Stand Up for Chico

06/10/2026

Unreal. Literally. Tom van Overbeek for Chico City Council has succeeded by lying to voters before, and he’s doing it again.

We see you, Tom.

06/09/2026

Kasey Reynolds supported aggressive, punitive policies that were intended to force homeless people to “leave Chico,” despite being repeatedly warned that those very policies violated people’s civil rights. When the city entered into a legal agreement for violating the constitutional rights of unhoused people with cruel, inhumane, and illegal enforcement, Kasey, as soon as there was pushback from her MAGA base, said she “hadn’t read the agreement” prior to signing it and tried to back out of it.

Read that again.

Kasey either didn’t read an agreement that put the city under the watchful eye of a federal judge for five years because of their treatment of homeless people, or she read it and then later thought the best excuse was to simply lie about having reading it. She loves to talk about “accountability,” but apparently it never applies to her.

More recently she presided over the downtown renovation boondoggle … voting on the issue repeatedly despite the fact that she was required by state law to recuse herself due to her business abutting the affected area.

After two years of meetings for public input, paid consultants who provided elaborate documentation of a variety of alternative visions for our downtown, and over 60% of the constituents that provided input supporting the project, she voted against it, saying that she really “didn’t understand the project” and she “wished there had been more time to evaluate it.” To top it off, at the end of the meeting she was muttering about “every f***ing time” while her mic was still on, presumably referring to constituents expressing their concerns about both her ethical failure and her failure to do due diligence.

This is not leadership, and our community has paid a high price again and again for her failures.

Please follow and share Shelby Hebert for Chico City Council and if you are able, consider donating or volunteering to help her campaign. District 2, as well as our entire community, deserves better.

06/07/2026

Excited to see a solid candidate emerge who can oust Kasey Reynolds. Time for a councilmember that is informed and responsive to constituents.

Hi! I’m Shelby Hebert, your District 2 candidate for Chico City Council!

I’m running to protect our parks and waterways, improve affordable housing options, and invest in our roads and neighborhoods, because I want more of what makes Chico the vibrant community we all love.

Between rate increases, aging infrastructure, and shuffling Measure H funds away from our roads, the Council majority has routinely stalled decision making and deferred maintenance, letting taxpayers foot the bill for their lack of direction.

We need proactive leadership that protects the interests of the people, not corporations.

I’m ready to be that representative for Chico’s District 2 community, and bring back more of what we love about our city.

Vote Shelby Hebert by November 3rd for a vibrant and resilient Chico!

06/01/2026

Wow. PD, under Billy Aldridge, continues to overreach and likely will be enabled by the current conservative council, despite the criticality of having actual park rangers, not police patrolling our parks. Please take a moment to email the city council and express your concerns about this - you can do so with one click at this link:

https://chicoca.gov/Your-Government/Template-COUNCIL/City-Council-Directory/index.html

Feel free to CC Aldridge as well, so he can gain an understanding of how the community feels about this continued overreach.

[email protected]

Thanks for your advocacy Councilmember Addison Winslow

05/25/2026

05/24/2026

The City Council gave direction for after the Warren Settlement Agreement.

Only through a long, unbroken line of bad decisions did we get where we are with homelessness. 6 years ago the City cleared dozens of unhoused people with nowhere to go. It was winter and began to rain. There was no shelter available.

In the process, the Council fired the city attorney. The police sergeant in charge of sweeps resigned. Behind closed doors the Council pushed on, and then we got sued.

The judge put a retraining order on the City, and when the Council claimed to solve the issue by declaring a tarmac lot by the Airport a ‘shelter,’ the judge slapped the City with an injunction.

The mayor still claims that the Council approved the Settlement Agreement without reading it, and Republican infighting over the State Assembly seat has led the same groups that got Andrew Coolidge elected to Council to claim that he is responsible for all the City’s failures on homelessness, even though three remaining councilmembers voted with him.

The whole ordeal has been a mess due to rushed decisions and poor judgement.

It was not inevitable that we would keep the Genesis Shelter after the settlement expires. Chico could return to criminalization with no shelter, diving us back into a cycle of whack-a-mole.

But city staff have a lot of experience and know better. They came to us with recommendations:
- we keep the Genesis Shelter open with updated rules
- we maintain outreach
- we close the Eaton & Cohasset campground
- we keep our current ordinance requiring at least 24 hour notice before enforcement, but explore updates allowing faster responses when a camp poses a hazard

I motioned to accept the proposal and it passed unanimously. I honestly preferred that Council not weigh in on individual aspects of the plan, believing in this instance we would only make it worse.

This does not have to be a contentious issue. There can be no effective solutions to homelessness without shelter and housing. This being a consensus vote showed that, for now, the entire council recognizes that.

05/22/2026

An opportunity to grow the progressive youth voice in Butte County! Check it out!

05/21/2026

Tom van Overbeek to another council member:

“OK, so the next question is, don’t you think it’s a conflict of interest?

You’re low income, right? It’s going to put money in your pocket, right?”

Katie Hawley, fellow Chico City Councilmember: “I actually don’t qualify for the PG&E rate assistance program”

This isn’t the first time he’s pulled this kind of classist BS.

“If you’re relying on your City Council stipend, you shouldn’t be making land-use decisions.”

Because poor or even non-wealthy people shouldn’t have the right to run for office or make decisions, amiright?

This man is despicable, and it’s time to replace him.