Today’s web bonus » See more photos and videos at chicoer.com ENGAGE YOUR MUSIC BASEBALL PAGEANT Paradise Giants meet Annual film COMMUNITY Read about and interact with Symphony with Harper, fest in Chico the community on NorCal Blogs, Orchestra and agent honors the featuring dozens of bloggers returns Boras Earth writing on a variety of topics. A&E » C1 Sports » B1 News » A2 VISIT NORCALBLOGS.COM M/cloudy H:57 L: 41 PAGE B4 Thursday, February 28, 2019 $1.00 FACEBOOK.COM/CHICOER TWITTER.COM/CHICOER » chicoer.com WEATHER CAMP FIRE CHICO NEARING RECORD RAIN FOR FEBRUARY; MORE COMING PG&E delayed repairs for years Repairs were planned for as early as 2013 on transmission line but were not carried out PHOTOS BY MATT BATES — ENTERPRISE-RECORD before Butte County wildfire A crew works to reinforce the J levee near Hamilton City ahead of a predicted rise in water levels on Wednesday. for places near waterways. By George Avalos By Laura Urseny Bay Area News Group [email protected] Flooding was reported @LauraUrseny on Twitter on areas around Rock Creek PG&E had planned as far back as 2013 to re- and Keefer Slough in north place an aging complex of transmission equip- CHICO » This month likely Chico, along with Big Chico ment suspected of sparking the lethal inferno won’t go down as the wet- Creek and Little Chico Creek that roared though Butte County in November test February in history, but through town. 2018, but never completed the upgrades, accord- it’s likely one for the record With Chico’s layout of ing to documents filed with state regulators. books. creeks and streams run- The power facilities that weren’t repaired for It looks like this wet sea- ning through town, it’s easy years stretch through Butte, Yuba and Sutter son, which started in Octo- to understand how flooding counties in Northern California and include 115 ber, could be a humdinger. happens. kilovolt transmission towers located on the Car- On top of the recent North of Chico, nor- ibou-Palermo line, according to official filings storms, another “atmo- mally dry or just a trickle with the state Public Utilities Commission. spheric river” could materi- Sycamore and Mud creeks The disclosures raise fresh questions about alize in early March. Heavy rain caused flooding and multiple road closures. gushed during this storm. PG&E’s safety efforts as they relate to the com- According to the West- This sign was set up near Meridian Road just north of The National Weather pany’s creaky complex of electricity lines and ern Weather Group, which Chico on Wednesday. Service’s flood warning con- towers. monitors a weather sta- tinues through Thursday “PG&E keeps telling us they are now a new tion at Chico State Univer- night, cautioning about wa- company and they are changing their ways. But sity Farm, south Chico as “Of all the tragedy that other people ter on the roadways, as well how can we believe them?” said state Sen. Jerry of Wednesday morning had as stream flooding. Hill, whose district includes parts of Santa Clara received 12.27 inches of rain are going through, this is nothing, a Butte County Sheriff’s Of- County. “They have said this numerous times be- over February. major inconvenience, but my heart fice sent out an evacuation fore.” The record for Februar- hurts because it could have been warning around 6:15 a.m. In 2010, PG&E caused a fatal gas explosion that ies was in 1998, with 14.84 Wednesday, alerting resi- killed eight people and destroyed a San Bruno inches at that site since 1906, prevented.” dents of Anjou Court, Mag- neighbor that is in Hill’s district. Federal inves- when recordings started. — Jennifer Weiglein Griggs, director of the Butte Countywide ness Court and Bosc Drive in tigators determined the explosion resulted from Additional rain and show- Homeless Continuum of Care north Chico to be prepared a disastrous combination of PG&E’s flawed re- ers were expected Wednes- to leave should an order be cord keeping, shoddy maintenance and the state day and Wednesday night, given. Flooding from Keefer PG&E » PAGE 4 but forecasters doubted At the Enterprise-Re- Evacuation orders, Slough was the reason. that the 1998 record would cord weather station, this warnings Another evacuation warn- be broken. year-to-date rain amount ing was issued around 7:30 “Not unless there’s a thun- at 5 p.m. Tuesday measured Since Tuesday, rain-swol- a.m. Wednesday for the CRIME derstorm that sits over us 21.34 inches. Normal was len creeks and streams have Richvale area between the for a couple of hours,” said 18.28 inches, according to pushed over banks and Sacramento River and High- meteorologist Will Farr of newspaper records. forced the Butte County way 99 from Nelson Shippee Western Weather Group on Rain season measure- Sheriff’s Office to issue evac- Road to Highway 162 be- Second trial set Wednesday. ment starts Oct. 1. uation orders and warnings WEATHER » PAGE 3 for men charged CHICO in Oroville man’s Council’s Finance Committee considers tax survey shooting death or 2022. By Risa Johnson Without additional rev- [email protected] By Andre Byik @risamjohnson on Twitter enue coming in, the city [email protected] would have to cut back on @andrebyik on Twitter CHICO » The Chico City expenditures. At City Man- Council’s Finance Commit- ager Mark Orme’s direction, OROVILLE » A Butte County judge has scheduled tee took another step on department heads have be- a second trial for two men charged in the 2017 Wednesday toward a pos- gun to come up with propos- slaying of an Oroville man. sible funding measure for als for reductions, in case The first trial of Edward Gaston, 41, and Da- the city. cuts become necessary. vid Tuttle, 73, who are charged with murder in The committee heard a “As you can imagine, the shooting death of 34-year-old Justin Jagears, presentation from a repre- when more than 75 of our ended Monday in a mistrial after jurors could not sentative for EMC Research budgets are people, you’re reach a verdict. on a future tax feasibility talking people,” Constan- Following the mistrial, the District Attorney’s voter survey and agreed to tin said. RISA JOHNSON — ENTERPRISE-RECORD Office said it intended to retry the men, and Supe- send the matter to the en- The cost of doing business From left, members of the Chico City Council and Finance rior Court Judge Kimberly Merrifield on Wednes- tire council for discussion. has gone up, in part, because Committee Sean Morgan, Ann Schwab and Mayor Randall day set a new trial to begin April 8. Before that, Assistant City of rising pension obligations Stone discuss a proposed survey to determine the viability Gaston and Tuttle each remained in custody Manager Chris Constan- under the California Public of a funding measure on Wednesday. with bail set at $1 million. tin provided context, say- Employees’ Retirement Sys- The Butte County Sheriff’s Office has said Gas- ing that the latest five-year tem, commonly referred to city could take several dif- tax or Transient Occupancy ton, Tuttle and Jagears left a property where they projections showed the city as CalPERS. ferent forms: as a proposal Tax, or as a bond measure. lived together on the afternoon of May 6, 2017. heading into the red in 2021 A funding measure for the to increase sales tax, parcel FINANCE » PAGE 4 CRIME » PAGE 4 TESTIMONY FLOODING BUSINESS GOOD MORNING! Cohen assails Trump Airbnb initiates Open D Dow Jones Have a great day, subscriber before Congress Homes program 25,985.16 (-72.82) John Wallin. Trump’s former lawyer told the Airbnb has initiated its Open D S&P 500 WHAT’S HAPPENING House that Trump knew ahead Homes program in the counties 2792.38 (-1.52) Check out what’s going on in of time that WikiLeaks had of Butte, Shasta and Sonoma Nasdaq your neighborhood and the damaging emails. PAGE D1 in the wake of flooding. PAGE A3 U 7554.51 (+5.21) community. PAGE C6 INDEX A&E ............... C1 Classifieds ....D3 Comics ..........C5 Obituaries ..... D1 Opinion..........A5 Sports ........... B1 IndexVolume ............... 165, issue## 109 0 94922 74810 2 2 | A NEWS | ENTERPRISE-RECORD+MERCURY-REGISTER THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019 TODAY IN HISTORY Star report PAGEANT THEATRE Irina Shayk 1849 ‘unfollowed’ Lady The California gold Annual film fest in Chico honors Earth rush began in earnest Gaga before duet as regular steamship Even before Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga By Robin Epley service started bring- [email protected] ing gold-seekers to San brought romantic heat Francisco. to their performance CHICO » Earth-friendly films of “Shallow” at the have found their way back Oscars on Sunday night, to Chico this year at the sec- 1911 Cooper’s girlfriend, Irina ond annual Earth Day Film President William Shayk, had unfollowed Fest, hosted this year at the Howard Taft nominated his “A Star is Born” Pageant Theatre. William H. Lewis to be co-star on social media, The festival offers the first black Assistant reportedly because she “Earth-honoring films” and Attorney General of the had become weary of is run by former Paradise United States. hearing about the pop resident Allen Myers, who diva all the time. “It’s is a filmmaker and docu- not that she dislikes mentarian. 1942 Gaga or is jealous of her, After making a film some The heavy cruiser but she’s sick of the years ago about musical of- USS Houston and the constant stories about ferings to the Earth per- Australian light cruiser her ‘close’ relationship formed in the Amazon, My- HMAS Perth were at- to Bradley,” the source ers said he was looking for a tacked by Japanese added.