No animals left behind
Re: “Recovery on the Ridge” (Nov. 2, 2023).
In remembrance of the five-year anniversary of the Camp Fire, a local nonprofit, donation- and grant-funded animal rescue group should be recognized. Friends United in Rescue (FUR) originated as a small group of dedicated women with a mission to find, save and reunite animals left behind.
Suzanne Maxwell and Sunel Waters met and established a makeshift shelter on Pentz Road which in December 2018 became an unofficial rescue location.
Over 200 cats were rescued during the Camp fire, with several dozen reunited with their owners. From 2019 to date, they have taken in over a thousand cats/kittens; spayed and neutered and adopted or transferred them to other shelters.
In October 2020 FUR moved to its current Chico location and became a foster-based adoption center with additional programs based on humanely reducing over population and offering other services and education to surrounding communities. To visit, adopt or donate, check out their website (friendsunitedinrescue.org) and social media sites.
Sue Fisher, FUR volunteer
Chico
Call for cease fire
Every 4 minutes an innocent Palestinian’s life is being taken away—murdered. Water, food, medicines, electricity and hygiene are being denied. More than 15,000 civilians killed; more than 30,000 injured and many under rubble.
The world is watching in horror; our hearts breaking.
Some rationalize that that is what happens in war. When the Japanese government bombed Pearl Harbor, a U.S. military base, the retaliation was enormous and severe. The U.S. tested two nuclear bombs on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most of the world considers WWII a “just war,” fighting Nazism. My elders illegally incarcerated into American concentration camps were considered wartime exceptions to the “just war.”
The U.S. is again complicit by supporting Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian lands, apartheid, home demolitions, funding revengeful murderous war crimes and violating human rights.
I thank those legislators who are calling for a cease fire now. I thank the progressive Jewish American organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. I’m grateful for our local actions in Chico.
Speak your conscience now.
Diane Suzuki
Chico
City of trees?
Last month, many of us who live in North Chico were shocked to see a crew cutting down one of most remarkable trees in Chico. This massive black walnut at Henshaw and Nord avenues is estimated to be about 200 years old. In 1973, when it was placed in a registry as the largest black walnut of its kind in the state, it was 112 feet tall with a diameter of almost 7 feet. Yet this majestic giant, and other huge black walnuts next to it, dating back to John Bidwell and the dawn of our rich orchard history, were hacked to pieces in a matter of days.
When we neighbors asked what was going on, we either got lies—“Just one tree,” “Just a trim” –—or told to mind our own business.
Upset residents who looked into the situation tell me the developer and contractor proceeded with little or none of the due diligence needed. In essence, they moved as quickly as possible to take down the trees before they could be stopped from immediately doing so. I am not naïve about hard choices developers sometimes have to make. But this was an egregious decision, and a terrible loss for the “City of Trees.”
Joe Wills
Chico
A brief message
E pluribus unum—“Out of many one.” The motto of the United States.
A house divided against itself cannot stand—Abraham Lincoln.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—the “Golden Rule.”
From the fall trees—all leaves die, creating a brief message: “Look at the street, the sidewalk and the lawn that are all the same wonderful unified color now!” Which begs the question, Do you help bring people together in unity or do you seek to divide people? We know which situation is stronger. It’s about forgiveness, openness, flexibility, effective civic policy, patience, and the ethics we practice.
Charles Withuhn
Chico
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