Gottesman

Burger to protest another round of virus mandated business closures. It was a confronting story, a conflicting story for me to cover. I completely understood their anger over being told to shutter their businesses, again, and their fear that they could

very well lose their businesses, but what I didn’t understand was how closures, mask wearing, social distancing were, in their view, political, not public health issues. I wrote the story and a follow-up story to it straight, no commentary. That’s how the stories should be written, and that’s how the people of this community expect me to write them. They trust me to

leave my opinions for my weekly column, and to the very best of my ability I work not to betray that trust.

In October the fi re was still burning, the Butte County Crop report was issued, Downtown Oroville was hosting a scarecrow contest and safety guidelines for celebrating Halloween were being issued. I was exhausted from the smoke and all things COVID.

The air was clear by November but the heat of the elections was on us; the counties COVID cases and deaths started to increase exponentially; the YMCA closed all programs and services except childcare; fundraisers for fi re victims continued; the Community Emergency Response Team was well established with 26 trained volunteers;

Father’s House Church opened the Lights of Hope Christmas Village while downtown businesses improvised and adjusted to keep holiday traditions alive.

On Dec. 3, the North Complex fi res were 100-percent contained and I wrote a memorial for Jake Albright, one of the 16 victims who lost his life to the inferno when it burned through

Feather Falls. December was also the month when news came that local hospitals would be receiving the fi rst doses of the COVID-19 vaccines. Though there was some discrepancy about exactly when Oroville Hospital would be receiving its fi rst 3,200 doses this was the fi rst “glimmer of hope” COVID story I got to write. And, I was thankful.