new conservatives

Like minds

Conservatives expand majority in filling out City Council

story and photos by Evan Tuchinsky evant@newsreview.com

When Michael O’Brien retired as Chico police chief last June, he fielded calls from people encouraging him to run for City Council. The timing wasn’t right, he told the CN&R last Tuesday (July 27): After three decades in law enforcement, the last five leading Chico PD, he felt he owed his family his undivided attention.

A year later, following the backto-back resignations of Councilman Scott Huber and Councilwoman Kami Denlay, O’Brien changed his mind. When approached to seek one of the replacement spots—by appointment—he put his name into a pool of 14 applicants for Huber’s at-large seat, alongside seven for Denlay’s District 3.

O’Brien made it to the final round last Tuesday over the likes of former Councilman and Butte County Supervisor Larry Wahl, a current city planning commissioner, and former Vice Mayor Tom Nickell, a current board director of the Chico Area Recreation and Park District (CARD). After some pointed questioning of finalists, the four conservatives voted to fill the vacancies with the former chief and Dale Bennett, an architectural review board member and former planning commissioner who works in property management.

O’Brien and Bennett were slated to be sworn in Tuesday (Aug. 3—after the CN&R’s print deadline), expanding the conservative majority to 6-1. Immediately after the appointments last week, Bennett declined to speak to the media, but O’Brien told the CN&R that he was excited to start serving on the council.

“I need to kind of let this sink in, because I did not have a lot of time to prepare, did not have a lot of time to think about it, other than we knew it was the right decision,” he said, referring to the support of his wife and family. “It’s a somewhat daunting task because of what’s going on in this community, but I think my experiences—particularly as chief, in crisis—will hopefully serve this council well, serve this community well, because I understand crisis leadership.

“I learned some tough lessons: some good things, some bad things. I think that experience, given our current dynamic, will lend itself to this position.”

Huber, a progressive whose term would have ended next year, resigned June 21 citing politically motivated harassment. Denlay, a conservative elected in November, stepped down June 27 amid questions about her residency (see “Out of bounds?” on chico.newsre view.com).

By city charter, the council has 30 days to fill a vacancy by calling a special election or by appointment. The conservative majority decided on the latter process July 6. Both O’Brien and Bennett would need to run for re-election in 2022 to retain the seats, though O’Brien doesn’t intend to do so.

“It’s a limited commitment; I have no aspirations of running for council again, I truly do not,” he said. “But if I can come in and lend whatever skills and leadership I’ve developed over the years, particularly my time as chief— we had a few things going on then as well—I was willing to take that step.”

Former Chico Police Chief Michael O’Brien, appointed to the at-large City Council seat vacated by Scott Huber, says he doesn’t plan to run in 2022. Michael O’Brien and Dale Bennett accept congratulations last Tuesday (July 27) after their appointment to the Chico City Council.

The decision

After interviewing at the July 20 meeting, O’Brien and Bennett received four nominations each, the most of any applicants, with support from all the conservative council members. Alex Brown, the council’s lone progressive, nominated Planning Commissioner Bryce Goldstein for the atlarge position and no one for the District 3 slot. City Clerk Debbie Presson confirmed that the appointment votes mirrored these nominations.

Finalists also included Jeffrey Glatz, chair of the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission (at-large); Amber HowardBrown, a Blue Oak School board member (District 3); and Sandra Husband, a program analyst and community volunteer (District 3).

Brown questioned candidates about homelessness, affordable housing and police training. Mayor Andrew Coolidge also had questions, including an exchange with Goldstein, a transportation planner, about parking requirements.

Coolidge told the CN&R that he had a harder time narrowing down the nominees than with the final vote.

“I said at the onset of this process that I was looking for people who were calm, come to it with an idea of just serving and not have necessarily thoughts about pushing forward with a political future, who seemed to be here for the city and not for themselves,” he said. “I think they both fit that bill … . I think we have some calm, sensible people up there [already], and I think these choices were calm, sensible choices that’ll help move us through the issues we’re facing and hopefully calm the tenor of the conversation, calm the environment for Chico.”

Goldstein expressed disappointment. She told the CN&R that she didn’t anticipate getting appointed, based on the nomination totals, though embraced the opportunity to speak to the council on substantive issues. “I think our community could defi-

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19 nitely be represented better on City Council,” Goldstein said, adding: “They should have tried to make sure the people they appointed have similar backgrounds and viewpoints to the people who were serving [previously]. They don’t have to be exactly the same, but similar.”

The choices

Of the two appointees, O’Brien is the more prominent, having served as police chief during a string of Butte County emergencies collaterally impacting the city— most notably the Camp Fire—and the fatal shootings of Desmond Phillips, Tyler Rushing and Stephen Vest by Chico PD officers. Five days ahead of the council appointment, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey announced O’Brien as head of the Butte Interagency Narcotics Task Force.

Bennett is an industrial and commercial property manager who, along with his city service, has been on the boards of the Chico Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Chico Business Association.

In their appointment applications (available via chico.ca.us/ city-council within the July 20 agenda), O’Brien and Bennett listed similar priorities: primarily, addressing homelessness and safety. O’Brien, citing his work with the Jesus Center board as well as Chico PD, discussed his “unique perspective” toward homelessness that “involves both compassion and accountability,” which he reiterated at last Tuesday’s meeting. Bennett wrote of the city’s need to resolve the Warren v. Chico federal lawsuit (see “Court order: Stay” on chico. newsreview.com) and told the council last Tuesday that “people are moving to Chico for their minimal survival,” echoing a conservative talking point of homeless people as transients.

Former Planning Commissioner John Howlett, who served with Bennett, said the architectural review board “seemed to me to be a very good fit for him. I don’t necessarily see him as someone who’s ever [been] perceived as being very interested to be on the council, so I think he was hand-picked to kind of go along with how the conservative majority is going to vote.” Ω

Regal restoration

Preservation groups work to revive dwindling monarchs, pollinator species

by Evan Tuchinsky evant@newsreview.com

Kim Armstrong misses the monarchs. Over the past decade, most notably the past five years—working at Oroville Wildlife Area as a scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), as well as the Chico-based nonprofit River Partners—she’s seen “a rapid decline” in the number of monarch butterfly caterpillars on the blossoms of milkweed plants. Her observations correlate with broader California data indicating a 99.9 percent decline of western monarchs since the 1980s. Implications transcend the butterflies themselves. “Monarchs are important [because] they’re kind of an iconic keystone species,” Armstrong told the CN&R on a recent morning at the wildlife area. “They’re a really good indicator for problems in the ecosystem, but they’re also just a large, colorful butterfly that the public can get involved in appreciating and conserving—and when you conserve an area for one species, you’re inadvertently conserving an area for a lot of other species.” That’s what Armstrong, a restoration biologist, is doing with colleagues at the Oroville Wildlife Area. Kim Armstrong, a restoration It’s one of eight sites around California—four biologist for River Partners, at a in the North Valley—where River Partners and monarch butterfly restoration site in the Oroville Wildlife Area. PHOTO BY EVAN TUCHINSKY several organizations are restoring 595 acres of monarch habitat, funded by a $1.2 million California Wildlife Conservation Board grant.

The population of western monarch butterflies has declined by 99.9 percent since the 1980s.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RIVER PARTNERS

The Oroville restoration covers two locations totaling 80 acres, where around 1,500 milkweeds have been planted and irrigated. This is the first to be completed. The other Nor-Cal sites are the Upper Butte Basin Wildlife Area near Chico (around 50 acres), Feather River Wildlife Area near Yuba City (40 acres) and the Yolo Bypass Area near Sacramento. The remaining sites are by Modesto, Bakersfield, Los Banos and San Diego.

“Monarchs are one of the few species of insects that most people can identify; it’s a species people know,” said Angela Laws, an endangered species conservation biologist with the Xerces Society, a group dedicated to protecting invertebrates. She and Washington State University biology professor Cheryl Schultz are designing the habitat plans and monitoring for the eight sites.

“I think because of their unique behavior—how they migrate, overwinter, form these clusters—it’s an amazing thing, and I think it really captures people’s imaginations,” Laws continued. “People feel emotionally connected to it. Just from doing outreach, I can tell you, people are passionate about this butterfly, and I think people are more aware of it than other species that might be declining just as much as monarchs are.”

Take native bees, monarchs’ fellow pollinators, as an example. Through extensive media coverage, many people know about the peril of honeybees, but far fewer know that California is home to 1,600 bee species. That morning at Oroville Wildlife Area, Laws found no monarchs on the new milkweeds, but tiny bees buzzed around the flowers—evidence of the side effect Armstrong called “inadvertently conserving an area for a lot of other species.”

Oroville Wildlife Area Manager A.J. Dill told the CN&R on-site that gauging success doesn’t hinge on butterfly counts.

“There are still places on this wildlife area that are barren moonscape from the dam area construction, all the way back to the mining days of yesteryear,” he said.

“All this land was basically tossed away as wasteland; no benefit to the public. Here we are—60, 70 years later—we’ve got this whole ecosystem in the works.”

Causes and effects

Western monarchs, butterflies that migrate in the fall from the Rockies to the California coast, previously were prevalent, numbering around 4.5 million in the 1980s. But the most recent annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count—covering the 20202021 overwintering season— found less than 2,000 had come to spend the cold months, continuing a trend tracked by Xerxes Society researchers.

River Partners and the Xerces Society connect the population decline to losses of habitat. While pesticides have decimated honeybees, herbicides have hit monarchs.

Roughly 1,500 native milkweeds have been been planted in Oroville as part of a monarch habitat restoration project made possible by a California Wildlife Conservation Board grant.

PHOTO BY EVAN TUCHINSKY PHOTO BY EVAN TUCHINSKY

Milkweed, which often grew among crops, has declined across breeding grounds as farmers adopted plants genetically modified to withstand weedkiller, predominantly Roundup.

A Sacramento judge ruled in November that insects are not covered under the California Endangered Species Act, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in December that protecting monarchs under the federal Endangered Species Act “is warranted but precluded.”

All these factors cue the habitat project.

“Restoration is a process,” Laws said. “We’re not just going to flip a switch and now it’s perfect habitat. We’re in the process of improving this area, and over time we’ll see more and more pollinators come out.

“We’ve seen a couple different species of native bees today, some native flies that are really important pollinators. So there’s diversity out here, and as this planting becomes more established, as there’s more flowering, I think we’re going to see more pollinators.”

Added Dill: “Part of it is the activity level [at the project areas]. There’s a lot of activity right now. Once the plants take off on their own, it’s going to be different.”

Cultivation at the Oroville site began last June. Laws said the dry winter and heat of spring and summer impacted milkweeds’ blooming. Planting at Upper Butte Basin will start this fall.

Laws and her fellow researchers will regularly survey the sites to look for signs of monarchs, from caterpillars to full butterfly clusters.

In any case, she continued, “for a lot of these sites, they’re going to be a lot better than the control [i.e., unrestored areas], which would have been just invasive grasses that provide no floral resources for monarchs or other pollinators. So, it’s an improvement, for sure.” Ω

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