Like a bat…

BaT Comics, which had spent seven years on Broadway between First and Second streets, is flying a block over to 127 Main St. Owner Trent Walsh said he hopes to make the move by the middle of June. (Anyone want to help carry stuff over? Seriously.)

The new BaT cave will be a full 6,400 square feet larger and has a more-squarish layout and higher ceiling that will lend itself to better displays and more room in the aisles. Also, Walsh said, “one block over makes parking considerably better.”

A few years back, that storefront used to house a photography shop, and Walsh plans to put the film-drop slot in the wall to use as a place to return rented anime videos—of which BaT Comics has the largest selection in town. Also, he said, “We’re going to be improving our game selection” and expand from mostly role-playing games into board games.I got a nice call from a Mr. Joe Kelly, who is president of the University and Butte School Employees Credit Union over on Sixth and Salem streets. He invited me to come over and learn more about what he called “the best-kept secret in Butte County.”

The 4,000-member credit union, which is a nonprofit, was formed back in 1958, which makes it “one of the oldest local financial institutions in town,” Kelly said. And get this: Membership is limited to anyone who’s attended a school in the county—from Chico State to Butte College to grammar schools. That’s pretty broad.

Also, through its connections with credit union associations, the place has set up “a whole bunch of really cool Internet-based products.” Kelly proved it by going to www.universitycu.com and clicking through his own stock portfolio and even pulling up the image of a cancelled check from his account. There’s online bill-paying, too, and members can transfer money from one of their accounts to another.

“We were destined to be a dinosaur,” Kelly said, referring to the pre-tech days. “We can still be a small, hometown institution and offer sophisticated products that the majors do, so we can kind of have the best of both worlds."Some parents want to know just what pesticides are being used around their kids, and when. The Chico Unified School District is answering via its compliance with the Healthy Schools Act signed by Gov. Gray Davis last September. The CUSD Board of Trustees on May 16 approved an integrated pest management plan defining why it uses pesticides and how it makes such use safer.

Parents (and probably others, if the public records laws are working the way they should) can ask to be notified 72 hours in advance of any application at their child’s school. Already, the CUSD knows that in the coming year it will use: Invader HPX 20 (for ants and roaches), Dragnet SFR (ants, roaches and spiders), Catalyst (ants and roaches), Eaton’s Bait Blocks (mice and rats), Delta Dust (ants and roaches), Wasp & Hornet Killer Plus (duh), Demon EC (ants and roaches), Gencor 5E (roaches) and Roundup Pro (weeds).