Garcia’s Fight Shapes California Law

photo by Karen Laslo

by Leslie Layton

Sergio C. Garcia came to California packed onto the bed of a Chevy pick-up. It was July 4, 1994, and the 17-year-old was one of eight undocumented Mexican immigrants hidden under a hard plastic cover as they crossed the U.S. border under a blazing desert sun.

Garcia prayed out loud as fellow travelers passed out from the heat. He was sweat-drenched and seething at his father, who had asked him to make the perilous journey, to relocate for the second time to a country where he would be labeled “alien” and face the barriers associated with having crossed, without a visa, the world’s most frequently-crossed international border. read more

County Goof Shaped Fracking Debate

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photo by Leslie Layton

by Leslie Layton

One of the key arguments made during the local fracking debate was based, at least in part, on an erroneous statement by county officials, ChicoSol has learned.

As a draft ordinance to prevent fracking was debated at public meetings early this year and last year, opponents often argued that a Butte County ban would serve a symbolic rather than regulatory role. The Butte County Department of Development Services (DDS) provided a key piece of evidence for that argument: No one, they said, had applied for a conditional use permit to drill a new gas well in more than 25 years. read more