Month: July 2025

Pressure on media grows

Journalists worry about their safety, freedom
by Natalie Hanson | Posted July 31, 2025
Demonstrators on No Kings Day in Chico. Photo by Leslie Layton.

The Los Angeles Press Club and investigative reporting network Status Coup in June filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) that describes how journalists have been shot with police rounds, tear-gassed and detained.

According to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, the lawsuit describes “multiple instances of officers firing foam projectiles at members of the media” and “flouting state laws” that restrict the use of certain weapons in crowd control.

This and other such lawsuits are one step journalists are taking to confront growing attacks on press freedom and safety across the country. Although a federal judge has already ordered LAPD to stop firing rubber bullets at journalists, other legal actions have only just begun. read more

Butte County responds to courthouse ICE arrests

Hispanic Resource Council & other groups answer call to action
by Leslie Layton | Posted July 29, 2025
Hispanic Resource Council flier letting immigrant workers know that they can find out if they qualify for a grocery gift card by calling 530-519-3118.

This story was updated on July 30 with a statement from Butte County Superior Court.

Officers from Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) made a July 28 appearance at Butte County Superior Court and may have arrested as many as six people.

Action News Now reported that six people were arrested after ICE arrived, quoting an “unnamed source.” The advocacy organization NorCal Resist said it had confirmed one arrest when that person’s companion connected with its Rapid Response Network. ICE agents have been taking immigrants at courthouses throughout the state, but it was the first confirmed ICE sweep at a courthouse in Butte County.

NorCal Resist will offer a July 30 court watch training for interested citizens. read more

Seven years after fatal bike crash, a Chico doctor is still missed

It was the driver's second collision with a bike; was county, too, at fault?
by Yucheng Tang | Posted July 28, 2025
Doherty was participating in Cycle Oregon. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Whipple.

On the morning of a windless Saturday in late July 2018, Chico surgeon William Doherty parked his car at the Chico airport, unloaded his Trek Domane road bike, and rode northeast along Cohasset Road.

Cycle Oregon—a weeklong ride Doherty had participated in for many years—was around the corner. Doherty was training on Cohasset, where the road climbs up to the town on the ridge, to get ready for the Oregon trip.

He rode on the narrow bike lane at the beginning of the route. After about 7 miles, the road narrows and the lane on the shoulder disappears. Cyclists consider this part of the road dangerous, and Doherty had even created a term for it—“Paranoia Alley.”

Not long after he started climbing “Paranoia Alley,” Doherty noticed a ragged crumbling at the edge of a patch of roadway and steered around it. Meanwhile, Jim Voyles, who was driving to Cohasset to work, attempted to pass Doherty on the left, according to filings by the Butte County District Attorney’s Office, which would later charge him with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. read more

Road bikers want more signage, driver education

"Bicycles are also vehicles"
by Yucheng Tang | Posted July 28, 2025
Steve O’Bryan, longtime owner of a Main Street bike shop. Photo by Yucheng Tang.

Butte County’s flat valley and curving mountain roads have long been popular with cyclists — from recreational bikers to bike commuters. But safety is a major concern—especially on a stretch of Cohasset Road outside city limits.

Steve O’Bryan, owner of Pullins Cyclery, said he now receives three to four crash-damaged bikes every month, and believes that number has increased in recent years as the city grows.

Like other cyclists, O’Bryan finds that stretch of Cohasset Road outside city limits nerve-wracking—especially where the road narrows. O’Bryan said he rides on Cohasset Road very carefully. (Butte County officials recently met with Cohasset residents. See main story for more.) read more

Maze gates and right-of-way rules worry cyclists

South Park Drive makeover to be reconsidered
by Ann Bykerk-Kauffman, guest writer | Posted July 24, 2025
A driver on South Park Drive where cars would not be allowed. Photo by Yucheng Tang.

Opposition to the recent Chico City Council decision for South Park Drive near One Mile Recreation Area has been immediate and fierce, mostly focused on the plan to extend the car-free portion to the entrance gate.

On June 17 the Council approved the following proposal for that portion of South Park Drive:

  1. Repave it, maintaining its current width
  2. Extend the motor vehicle-free portion westward to the Bidwell Park entrance gate at Cypress Street 
  3. Repave the driveway to the Sycamore Pool parking lot and build two new driveways to the Sycamore Field and Caper Acres parking lots
  4. Pave the parking lots with permeable pavement
  5. Abandon and re-vegetate the parking areas along the north side of South Park Drive and the egress driveway located just east of Caper Acres.

But the Chico Safe Streets Coalition, an active transportation advocacy group, opposes the plan, too. Why? Although, on the face of it, the closure of South Park Drive seems to facilitate bicycle and pedestrian transportation, the current implementation plan does the opposite – the devil is in the details. 

During the June 17 meeting, Brendan Ottoboni, director of Public Works – Engineering, revealed that he planned to install “bike path gates” (a.k.a. “maze gates”) on either side of each of the three driveways that would cross South Park Drive; he also implied that cyclists and pedestrians on South Park Drive would lose the right of way they have enjoyed for decades and would instead have to stop and yield to motorists at every crossing driveway.  read more

Chico’s Debajito releases debut album

Entremundos: an antidote to stressful times
by ChicoSol staff | Posted July 21, 2025
Photo courtesy of Debajito.

“De La Patagonia hasta el Rio Grande/El amor de la vida es lo que siempre sobresale“

(“From Patagonia to the Rio Grande/The love for life is what always prevails”)

The Chico-based band Debajito that has fused rhythms from across the Americas and kept local dance floors crowded will release its debut album, “Entremundos” (“Between Worlds”) within weeks.

Entremundos, to be released on streaming services Aug 5, celebrates the message that “another world is possible,” according to a Debajto press release. The album’s songs will be publicly unveiled July 25 at the Sierra Nevada Big Room, when the local band opens for Ozomatli, the well-known Grammy award-winning rock group from Los Angeles. (The show is sold out.) read more