Border-crossing journalism from the Sacramento Valley
by Maya Klein
guest commentary
posted Dec. 10
Ed. note: This is a condensed version of a presentation made by Chico’s Maya Klein at a Dec. 7 statewide Ethnic Media Services briefing.
My high school — Inspire School of Arts and Sciences — is a bubble within Chico. Our student vaccination rate is 82%, and our population generally follows mask and hygiene guidelines.
by Leslie Layton
posted Nov. 30, 2021
A Chico nonprofit shut down an emergency hotel-based shelter program today, and this reporter was told to leave the property at Town House Motel where residents had been staying.
The program, funded by the CARES Act, placed unhoused people at high risk for COVID or COVID-related complications in motels and hotels. The shelter program was expected to stay in place until the end of January 2022, but was ended Nov. 30 after participants were given two weeks notice.
District 2 Supervisor Debra Lucero, speaking today at The Hands in a press conference, warned that the Butte County Board of Supervisors’ conservative majority may attempt to pass a gerrymandered map at a special 1 p.m. Nov. 22 meeting.
The county spent some $80,000 on consultants who drew up several redistricting maps, but instead are considering a map proposed by Paradise Supervisor Doug Teeter that slices the city of Chico into four parts and the city of Oroville into three. Lucero says Teeter’s map was designed by a Republican strategist and she and District 3 Supervisor Tami Ritter argue it would dilute Chico’s representation and give lopsided power to agricultural interests.— Leslie Layton
by Leslie Layton
Several days prior to the third anniversary of the devastating Camp Fire, a group of Paradise residents and former residents hoisted a banner with their message to the world painted in charcoal: “COP26: WE ARE ON FIRE. DO SOMETHING!”
Gathered in the Plumas National Forest in the Dixie Fire burn scar on Nov. 6, the demonstrators said their message was directed to world leaders at COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference underway in Glasgow, Scotland. “The climate crisis is here. We are on fire,” said Allen Myers, executive director of nonprofit Regenerating Paradise.
by Leslie Layton
story updated at 4 p.m. Nov. 4
Local law enforcement agencies violated the law when they failed to respond fully and promptly – the Butte County District Attorney’s Office didn’t respond for months — to public record requests made by a local journalist.
District Attorney Mike Ramsey didn’t respond to a pair of public record requests made by ChicoSol contributor Dave Waddell during the 10-day period required by the California Public Records Act (CPRA), and in fact didn’t respond at all until Waddell hired an attorney.
by Leslie Layton
The winter sheltering organization Safe Space jumped into high gear today as a ferocious early storm flooded homeless encampments. But Safe Space said it was only able to shelter 35 of the hundreds of unhoused people living in encampments.
Siana Sonoquie, a Safe Space board member, said she was contacted early today by an unhoused resident of the Comanche Creek encampment who reported that the area was flooding, tree limbs were falling down and one person was missing. “We started looking for a church,” Sonoquie said. “We’re used to doing this now and have a pretty quick system, with protocols in place and a lot of practice.”
