Chico mayor delivers State of the City address
CHICO, Calif. — Mayor Andrew Coolidge delivered Chico's annual State of the City address Thursday morning.
He was joined by City Manager Mark Sorensen and Chico Police Chief Billy Aldridge.
The city's ongoing homelessness issue took center stage during the address, with Coolidge touting recent efforts to clear illegal encampments. Chico recently reached a settlement in the Warren v. Chico suit, which left the city with an injunction preventing them from clearing campsites. It delayed enforcement for a month but Coolidge says the city is now actively clearing out those sites.
"Eventually, through enforcement, we will get all these areas of the city eventually clean. It's just going to take some time in doing it because each place that we end up cleaning we has a seven-day notification of the actual campers, and then three days where we notice the sites themselves before we come in and start cleaning up. So, it's really a process."
Coolidge says he hopes to have made headway on enforcement by this summer or fall. Chief Aldridge echoed his frustration with the legal proceedings, noting he's had to pull officers from patrol duties and reassign them to homeless encampment clearing.
This as the Chico Police Department faces its ongoing staffing shortage. Aldridge says it continues to be a challenge competing with other police departments north of Sacramento that offer more competitive pay and sign-on bonuses to new recruits. He also points to burnout and different generational attitudes that come with younger hires.
"It’s a competitive process getting people now. We’ve had to come up with mandatory overtime and with mandatory overtime creates burnout and this job already has a burnout period, so now we're expediting that burnout period," he said. "This generation of people coming into law enforcement want their time off and that's more valuable to them than money so that's the challenge you know the welfare of your officers."
Aldridge says the department has made 19 hires since January 2022. That includes seven sworn officers. He says there are still 10 vacant officer positions. The Department also hired one public safety dispatcher but there still seven other dispatch positions that must be filled.
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