DA Ramsey Archives - ChicoSol News

photo by Karen Laslo

2017 Desmond Phillips vigil at Chico Police Department.

by Leslie Layton
story updated at 4 p.m. Nov. 4

Local law enforcement agencies violated the law when they failed to respond fully and promptly – the Butte County District Attorney’s Office didn’t respond for months — to public record requests made by a local journalist.

District Attorney Mike Ramsey didn’t respond to a pair of public record requests made by ChicoSol contributor Dave Waddell during the 10-day period required by the California Public Records Act (CPRA), and in fact didn’t respond at all until Waddell hired an attorney. read more

Four confirmed deaths of unhoused residents this year

ChicoSol has confirmed the following deaths, all taking place on streets or in encampments in 2024:

River Chase Bernreuter, 25. His body was found Feb. 2 on Business Lane.

Kenneth James Corbitt, 44, whose body was found Feb. 5 on Fair Street.

Francisco Franco, 61, of Chico. His body was found Feb. 15 on Business Lane.

Julie Bergstrom, 41, of Oroville. Bergstrom was found dead Feb. 29 at the Alternate Site encampment approved by the City for unhoused individuals.

City attorney: “Public take over” was an emergency

In a Jan. 17 email to ChicoSol, City Attorney John Lam said the City was not in violation of the Brown Act when it held a Jan. 6 emergency meeting.

Lam said the use of City property near The Hands sculpture in back of the Municipal Center by the nonprofit Safe Space the previous day had amounted to a “public take over.”

Safe Space, which operates an emergency winter sheltering program, ran intake in the space from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 5, an operation that it says proceeded smoothly. The group’s leadership said it believed that it was using public property as defined in the City code, and wasn’t required to get special permission.

Tag: DA Ramsey

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