Angela McLaughlin, president of Safe Space, says she’s hopeful the Orange Street Shelter will help increase community safety by decreasing the amount of abandoned belongings and trash left along creeks and city streets; providing 24-hour restrooms; and getting people out of the elements.
for the most vulnerable and the most complicated folks that are experiencing homelessness,” Cootsona said. “If we do nothing, and we don’t add any more shelter beds and we don’t address some of the most complicated folks … their lives are going to continue to deteriorate and our community is going to continue to suffer because they feel like it’s affecting their quality of life. I think we can [address] both of those concerns in this kind of a facility.” The Orange Street building is impossible
to miss because of its size—15,000 square feet and two stories—and its brick-red color. The location, formerly home to Woof & Poof’s manufacturing operations, is next door to the Chico Art Center and a few blocks from Chico State’s Wildcat Recreation Center. If all goes according to plan, Jesus Center and Safe Space personnel will open the doors on June 15 and be able to accommodate 100 to 120 people. The organizations will operate the shelter collaboratively but manage their specialties, with the Jesus Center taking on daytime operations and Safe Space overseeing nighttime sheltering. Notably, the facility will not require sobriety for admittance, but guests are expected to follow a code of conduct that prohibits violence, threats, use and possession of drugs and alcohol on the premises, and damaging of property. In addition to providing guests a place to sleep—with separate quarters for single women and families—the shelter will offer meals and storage for personal items. The facility will include a day center with a computer lab and an outreach desk where outside agencies, like shelter partners Butte County Behavioral Health and Butte/Glenn 211, can set up and provide assistance. Individual case management will be required, and the shelter also will offer housing and employment resources, life skills classes and vocational training, and substance abuse counseling and support groups. McLaughlin said she is hopeful the shelter will increase community safety by decreasing the amount of abandoned belongings and trash left along creeks and city streets, providing 24-hour restroom access and getting people out of the elements. “We want this to make a difference in the community,” she said. Ω
Riled allies Supervisor, Oroville group challenge dam relicensure Robert Bateman recalls the moment he first
became concerned about Oroville Dam. With winter rain amassing, he received a call that his manufacturing business, Roplast Industries, would need to evacuate as a precaution. As he locked the door, Bateman told himself: “One time, you can understand this sort of thing—if it happens again, I’m going to stick with it till the problem’s solved.” That was during the New Year’s floods of 1997, when the worst storm in 90 years inundated 250 square miles of the Sacramento Valley. Even as the dam spillway offloaded large volumes from Lake Oroville, water levels grew so high that officials nearly needed to utilize the emergency spillway—an undeveloped Alliance’s actions: hillside. Visit notjustaspill Of course, 20 years way.com or later, the Oroville Dam facebook.com/ crisis struck. High water NotjustaSpillway in February 2017 forced for updates on the Feather River 188,000 people in the dam’s Recovery Alliance. shadow to evacuate. The main spillway fractured, and a portion of the terrain of the emergency spillway washed away under the force of the flow directed there. Only last Tuesday (April 2), after a billion-dollar reconstruction, did the primary spillway return to service. “In 2017, I felt very guilty about not having taken action after [’97], because the writing was on the wall,” Bateman told the CN&R. “So I said, ‘This is it.’”
SIFT ER Kids these days ... It looks as if Generation Z, those born after 1996, could be the most liberal, diverse and socially accepting age group in America. The Pew Research Center analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data and found that the “post-millennial” generation is the most racially and ethnically diverse—nearly half (48 percent) are nonwhite. Here are the highlights of two recent surveys the center conducted related to Gen Z. • About 30 percent of Gen Zers and millennials approve of President Trump’s performance (compared with 38 percent of Gen
Having given up day-to-day management of Roplast, he joined other business owners to form Oroville Strong, a group affiliated with the Oroville Area Chamber of Commerce that aimed to promote the city. The businesspeople spun off from the chamber last year into a new nonprofit, the Feather River Recovery Alliance, to focus on issues with the dam. Alliance members assert that the spillway failure could be the tip of an iceberg of safety problems. They also endorse the notion that the city and county do not receive due compensation for the dam’s impacts on the area—a cause long championed by Bill Connelly, the Butte County supervisor whose district encompasses Oroville. They’re pressing their case with a united front. Last Thursday (April 4), during the county’s annual legislative trip to Washington, D.C., Connelly hand-delivered
Xers and 43 percent of baby boomers). • Gen Zers (62 percent) and millennials (61 percent) also are most likely to believe that increasing racial and ethnic diversity is good for society, compared with 52 percent of Gen Xers and 48 percent of Boomers. • 70 percent say the government should do more to solve the country’s problems, compared with 64 percent of millennials, 53 percent of Gen Xers and 49 percent of boomers.
The Oroville Dam spillway returned to operation last Tuesday (April 2 with its first water flows since the February 2017 disaster. PHOTO COURTESY OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES
a letter and documentation to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) expressing opposition to the dam’s relicensure. That followed an electronic filing by the alliance. In submitting this notice of protest, which also indicates their intent to intervene in the proceedings, the local parties informed FERC and the dam’s operator, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), that the agencies could face a formal challenge if concerns aren’t addressed. Connelly’s letter cites a petition signed by nearly 9,500 people. DWR, contacted by email, declined to comment. Oroville Dam’s 50-year license expired in 2006.
Since 2007, DWR has operated the facility on a series of one-year extensions. Butte County has taken the state to court, most recently for damages from the spillway incident (see “DA sues DWR over dam,” Downstroke, Feb. 18, 2018). In this action, Connelly isn’t acting as a county official per se. He told the CN&R that “the county’s official position is parallel” to his—that is, the lack of recreational tourism opportunities exacerbates the financial drain on local government—but he’s waging his fight “out of a passion to help the local people.” In the FERC filing, which he’s posted online (see infobox), Connelly excerpted state and federal documents dating as far back as 1961, when construction began. Work finished in 1967, with the dam opening in 1968. “It’s a little bit boring reading,” he told the CN&R, “but anyone who reads the history of the facility will understand, from NEWSLINES C O N T I N U E D APRIL 11, 2019
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