Gift draws flak

For the members of the Chico City Council, accepting a private $500,000 donation to hire another police officer for three years seemed a no-brainer.

At Tuesday’s (Jan. 15) regular meeting, Mayor Randall Stone reminded attendees that Chico is feeling the impacts of being in a federal disaster zone. One of them is the strain on public safety.

“We already know we have the extra 15- to 20,000 people, so this is an absolutely necessary element … we need to bring on an extra officer, probably more,” he said.

Stone was responding to a number of speakers who encouraged the council to either redirect or reject the donation, decrying the police department’s conduct and recent killings of those suffering from mental illness.

Some advocated that the money be directed toward expanding the operating hours of the mobile crisis unit, a county operation staffed with mental health workers only during business hours. Ultimately, the panel unanimously accepted the donation, but not before Chief Mike O’Brien became the target of that criticism.

While making her argument against funding an additional officer, Erica Traverso, a regular attendee, brought up the wrongful death lawsuits against the city for the police killings of Desmond Phillips and Tyler Rushing, as well as the recent $950,000 city settlement granted to Mindy Losee for the shooting death of her daughter Breanne Sharpe at the hands of police (see “Together in tragedy,” Newslines, Sept. 21, 2017).

Phillips was 25 when he was shot and killed during a mental health episode in his home in 2017. That same year, Tyler Rushing, 34, was killed by a security guard and police officers downtown. Sharpe, 19, was shot and killed by police inside a stolen car in 2013.

“[Chief O’Brien] refuses to get his officers the proper implicit bias training and [crisis intervention training] needed to lessen this violence,” Traverso said. “Until he [retires], I don’t believe any new officers should be funded.”

Criticism by her and a few other speakers prompted council members to defend O’Brien’s character.

Councilwoman Ann Schwab said O’Brien “does not promote violence in his officers” and “is a fair man who believes in community policing.

“I think he’d probably be the first to tell you we need a lot more in our community,” she said. “We do need mental health responses, but we also need cops that can run out and protect us when they’re needed.”

Stone added that he knows O’Brien “to be an honorable and decent man.”

But the advocates for the victims of police killings weren’t finished. They took to the dais again during the business from the floor portion of the meeting. “The emotional outpouring and defense of the police chief is a misdirection from the issues he is being called out for,” Rain Scher said.

North Valley Community Foundation (NVCF) submitted the money, separate from its Camp Fire relief fund, on behalf of a private donor it chose not to identify. Jovanni Tricerri, the nonprofit’s director for Response & Recovery, told the CN&R that NVCF will bring another $500,000 donation from the same donor to the Butte County Board of Supervisors with the intent of funding an additional sheriff’s deputy for three years.

The night also included another historically contentious topic for Chico: homelessness. City Manager Mark Orme was directed to work with service providers, the county and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for a “code blue” emergency shelter program, to determine how to take in homeless folks temporarily during extreme cold weather conditions.

This topic was brought up in the context of the closure of the American Red Cross shelter at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds at the end of the month (see “Shelter no more,” page 8).

The stakeholders aren’t set to meet until Feb. 8, the earliest everyone could get together, Orme said. In the meantime, it’s not clear where the hundreds of people at the fairgrounds will go. “This code blue thing is life or death,” Councilman Scott Huber said. “I’d like to see the city take a bigger ownership of this.”

In an interesting twist just before the meeting adjourned to closed session, Councilman Karl Ory made an announcement that a Fair Political Practices Commission complaint was filed against him, allegedly by former Councilman Mark Sorensen upon his departure from office. The complaint alleged that Ory had a conflict of interest when it came to Chico Scrap Metal, Ory said. He added that the FPPC rejected the complaint.

Later, he told the CN&R he brought this up to further his argument with the City Attorney’s Office that he is capable of voting on issues related to Chico Scrap Metal, which is currently the subject of three active cases against the city. Deputy City Attorney Andrew Jared told him at a previous meeting not to vote on matters related to the recycler, but Ory said he has received no written, detailed explanation from the City Attorney’s Office.

“I think it’s yet one more example of a wrong-headed movement by the city attorney,” he said. “It’s disturbing that any elected official could be disallowed from his duty by a corporate attorney from Los Angeles.”