Wishful thoughts

While I was getting coffee and a fruit bar the other day at Great Harvest, someone asked me if I’d made any new year’s resolutions.

“Nah,” I replied. “I like to wait, try the year on for size before making an alteration that might not fit.”

Right now, I’m clinging to optimism. Maybe my case of Obamania manifests itself through delusion, but I’m hopeful he can make a difference. I’m hopeful that intelligence can solve problems created by ineptness. I don’t think he’s messianic, just promising—and a vast improvement.

Events are swirling so fast that any resolution made today could be moot tomorrow. As I’ve shown in this column, prognostication isn’t my strongest suit. So I’m not going to box myself in.

Instead, feeding off my wishful thinking, here are some things I hope will come to pass over the next 12 months.

• Following Tuesday night’s City Council decision, Chicoans finally settle their disc-golf differences without costly litigation … or yet another election.

• The state finally passes a budget that stays balanced for longer than the deliberation process.

• Prop 8 rhethoric—and the gay-marriage ban itself—finally falls by the wayside.

• Chico firefighters make good on their word and renegotiate with the city.

• That “me, too” nonsense settled, Chico police officers make their own deal.

• City Hall keeps a close eye on sales-tax figures (reports and projections) to make sure we can pay for all this.

• No more riots.

• FERC awards the county a good relicensing deal for Oroville Dam.

• The county, giddy with the aforementioned deal, takes a kinder, gentler tack with the Mechoopda tribe.

• No more fires.

• Enloe, combining profitability with its new labor agreement, turns the corner … lest we have a Century Project at a hospital that doesn’t make it through the decade.

• Ann Schwab fulfills the promise of “the sustainability mayor.”

• Tom Nickell, hardened with resolve, puts the ice in vice mayor.

• A la disc golf, Larry Wahl gives the council reason to listen to him besides city-charter obligation.

• No more 2010 electioneering till … 2010.

• Baja Fresh returns to Chico, at least long enough for me to redeem my gift cards.

• The Black Crow reopens, at least long enough for my colleagues to redeem their gift certificates.

• Crush 201 remains open (as does Caffé Malvina, House of Bamboo and every other place I love).

• The ol’ China Star Super Buffet remains a boot store.

• Lyon Books does well enough that I can stick my head into Barnes & Noble once in a while.

• No more supercenters.

• The City Council sticks with its Greenline-hugging vision for the general plan.

• County supervisors do likewise.

• Meriam Park fulfills its promise of a positive development (first by actually breaking ground …)

• No “bridge to nowhere” revival.

And, finally:

• Peace in the Middle East.

• Our troops home.

• No more recession.