south side of town. We hit the bargain stores to do the bulk of our shopping, all on the south end of town. Of course, Raley’s is expensive, but they had chicken parts for 97 cents a pound, so we stopped by to see what we could get. Who should we encounter in the parking lot but Mark Sorensen, Chico city manager. Yeah, at his $211,000/year plus benefits, he can afford to shop exclusively at Raley’s! Mark’s a shy guy, when our eyes met, he looked like he’d just seen somebody he owes money. My husband laughed out loud as Sorensen and his wife hightailed it into the store. He looked very uncomfortable, and I think he should be uncomfortable – he’s the biggest head on the stinking fish that is tanking our town right now. Cause when the fish stinks, it’s the head of the fish that stinks.
Sorensen is busy right now trying to save Measure H, City of Chico’s one-cent sales tax measure. Measure H is a train wreck. They spent hundreds of thousands over the past 10 years, hiring consultants to “survey” the public into taxing themselves. The consultants told council and staff that Chico’s main problems were the growing pension deficit, a “management top-heavy” staff, and public mistrust of council because of years of poor spending decisions. They told council that again and again, but council did nothing to alleviate those burdens, they just kept making it worse. They’ve created new positions at over $100,000/year, they’ve handed out raises without significantly increasing employee shares. As you see in the letter below, the pension catch-up payments get more than our tanking infrastructure.
When Sorensen was on council, he said he would not put a general measure on the ballot, he and Morgan both said they wanted a 2/3’s measure to show the public was behind the tax. I don’t know if they were lying, or just changed their minds under pressure. Actually, now that they’re both public employees, I believe they are trying to save CalPERS, cause they know who butters their bread (I know that’s not the original saying but that’s what my German mother-in-law said and it makes more sense).
Something the consultants told them repeatedly was that they could not pass a 2/3’s measure because surveys showed the public had not trusted council for many years, that they’d never get 2/3’s voter approval. But here’s what former city manager and his assistant told council repeatedly – a 2/3’s measure has restrictions on spending. You have to tell the voters what you are going to do, exactly, with a 2/3’s measure, and then you have to follow that plan to the letter. What they want the money for, is to pay down the pension deficit, and they knew they’d never get the voters to approve that. So they ran a general measure and they LIED. They still only got 52%.
The problem with a general measure, is you’re not allowed to promise specific uses. The TPA makes calls for even more restrictions on uses. But here’s where Chico council and staff got their dick in the mousetrap – the consultants also told them that the voters wanted specific stuff. So they promised all those street repairs in the text of their general measure, and that’s not okay. They never had any intention of putting that money toward street maintenance.
This year they’ve budgeted $18 million toward the pension catch-up payments, up from $11 million. They project the payments will be around $25 million by 2025. It’s a black hole, and they won’t make the employees pay more or accept lower salaries. They’re trying to trick the taxpayers into paying it – they tried to get a Pension Obligation Bond without even telling us about it, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers had to put a cease and desist order on them.
On a related note, I and other taxpayer groups joined HJTA in an “amicus” letter to the state supreme court, asking them not to throw out the Taxpayer Protection Act. I’ll keep you posted. Letters were also submitted by our Assemblyman James Gallagher and the California Business Roundtable, to mention a couple. Here’s a letter I’m sending to the Enterprise Record.
In November, the Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA) will be on the state ballot – or will it? The governor and legislature are so worried about this measure they’re suing to remove it from the ballot before the voters have a chance to consider it.
The TPA requires voter approval of any new tax. It requires clear language regarding use of revenues. Chico staff informed council Measure H would be nullified if the TPA passed, because of ” a particular phrase”, meaning, use. Declaring the TPA “catastrophic”, staff convinced council to approve $100,000 to write a modified measure for the November ballot, in case TPA passes. The new measure will include the phrase “for general government use”.
Measure H was misleading, a 50%+1, or “general” measure that made specific promises which would require a 2/3’s vote under TPA – “repairing streets, storm drains, sidewalks, and fixing potholes; addressing homelessness; protecting 911 emergency response times; preserving the number of on‐duty police officers and fire fighters; maintaining/improving Bidwell Park, neighborhood parks…” General measures have no spending requirements.
If the new measure is passed, the revenues will continue to go into the General Fund. According to city budget policies, “financial surplus (determined by staff) in the General Fund shall be allocated as follows: 50% will be allocated to the Section 115 Pension Stabilization Trust; 25% will be allocated to the Public Infrastructure Replacement Fund…” the remainder going toward technology and equipment updates. This year council has budgeted $18,000,000 to CalPERS toward the pension deficit.
I received my primary ballot Monday, and I put it in the mail Tuesday. Among other important items, I put a solid NO on P and O.
O was easy – it’s an amendment to the General Plan. Here we’ve had letter writers in support of Valley’s Edge, mostly a realtor who plans to make a lot of money selling those houses, telling us that VE fits the General Plan. Why then would they need to amend the General Plan? Wake up and smell the bullshit People.
I don’t know if I need to, but let me lay out other simple reasons not to build in that swamp. There, “swamp” – that is what we call a “sufficient” reason, one good reason not to build housing – it’s a flood zone. I don’t know how much fill they were planning to use, but that area is a rain shed, it’s very moist, houses built there would be prone to intermittent flooding and MOLD every year. Those problems, like the mold problem at Chico Fire Station #5, would not start popping up until people had been living there for years. And then do what? Neither the developers nor the city would be legally responsible, and the owners, like the city, owner of Station #5, would just have to pay to fix it.
Traffic is already a sufficient reason – drive the Bruce Road corridor some weekday morning. My husband and I shop Winco on that end of town and it’s getting to be a regular daytrip. Take water, Frankly, if I have to spend my entire morning gathering food, I’d rather make a sharp left at Hwy 32 and head for Susanville – two big grocery stores in Susanville, prices, lower, no 1 cent sales tax on toilet paper. And compared to dealing with traffic and pot holes all morning, Reno is just a hop-skip-and a jump. Their Raley’s is huge, and I’ve never found a transient shooting up in the bathroom.
But what bugs me the most is that City of Chico does not take care of what we already have. We have square miles of city where there is no sewer service, no sidewalks, no drains, streets haven’t been maintained for years, and now they want to add new stuff? Again, in a swamp? I didn’t even get into fire risk. The proponents of this whole new part of town will never be responsible or liable for the mess they make, they will just walk away with the money. And the city will add PERMANENT NEW TAX BASE. Meanwhile, other parts of town will sink into the same condition as what we all affectionately refer to as The College Ghetto and Chapman Town.
Do you realize it costs over a quarter million a year to clean up bum shit and slop paint on graffitti Downtown? All assessed from Downtown business and property owners. According to the Downtown Business Improvement District Annual Report
Annual Downtown Business District Improvement Report
Downtown merchants and property owners spent $394,462.64 on “cleaning and safety programs, economic vitality programs, communication and marketing programs, special projects, and administration/advocacy.”
Here’s an itemized list of what they actually spent the money on –
Abandoned Property Plcked Up Bags ofTrash & Leaves Garbage cans cleaned Glass clean Up Graff iti/Stickers Removed Hazardous Waste Clean-up (human) Hazardous Waste CIean-up (pet) Seruice Call Sharps Clean Up shopping Carts spill – clean Up Street Furniture cleaned
In other words, the money goes to remediate problems caused by “street people”, including a $12,225 “administrative fee” to the city to run the program. This is a condition that has been created by Chico City Council. They have made Downtown and other parts of Chico a total shithole over the span of about five years – ever since they signed on to a scam known as a Shelter Crisis Designation. The first time they signed it they got over $4 million. Where that money went is your guess as good as mine. There has been no money since then, just a lawsuit that makes Chico PD look like the Keystone Cops. They even call it “whack-a-mole” in city reports. Now they plan to fizzle away another $24 million in Camp Fire disaster money – I know people in Paradise who are still waiting for their checks. I’d bet my last five dollars the city of Chico will fritter that disaster money away before my friends have rebuilt their destroyed lives.
They say they will do a total makeover of Downtown Chico, starting with sewers more than 100 years old. A new street design – gee, I can still remember the last one!
Frankly, I don’t think anybody on our current council is qualified to run a birthday party, much less a town. They’re for sale, every one of them. And to let them amend the General Plan every time a developer waves a hunsky at them, well, get ready for No Name City folks.
Chico Taxpayers Association 