by Jack
CITIZENS PROTESTING AT CHICO’S PLAZA PARK every WED AND FRI AT 1 PM
Is this the beginning of something very important to Chico? Frustrated y citizens plan to gather at Plaza Park and let their feelings be known, about the transients that seem to have taken over the plaza and liberals who encourage them to come here.
Fed-up with the crime, trash and destruction, the citizens turned to the police and City Council for help. “The homeless are taking over our town” was heard many times at city hall meetings and the downtown merchants reported in great detail about the money they were losing because of them. Residents living near Bidwell Park reported how illegal campers were trashing the park and polluting the pristine stream with urine, feces and trash.
City Park Rangers confirmed they have a serious problem. They would later help launch several raids on the larger camps which yielded some arrests on people running from warrants. There were of course many tickets issued for littering and city code violations. Tons of trash was cleaned up and hauled off, but it seemed to come back too soon as the illegal camps only multiplied. So this effort didn’t seem to accomplish much.
As the months passed there was a lot of talk by council that solutions were close at hand, but it never really materialized. There is no question, this was a real tough problem and so many communities have tried and failed to minimize their homeless problems. A few years ago when the problem first surfaced, I think Council underestimated what they were up against, now it’s a case too little, too late and the problem is a 100 times worse.
The Chico Police Chief attending the council meetings would defend his department’s inaction by putting a guilt trip on council and avoid dealing with their citizens legitimate concerns. ”Poverty is not a crime” he would say, appealing to their kind and gentle nature. “We should learn to be better neighbors so the homeless would be better neighbors.” In other words, why can’t we all just learn to lower our community standards and go along to get along?
On one occasion I heard the Chief explain to Council and I am paraphrasing again, “The citizens of our city surely don’t want to see their police officers used to make a focused enforcement effort on these poor homeless people and run them out of town?” Which, ironically, is probably what the majority of Chicoans would love to see happen!
(Doing laundry at the Plaza Park – see left) During these meetings on the homeless problem the Council heard all sorts of excuses why the police were basically powerless to do anything about stopping the flood of indigents into town. Well, let me rephrase that, I want to be accurate. The police are not completely powerless: Last week they were forced to shoot to death one of them after he assaulted and wounded two officers with a sharp object during the commission of a burglary (in the downtown). Glad it was them and not me, least they had guns and were prepared. Too many of our locals have been assaulted and or murdered by the new criminal element.
The police no longer have the vagrancy laws that were used quite well for the last 100 years to prevent just this sort of mass bum migration that is taking over Chico. The police don’t seem to have the manpower to even patrol Bidwell Park and bust those illegal camp sites that allow certain bums prowl our streets looking for something to steal.
In desperation the Council turned to the homeless advocates, these are professionals that were trained how to engage the bums in a helpful and caring dialog. A volunteer program was thus begun and it was called, “Chico Ambassadors!” Volunteers were trained in skills that would allow them to speak directly to the miscreants in a kind and non-threatening manner, to reach out to them. They would offer information how they bums could locate local social services, ostensibly to curb the rash of bums panhandling in the downtown. And at the same time, our kindly Ambassadors would educate the bums on our local laws and their responsibilities while in Chico, thereby instantly turning them into better citizens. This was a proposal made by our liberals to council.
(see right, homeless gather in Plaza Park with their expensive mountain bikes, camping gear, cell phones and drugs. Guess where they get the money to have these things?)
This program was without doubt the biggest flop of all. First off, they couldn’t begin to keep up with the flow of itinerants! They, many of them young and living an alternative lifestyle, didn’t want to hear their message. Other times they were high or drunk, so that whatever pearls of wisdom the Ambassadors had to impart were lost in seconds due to the recipients haze of intoxication. The City and the police have run out of ideas and the problem people keep coming here. The local stores are being hit for tens of thousands in shoplifting every week. For the criminal transient, Chico has been a great place to steal!
Now enter local citizens who have a plan of action of their own. This is a plan just starting to take root. These are good, law-abiding people, but they are fed-up with the crime and trash. They are also fed-up with the liberals that go to Plaza Park daily to pass out free sandwiches to the transients. And they are fed up with all the other “magnets” that keep them coming and allow them to stay here living on the street. The transients are avoiding work, avoiding counseling, avoiding rehab programs or anything that would direct them to a positive lifestyle change.
Chico’s citizens are for all intents are fed-up. 
They are just everyday citizens, people that feel compelled to take action to defend and protect their rights and their community from a constant assault.
(Photo on right shows more bikes and bike parts that the so-called homeless have in abundance.)
They are going to assemble in Plaza Park Wednesday and Friday at 1 PM to make their dissatisfaction known. They want to take back the Plaza so they can feel safe being there once again.
Will these locals get tough enough to run the criminal element part out of Chico? Heck, I have no idea, I have never been to one of their gatherings. All I know for sure is this movement has just started on it’s own, kind of like spontaneous combustion. There are more and more people showing up at Plaza Park to protest. Who knows what could happen. I think I will go this next Wed. and see what’s up? More to follow!
Suggest high-pressure fire hoses. In addition to moving the bums along, they also get a bath and the streets will be much cleaner!
Then Venezuela is the place for you. We don’t do that here anymore.
Stomping around the Plaza, cussing at the bums for an hour may make you feel better, but it’s hardly productive. This “tar and feathers” approach espoused by Jack and yourself is downright medieval. Shame on you both.
This issue of indigent citizens is entirely consequent of the manner in which resources are allocated in this society. If you are not willing to think about this, nothing will change.
Horsefeathers Libby!!!! Our government at all levels spends trillions of dollars every year on programs and help centers. We spend more on education than any other country. Charitable organizations spend (less so when the economy sucks as it has for eight years). More spending will never fix this…NEVER! In fact, to the degree that massive government spending shuts down the economy and jobs, spending only exacerbates the problem.
The problem has nothing to do with “resources” other than the fact that liberal (progressive-Marxist) policies ensure that the people in the middle and poor classes don’t personally have any!!!
Big government has as much of the resources ( personally property) as it can confiscate (through taxation and “fees”), otherwise known as wages, profits, and jobs. It then doles out according to it’s whims (bullet train) and picks winners (elite politicians and their corporate/union donors) and losers (ordinary citizens). It manages the truly poor with soup kitchens and shelters as a ruse to avoid being seen as ruthless and selfish.
On the social side you progressives support an anything goes agenda, glorifying and mainstreaming open and deviant sexuality, drug and alcohol use, bad manners, disrespect for authority and the law, rebelliousness and disregard for fellow citizens and property while simultaneously attacking and smearing anyone who stands for public decency, individual rights, respect for authority and adherence to laws.
There is very little support for children or for dysfunctional citizens to live and thrive in such a hostile environment made worse by the lousy educational system, economy, and job situation.
Get a clue lady…after eight to ten years of Obamanomics our nation is falling into absolute ruin. Is it so surprising that there are growing numbers of people living on the streets in abject poverty or by hopeless choice, panhandling as a means of getting by?
Of course you’ll never see the reality unless/until you drop that smug, superior attitude and humble yourself a bit.
Well said, Tina!
More resources “allocated” by the “watermelons” (green on the outside, red on the inside.)
https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2017/08/electric-cars-and-child-slavery.html
Chico makes National News, although not in a good way!
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/08/resistance-california-republican-may-die-pain/
Once again, the LunaticLeft displays their LACK of manners and tolerance.
And their ignorance about the many ways this bad law is harming their fellow citizens and the industries associated with it.
This guy gets paid for re-writing LA Times articles to suit Breitbart? The world we live in !!
Most of these so called bums used to occupy our prisons. Then some elitist Judge said we have prison overcrowding. The answer to this problem was to raise the threshold of a felony, and release “non-violent” offenders. Why not build more prisons? It would employ Californians, and clean our streets of the vermin. Common sense is not very common anymore. Progressive solutions are best left to banal conversations at College Universities. Let’s take our town back!
Good point. I’d like to know how exactly many of them there are Chico.
“Progressive solutions are best left to banal conversations at College Universities.”
Agreed…unless it’s used as “education,” otherwise known as brainwashing.
Jeff, it doesn’t bother you at all that we already imprison the highest percentage of our population than ANY OTHER COUNTRY ON THIS PLANET?
All right … second highest …
https://www.statista.com/statistics/262962/countries-with-the-most-prisoners-per-100-000-inhabitants/
Actually, that must be why we do it … it does not bother you.
Actually, Libby, since socialist Democrats have run a great many of our big cities and states, and since they have controlled the US Congress for most of the past seventy years, and since they have controlled education, and since they have controlled major media and entertainment, we should be asking you why it doesn’t occur to you that your methods and policies just don’t work. In fact, they lead to this terrible outcome!
Your party has led a campaign to undermine morality and authority, demean religion, destroy marriage and the family and replace it with dependence on government, and pushed a social agenda that divides people into groups that it then pits against each other. You glorify attitudes that lead to addiction. You shut down the economy and destroy jobs and wonder why people end up on the streets!
Take some responsibility for once…
Jack
Pretty brutal. You need to go find out about what it is exactly on Wednesdays and Fridays. You don’t have it right. We want only to let people know that EVERYONE can go to the park, it should be safe, it’s ALL OF OURS. People are scared and disgusted going to the park. It shouldn’t be tgat way. It’s not about liberals passing out sandwiches at all. A certain person decided to make this into his own bash against the lunch meet and greet and fight for the trabsient/homeless rights. His idea is where else can these poor people go? It’s the transients stealing, doing so many drugs, running baked, having sex downtown, etc. This needs to stop. The trashing of our town needs to stop. We need to get a grip on this before it gets way worse. But please go on Wednesday or Friday and check out the positive good vibe…..THEN WRITE.
Would love for you to come to the plaza for lunch this Wednesday or Friday at 1:00pm! Please come and introduce yourself. I’d be happy to tell you what the lunches are really all about. It is far from a protest. We are quite simply enjoying lunch in our City Plaza!!
Have you ever attended a lunch at the Plaza?!? Is this first hand information you are spewing–or another “opinion” sounding off without direct knowledge?!?
I read a lot of slams against those who are trying to address the problem and been ineffective, but no constructive suggestion here.
The reality of this homeless issue is that there is absolutely no possible way , any “home having” person , or all home owners as a majority , will ever understand, sympathize, empathize, or realize the perspective of any one the “citizens” that make up either the stereotypical or the unlikely variants of the tramp ,hobo, bum, transient , homeless and dirtlegged hordes that seem to blatantly stain the sanctity of our great town with their offal.
The shame of it all is that many of your assumptions are blanket accusations on an entire demographic rather than focused only on a few select idiots. Ignorance dwells in both uptown Mansions as well as in downtown tent cities.
Beyond this, the deliberate segregation and persecution of ALL homeless people, by both the city government of Chico and many of it’s citizens is creating the catalyst for a gestapo agenda not unlike the very regimes that your Republican gods condemn nightly on FOX news!
Think for a second of what you might do , if suddenly ,you found yourself “Outside” lving behind no door, whatsoever, with limited resources, and with no relation to you , friend or family, who was feeling any sort of concern that their loved one sleeps in the park.
It’s pretty bleak.
It’s very humbling.
And every single moment of your consciousness is your worst nightmare come true.
Imagine having to break the law , every time that you had to go to just the bathroom, if its after the time of eight o clock! Finding a shower to take, is challenging, and only available specific times 5 out of 7 days a week .Meanwhile any dog can do his business anywhere at anytime in Bidwell park, as long as you pick it up and put it in a bag afterwards.
The pollution that some idiots create in our parks is unexcusable, and rampant criminal activity cannot continue to encroach on our public places either.
Not all of the homeless population are guilty of these behaviors. However, if you are unlucky enough to be counted as part of the perpetually camping populace here in Chico, You can and will be blamed for all trash , tents in the parks, and receive tickets or worse for mere misunderstandings or bad timing.
We have and do, misuse funding and waste resources on poorly planned and executed initiatives.
But is it a solution for this problem,bid it consists of throwing your hands up , and using the exact tactics that were used in the south during the civil rights movement?
We need to develop a system of rehabilitation that has to awsnser for and justify the end result of careful and correct planning, followed budgets, and competently designed programs for the homeless problem, not a system of progressive punishment for those who have made a few poor , but not intrinsically ,criminal decisions.
Three years ago I worked on the 35th floor of a skyscraper in downtown in Los Angeles. I wore a tie and I drove a Mercedes Benz home after work and kissed my amazing and beautiful girlfriend when I opened the door to our lavish apartment.I remember smiling completely then and just exactly how it felt ,in that fleeting moment of satisfaction that only came from a lifetime of hard
work and perseverance.
I have not forgotten.
All we can do sometimes is pick ourselves up and start all over again.
All we want is to return back into acknowledged society, and to be respected through our own hard work and commitment.
No free rides.
I only want to ride on my I own merit .
Thank you for your time
Jack Franklin
Check it out! You’ve finally got some community participation on this site.
Or … the ladies are ganging up on you, Jack. They strenuously object to your medieval attitude toward their efforts, and good for them.
You shouldn’t be scared of the bums. The bums largely harmless … just like the rest of the population. I don’t know why you insist that violent bums are more dangerous to our society than, say, violent spouses. It’s not true. Still, there is a real limit to what can be done locally. Chico doesn’t have a whole lot of money. The country does, but Chico doesn’t, so it’s on a national policy level that inequities will be balanced.
If we don’t get nuked first:
From the NYT: President Donald Trump demanded North Korea not “make any more threats” to the U.S., saying the U.S. would respond “with the fire and the fury like the world has never seen.”
What a jackass. I hope you all were telling the truth when you said you didn’t REALLY vote for him. I am totally humiliated to have a jackass for a president, so if I’d voted for him I’d feel much, much worse.
“Largely harmless??
Victims of an attack, threats or a business where shoplifting is king may disagree. And there’s nothing harmless about defecating in public or in Bidwell Park.
I ask again, Libby – How many bums have YOU invited into your home to feed, clothe and support?
I look forward to the ER’s and PS coverage of Wednesday In The Park.
Just a note: Jack, the word “bum” is beneath you. Let’s get to really know these people. I don’t call them bums anymore. They are human beings and most have had a very rough road. So rough it makes me admire them greatly for just being willing to go on. I’m very serious about this. Please learn their names and personal stories. It will humanize them. It was good to meet you. I hope we talk again. Patrick Newman
One other thought: When you whip-up rhetoric about vigilantes, there are young punks that actually take this as permission to do violence to random homeless people. Disabled people get hurt and killed; it happens. And, it won’t make the homeless magically disappear. It puts people in the hospital or a wheelchair or in the morgue. When caught, these punks do jail time. It’s a no win direction. So, if you don’t want blood on your hands, I think you should back it down. You certainly did not appear to me as man that would support this kind of violence. I’m no pacifist, but much violence is just plain senseless. Thank you for the conversation. I do appreciate it.
Well, well … I will be interested to see how Post Scripts deals with this change.
why
cant
we
all
just
get
along