Here are some newspaper stories published this week in years past.
25 YEARS AGO: A better Highway 99 could be 10 years away
BY NICK ELLENA, STAFF WRITER
A study of traffic capacity and safety improvement options along the 11-mile stretch of Highway 99 through Chico is under way but actual construction probably is at least 10 years off.
The planning process was introduced to the public at an open house last week …
The study is the result of increasing traffic pressures and a worrisome accident rate along the dangerous stretch of state highway from Estates Drive north to the Esplanade intersection. The segment is a four-lane freeway except two miles on the south and half-mile on the north that are on-freeway sections with at-grade crossings. …
Highway 99 through Chico carries traffic between Sacramento and Red Bluff and a significant amount of local traffic because of the lack of alternate north-south routes.
Increasing traffic between the East Park Avenue/Skyway and Cohasset Highway interchange is causing delays. The Board of Supervisors frequently has complained about the high number of accidents and near misses in that stretch. …
(Butte County Association of Governments Director John) Clark said it will be possible to widen the four-lane freeway by adding to lanes in what is now the center dividing strip. He said conversion to a six-lane segment can be done without having to disrupt or destroy any homes or other buildings along the route. …
— Enterprise-Record, April 3, 2000
50 YEARS AGO: Affirmative Action Programs Attacked
Bob Sherrard, the only black on the city’s Social Service Commission, says he has no faith in affirmative action programs.
“I will not sit on an affirmative action development program commission anytime, any place again,” said Sherrard. “I think it’s just a farce.”
Sherrard’s comments came at last night’s meeting … when he was asked to act as the commission’s representative before the City Council’s legislative development committee which is trying to design an affirmative action plan for the city’s work force.
Sherrard said he had served on several such committees to design affirmative action plans.
“They spend a lot of time and energy working on developing a document,” Sherrard said, “but it ends there. There is no implementation.
“The city and county should have an equal opportunity employment program and follow it. I think it is tragic that we have minorities in the community that don’t have any confidence getting a job in the city. There’s just no way. They have to be super.”
Sherrard said the only way to get real action is for “someone to file a class action suit.”
“It’s a waste of time,” he continued. “We have a document and yet the work force remains the same. I don’t have any confidence in this city — or others — that they are really serious about it.”
He said minorities don’t apply for work because they feel there’s “no chance,” then others said, “See there, they don’t want to work.”
Commissioner Harrit Weir said the Chico Area Commission on Women has submitted some information to the council … She said the women’s commission also has several discrimination complaints on file and “some of them are actionable.”
Mrs. Weir said many women employed in Chico could easily handle their boss’ job but traditionally, the job has been held by males.
“Men are hired on their potential while women are hired on their proven ability,” said Mrs. Weird.
“And minorities aren’t hired at all,” chimed in Sherrard. …
— Enterprise-Record, April 3, 1975
75 YEARS AGO: Commission Sees Tentative Streets And Highway Plan
A tentative map showing major streets and highways in Chico was submitted to the planning commission last night …
This is the first step toward adopting a master plan for streets and highways for the city. …
The map presented last night showed only major routes, designed to provide as straight a flow of traffic as possible over the most heavily-traveled routes.
Key to several of these routes would be the position of the proposed 99-E freeway. Two very tentative routes which have been considered by local groups were shown on the map.
Bothe would cross Bidwell Park at narrow points, one just south of the tree farm and north of Earl Avenue. The other would cross the park just south of Hooker Oak Bridge and at a point south east of the top of the park where Manzanita Avenue enters.
— Enterprise-Record, March 28, 1950
100 YEARS AGO: California Ratifies Six State Treaty
SACRAMENTO, APRIL 2 — AP — Ratification of the six-state Colorado River treaty was completed by California today, with the reservation that this state’s approval shall be binding only when Congress has consented to the construction of the Boulder Canyon high type dam.
California is the sixth state to act on the new ratification proposal, five other states, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico, having voted approval of the treaty without reservation.
The resolution by Assemblyman Finney, Jones and Murray, which was adopted today, repudiates the state ratification of the seven states compact by the 1923 legislature.
— The Chico Record, April 3, 1925
125 YEARS AGO: No Clue
THE SAFE CRACKERS SEEM LIKELY TO ESCAPE DETECTION
The bold robbery at the Park Hotel bar yesterday morning, is still the subject of much speculation, and the bold manner in which the theft was committed leaves no room for doubt but the guilty party was thoroughly familiar with the movements of Day Watchman Adolph Peters, also as to just which way and how far to turn the combination dial.
Mr. Peters is satisfied that the theft was committed while he was in the cellar, and is just as positive that it was done by the party whom he heard walk into the saloon and up to the lunch counter that time. …
Parties who were playing a game in the adjoining room did not hear the safe door open nor close, but some of them do remember hearing someone walk into the saloon.
The officers are confident that the theft was committed by someone who was thoroughly familiar with the day’s combination of the safe, and to be so he must have been around the saloon a great deal.
But as to who this party can be there is not the slightest clue upon which to have a base suspicion.
— Chico Enterprise Weekly, March 30, 1900
150 YEARS AGO: Letter From A Butte County Pioneer
FOSTER’S, SHASTA COUNTY, CAL.
EDITOR RECORD: — Dear Sir: Having read your paper as early as 1853, it is a great treat to get to read it in 1875. Without the least attempt at flattery, I can say that as an honest advocate of poor peoples’ rights, it has been excelled by no paper in the State except the Sacramento Union, that was, but now, alas! no more. A thousand times have I heard people say, that the Union and BUTTE RECORD, were the poor man’s real friends. But the trouble was, that every one was not able to subscribe and pay for them; and for some good reason best known to yourselves, they were not scattered broad cast over the land like the Chronical, Record Jr., Post &c. Now being a much older man than yourself, I feel competent to volunteer a little friendly advice. You speak out a little too plainly, in writing and if you don’t stop it, the first thing you know, you will have to sell out, or find yourself wearing a slice of fresh beef over one, or may be both eyes. …
— The Weekly Butte Record, April 3, 1875
