Search Results for: natalie hanson

Lawsuit over gender identity, children’s privacy, creates turmoil

Aurora Regino, who grew up in Chico, has filed suit against CUSD trustees and the superintendent.

A lawsuit filed against Chico Unified over its response to a student who was questioning their gender identity has opened a new front for Butte County culture wars.

The lawsuit, Regino v. Staley, filed Jan. 6 in federal court in the Eastern District of California, alleges that a school counselor at Sierra View Elementary coaxed a student into adopting a male identity after the fifth-grader confided that they “felt like a boy.” The lawsuit names as defendants the Board of Education and Chico Unified (CUSD) Superintendent Kelly Staley.

The ACLU of Northern California said late today that it has filed a motion to join the lawsuit “on the side of the Chico Unified School District and on behalf of the Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network.” The presiding judge will rule on the motion. read more

City must open more alternate camping space prior to evicting

photo by Manuel Ortiz, EMS
The Eaton-Cohasset encampment where some 45 people are camped.

The City has been halted from evicting nearly 40 people living unhoused at the encampment it opened in north Chico until it can create two new additional campsites.

The City announced plans to open the sites quickly following a Feb. 22 meeting with Magistrate Judge Kendall Newman regarding terms of the settlement agreement in the lawsuit filed by Legal Services of Northern California (LSNC).

Meanwhile, some unhoused people and their advocates say it’s a struggle to access the city’s new pallet shelters, erected as part of the settlement agreement.

The campsite at the corner of Eaton and Cohasset roads in north Chico was also opened last year in response to the settlement. It was designated by the City as the alternative location where unhoused people who aren’t eligible to enter the pallet shelters or the Torres Community Shelter can camp for a limited time with a referral. read more

Long COVID causes confusion, anxiety

Kathryn Robinson, who was formerly a classical music director at Northstate Public Radio, said her music has brought her great comfort.

Kathryn Robinson never expected that when she contracted COVID-19 in 2021, she would face life-altering symptoms for more than 15 months.

The Chico resident was fully vaccinated when she experienced a mild case of the Delta variant in August 2021. Three days into her symptoms, Robinson lost all sense of taste and smell. Like many COVID patients, she did not get those senses back for several months.

After recovering, Robinson said she awoke months later on Thanksgiving Day smelling what seemed like “sewage” all around her. She said chicken prepared for the holiday dinner tasted like “something rotten dipped in cleaning fluid.” It was then that she realized her sense of taste and smell were altered, a state she learned is called a combination of “parosmia” and “dysgeusia” -– altered smell and taste. read more

Long COVID: An emerging field of study

Kathryn Robinson with Leo

by Natalie Hanson
posted Feb. 17

Kathryn Robinson, a Chico woman who says she has long Covid, wishes she could have hard evidence to battle misinformation and the isolation she has suffered.

“You almost feel like you’re crazy,” she said. “I’ve had people actually walk away when I’ve told them.”

The Centers for Disease Control is one of the few institutions releasing guidance about long COVID symptoms, as recognized researchers conduct more studies of the fairly new condition.

Joanna Hellmuth of the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California, San Francisco, said research shows that in some patients, their immune system was stimulated by the virus and functioning “in an unintended pathological way.” read more

Updated fundraising totals

Following are the fundraising totals as of Oct. 31 for all candidates running for seats on the Chico Unified School District Board of Trustees. Two candidates have raised more than $20,000.

District 1:
Rebecca Konkin — $10,600
Scott Thompson — $2,097 (no new October filing.)

District 4 :
Tom Lando — Under $2,000 (no filings as minimum not reached.)
Matt Tennis — $21,845

District 5:
Eileen Robinson — $6,336 (no new October filing.)
Logan Wilson — $23,540

–Natalie Hanson

Valley’s Edge opponents worry about environmental impacts

photo courtesy of Steve Evans
From left, Steve Evans, Michael McGinnis and Kelly Meagher announced the No way San Jose campaign in 1988 to stop development next to Upper Bidwell Park.

Part II in a two-part series

Thirty-five years ago, a small, progressive coalition stopped development in the lower foothills adjacent to Upper Bidwell Park with the rallying cry, “No way San Jose.”

That area has been protected under the name of Bidwell Ranch since the 1988 referendum that stopped the project. Voters in favor of stopping the Rancho Arroyo project wanted to protect northwest Chico -– not so much from inevitable population growth -– but from the kind of suburban sprawl that had come to be associated with California cities like San Jose and Fresno.

Rancho Arroyo was first planned for 5,000 houses northwest of Bidwell Park, later trimmed down to 3,000 houses to placate opponents, and then resurrected as Bidwell Ranch before it was stopped altogether. read more