Month: March 2024

A detour to the Cesar Chavez monument

At the southern tip of Highway 99
by ChicoSol staff | Posted March 27, 2024

photo by Lindajoy Fenley
The gravesites of Cesar and Helen Chavez.

Editor’s note: ChicoSol is reviving its Highway 99 series that was popular some 10 years ago to mark this year’s Cesar Chavez Day. State Route 99 cuts through California’s Central Valley, where union organizing had a tremendous impact.

by Lindajoy Fenley
posted March 27

The final resting place of Cesar Chavez, who led strikes to improve the lot of underpaid and disrespected farmworkers nationwide more than 50 years ago, has the peaceful moniker Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz.

It has been headquarters of Chavez’s United Farm Workers union (UFW) since 1972 and a National Monument where the labor leader’s March 31 birthday has been celebrated annually since 2010. A warning sign that entry to the area is “impassable during high water” serves as a metaphor that the struggle for farmworker rights still faces challenges. Indeed, the bucolic spot tucked into the hills 30 miles east of Highway 99, a few miles before it merges into Interstate 5, is not immune from the controversy that marked Chavez’s life. read more

Chico residents again plea for a ceasefire resolution

Some students say they're facing harassment
by Natalie Hanson | Posted March 21, 2024

photo by Natalie Hanson
Yahmo Aqhba: “[The war is] affecting people, killing people we know and love.”

A group of Chico residents again have called on city leaders — in a third effort — to pass a ceasefire resolution that would show support for the Palestinian community amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

At the meeting earlier this week (March 19), activist Rain Scher stepped to the podium to present a revised ceasefire resolution to the City Council. Scher, a member of Chico Jews in Solidarity with Palestine, pointed out that the new resolution calls for declaring that all human life is “precious.” Scher told ChicoSol that the resolution “explicity names both the Palestinian and Israeli casualties.” read more

Thank You, Judge Ann: A Remembrance

by Kim Weir | Posted March 19, 2024

photo courtesy of Butte County Superior Court
Judge Ann Rutherford

Retired Superior Court Judge Ann Rutherford, the first female judge in Butte County, served 40 years on the California bench. She died Feb. 16.

The people who Judge Ann Rutherford left behind are now sharing their verities about her. Groundbreaking, she was, and trailblazing. Remarkable. Highly regarded, sharp-minded, and quick-witted, too. She was all that.

But no words capture her depth of commitment to justice, or the fierceness of her intelligence and character. Anyone who mistook her decency and fairness for gullibility would regret it. She took no prisoners.

Once, an acquaintance of mine came before Judge Ann in a contentious divorce — one so nasty it led to criminal contempt charges against her ex-husband. His continuing harassment and defiance landed him in jail. Twice. The third time, Judge Ann told the bailiff to lock him up, with only a legal pad and pen, until he wrote his ex-wife a sincere letter of apology. And if, at the end of court that day, Judge Ann wasn’t happy with the letter’s content or tone, she would then send him to prison. read more

Chico voters rejecting planned community Valley’s Edge

Environmental costs and traffic influenced voters
by Natalie Hanson | Posted March 7, 2024

photo by Leslie Layton
The Valley’s Edge houses would be built on lava cap.

Editor’s note: The Butte County Clerk-Recorder’s office released official election results on March 28 that show that almost 63% voted NO on Measure O and 62% opposed Measure P.

Preliminary results in the primary election show Chico voters rejecting the controversial Valley’s Edge project that would produce a planned community east of City limits.

As of March 8, the preliminary count showed the number of “NO” votes on measures O and P at 62% of some 19,000 ballots that had been counted. Those measures would amend the General Plan and the Valley’s Edge Specific Plan to allow the development. read more