Downstroke

Same time this year: For the second year in a row, the CSU, Chico men’s baseball team is heading to the NCAA Division II College World Series in Montgomery, Ala. Sweeping through the regional tourney last weekend in Grand Junction, Colo., the Wildcats secured one of eight spots in the Series, and moved up to No. 5 in national ranking.

Chico State (42-14-1) will open the tournament Sat., May 28, at 11 a.m. (PST) against last year’s national champs, No. 3-ranked Delta State (51-8) out of Cleveland, Miss. Both baseball powerhouses faltered toward the end the season by losing the final two games of their prospective conference tourneys before turning it up and sweeping through regionals.

This is the sixth time in the last nine seasons Chico coach Lindsey Meggs (pictured) has guided the Wildcats to the World Series, which Chico State has won twice (1997, 1999).

Chico lead-off hitter Greg Gonzalez earned MVP honors for the regionals, hitting 6 for 10 and reaching base 10 times in 14 at-bats throughout the tourney (5 for 5 in the final game).

Listen to home team on 1290 AM (KPAY), beginning at 10:45 a.m.

State reps get big raise: Assemblymen Rick Keene, R-Chico, and Doug LaMalfa (pictured), R-Richvale, and state Sen. Sam Aanested, R-Grass Valley learned this week that an independent citizens’ panel voted to give them and their cohorts in the legislature an $11,880 per year raise. This marked the first raise for our local reps—the last one was in 1999, before any of these guys were in office. They’ll be making $110,880 a year.

The raise is in addition to the $138-a-day, tax-free living allowance the representatives get for each day the legislature is in session. They also get a taxpayer-paid gas credit card and $350 monthly toward the lease (taxpayer-paid) of an automobile.

The seven-member Citizens Compensation Commission is appointed by the governor, whose office hasn’t seen a raise since 2000.

Humboldt Wagon Road FIGHT not over: Francis Farley’s appeal of the Oak Valley housing project was rejected by the City Council May 17, but that has not deterred his efforts to protect the remains of the 140-year-old Humboldt Wagon Road that runs parallel to the south side of the project.

Farley has written the councilmembers a letter detailing where the Planning Commission went wrong in its approval of the project, something he was unable to articulate at the May 17 meeting because he was unprepared to do so. Farley said he didn’t learn until the last minute the appeal process limits his comments to procedural issues that may have been violated by the commission’s actions. He now says the environmental-impact report on the project is incomplete because it “subverts the intent of the California Environmental Quality Act which is to safeguard the natural and historical resources of the people.”

Farley is urging people to write or email the council asking it to preserve and protect the old road.