Letters for February 6, 2020

Homelessness, housing

One way to avoid having the homeless camping on our sidewalks would be to provide free dwellings and utilities in trailers similar to those provided by PG&E for their employees at the Tuscan Ridge on Skyway at a location similar to that.

This should be a guarded community similar to Tuscan Ridge. Reasonable rent should be charged to those receiving any kind of income. Free bus service would be needed to the city transportation center. There would be other services required in addition to those mentioned.

Providing housing for the homeless can be compared to providing food stamps. We can’t stand by and watch people starve, and we shouldn’t have to watch people die due to lack of shelter.

Dick Fernandez

Paradise

Housing affordability is no longer just a low-income crisis in Butte County: The median household income in Butte County is $43,165. Meaning as many households make more than $43,165 as make less. The federal definition for affordable housing is housing that costs less than or equal to 30 percent of your gross income, including utilities.

A household median income would be in an affordable housing situation with rent plus utilities being less than or equal to $1,079 a month. Compare this with a luxury two-bedroom, two-bathroom home for $1,395, which translates to 33 percent above the household median affordability, not including utilities!

Fair market value for a two-person household rental in Butte and Glenn counties was $1,144 in 2019. Hence median income affordability in Butte County falls below fair-market rate for people living in a two-person dwelling. Look out, middle-middle class—you’re next!

Bill Mash

Chico

Primary election chatter

All public agencies have the same spending problem. As the CN&R reported in 2007, ever-increasing salaries with little or no contribution from employees toward the cost of overgenerous benefits packages have created enormous “liabilities.” That is, the difference between what employees expect to get in pension, and what they pay into it.

Until recently, for example, Chico Area Recreation and Park District employees paid nothing toward their pensions, even those making salaries over $100,000/year. Now the general manager, with a recent salary increase to $124,000/year, pays only 8 percent of that agency’s cost for a pension of 70 percent of highest year’s salary. This has created a pension deficit of over $2.7 million for an agency with 34 full-time employees.

Both the city and CARD have proposed tax increases. CARD’s parcel tax, Measure A, is on the March 3 ballot. They say they need more money to sustain services and infrastructure, but, like the city of Chico, they admit to deferring maintenance on facilities for years while paying millions toward their pension deficit.

In 2015, a consultant told CARD he could bring Shapiro Pool up to code for about $550,000. The board paid $400,000 toward their pension liability, and closed Shapiro Pool.

No on Measure A.

Juanita Sumner

Chico

When disaster hit, Sue Hilderbrand cleared out her spare room and invited my family into her home. For eight months, she never said a word about dog hair and our evacuated possessions being all over her normally tidy house. She allowed me free rein in her kitchen and shared the serenity of her beautiful garden.

The colleges canceling classes didn’t mean time off for instructor Hilderbrand; it meant more time to contribute. Sue immediately investigated the many opportunities to volunteer.

During our stay, Sue was approached about running for District 4 supervisor. It was so interesting to watch the process by which she weighed the pros and cons of running. Her considerate, selfless and intelligent decision was made based on what would be good for the people of Butte County, not on personal aspirations.

Sue’s experience working with government agencies, large budgets and diverse populations combine to make her the best person for this important position. Her abilities to listen, consider and then respond intelligently and respectfully, make Sue Hilderbrand the candidate of choice for this moment in our county.

Sue is a shining star, prepared and qualified to lead us through this quagmire to a healthy future.

Sharon North

Yankee Hill

Tod Kimmelshue’s Farm Bureau endorsement says more about the wealthy interests he will serve than it boasts his conservation or smart-growth cred. The national organization (American Farm Bureau Federation) is colluding with Trump and his trade wars to bankrupt smaller farmers. They are intentionally accelerating the consolidation of monopolies for the sake of profit. The families destroyed by resulting suicides be damned.

Agri-business monopolies are the opposite of family farms and economies that put people first. We need local food systems that increase ecosystem and human health and circulate income locally. Butte County’s agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are the gigaton elephant in the room. Is this financier going to challenge farmers to make their operations more efficient? Would he entertain programs to turn our farms and rangeland into net carbon sinks? Or is he going to maintain the status quo of monocrop chemical warfare so crops come in and banks and corporations get paid?

Transforming our food system is going to take a lot of work, and we can start by building a firewall to keep corporate interests off the Board of Supervisors.

Steve Breedlove

Chico

“Do you support the Butte Regional Conservation Plan (BRCP)?” That was asked at a recent League of Women Voters of Butte County candidates forum. As a stakeholder of the BRCP committee for 10 years, I was intrigued.

The District 4 supervisor candidates had very opposite responses, with Tod Kimmelshue opposing and Sue Hilderbrand in favor. Tod stated his association with the Farm Bureau and talked about limitations of use of a farmer’s property.

However, this oversimplifies the effect on farmers and creates a knee-jerk reaction by suggesting this would be forced on farmers, when in fact conservation easements would be 100 percent voluntary. The reality is that it is an opportunity for a small percentage (max 10 percent) of rice lands to be included in conservation lands for the county. In return, a farmer would receive substantial compensation that could be used toward buying additional farmland or equipment to make efficiency improvements. A benefit for both farmers and the well-being of the county.

The goal of the BRCP is to streamline the development process and reduce building costs, while also protecting Butte County’s threatened and endangered species. It’s based on the best science and planning possible. Candidate Hilderbrand is right to support this.

Phil Johnson

Chico

I sat spellbound by the movie Just Mercy. I came away inspired. The movie wasn’t the gist of my inspiration, but rather its connection to a here and now situation in Butte County. A candidate for District 4, Sue Hilderbrand, is having her campaign signs stolen. One person has been harassed to the extent of fearing for her safety. With the sheriff endorsing the opposing candidate, many are uncomfortable complaining.

We might think the end justifies the means, that our favorite candidate should be running the show, but what is the show? At the end of the day the show is justice, civil liberties and democracy. The alternative is tyranny. If we steal signs, we are stealing a person’s freedom of speech. If we seek unfair advantage through gerrymandering, voter suppression, harassment or other means, we are putting personal preference or corrupt intentions ahead of democracy.

Just Mercy is about standing up to fear and keeping tyranny in check. You may be nauseated by the injustice you see in the movie. If not, the sign-stealers may be your people. From a Rotten Tomatoes critique, “enough urgency to overcome a certain degree of earnest advocacy.”

Don Fultz

Oroville

‘Get over it!’

The “liberal press” owes Mike “Benghazi” Pompeo an apology. All this hub-bub about his perfect interaction with the NPR/Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. Get over it! He was just trying to thank her for the startling information she told him about where Ukraine is located.

It is always hard for a misogynist to thank a woman for help, so he waited until the last line of his statement to do so, showing her his gratitude for teaching him that Belarus was not Ukraine after two years as our secretary of state.

With the obvious lack of integrity in the Senate, we’re in for many more “get over it” moments.

Rich Meyers

Oroville

Some trial

The next time anyone receives notification for jury duty, that means they must appear. If I were called and questions were asked by the prosecution and defense, the question I would ask them in return would be: Will there be witnesses and evidence presented or am I to make a decision solely based on the attorney statements alone?

Shouldn’t the U.S. SINate proceedings have the American people demanding a mistrial? Guess one would have to have a trial to get a mistrial. Facts are now irrelevant?

J. Troy Chambers

Live Oak

GOP hypocrisy

Trump myrmidons lose it when reminded that they were all called “poorly educated supporters” by Comrade Trump himself at a Las Vegas rally in 2016. They’re not at all bothered when Trump brags of being able to “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and still have the support of right-wingers.

But when they believe his lies of a “red hot” economy, my blood pressure rises. Just a small history lesson example tells uninformed third-grade Trump-hat wearers that in 1979, under President Jimmy Carter, the gross domestic product grew at a 3.16 percent rate, compared with Trump’s 2019 GDP rate growth of a measly 2.3 percent.

Even after huge tax cuts for billionaires and wealthy rice farmers like Doug LaMalfa, Wall Street 401K owners are wallowing in hog heaven, while 99 percent of Americans work two jobs to scrape by, and millions of others beg on the streets.

We all watched history in the making; for the first time ever, no witnesses were allowed in a Senate impeachment trial. You just can’t make up this kind of right-wing hypocrisy.

Ray Estes

Redding

Trump’s lies on TBI

For several days after Iran fired 22 rockets into Iraq, Trump said that no American troops were injured. A week later the Pentagon announced that a number of troops were seriously injured and sent to military hospitals in Germany and America.

The latest total is 50, many suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Trump said they were just headaches, but why would someone with a headache be airlifted to Germany for just aspirin?

As someone who was wounded in Vietnam, I follow war news and it makes me angry when a president (Republican or Democrat) misleads our nation about casualties with Fake News. The troops know the facts. As Sgt. Joe Friday use to say, “Just the facts, Ma’am.”

And those who suffered a traumatic brain injury will be awarded Purple Hearts. Those with just a headache are not awarded Purple Hearts. I wonder if Trump takes an aspirin a day for his “bone spur” disability he used to avoid the Vietnam draft.

Bob Mulholland

Chico

Slow the roll on hotel

Marriott is proposing to build a four-story, 112-room hotel on the corner of Bruce Road and Sierra Sunrise Terrace in California Park, within the largest senior residential community in Chico. An initial “environmental checklist” was completed prior to grading the parcel. While that study raised concerns about some negative environmental impacts, those findings pertained only to the grading of the land. Now the proposed hotel is being considered for a conditional use permit, required by the city because it does not fit within the parameters of Chico’s general plan for this area.

And it is clear that the construction and operation of the hotel would create many more negative environmental concerns than did the mere grading of the land. I find no evidence that an environmental impact report was done on this project. If this is the case, then it is imperative that a full EIR needs to be completed.

Jeffrey Lambkin

Chico

Listen up, Caltrans

Why is Caltrans butchering all our freeway landscaping?

The landscaping used to be beautiful, especially at East Avenue and 20th street, and now it’s lollipop trees, mulch and trash. The wattles they’ve installed to hold the mulch in place is intended for temporary usage, but apparently Caltrans thinks that leaving those ugly things in place is fine with the people of Chico. Not so!

And didn’t Caltrans’ mother ever teach them to pick up after themselves? They’ve cut the oleanders down to practically nothing, and left the trimmings laying around the median for months. Is this not a fire hazard? Not to mention ugly, ugly, ugly?

Caltrans, before you do any more butchering on the oleanders, clean up the mess you’ve already made. Better yet, leave the oleanders alone, and just clean up your mess.

Lisa Chambers

Chico

Missing Kris and Cecile

Re “So long, familiar faces” (Downstroke, Nov. 28):

Why were two of the station’s best anchors let go? Kris Kuyper was great—why the change? And Cecile Juliette was such a great report anchor. Channel 12 has done this often—Why?

Sue Spann

Chico