OPINION
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SECOND & FLUME
EDITORIAL
County must prioritize evacuation routes The CN&R got a tour this week of Centerville Road,
which winds up from the Honey Run Covered Bridge site all the way into Magalia. Many residents who couldn’t reach the Skyway to escape the Camp Fire last November used that road to seek safety. Thing is, it already was breached at that time, reduced to one lane along a portion of its southern stretch after a tree toppled over in January 2017. Now, after heavy debris flows washed it out above the community of Centerville during a storm this past winter, it’s impassable. Residents living in Helltown, Nimshew and neighboring communities have no way to get out going south. Those in Centerville and Butte Creek Canyon can’t go north—Centerville Road is the only designated evacuation route identified by Butte County. For those who live between the breaches, well, they’re in for a bottleneck. Fire season is upon us. And all evacuation routes, especially for our foothills communities, should have been addressed by now. Cleaning up properties and cutting down trees that could serve as fuel
are important measures to take, yes. But as Laura George, a concerned Butte Creek Canyon resident, told the CN&R this week (see “No way out,” page 8): “Fire prevention doesn’t mean a wit if the road is closed.” The county says it’s dragging its feet because of property rights—it doesn’t own the land adjacent to the road; it only owns the road. It also cites bureaucracy on the part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which says it’ll foot the bill. Neither answer is good enough. Eminent domain is a tricky, timeconsuming process, but if Butte County had gone that route immediately following the 2017 storm, that portion of Centerville Road might have been fixed by now. The property owners, too, should recognize the safety of their neighbors—it’s time to stop haggling. Stories of people abandoning their vehicles while evacuating during the Camp Fire and running through flames are vivid in our memories. Some even died in their cars trying to escape. When it comes to ensuring a route to safety, there’s simply no time to waste. Ω
GUEST COMMENT
The new war against America’s homeless M living without housing and many of us are a medical crisis, layoff or car repair away from joining the illions of America’s 140 million poor already are
ranks of our country’s unhoused. Cities are increasing the sweeps of camps and discarding people’s tents, blankets and other survival property. Meanwhile, economists are warning that there could be a global recession as a result of a number of issues, including the trade wars, tax breaks for the super wealthy and student loan debt. There is a potential catastrophic increase in the number of Americans living on our by streets. Keith McHenry This could be one reason for The author is a the new attacks against those living co-founder of the outside that attempts to paint homeglobal movement less people as mentally ill drug Food Not Bombs. addicts beyond help or redemption and the wave of recall campaigns of political leaders who attempt to introduce humane solutions for the growing homeless crisis. The Seattle-based Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth, Poverty, and Morality is initiating a media campaign against the construction of shelters and affordable housing solutions by claiming the homeless are basically mentally ill drug addicts who will never
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CN&R
AUGUST 1, 2019
have the resources to rent housing so there is no reason to build it. A Sinclair Broadcasting affiliate’s hate film, Seattle Dying, is the first shot in this well-financed and nationally coordinated effort to dehumanize homeless people. It’s even more disturbing than the Manhattan Institute’s anti-homeless attacks in the 1980s, which included vigorous promotion of municipal criminalization against sitting on commercial streets, so-called aggressive panhandling and public sleeping. Yet another disturbing development is the use of the recall process against politicians who advance solutions to the homeless crisis, as is the case in Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and Chico, where a group launched a campaign to unseat Mayor Randall Stone and Councilman Karl Ory. All three efforts use the fear of the homeless spreading disease and lawlessness. Based on past dehumanization campaigns, these actions suggest a forthcoming dramatic increase in the passage and enforcement of harsher laws, destruction of people’s survival property and the possibility of internment, as is already the case with people fleeing the chaos and violence caused by decades of U.S. wars in Central America. The phrase “life unworthy of life,” or “lebensunwertes leben” in German, was a Nazi designation for the segments of the community that, according to Hitler’s regime, had no right to live. We cannot let this happen here. We are homeless, not helpless. Ω
by Melissa Daugherty m e l i s s a d @ n e w s r e v i e w. c o m
Neighborly I’m on vacation this week, so please enjoy this column from last summer. Fred Rogers was an evolved human being. I recognize that now— as an adult, as a mother, as a person who would have benefited from having someone like him around during childhood. I didn’t see that as a kid. In fact, though I watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood countless times, I viewed him as the chief weirdo in his whacky Neighborhood of Make-Believe. To be honest, his puppetry creeped me out—especially Lady Elaine Fairchilde, the witch-like, rednosed puppet whose voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. As for Rogers, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around his tender, deliberative style of talking to kids like me. That’s not to say I disliked the show. Like other Gen-Xers, I watched it quite often, likely because there weren’t many options in the early 1980s. I may have tuned in as a warmup to Sesame Street. I can’t recall. What I do remember is that Rogers was reliable. He started each show with his signature entrance: singing that cheesy yet catchy theme song while taking a stroll to the closet to swap his jacket for a comfy sweater, and then winding it down while changing from loafers to sneakers. Clearly, he was a good person—predictably and perhaps unrealistically so. I mean, who talks to kids like that? Nobody in my life— that’s for sure. Recently, I was drawn to the new documentary about the reallife Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I watched it last weekend in a sold-out Pageant Theatre with folks who, like me, were seeking relief from the news of the day. I was crossing my fingers that the guy I remembered was at least similar to the man on public television. I discovered several things about Rogers, including the fact that he was an ordained minister. In hindsight, that makes sense. Mister Rogers didn’t preach religion, but he certainly preached love—for others and oneself. That whole “love thy neighbor as thyself” thing really stuck with him, it would seem. Perhaps one of the stranger things the documentary reveals is that Rogers had a bit of an obsession with the number 143, which, when broken into three numbers, connotes the message “I love you.” For those who didn’t have pagers in the 1990s, I’ll translate: “I” is one letter, “love” is four letters, and “you” is three letters. He also prided himself on weighing exactly 143 pounds. Eccentricities aside, Rogers was brave and his show resulted in breakthrough television. In one episode that originally aired in 1969, for example, he invites the local police officer, played by a black man, to join him in cooling his feet off in a mini pool. That was a big deal in the year after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Indeed, for the millions of kids who got to know Mister Rogers during his show’s national run on PBS—from the late 1960s to 2001—Fred Rogers was a hell of a role model, a bold visionary with a calming presence in a chaotic world. We just didn’t realize that at the time—or at least I didn’t. There are several takeaways from Won’t You Be My Neighbor? For me, the biggest is that America needs more people like Fred Rogers, especially now. Melissa Daugherty is editor of the CN&R