City explains process for tiny homes on church parking lots

Email to ChicoSol from Brendan Vieg
by Brendan Vieg | Posted December 14, 2025

ChicoSol asked City Community Development Director Brendan Vieg to explain the process that is required for the placement of tiny homes on church parking lots. The following is Vieg’s Dec. 11 response to our story and request.

Council did not “approve” NSST’s tiny home project for church parking lots as stated in your article.  Instead, Council voted to support the idea in general and directed that NSST bring forward an application and that staff do everything they can, within reason, to support a successful public process and outcome.  read more

Chico State student remembered for her generosity, work with the unhoused

Butte County's third fatal domestic violence incident in 2 years
by Natalie Hanson | Posted December 12, 2025
Alexandra Wynter’s photo on her social media.

Chicoans are honoring the memory of a 28-year-old university student and community volunteer who died Dec. 3 in what police are investigating as a murder-suicide.

Biological sciences major Alexandra Wynter, 28, was reported dead Dec. 3 in what the Chico Police Department has said was a fatal shooting on Warner Street. President Steve Perez said in a campuswide announcement Dec. 5 that she was on track to graduate in spring 2026, completing her degree while working at Enloe Health.  read more

Town Monument

by Danielle Alexich | Posted December 11, 2025
Photo courtesy of Chico Fire.

On the first anniversary of the fire that destroyed the iconic Bidwell Mansion, we’re posting a poem written and contributed by local poet Danielle Alexich.

Sleep-drunk, we hear sirens from bed
and at dawn check our phones.
I stride the neighborhood avenue
to find Bidwell Mansion,
Victorian landmark,
yesterday pink,
now charred and smoldering,
grieving itself,
collapsed into a Dalian dream.
Light seeps through majestic trees.

Locals line the sidewalk.
Girl Scout alumni who toured
ornate, eerie rooms
with a blind and brilliant docent.
Old-timers holding hands.
Unwitting parents whose kids
cut class to smoke weed on the veranda.
Amid the rubble, steps survive,
once slick from generations
of events, spontaneous picnics,
first kisses, erased footprints
of those who were conquered. read more

On the cop beat in 2025

Sunny interviews writer Dave Waddell
by ChicoSol staff | Posted December 10, 2025

In this interview by podcaster Sunny, writer Dave Waddell talks about the stories he’s contributed to ChicoSol during the past year and his fight for public records. Waddell is writing a book about Butte County law enforcement. Sunny’s interview will be broadcast at 7 p.m. Dec. 11 as part of KZFR’s weekly news show. Correction to interview comment: Former Chico Police Chief Michael Dunbaugh wrote the memo referred to in this interview in 2015, not in 2025 as was inadvertently stated. read more

Where to put the tiny homes for four elderly women?

Search still on for a willing church partner
by Yucheng Tang | Posted December 9, 2025
Withuhn and other community members built the tiny homes that are ready for placement. Photo courtesy of Charles Withuhn.

The tiny home project that would house four elderly women on a church parking lot faces new challenges, including the loss of the church that, it was hoped, would provide space.

City Light Church had expressed interest in supporting the project by allowing the placement of four tiny homes on its parking lot, said Charles Withuhn, president of the North State Shelter Team (NSST) that has lobbied for the program.

But the church’s Rev. Steve Cox has indicated to NSST there are “risks we can’t move past.” read more

Central Valley farmworkers confront rising hunger

Immigration crackdown and fewer jobs spell trouble for families
by Agustin Duran/ACoM | Posted December 2, 2025
Families wait for a monthly food delivery from Valley Voices. Photo courtesy of Valley Voices

Teresa was anxious as she waited for Valley Voices, the non-profit behind a monthly food distribution network that reaches hundreds of farmworker families in the Central Valley, providing groceries and other staples to those who don’t have enough to eat.

For area farmworkers the decline in available work adds to the growing sense of unease, as prices for daily staples continue to climb and as the Trump Administration doubles down on its immigration enforcement policies. read more