Highlights, lowlights from the week’s news

HIT >> Any time we hear of yet another mass shooting, we can’t help but stop and worry “could it happen here too?”

The answer, of course, is “yes, it could” — so when our local law enforcement officials manage to stop a threat before it becomes a reality, they deserve our deepest praise.

Chico police’s SWAT team arrested Dallas Marsh, 37, at a local motel Sunday morning after police learned he was making criminal threats to kill specific individuals, including law enforcement officers, and was preparing to commit a “Las Vegas style” shooting — referring to the incident in 2017 where a man killed 60 people and injured more than 800 in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

After his arrest, according to Chico police, Marsh made threats to kill additional officers and their families, and assaulted an officer with a table during the interview process.

This is the sort of threat that must always be taken seriously, and the people who make such threats need to be locked up without bail — as Marsh is today.

Our deepest thanks to our police department for giving this threat the immediate response that it needed, and for keeping the public safe. We must all be vigilant and do everything we can to make sure such a horrific event never does become a reality here.

MISS >> Again?

On the same day that the city of Chico was set to enforce illegal camping ordinances in the Humboldt Park area of the Little Chico Creek greenway, the city announced it was forced to halt its enforcement due to objections raised by the plaintiffs’ counsel at Legal Services of Northern California.

The city claims that LSNC wants “any reasonable accommodation requests” a homeless person might make during an enforcement effort to be settled before the individual relocates to the shelter they have been assessed for. It also wants the city to resolve such requests on behalf of the Torres Shelter instead of allowing the shelter to resolve those requests itself.

The city says that such a change in the process would result in an evaluation process lasting several weeks. In the meantime, it’ll once again mean no enforcement at the existing camp sites — some of which have grown greatly in size since the closing of Comanche Creek — while things are once again settled.

Chico city manager Mark Sorensen called the latest legal maneuver “a tactic that’s being used against us” to “continually delay and derail our progress and our ability to comply with the settlement.”

We agree. These continued delays strike us as contrary to the spirit of the agreement.

HIT >> Finally, we have some Camp Fire relief news that means something good for the victims.

On Thursday night, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill by Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), AB 1249, that will make PG&E wildfire victims’ settlement payments from the Fire Victims Trust tax free.

“Today is a big victory for fire victims, and one I hope provides a precedent for future disaster settlements. Victims deserve to receive the maximum amount of compensation possible from PG&E, especially since the trust is underfunded and not able to pay victims their full claims,” Gallagher said.

Doug Teeter, Butte County Supervisor representing Paradise said, “Payments from the Fire Victims Trust are already going to be less than what many people are expecting due to PG&E’s stock price and the structure of the settlement. Providing income tax relief will help provide more financial resources to Camp Fire victims to help them rebuild and recover.”

The bill was jointly authored by State Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Tehama) and had unanimous bipartisan support in the legislature before being signed by the governor.

MISS >> A report released Thursday by the California State University Chancellor’s Office confirmed allegations that former Chancellor Joseph Castro failed to properly address sexual harassment complaints against a former Cal State Fresno administrator when Castro was president there.

We want to emphasize this wasn’t a one-time, “whoops, we missed it” deal. From 2014 through 2019, the university fielded eight employee complaints about Frank Lamas, the former vice president of student affairs at the school. The allegations ranged from Lamas ogling a student employee’s breasts and asking personal questions about her boyfriend to asking another employee about his sexual orientation.

Lamas also was accused of bullying and retaliating against employees who spoke out against him, including removing the campus’ Title IX investigator from her position for following up on complaints about him in 2016, only to have Castro immediately reinstate her, then verbally counsel Lamas on refraining from such conduct, according to the 10-page investigation summary report.

Castro resigned as CSU Chancellor in February amid the scandal.

Also concerning is the fact there are reports of this behavior happening elsewhere at CSU campuses, and there are those who are continuing to do their very best to protect the perpetrators instead of the victims. That’s inexcusable for any institution; for a system that espouses “integrity, respect for others, diversity, and freedom from bias and harassment” among its values, it’s sickening.

There are more stories coming in this vein. Count on it.