Highlights and lowlights from the week’s news
HIT » This one is more half hit and half miss, but we’ll lead off on a positive note.
Good for the Chico City Council in listening to the public outcry regarding the possible location of some “alternative” camping sites suggested for the Warren vs.
Chico settlement.
We recognize the challenge the city is facing; the city owns only so much land, and none of it ever ended up in the city’s hands because somebody once thought “Hey, some day, this might make a fantastic alternative camping site.”
Most of the possible locations have little or no shade. They’re not exactly next door to a grocery store, and many back right up to housing developments. More concerningly, some are close to schools.
Finally, some of the places people keep suggesting — like the old K-Mart or the bus area on Carmichael Drive — are not owned by the city.
That all makes finding a site that meets the settlement requirements challenging to say the least. But any location that would include having a junior high school between the camping site and the nearest food store — which was the case with the Humboldt and Bruce Road location — should have been an automatic “no.”
The public outcry was strong and swift, and rightly so.
MISS » The death of two people in a Chico park because of a drug overdose, coming on the heels of a young lady dying of a drug overdose in another Chico park, was another horrific reminder of the challenges we face with drug abuse and mental health care.
In this space several months ago, we supported AB 2020. The bill, introduced by Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), would have changed the definition of “gravely disabled” to make it easier for involuntary commitment and treatment of people who are unable to care for themselves or are a danger to themselves or others.
From Sheriff Kory Honea, to Butte County Behavioral Health Director Scott Kennelly, to all members of the Chico City Council and the Butte County Board of Supervisors, this bill had the support of local people from both sides of the aisle.
So whatever happened to it, anyway? Not surprisingly, AB 2020 died on arrival in Sacramento. Democrats wouldn’t even give the bill a reading during health committee hearings in April.
Gallagher says he’s continuing to work across the aisle in hopes of getting something advanced, including the Governor’s Care Court proposal along with AB 2242, which seeks to connect people to coordinated services after they come off a mental health hold.
As we’ve noted repeatedly, there is no one “solution” for homelessness or drug addiction or mental health issues. What we need are steps for progress. AB 2020 was one.
Hello, Sacramento — $95 billion surplus?
HIT » We’re giving kudos to one of our own — at least, one of our former own.
Long before a federal judge slapped a temporary restraining order on Chico in April 2021 and said the town was in violation of Martin vs. Boise, Natalie Hanson was reporting that many attorneys felt the city was risking legal liability with their evictions of the campsites. The blowback and anger directed at her for reporting this was, to put it mildly, intense. But as it turns out, her warnings were 100% correct.
This week, Hanson — who left for a job with the Marin Independent-Journal about a year ago — received first place in the California Journalism Awards competition for Coverage of Local Government for her reporting on homeless issues in Marin County. She’s garnered other awards in the competition as well, including one for a story she wrote for us on a rash of thefts during the Dixie Fire and yet another first-place CJA award for her feature on San Quentin’s inmate newspaper. It’s incredibly rare for any journalist to place first in two different categories in the same year; today, she stands as one of the most decorated journalists in the state for her work in 2021.
We couldn’t possibly be more proud, and in the spirit of reporting what’s right (popular or not), we’ll end with this Miss:
MISS » The false homeless-related narratives continue to fly with such intensity in our city, it’s like trying to fight mosquitoes with a flyswatter.
The latest was the claim that the city really didn’t “need” to offer alternative camping sites as part of the Warren vs. Chico settlement. “The settlement says ‘may offer.’ Not ‘must,’ ” the narrative goes.
Well, there’s a big problem with that. For those who read the rest of the settlement — and apparently, many didn’t — the settlement says that for the city to enforce its anti-camping ordinances, there needs to be someplace for people to go, including the ones who aren’t a fit for the Pallet shelter (or vice-versa). So, sure. The city could choose to not have alternative camping sites; it just means enforcing their ordinances would be much more difficult or, in some cases, impossible without those sites.
Bottom line? It’s best to do what a federal judge says. That opinion tends to count more than the others.