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The bums aren’t the only problem with Bidwell Park

6 Feb

I haven’t given up on Bidwell Park yet. I had to respond to a letter writer who complained to the Enterprise Record that the city was removing too much plant material from the park. David Little complains that he’s getting so many letters about Donald Trump, its taking him a week to post the average letter to the editor, so I’ll post it here:

On December 27 I contacted the city of Chico to report an extensive transient camp in lower Bidwell Park. City manager Mark Orme thanked me and assured me that the city would follow up “at this specific site”.  

Over the next month I continued to find and report illegal campers in the same area, watching city staff chase them from one spot another, piles of trash left behind that included bike parts. Some sites were scattered with city-provided plastic bags full  of fecal  matter, whether from dogs or humans I wouldn’t know.  

Massive stands of non-native berry vines are tunneled into, dead limbs are arranged to conceal the campsites. Some of them appear to have been used for years. They are kept just out of sight of main trails and the road by the intense tangle of non-native and  dead vegetation. 

After a frustrating month of reporting these sites,   I was relieved  to see city crews have removed enough vegetation so that  campsites will be visible from the road for Chico PD. 

The city must continue to remove non-native, overgrown and dead vegetation from Bidwell Park. It’s not just about the bums – our big oak trees are in trouble, being smothered out by invaders like Himalayan blackberry, English ivy, privet, and vinca.

Unfortunately the park is in serious trouble after these storms. On a bike ride yesterday I saw sections of the south road that are falling into the creek. Dead trees laying across the creek cause the water to spread out toward the road, undermining the pavement. 

The north park road is a big mess from not just car traffic  but the garbage trucks the city sends in once a week to empty the trash cans. The city crews used to go in with a pick-up truck, but the city says they save money by using Waste Management. Really? 

This is gross mismanagement. It started years ago  under a “liberal” majority, but continues full speed ahead with a “conservative” majority that spends all our budget on salaries and benefits, and tells us we must pay more if we want the type of services generally expected out of a city with a $100 million budget and management paid upwards of $200,000 a year with 88 – 91 percent of their benefits paid by the taxpayers. 

Silly us! We, ourselves, are to blame, we let this happen.  The longer we let it go on, the more we are to blame.

I’ll continue to take pictures and post them here, send them to ER Hot Shots, and maybe even to the city council. You do same.

Hello?

Bidwell Park and Playground Commission aware of “transients dismantling bicycles and other unsavory activities…” but what have they done about it?

25 Jan

I found this three year old report from the Bidwell  Park and Playground Commission,

Click to access BPPC_AgendaandReports_13_1028.pdf

In 2013, rangers reported 98 “warnings” for illegal camping in the park but only 54 citations.  The first thing I hear is, the rangers aren’t looking hard enough, or they’d have at least 365 warnings. The second thing that occurs to me is, why so few citations? And, I have to ask – what happens with a citation?

So I wondered if the commission is still hearing these reports. I looked at their website here

http://www.ci.chico.ca.us/government/minutes_agendas/bidwell_park_playground_commission.asp

and looked over agendas and minutes of recent meetings. I found they’d just had a short conversation about it at their October 24 meeting.

Butte County Homeless survey. Commissioner Reddemenn asked how the Park Rangers are dealing with the transients in the park dismantling bikes and other unsavory activities. [Staffer Dan] Efseaff replied we are getting more cooperation from PD and are trying to focus on area and look at our approaches. Reddemann asked what to do if she witnessed possible criminal behavior. Efseaff; call PD.

I will write a note to the commission and ask them what’s being done about the entrenched encampments in my neighborhood stretch of Bidwell Park. I think what the city needs to do is get bulldozers in there to clear out non-native, overgrown, and dead vegetation. And that’s just a start. 

The park looks like a hobo camp, therefore it has become a hobo camp.

New twist on Robin Hood

24 Jan
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Can you see what’s wrong in this picture?

This was left behind in the areas where we have found illegal campers in middle Bidwell Park. They seem to have moved their tents to a new location, and left their garbage.

The first things that catch my eye are the bike parts. Of  course garbage is also disgusting, but there’s more going on here than littering.  Is Bidwell Park, like Lindo Channel, a sprawling no man’s land of criminal activity? 

The tents had been moved to different, but not new, locations. These well-worn paths usually lead either to an occupied tent or a pile of garbage.

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These muddy, beaten paths lead into the tangled mess of non-native overgrowth, frequented by transients.

This is a crime problem –  criminals who can pick up and move anytime they want, move in and out of your neighborhood in the dead of night, and disappear into a jungle of a park that runs the entire breadth of town. 

 

 

Two deaths in a week, city still stalls on dealing with illegal campers

24 Jan

I know some people would like me to stop complaining about illegal camping in Bidwell Park, but that’s what it takes to get the police to do anything about it – constant complaints.  

After city manager Mark Orme told me “the best means of allowing staff to succeed is for aware and willing residents to inform the City of these types of issues – so many thanks to you,”  I have made two more reports of illegal camping in the same spot in the last month. The response isn’t so friendly after the first complaint. Orme does not address me personally anymore, instead cc’ing me as he forwards my complaint to the public works and police  departments.

Erik,

 FYI – for the Park Rangers knowledge too.  Thanks.

Mark

 Mark Orme

City Manager

For the Beautiful City of Chico 

Then Erik Gustafson from public works chimes in – Copy That!

Copy, I’ll forward to Rangers right away and have them connect with Sgt. Zuschin for notification status.  Thanks,

cid:image001.jpg@01D1BB5F.B7302CD0

Erik Gustafson

City of Chico | Public Works Director – Operations

(530) 894-4202 Office  –  (530) 895-2634 Fax

Website | Contact Us

cid:image002.jpg@01D1BB5F.B7302CD0

I just love the way these guys sign off an e-mail!

Police chief’s not so fancy, he’s just “Mike”.

All,

 We are looking at Wednesday to have this resolved…PD and Parks are in contact to make it happen.

 Thanks,

 Mike

But the chief’s response kinda took the air out of my balloon – I reported this Saturday, and they won’t be taking care of it until Wednesday?

Meanwhile, we’ve had two drug overdoses on public property within a week, this latest girl found at the CARD center, only 20 years old. 

People think I don’t care, but I am sorry for that girl. She’s been arrested twice for possession of narcotics and even petty theft, charges dropped? Who is really to blame for this problem? 

City of Chico fiddles while Rome burns

18 Jan

It’s only been a couple of weeks since I reported an illegal camp in Bidwell Park. It took the city a few days – New Year’s weekend! – to get them out and then collect up the trash. We knew that wouldn’t be the end of it, and again yesterday my husband found an illegal encampment – this time right off a main trail, right out in the open, unabashed and unafraid of detection.

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Some people just get too comfortable in the park.

When my husband was taking a picture of the tent a woman actually confronted him. He had our 10 year old diabetic dog, so I started to worry – what if one of these people had a pit bull or other killing machine type of dog? I started to question my husband’s insistence to walk the park with my old dog every morning, even though this routine has successfully kept her blood sugar down to manageable levels.

There you are folks – I don’t feel safe in Bidwell  Park, and you shouldn’t either. Arm yourself and be ready to defend yourself and your children/pets. 

When the woman shouted at my husband, “what are you doing?!” he responded, “what does it look like?” And he took a picture of her tent. He told her, “you know what you’re doing,” and that she had about 30 minutes to clear it all out before he’d report it to the police. 

When he made he way back home with Biscuit, the tent was gone. 

Yeah, the park looks like a hobo camp, why not? The city has allowed the park to sink into horrible disgrace. It’s not “natural,” it’s a manmade disaster of non-native species and septic swamp. Nothing has been done to maintain the health of the park for at least 20 years. The city turned maintenance over to “volunteers”, has brought in jail crews a few times, but has no cohesive plan for how the park should be maintained.  How many millions have gone to plans for Bidwell Park? I’ve lost track. 

City council voted last night to spend more money on staffing Chico PD. I will make my official prediction – the homeless problem will continue to get worse, Bidwell Park will continue to sink into disgust.

UPDATE: I will say, Mark Orme is quick to respond to my inquiries.

Ms. Sumner,

 Thank you again for your input.  I’ve cc’d the Police Chief and Public Works Director over Operations on this e-mail, as they may have additional feedback to give.  I can tell you that staff is evaluating every opportunity to move forward with an effort to deal with this situation more aggressively.  One potential program we are working on is furthering the bond between our public works team and the Police department.  They already have a great working relationship, but we’re looking at a creative approach to securing an even smoother ability to deal with these park issues.  It will roll out during the budget process.  As for now, the Police Department and Public Works will continue to monitor and conduct sweeps on a regular basis…although not as often as staff would like to be able to do, simply due to resource constraints.  

 Have a great day,   Mark

 Mark Orme

City Manager

For the Beautiful City of Chico

But there’s your answer – “resource constraints”. A hundred million plus budget, and this guy is complaining about “resource constraints”?

So I had to ask him about this.

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2015/09/29/chico-pd-announces-quarter-cent-sales-tax-increase-campaign-through-business-support-team/

The podcast is still available, listen to it yourself. Mr. Van Rossum spoke at last night’s council meeting in favor of increasing the police budget – without talking about his “Business Support Team” or mentioning that he raised a few thousand dollars through North Valley Community Foundation Annie B’s for Chico PD. I asked Orme if it’s still true, the police spend so much time at Enloe dealing with the homeless, they need a substation?

When I asked Dorian Kitrell, a director at Butte County Behavioral Health, why the cops were spending so much time babysitting the homeless,  waiting for county employees to pick them up for a ride to the facility in Oroville, he didn’t know what I was talking about. 

We’ll see what Orme says. I’m getting kind of tired of hearing about “resource constraints” from a guy who sits on a $100 million-plus budget and a $200,000-plus salary. 

 UPDATE UPDATE: I have to hand it to Orme, he’s quicker on that send button than Donald Trump!

Yes, the business support team is an independent group, not under the City’s auspices.  The person who usually speaks on their behalf is Ms. Donna Sherry.  I don’t have her contact information readily available, but it may be something you can reach out to Chief O’Brien to get.  As for the radio issues at Enloe, I know it has been an ongoing problem, however, one of the capital expenditures the City is evaluating this year is an upgraded radio system that would deal with this issue.  Again, the Chief would be the best person to speak to that concern.

 If you e-mail him on both of these matters, he is really good about getting back. 

 Hope this helps and gets you connected to the right folks,

Mark

So I wrote to the police chief:

Hi Mr. Obrien,

I was told by city manager  Mark Orme to forward the inquiries below to you.

First, I wonder when we can expect regular patrols of Bidwell Park. My husband and I keep encountering illegal campers on morning walks with our dog, and we don’t feel safe in the park or our adjacent neighborhood anymore. We feel the park has become a haven for criminals to predate our neighborhoods.  The online police reporting website does not have a button for “illegal campers” so we have made reports to the city manager and staff. 

Second, I wonder if you have contact information for the Chico Police Business Support Team, Donna Sherry.  I wondered about a fundraising effort made in 2015 through the Annie B’s drive, by Jack Van Rossum. He made comments on a local podcast show, Chico Currents, saying the police spend so much time at Enloe with homeless people, they need a private “substation” and special radios for communication. I wondered if this is still true and what became of the fundraising efforts. 

Thank you, at your convenience, for your anticipated cooperation, Juanita Sumner

I have not had any dealings with O’Brien, we’ll see what we get.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:

O’Brien responded with contact information for Officer Scott Zuchin. I had told Maureen Kirk about a tent spotted along Hwy 32 below the new  water tower, and she told the cops. Here was Zuchin’s response:

Greetings… The Target team linked up with realtor Tamara Lambert-Valencia from Coldwell Banker DuFour to address the encampment issue near the water tower located inside the new Oak Valley subdivision two weeks ago. This camp is no longer an issue. Target will continue to work with the realtor and developer as crime and safety issues arise. Please give me a call. I can arrange a neighborhood meeting with the Target team to discuss your questions and concerns.

I had told Kirk, I’d just seen it the previous weekend, and I saw it again the day before Zuchin responded. I told him it was still there, visible from Hwy 32, a green rain fly strung up over it, bike carts piled next to it. He responded again,

Please be more specific then. We may not be speaking about the same location. You may attach photographs to your email if that helps.

That answer pissed me off. I could tell, he didn’t even take a look. It’s visible from the road. I  gave him more specific directions, and told him he could talk to Kirk about it, she was the one who was complaining about break-ins to Cal Park garages,  etc, threatening to move herself and her husband to a “Del Webb Leisure Village.”

But yesterday, Saturday January 21, on their morning stroll in Bidwell  Park, my husband and  dog encountered illegal tents again.

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This tent was concealed in brush, but with a well-worn path leading right to it. I think the cops need more appropriate shoes.

They also saw piles of trash containing bike parts, the usual. So he took the usual pictures, and we made the usual complaint, this time to Zuchin instead of  the city manager. And this time we got no response.

That Orme, he responds very quickly, no matter the day of the week. This Zuchin person has the weekend off! What a boon for criminals! Wouldn’t you think the chief would give me a number that is good for weekends? I mean, if he’s really serious about wanting citizens to report this illegal activity. There’s no mechanism for reporting illegal camping on the Chico PD website.

So, I’ll tell you what, if my husband  finds campers again this morning, I’ll say  it’s official – Chico PD is turning a blind eye to illegal  camping.  They don’t want to do anything about it because it’s just more fodder for their threats to cut services if they don’t get more money.

 

You can’t always count on the cops – know your neighborhood, and keep an eye on it

8 Jan

My husband takes our dog Biscuit out every morning for a walk around the neighborhood. She’s diabetic and needs the exercise to keep her blood sugar  down, and my husband is on alert ever since a car was broken into across the street last year. We both feel it’s a good idea to walk the neighborhood regularly, different times of day, keep in touch with our surroundings.

No matter what the weather, they take their morning constitutional over to the park. After she came home soaking wet a couple of times, my husband  decided to make her a raincoat from a garbage bag.

She was not thrilled about the raincoat.

She was not thrilled about the raincoat. That’s not a happy face, and the tail is all wrong.

Of course she cowered and tried to shake it off at first, but as soon as she realized it meant WALK, she was on board. Now I put it on her anytime I want to take her outside.

What a fashion maven.

Taking Fashion Maven Biscuit out to the mail box.  There’s the correct tail posture. 

Of course, Badges has to have everything Biscuit has, so we fitted him with his own little jacket.

You THE MAN! Badges.

Marshall Badges and Deputy Ding-Dong during a rare moment in between dumpers.  

Badges wasn’t too sure either, but like Biscuit, he now identifies the raincoat with WALK, and he actually holds his head up to have it pulled on. 

Don’t let the weather keep you from being active. Get out there and keep an eye on your hood. 

Cut the pensions

3 Jan

Thanks Rob, for this link to yesterday’s Dan Walter’s column.

Walters opines, “If it’s not economically or politically possible to finance the pension promises made to state and local government employees, the system’s only hope for solvency may lie in reducing those promises.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/dan-walters/article123886739.html#storylink=cpy

We must ask ourselves, who made these promises in the first place?

  • Jerry Brown – with contributions of $50,000 – 100,000 from just about every employee’s union in the state of California  (   https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/69557/jerry-brown-jr#.WGu0MvkrKUk   )
  • Third District Butte County Supervisor Maureen Kirk.    As a council member Kirk signed the “Memo of Understanding” that attached city employee salaries to “increases in revenues but not decreases…”   She also signed one contract after another requiring the city to pick up the lion’s share of city employee benefit expenses –  not only the much larger “employer share” of pensions and benefits but all or most of the “employee share” – the “employer paid member contribution”. For years under Mayor Kirk “public safety employees” paid nothing toward their own pensions, while management employees were allowed to get away with 4 percent. Now she rubber stamps raises for the county, as well as anything the Behavioral Health Department wants.
  • Second District Supervisor Larry Wahl – Wahl signed on to all of the above as a council member and added a step-increase system for the police department that essentially means automatic promotions and raises. As supervisor Wahl has voted to fully fund every request made by the Behavioral Health Department.
  • Don’t look now, but your former and current mayor are public employees who collect their own pensions. Don’t expect either Mark Sorensen or Sean Morgan to turn down any raises or require higher contributions, especially for cops or fire. They’ll dump lower level employees to feather the public safety nest, which is why our streets are shredded and our park is a disgrace.
  • Your vice mayor is a former employee of CalPERS. When we asked Reanette Fillmer during her 2014 campaign if she is eligible for a public pension, she said she didn’t know.  Don’t expect a straight answer about anything from that little minx. 

Do you feel responsible for these pensions? Do you get a pension? If so, who pays for it? 

Our public employees are like junkies – they’re high on ENTITLEMENT, the notion that they are better than us because they are a member of the racket, and we aren’t. They are high on the notion that we will foot the bill for their ridiculous lifestyle.

Remember what Nancy Reagan told you – JUST SAY NO!

 

Camping in Bidwell Park is a crime – report it!

31 Dec

Yesterday, having reported an illegal camp in Middle Bidwell Park to city of Chico officials, my husband and I walked over to the site to find that the campers seemed to be gone but had left mounds of trash behind. In fact, we encountered more trash yesterday than we’d seen the day before.

These pictures were taken yesterday morning. 

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Here’s the pile we encountered Thursday December 29, still there – notice the dismantled bikes. Somebody had added – a real estate sign? – to the pile.

We noticed new piles, clothes,  trash bags,  kipple of all kinds.

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I wonder if they steal from each other, and here’s somebody’s stuff that has been rifled and left.

 

This is located about a block or two from my home, my tenant’s home. We’ve always locked everything up – Chico was never that nice of a town that you could leave your valuables unlocked, that’s been known for some time.  

But lately we’ve been hearing about weird stuff, stuff that goes beyond home security.  One guy was caught stealing a woman’s panties off her back yard clothesline, in broad daylight. Her husband  caught him in the garage, having broken in through a back door to steal a bike.

A man on the  website Nextdoor reported someone had torn the door off a storage shed in his side yard, but said there was nothing of value, so nothing was taken. Lucky him!  I had been bothering my husband to buy one of those metal  sheds at Home Depot for our tenant’s bikes, so she wouldn’t have to keep them in her laundry room. He laughed  and told me, “that’s like telling the transients, ‘look, here’s some stuff for you…'”  He’s right, these people can just rip the door off a shed, hidden in your back  yard, you and  all your neighbors gone off to work. 

As I’ve said, Chico is not a nice little town anymore. How do we fight this? Report it, report it, report it. Demand action.  I’ll e-mail city manager Mark Orme and ask him who is responsible for cleaning up this mess and when that will be done.  I’ll cc both news editors as well as my third district supervisor Maureen Kirk. I may cc the entire council, but Reanette Fillmer is the one who has shown the most interest in this issue.

Please join me in reporting illegal campers. Follow up – if you still see the problem the next day, politely ask what has been done or why nothing has been done. Don’t be intimidated by their polite refusal to do anything – send your e-mail conversation  here, and I’ll print it verbatim. 

  • Mark Orme, city manager – mark.orme@chicoca.gov
  • Sean Morgan, mayor – sean.morgan@chicoca.gov
  • Reanette Fillmer, vice mayor – reanette.fillmer@chicoca.gov
  • Maureen Kirk, Butte County Supervisor District 3 – mkirk@buttecounty.net
  • Larry Wahl, Butte County Supervisor District 2 – lwahl@buttecounty.net
  • David Little, editor Chico Enterprise Record – dlittle@chicoer.com

NOTE: As of Sunday Jan 1 the trash is gone.  I don’t know who picked it up but will thank Orme for staff’s response. 

 

 

Bidwell Park becoming a hobo camp

30 Dec
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My dog investigates a pile of trash left behind by illegal campers in Middle Bidwell Park. We saw several bike frames and various parts laying among the piles.

My family lives a block from Middle Bidwell  Park – ooooo! Lucky us!

When we bought and fixed up this old crapper, we were re-assessed very eagerly by the old county ass-essor, Fred. He told me, our proximity to Bidwell Park added to the valuation of our house.  He jacked us good!

Now we live next to a hobo camp. Wonder what  that does to property value?

We walk our old dog Biscuit in the park every morning – she’s got the diabetes, just like a person, she has to have regular exercise to keep her blood sugar down.  So we walk the two or three blocks worth over to the creek every day, early, in the cold and damp, kind of a morning ritual

We let ourselves get into kind of a rut, taking the same main trail every day. One morning this couple was coming along with a pretty tough looking poodle – and you know, Biscuit is not one to back down – so my husband shooshed us off without warning onto a less-beaten path – The Fitness Trail!

The Fitness Trail runs between Vallombrosa and Petersen Drive in the park. The city spent I don’t know how much, putting in these “fitness stations” – I think they’re nothing but a liability, and would like to have seen the money spent on trail maintenance, but the  people who made that decision are already long gone, so what’s the use of complaining?

The park has become a disgrace. Non-native species  have been allowed to grow up and push out the native growth. Overgrowth is everywhere, smothering big trees, causing limb drop. Big trees have been falling, including a tree that smashed to a million pieces all over Vallombrosa a week or so ago and shut the street down while  crews swept it off to the side of the road. Where it still  sits, creating rot and blocking the view of the park from the street.  It’s not nature, it’s an eyesore.

The park used to be nice to look at, now I’m more concerned about the cops being able to see in there.

As my husband and I followed Biscuit up the unfamiliar trail, we suddenly spotted an obvious, well-entrenched homeless camp.  Five tents and an E-Z up were visible from where we stood.  All occupied. Garbage littered the ground in every direction, including a scattering of those poop bags the city provides to pick up after dogs. They were laying on the ground full of poop and tied in knots. Whose poop is anybody’s guess.

We skee-daddled – I don’t want to mess with those people. I remember how Ann Schwab snickered as I told the story of a guy named Jerry Paddy. I used to live and work in Sacramento, I used to ride the city bus. I had to change busses at K Street Mall, walk a few blocks up K Street. Every morning as I joined the mass of commuters I’d see this guy, dressed in bed sheets. We all called him “Jesus,” and we all walked within arms’ distance of this beaming idiot.

One day a man who was visiting a relative at Sutter Hospital noticed this Jesus character wrestling in the bushes near Sutter’s Fort with a woman. This passerby thought it was a sexual assault, and confronted  “Jesus”, who reached into his sheets and took out a 12 inch knife and stuck the poor man right through the gut. This is where Ann Schwab snickered, cause I used the word “gut”. I got news for you Ann – the poor bastard with the stuck guts wasn’t laughing, he was dead before they could get him into the hospital.

“Jesus” was a man named Jerry Paddy, and he showed no remorse for the murder. He went off to the state hospital wearing his idiot grin.

So this is what I’m thinking as I encounter that same grin in the park, or around town, or walking down the sidewalk in front of my home or  one of my rentals.

When we realized we were standing in a homeless camp, my husband and I went home and called the Park Division.  The woman who answered told me a ranger would be sent over to the location – The Fitness Trail, between Stations 3 and 4.  Later we realized, it was more extensive than that, but we figured the rangers would see it.

Next day  the tents and E-Z up were all still there, with more trash.

So, I e-mailed city manager Mark Orme. He said,

“Thank you for this e-mail.  To answer your question, yes, the City is following up on these reports.  I’ll follow-up with staff in relation to this specific site. “

Later he got back to me,

“Again, thank you for your reporting of this.   As additional follow-up, I can tell you that the Park Rangers did engage with this group yesterday, after the report was received.   Additionally, the Rangers have engaged and ticketed this group of illegal campers several times over the past week.  The Park Rangers are coordinating with the Police Department for follow-up today for this specific illegal encampment. “

Yesterday morning this is what we encountered.

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The tents and E-Z up were gone, but they’d left all the trash. I don’t know whether the city came back to get it, but if it’s still there this morning we’ll take more pictures and get back to Mark Orme.

Chico Unified lost the lawsuit and was ordered to make the e-mails public – but now the link doesn’t work? What is Chico Unified trying to hide?

13 Dec

Here’s a story from Chico Enterprise Record regarding the lawsuit Chico Unified pressed against Chico State last year:

http://www.chicoer.com/article/NA/20150929/NEWS/150929702#disqus_thread

Most of the details are there, and a link is included so that the public can view the e-mails that were the subject of the lawsuit – unfortunately the link doesn’t work.  

Look at the comments below – at one point lawyer Paul Boylan says the district removed the link. Olson responds to him that a new link has been provided. Geez, that link doesn’t work either!

I sent an e-mail to ER staffer Ryan Olson, we’ll see if he can help us out.

Looks like the school district is still trying to hide something.