Clean, safe and costly

“I know some people just can’t fathom that we need security downtown, and I don’t think anybody loves the idea,” Melanie Bassett, executive director of the Downtown Chico Business Association, said regarding armed security guards patrolling the city center. “It’s unfortunate we have to have them, but right now I believe it’s necessary.”

The DCBA is hoping community members agree the security detail is such a necessity that they’re willing to help foot the bill. On March 1, the group launched the Beautiful, Clean & Safe Community Campaign, an effort to crowdfund $130,000 to continue hiring armed guards, as well as maintain the Downtown Ambassador and Jesus Center Cleanup Brigade programs, through next spring.

Bassett explained the new campaign is an extension of work begun by the Clean & Safe Chico action group, a coalition of business owners, community leaders and city representatives brought together in November 2012 to address crime, littering, loitering and other issues related to downtown’s “transient” population. (Bassett is quick to differentiate between locals and “more problematic traveling homeless” people).

Clean & Safe’s accomplishments include starting the Downtown Ambassador program, which puts volunteers downtown to greet visitors, distribute tourist information and inform homeless individuals about available services. The group’s other initiative is the Cleanup Brigade, which pays Jesus Center clients to clean the streets each morning.

Less universally accepted are the guards, who are employees of Armed Guard Private Protection Services, initially hired in 2013 by now-defunct community group the R-Town Downtown Coalition. After a brief lapse, the guards returned to downtown late last year, this time under contract with the DCBA.

“Over the holidays it was decided again that we needed private security,” Bassett said. “We needed to take whatever measures necessary to keep downtown safe for people to come shop, and to ensure the success of downtown merchants. It worked, and we had a great holiday season.”

The DCBA has continued to employ the guards since, and Bassett said they sometimes get a bad rap. Their main purpose, she said, is to move problem individuals along rather than make arrests, and she knows of multiple occasions when guards have given money to homeless people “out of their own wallets” for food or a place to stay. She said the guards, ambassadors and Chico Police Department representatives meet regularly and work together to provide a combination of security and outreach missing since the CPD disbanded its TARGET team in 2012.

“We’re all trying to work together on how we can help people lift themselves up and off the streets,” she said.

Though she didn’t provide exact figures, Bassett confirmed the bulk of the $130,000 would go to security. The remainder will fund a coordinator of the Downtown Ambassador program, who currently works 25 hours a week, along with four Jesus Center clients, each of whom work about 15 hours weekly. Other funds will be directed toward the advertising campaign for Beautiful, Clean & Safe, which ultimately will include bus shelter signs, televised public service announcements, posters placed around town and fundraising merchandise.

Bassett also said she hopes crowdfunding these efforts is necessary only for the next year, as the DCBA is currently working with the city to raise members’ annual assessment fees, which have remained static since the group began in 1975.

“That means people are still paying like $11 or $25 a year, and they’re wondering what the heck the DCBA does for them,” she said. “Right now, our assessments only amount to about $25,000 a year, but in other cities they cover entire operating costs.”