ChicoSol

Red Bluff thanks tired firefighters

Fairground becomes more than a resting area

by ChicoSol staff | Posted August 12, 2018

In the Northern California town of Red Bluff, just south of the Redding Carr Fire, the Tehama District Fairground has been converted to a makeshift staging and resting area for the exhausted fire crews battling the catastrophic fire that has threatened to engulf the whole of Redding to the north.

The townspeople of Red Bluff, who have witnessed the daily exchange of firefighters to and from the fairground, have shown their gratitude for the fire crews by posting “Thank you” signs on the enclosing fence.

The Carr Fire started July 23, and as of Aug. 11, had burned 190,873 acres, destroyed 191 homes and was 57 percent contained, Cal Fire says. The Red Bluff Daily News reported that citizens came out to personally thank the firefighters Aug. 9. read more

Appeals court reversal orders city, ex-sergeant to trial

Fleeing teenager shot in back of her head in 2013 Chico police killing

by Dave Waddell | Posted August 10, 2018

When activists from the group Justice for Desmond Phillips crashed a “Town Hall with DA Mike Ramsey” in Paradise last spring, the district attorney seemed eager to discuss the 2013 Chico police killing of 19-year-old Breanne Sharpe.

After one of those activists, Kat Lee, called out for justice for Sharpe, Phillips, Tyler Rushing “and every other life that’s been taken by Butte County law enforcement,” Ramsey steered the tense exchange to Sharpe’s shooting.

“It’s interesting what you say about Ms. Sharpe,” Ramsey told Lee at the May 18 town hall at Paradise Lutheran Church. “You know that a federal judge found that (shooting) to be justified? Do you know that? I mean, I’m just asking you: Do you know that?” read more

Welcome home: CHIP’s sweat-equity program provides housing

by Nicte Hernandez | Posted August 9, 2018

Leanna Pebley, a 2018 Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) client, became a homeowner in March by helping in the construction of her new five-bedroom Orland house. “It is such an amazing feeling to have been a part of the construction of my home,” Pebley said.

“Whenever people are all, ‘Oh Leanna, you own a home now?’, it’s nice to say, ‘Oh, yea, we built it,’” Pebley said.

CHIP started as a partnership between Chico State and the city of Chico to help improve a small neighborhood south of campus through a housing rehab program. Since then, the nonprofit has expanded to serve seven counties including Butte, Glenn and Tehama. CHIP now assists low-income families, helping people who might otherwise lack the financial resources become homeowners through what it calls its “sweat equity” program and by providing rental and farm worker housing. read more

Protesters gather outside congressman’s pricey fundraising event

by ChicoSol staff | Posted July 31, 2018

photo by Karen Laslo

Wes Owens, Raeanne Flores-Owens and Micha Lehner were among those protesting the conservative District 1 congressman.

Chico’s Raeanne Flores-Owens protested with about 19 other people Monday, saying that while Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) was raising money for his re-election campaign, much of the Northern Sacramento Valley was burning. “We are covered in smoke, it’s hazy, our children can’t play outside,” she said of the Carr Fire’s impact.

The 110,000-acre Carr Fire has been identified as the most destructive fire in Shasta County’s history, and the weather system the fire is generating has been linked to climate change. Air quality in the northern valley today ranges from “unhealthy for sensitive groups” to “hazardous,” according to KRCR news.

Flores-Owens was one of the protesters outside the Manzanita Place event hall in Chico who oppose the Republican congressman’s position on climate change and his support for President Trump’s immigration and tax policies. LaMalfa’s staff, meanwhile, held a dinner that cost donors up to $5,400 for those who wanted to be “event chairs.” Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) was advertised as a guest at the round-table discussion and dinner. read more

Carr Fire driven by changes in climate

Chico can prepare for extreme weather events that will be more common

by Leslie Layton | Posted July 28, 2018

photo courtesy of CSUC’s Jason Halley

Associate Professor Mark Stemen

The Shasta County Carr Fire, with its towering, tornado-like flames tearing into the city of Redding, is the kind of summer fire that could cease to be an anomaly as climate change reshapes the Northern California environment, said Mark Stemen, a professor in the Chico State Geography and Planning Department.

It’s also the kind of fire that this city must work to prevent, said Stemen in a telephone interview Friday. “A fire like this could absolutely happen in Chico if the winds were strong and blowing down the canyon,” Stemen added in an email to ChicoSol.

“One of the things that climate change has done is extended the fire season and created these inferno flames,” Stemen said. “The Carr Fire is a climate-change enhanced fire because of the extreme heat and the extreme winds.” read more

Family sues deputies over shooting death

Unarmed Palermo woman in mental crisis reversed car

by Dave Waddell | Posted July 27, 2018

Myra Micalizio, about seven years ago with her nephew Justin Widener, who is a police officer in Aurora, Colo.

Above all else, her family says, Myra Micalizio of Palermo was a gentle woman who loved the Lord. And she got along really well with her imaginary friends as well.

Micalizio, 56, who lived with mental health issues, was shot dead April 26 in a hail of bullets from two Butte County sheriff’s deputies. On July 20, her family filed a federal civil rights complaint seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages from Butte County, sheriff’s deputies Charles Lair and Mary Barker, and Sheriff Kory Honea.

“It would have been apparent to any law enforcement officer adequately trained to contact and communicate with persons suffering from mental illness that … Micalizio was experiencing mental illness, as opposed to engaging in criminal conduct,” says the complaint, filed in the Sacramento Division of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California. read more