Tag: Sit and Lie Ordinance

Chico police didn’t ask for return of Sit and Lie law Councilman Coolidge resurrected contentious ordinance

photo by Karen Laslo

Councilman Andrew Coolidge

news analysis by Dave Waddell

Contrary to Chico’s latest urban legend – one sparked and fanned by certain news media and politicians in the midst of a City Council election campaign — Chico police did not “ask” for the highly controversial Sit and Lie Ordinance to be resurrected.

The distinction of raising Sit and Lie from the dead belongs to a single individual: City Councilman Andrew Coolidge, who’s seeking re-election in the Nov. 6 balloting.

The current Council, controlled by a 4-3 conservative majority, is expected to restore the Sit and Lie Ordinance to city law at its meeting tonight – three weeks before the election, and as voters are receiving their mail-in ballots. The ordinance outlaws sitting or lying on sidewalks next to businesses during certain hours. read more

Injustice supersedes civility, activist says Guest commentary says Council meeting disruption was necessary

photo by Leslie Layton

by Dan Everhart

On Sept. 4, a group of local human rights advocates, organizing under the name “Housing Not Handcuffs,” expressed their outrage over Chico City Council’s consistent and enduring ineptitude on the matter of homelessness by disrupting the meeting in protest over conservative enthusiasm for criminalizing our unhoused neighbors even further.

The rich enjoy more polite means of gaining Council’s attention, the rest of us must purchase it with speech amplified enough to be heard above the deafening roar of their wealth. read more

ChicoSol alleges Brown Act violation Journalists wrongfully barred from closed Council meeting

by Dave Waddell

ChicoSol Editor Leslie Layton sent a letter Tuesday demanding that Chico city officials “cease and desist” from barring ChicoSol journalists from covering City Council meetings and all other city government business.

Layton alleges in the letter, dated Sept. 11, that city officials violated the Brown Act, California’s open-meeting law, when Chico police officers barred ChicoSol News Director Dave Waddell from entering the Sept. 4 City Council meeting to which all other news media had been admitted. In addition, City Clerk Debbie Presson asked Karen Laslo, a freelance photographer on assignment for ChicoSol, to leave the council chamber, which Laslo did. read more