HIT — What a great week it has been for Paradise and the town’s ongoing recovery efforts.
On Wednesday night, Paradise High School officially opened its new 19-classroom, 31,000-square-foot main building to the public, with co-principals Kelly Gordon and Christy Voigt cutting a symbolic red ribbon. Call it one small snip for man, one giant leap forward for the town.
Efforts to bring a sewer system to town also picked up some momentum. At Tuesday night’s council meeting, discussions continued, with the town continuing to look at grants to cover the costs of the $233 million project. A week earlier, the town received a $2.47 million grant from CalFire to aid with the removal of hazardous trees in burn scar areas.
Finally, don’t look now, but Paradise’s population is back up to 9,000 — making it one of the fastest-growing areas in the state.
We all got a horrific reminder of what a deadly, devastating wildfire looks like this week in Maui and especially Lahaina; we’ll have more to say on that in this space tomorrow. The efforts of everyone in Paradise to bring their town back to life — and thrive anew — stands as a great example for everyone to follow.
MISS — Another week, another auto accident resulting in multiple fatalities. Will it ever end?
Last Sunday, two people were killed on State Route 149 when their Ford Ranger, traveling north, was struck by a southbound vehicle that had veered across the dirt median into the northbound lanes.
The crash was eerily similar to one from the previous weekend, when a vehicle going northbound on I5 just south of the Rolling Hills Casino veered across the center divide and struck a southbound vehicle head-on. Five people, plus an unborn baby, were killed in that collision.
So, that’s a total of eight lives lost in one small geographic area in one week because the driver of a vehicle somehow ended up on the wrong side of a freeway, driving in the wrong direction.
Investigations into both accidents are continuing, so we can’t say with certainty what caused either one. But we can say this: The number of deadly traffic accidents caused by distracted drivers is becoming a bigger problem every year.
In 2019, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 3,100 people were killed and about 424,000 were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver in the United States. Of the people killed, about one-fifth were either walking or riding a bicycle nearby.
You can pretty much sub “looking at their cell phone” for “distracted.” This needs to become a no-tolerance issue on the same level as drunk driving.
HIT — News that a sobering center is coming back to Butte County is long overdue.
Opioid companies that settled nationwide lawsuits in 2021 are now paying up, and Butte County is planning to use its share for a sobering center that would defer people from hospitalization and incarceration.
Butte County was to receive about $1.3 million in year one and $1.8 million in year two of an 18-year payout by three pharmaceutical companies (including Janssen Pharmaceuticals and its parent company Johnson and Johnson), according to Deputy Administrative Officer Danielle Nuzum.
A proposal to spend that money was passed Tuesday by the Butte County Board of Supervisors. It directs most of the funds towards opening a 24/7 sobering center with Butte County Behavioral Health.
“In Butte County, as in most California counties, we continue to see high rates of substance abuse and overdose concerns,” said Scott Kennelly, director of Butte County Behavioral Health. “This places a strain on our already-impacted hospitals and local jails, as they are the only two options for individuals who are actively under the influence of substances. Opening a sobering center in the county will provide a much-needed resource in our community.”
Kennelly called for a sobering center in a guest commentary in this newspaper last year. We’re glad to see it’s becoming a reality.
MISS — We were sorry to hear of the passing of Lowell Moural this week. He was the owner and promoter at Cycleland Speedway, that well-known institution 15 miles south of Chico on Highway 99, and also the head of track maintenance at Silver Dollar Speedway.
Cycleland has entertained dirt-track racing fans for generations, and Moural deserves a lot of credit for keeping it alive during a time when many small-town tracks have faded into history. He was a professional flat-track motorcycle racer in his earlier days and became widely known and admired as a father figure to many in the racing community.
He’ll be missed and remembered fondly by thousands of people who drive past Cycleland every day.
Hits and misses are compiled by the editorial board.
