Highlights, lowlights from the week’s news | Editorial

HIT — The good news keeps coming from the Chico Regional Airport.

This week, officials from AeroFlite, a longtime and top-notch firefighting aviation firm, paid a welcome visit and explained why Chico was chosen as its newest location. Among other competitors, Chico beat out McClellan Airport in Sacramento.

Chris Niemann, the general manager of AeroFlite, said Chico simply has more to offer than most other areas.

“It’s the community and the similarity to Spokane (AeroFlite’s home base),” Niemann replied. “There’s a tie-in with the outdoors, with nature, with the things I know my employees already enjoy. It’s the comfort of being here of what the community has to offer.”

With another highly regarded business based at the airport, we figure the one thing that still needs to be offered locally is the return of commercial air service.

“We’re working on it,” Mayor Andrew Coolidge said, “and this helps.”

MISS — Few things epitomize the unique Chico experience better than Scotty’s Landing. We were saddened this week to hear that the longtime restaurant and bar on the Sacramento River has closed.

As reported in our newspaper Thursday, Scotty’s was served with a red-tag notice Tuesday, cited for “no power” and “unsafe electrical.” Owner John Scott said he had been dealing with electrical issues for more than one year between PG&E and Butte County; and that the property has been on the market for more than a year.

“I’m just trying to keep Scotty’s going and find the right person to buy it,” said Scott, 72. “I could have sold it, but I didn’t want to sell it to people that aren’t going to keep it for the people — for Scotty’s.”

It’s no exaggeration to say that Scott, like Scotty’s itself, has long since earned the title “north state icon.” His decades of service rescuing people from the river and working with law enforcement to help keep people safe — alive even — is unmatched, as is Scotty’s longstanding reputation as a great place to enjoy a meal and cool beverage, whether you’ve spent an afternoon on the river or not.

Let’s hope that there’s a positive outcome in store for this somehow. It’s worth fighting for, both from a county administrative and potential investor point of view.

HIT — Every so often, a new young golfer comes along and seems to take the world by storm.

We’re having a hard time remembering the last time it happened when the golfer was 8 years old, especially on a local level.

In any case, 8-year-old Livy Woodward of Chico is on quite a streak. As reported by our own “ace” of a golf correspondent, Ed Anderson, earlier this week, Woodward just won two more US Kids Central Valley Tour tournaments in a single weekend. She shot a 3-under par score of 33 to win at Swenson Park GC in Stockton by 5 strokes, and came back the next day at Dry Creek Ranch GC in Galt on Sunday and shot an even par 36 to win by 2 strokes.

This makes it six in a row for (to quote Anderson) “this young wonder woman.”

Woodward has been invited to the US Kids World Championship Tournament at Pinehurst, N.C. in August to compete in the girls’ 8-and-under division. We suspect you’ll be reading about her in our sports section for a long time to come.

MISS — We’re trying to think of something more despicable than taking advantage of senior citizens and fleecing them of much of their life savings. At this moment, we’re stuck for an answer.

With local scams on the upswing — one Willows woman reportedly lost more than $100,000 — the Butte County Board of Supervisors is considering a ban on Bitcoin machines, which have become one of the latest in a sickeningly never-ending series of tools used by lowlifes to take away money that was earned by other people.

Just in Chico over the past 16 months, there have been 25 Bitcoin fraud reports provided to the Chico Police Department with about $211,000 lost in that time frame, according to a presentation by Detective Kevin Hass.

The scams are shocking enough. Another thing that surprised us was the fact the scammers were often staying on the phone with technologically challenged seniors while explaining to them how to operate the machines while actually in the store.

This strikes us as an obvious red flag, and an often-missed opportunity to help. If a senior citizen is at a Bitcoin machine accepting instructions from somebody on the phone, we can’t help but suspect that a quick offer to help — from a customer or store employee — would probably nip that thievery in the bud.

We all need to look out for each other these days, especially our citizens who are most likely to be targeted by these awful scammers. They deserve no mercy for what they’re doing.

Hits and misses are compiled by the editorial board.