Spoiler: Redding isn't getting an ice arena. Here's what's next for old courthouse
Did the majority who weighed in want a bigger jail? …more office space for county services?
And the winner is: Ice rink, with 59.3% of the vote.
The runoff showed readers heavily favored a recreational center, like an ice rink over a bigger jail — which received 24.2% of the vote, and a county office complex — which garnered 16.4% of the vote.
But don't put on your sequined leotard or hockey mask yet. Other ideas are in the works, one county official said.
Rather than tackle the expensive task of redeveloping the three-story Early Modernist building — built in 1956, Shasta County supervisors opted to demolish it. They also decided in March to postpone nailing down long-term plans for the Court Street property, and opted to table planning until later this year or in early 2026.
The supervisors want some time to explore ideas, but possible short-term plans for the property include a green space and parking lot, said Public Works Director Troy Bartolomei.
A challenge to funding a temporary park is grants that promise to match 50% of building costs expect the park to be there for the long haul, Bartolomei said. The county is still researching funding options, but won't likely agree to a long-term green space built on premium downtown land that could be worth more if used in other ways.
A parking lot would be the most practical use. That would relieve some of Court Street's parking congestion for the public using county facilities, and for county staff, Bartolomei said.
Parking lot or not, supervisors want to preserve the old courthouse's sloping green lawn, he said, and four memorials on the property. Those include the Pearl Harbor and Peace Officers memorials, and two memorial trees.
For now, the next task is doing a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) study. That could take some time. The county started collecting proposals from consultants who want to do the study on April 18, according to Bartolomei.
Bartolomei confirmed on Wednesday what he told supervisors in March. Demolition could begin as soon as summer 2026 and will cost about $5.3 million.
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The runoff of readers' top three favorite uses for the old courthouse property came after the initial Redding.com poll closed on April 16. Uses that didn't get enough votes by last Wednesday to make it to the runoff included a farmers market space, a parking garage and an apartment building with retail stores on the main floor.
Whatever supervisors decide to put on the old courthouse property, it won't likely be an ice rink, Bartolomei said.
Redding's climate "would make that quite a challenge," both financially and mechanically, he said.
Costs to maintain a year-round indoor ice arena can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars per year or more, according to online business estimates. Just buying refrigeration technology can run $60,000.
So don't expect to see glam figure skating sports commentator duo Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir dropping in for steaks at Jack's Grill anytime soon.
But he also understands why people want one, said Bartolomei, who grew up in Ukiah, near Santa Rosa's Redwood Empire Ice Arena.
The indoor ice rink was built and bankrolled in the 1960s by Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz. "It was there because Charles Schulz wanted it" and paid for it, Bartolomei said.
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Redding's old courthouse likely to be turned into park, not ice rink
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a day ago
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She faced $500 daily HOA fines for an unapproved door in her home. A new state law saved her
Jinah Kim's HOA said she couldn't fix a doorway inside her condo. She did it anyway. She figured it was fine. After all, the doorway was completely inside her home, separating an office and dining room. But when the complex's manager peeked into her place through the open garage door one day in March and saw the renovation, she received a notice the next day. The privacy intrusion was shocking, but the cost of noncompliance was even worse: a single $100 fine at first, then up to $500 per day — $3,500 per week — starting July 10 until she changed the doorway back. But on July 1, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 into law, her HOA nightmare vanished with the stroke of a pen, and her fee for defiance was capped at $100. "It's a game changer," Kim said. "For years, HOAs have been able to bend entire communities to their will on a whim. This stops that." Industry experts and HOA lobbyists were taken by surprise in June when Newsom pushed AB 130 through the state Legislature and signed it into law — not because it passed, but because it included a last-minute update redefining HOA law in California. The overall goal of the bill is to expedite housing by easing California Environmental Quality Act regulations for many projects, but it also amends the Davis-Stirling Act, the framework that governs homeowners associations. The biggest change? HOA fines are now capped at $100 per violation unless there are health or safety impacts. Want to paint your house neon green? $100. Erect a giant Halloween skeleton on your front lawn year-round? $100. The bill also bans interest and late fees on violations and prohibits HOAs from disciplining homeowners as long as they address violations before the hearing. It allows homeowners to request internal dispute resolution if they don't agree with the board's findings at hearings. It's a massive win for disgruntled homeowners, who have long claimed that California HOAs are too aggressive, stringent and overbearing. It's a startling blow for HOAs, which were left blindsided by the changes. Dyanne Peters, an attorney with Tinnelly Law Group who practices HOA law, said her firm was tracking the legislation, but in a different bill. The HOA language was originally part of Senate Bill 681, a housing bill authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward). Peters said HOA lobbyists were making headway negotiating the bill and coming to a mutual agreement, but on June 27, the HOA language from SB 681 was added into AB 130 and passed three days later, leaving the HOA industry reeling. "As an industry, this came as a shock," she said. "Everyone is scrambling to get a handle on the changes." Peters said no one likes paying fines, but noted that fines aren't a money-making tool for HOAs. Instead, they're used as deterrents for actions that disrupt communities. For example, if a neighborhood doesn't allow homes to be used as short-term rentals such as Airbnbs, but a homeowner shirking the rules only has to pay $100 one time, they'll probably just pay the fine and keep renting out their home. Or if a resident wants to build a huge fence but doesn't want to deal with the architectural approval process, they'll just eat the $100 and build whatever they want. "It's frustrating because these new rules are handcuffing homeowners associations," Peters said. "It takes away the ability for HOAs to govern their own communities. Clients are calling us asking, 'What's the point?'" However, the bill added a lifeline for HOAs by specifying that fines can be greater than $100 if they "result in an adverse health or safety impact on the common area or another association member's property." Peters said associations should go through their current rules and see which could be health or safety violations, and then adopt resolutions that specify in writing that certain actions, such as speeding or having aggressive pets, have health or safety impacts and therefore qualify for fines greater than $100. Luke Carlson, an attorney who represents homeowners in HOA disputes, called the bill a "long-overdue course correction." "AB 130 is more than a law — it's a signal that Sacramento is finally starting to hear the voices of homeowners who've suffered in silence for too long," said Carlson, who authored the book "Bad HOA: The Homeowner's Guide to Going to War and Reclaiming Your Power." Carlson said HOAs in Southern California are uniquely aggressive because of soaring home prices. Property values are high — and so are the stakes for maintaining a problem-free community that keeps those values high. But he said when an association is bad, it tends to feed off its own power, making arbitrary decisions or giving out preferential treatment until someone pushes back. "Everyone agrees bad HOAs are a bad thing, and it takes legislative reform to stop them," he said. HOA horror stories abound in California, the state with the most HOAs (more than 50,000) and the most homes within HOAs (4.68 million) in the country — roughly a million more than Florida, the state with the second most. More than a third of Californians live in HOA communities, and nearly two-thirds of homeowners are a part of HOAs, according to the California Assn. of Homeowners Assns. In San Ramon in Contra Costa County, a woman was fined for replacing her lawn with drought-tolerant plants. In Oakland, HOAs are installing surveillance cameras to track cars and sharing the data with police. Last year, a Times investigation dove into allegations of grand theft and money laundering inside a Santa Monica co-op. Kim, a resident of Shadow Ridge in Oak Park in Ventura County, wanted to remove a blockage in the doorway between her office and dining room. The previous owner had filled the top of the entry with drywall to cover up plumbing pipes, but Kim grew tired of ducking to get under it. The HOA denied her initial request to fix it since the work required briefly shutting off shared water and rerouting pipes. But Kim had her contractor do it anyway. It was an hourlong fix. A few months later, the complex's general manager spotted the unauthorized renovation. The next day, she received four violation letters: one for the door, one for installing an EV charger in her garage, one for having her dog off-leash and one for an unpermitted rug on her balcony. "It's a door within my home that no one else sees and no one else is affected by," Kim said. "It felt like accidentally tapping someone in the hallway and getting the death penalty." She resolved the dog and rug violations and is appealing the EV charger one. But she refused to change the doorway back. On June 27, Kim received a letter saying that since the renovation rerouted shared plumbing lines, she'd have to pay to fill the doorway back in, plus pay $100. If she didn't resolve the issue by July 10, she'd get slapped with fines of up to $500 for every day it wasn't fixed. But after AB 130 went into law, the deadline came and went. She hasn't heard a peep from her HOA, which didn't respond to a request for comment. "It was a big relief. Having a daily $500 fine hanging over my head was a huge source of anxiety," Kim said. She acknowledged that the new blanket of rules will probably allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn't. But for now, she's just happy to stop banging her head on drywall every time she walks through her dining room. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
She faced $500 daily HOA fines for an unapproved door in her home. A new state law saved her
Jinah Kim's HOA said she couldn't fix a doorway inside her condo. She did it anyway. She figured it was fine. After all, the doorway was completely inside her home, separating an office and dining room. But when the complex's manager peeked into her place through the open garage door one day in March and saw the renovation, she received a notice the next day. The privacy intrusion was shocking, but the cost of noncompliance was even worse: a single $100 fine at first, then up to $500 per day — $3,500 per week — starting July 10 until she changed the doorway back. But on July 1, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 into law, her HOA nightmare vanished with the stroke of a pen, and her fee for defiance was capped at $100. 'It's a game changer,' Kim said. 'For years, HOAs have been able to bend entire communities to their will on a whim. This stops that.' Industry experts and HOA lobbyists were taken by surprise in June when Newsom pushed AB 130 through the state Legislature and signed it into law — not because it passed, but because it included a last-minute update redefining HOA law in California. The overall goal of the bill is to expedite housing by easing California Environmental Quality Act regulations for many projects, but it also amends the Davis-Stirling Act, the framework that governs homeowners associations. The biggest change? HOA fines are now capped at $100 per violation unless there are health or safety impacts. Want to paint your house neon green? $100. Erect a giant Halloween skeleton on your front lawn year-round? $100. The bill also bans interest and late fees on violations and prohibits HOAs from disciplining homeowners as long as they address violations before the hearing. It allows homeowners to request internal dispute resolution if they don't agree with the board's findings at hearings. It's a massive win for disgruntled homeowners, who have long claimed that California HOAs are too aggressive, stringent and overbearing. It's a startling blow for HOAs, which were left blindsided by the changes. Dyanne Peters, an attorney with Tinnelly Law Group who practices HOA law, said her firm was tracking the legislation, but in a different bill. The HOA language was originally part of Senate Bill 681, a housing bill authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward). Peters said HOA lobbyists were making headway negotiating the bill and coming to a mutual agreement, but on June 27, the HOA language from SB 681 was added into AB 130 and passed three days later, leaving the HOA industry reeling. 'As an industry, this came as a shock,' she said. 'Everyone is scrambling to get a handle on the changes.' Peters said no one likes paying fines, but noted that fines aren't a money-making tool for HOAs. Instead, they're used as deterrents for actions that disrupt communities. For example, if a neighborhood doesn't allow homes to be used as short-term rentals such as Airbnbs, but a homeowner shirking the rules only has to pay $100 one time, they'll probably just pay the fine and keep renting out their home. Or if a resident wants to build a huge fence but doesn't want to deal with the architectural approval process, they'll just eat the $100 and build whatever they want. 'It's frustrating because these new rules are handcuffing homeowners associations,' Peters said. 'It takes away the ability for HOAs to govern their own communities. Clients are calling us asking, 'What's the point?'' However, the bill added a lifeline for HOAs by specifying that fines can be greater than $100 if they 'result in an adverse health or safety impact on the common area or another association member's property.' Peters said associations should go through their current rules and see which could be health or safety violations, and then adopt resolutions that specify in writing that certain actions, such as speeding or having aggressive pets, have health or safety impacts and therefore qualify for fines greater than $100. Luke Carlson, an attorney who represents homeowners in HOA disputes, called the bill a 'long-overdue course correction.' 'AB 130 is more than a law — it's a signal that Sacramento is finally starting to hear the voices of homeowners who've suffered in silence for too long,' said Carlson, who authored the book 'Bad HOA: The Homeowner's Guide to Going to War and Reclaiming Your Power.' Carlson said HOAs in Southern California are uniquely aggressive because of soaring home prices. Property values are high — and so are the stakes for maintaining a problem-free community that keeps those values high. But he said when an association is bad, it tends to feed off its own power, making arbitrary decisions or giving out preferential treatment until someone pushes back. 'Everyone agrees bad HOAs are a bad thing, and it takes legislative reform to stop them,' he said. HOA horror stories abound in California, the state with the most HOAs (more than 50,000) and the most homes within HOAs (4.68 million) in the country — roughly a million more than Florida, the state with the second most. More than a third of Californians live in HOA communities, and nearly two-thirds of homeowners are a part of HOAs, according to the California Assn. of Homeowners Assns. In San Ramon in Contra Costa County, a woman was fined for replacing her lawn with drought-tolerant plants. In Oakland, HOAs are installing surveillance cameras to track cars and sharing the data with police. Last year, a Times investigation dove into allegations of grand theft and money laundering inside a Santa Monica co-op. Kim, a resident of Shadow Ridge in Oak Park in Ventura County, wanted to remove a blockage in the doorway between her office and dining room. The previous owner had filled the top of the entry with drywall to cover up plumbing pipes, but Kim grew tired of ducking to get under it. The HOA denied her initial request to fix it since the work required briefly shutting off shared water and rerouting pipes. But Kim had her contractor do it anyway. It was an hourlong fix. A few months later, the complex's general manager spotted the unauthorized renovation. The next day, she received four violation letters: one for the door, one for installing an EV charger in her garage, one for having her dog off-leash and one for an unpermitted rug on her balcony. 'It's a door within my home that no one else sees and no one else is affected by,' Kim said. 'It felt like accidentally tapping someone in the hallway and getting the death penalty.' She resolved the dog and rug violations and is appealing the EV charger one. But she refused to change the doorway back. On June 27, Kim received a letter saying that since the renovation rerouted shared plumbing lines, she'd have to pay to fill the doorway back in, plus pay $100. If she didn't resolve the issue by July 10, she'd get slapped with fines of up to $500 for every day it wasn't fixed. But after AB 130 went into law, the deadline came and went. She hasn't heard a peep from her HOA, which didn't respond to a request for comment. 'It was a big relief. Having a daily $500 fine hanging over my head was a huge source of anxiety,' Kim said. She acknowledged that the new blanket of rules will probably allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn't. But for now, she's just happy to stop banging her head on drywall every time she walks through her dining room.
Politico
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Newsom blinks on fire rebuilding
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The order is a response to pressure from LA City Councilmember Traci Park, who sent a letter to Newsom Monday calling for a pause on increased density in her Pacific Palisades district and citing the 'overt risks' of evacuating more people from fire-prone regions. Bass quickly backed the call, saying Tuesday that added development in the Palisades 'could fundamentally alter the safety of the area.' It's a shift from the immediate aftermath of the firestorm, when Bass and Newsom rushed to waive permitting requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act in the name of speeding up rebuilding. Environmental groups who criticized those moves as reckless are now cheering the reversal. 'We're definitely happy to see that the state and local officials are recognizing the risk of building in these very high fire-prone areas,' said Elizabeth Reid-Wainscoat of the Center for Biological Diversity. She urged the state to go even further and block new development outright in burn zones, saying California needs 'neighborhoods that are safe, affordable and near transit and job centers.' The political pressure hasn't just come from the left. Online right-wing voices recently fueled a social media backlash against a bill from Sen. Ben Allen that would have created a new authority to acquire burned properties and offer them back at discounted rates. Allen paused the bill earlier this month. Now Newsom's executive order is drawing fire from the opposite direction. Pro-housing advocates warn it could set a dangerous precedent where wealthy, well-organized communities can carve themselves out of state housing law under the banner of 'fire safety.' 'If safety becomes a political football, then we're in deep trouble,' said Matt Lewis of California YIMBY. 'What does this say for all the places that don't have the power and influence when they burn?' He also questioned how much development the order would materially affect. Neither county nor city planning officials responded Wednesday to questions about how many property owners had applied for an SB 9 development in the burn scars, but a Park spokesperson said they had heard of seven. Even within the Democratic fold, the issue has proved divisive. Sen. Henry Stern, whose district includes much of western LA County, voted against SB 9 in 2021, citing his family's harrowing evacuation from Malibu during the Woolsey Fire. 'I had a very lonely vote on that bill,' Stern later said. He now has some company. — CvK Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! HARRIS OUT: Start your engines, former Rep. Katie Porter, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra and other 2026 gubernatorial contenders. Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced Wednesday that she's not running for governor, ending her flirtation with a run that would have upended the current field. Harris, with her near-universal name identification, strong approval ratings among Democrats and a national fundraising network, would have begun the 2026 race as an imposing frontrunner, POLITICO's Melanie Mason reports. Her entry would have also put more eyes on her complicated climate policy record as gas prices and energy affordability loom as top issues in the race to replace Newsom. Harris pledged during her 2019 presidential campaign to reject fossil fuel donations — joining most of the field — and called for a ban on fracking, while promising to prosecute oil companies over their contributions to climate change. She backed away from those positions during her 2024 race against President Donald Trump, arguing during a debate in Pennsylvania that the Biden-Harris administration oversaw the largest increase in domestic oil production in U.S. history. — AN COLD COMFORT: Climate change and good news are rare bedfellows. But researchers from UC San Diego and Stanford University have found a potential sliver of sunshine. California could see 53,500 fewer deaths and 244,000 fewer hospitalizations as extreme cold becomes rarer between now and 2050, according to a paper published Wednesday in the academic journal Science Advances. That reduction in hospitalizations could save the state $53 million in healthcare costs, the researchers wrote. But there's a catch. As cold days slacken, high temperatures will send more people to the ER, to the tune of $52 million for 1.5 million excess visits through 2050, they found. 'Heat can harm health even when it doesn't kill,' said UC San Diego assistant professor Carlos Gould, one of the study's authors. — NB ANOTHER RAY: Solar power is under a barrage of attacks from the Trump administration, but one of the industry's top voices still sees room for optimism. Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, pointed to rapidly growing energy demand and last-minute Senate compromises that give clean energy projects until July 4, 2026 to start construction or the end of 2027 to begin service and still qualify for federal subsidies — rather than ending them immediately, Nico Portuondo writes for POLITICO's E&E News. 'I do think that the transition period of one year to commence construction will allow companies to pivot,' Hopper said. 'I think the sort of the word of the day, or even the rest of the year, is pivoting.' SEIA more than doubled its spending in the second quarter of 2025 to $950,000, according to lobbying disclosure reports, and launched several efforts to emphasize the impact of Inflation Reduction Act tax incentives on red states and districts. Hopper credits that effort for helping secure extra time that lawmakers like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski fought for. Senate Republicans are still fighting for clean energy projects as the Trump administration has taken more steps to disrupt the industry in recent days, including the Interior Department's order calling for the identification of any 'preferential treatment' toward wind and solar facilities. 'They are stranding capital by precipitously ramping down some of these programs. They're going to probably regret it,' said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. Read the full Q&A with Hopper on POLITICO Pro. — AN, NP RIVER RHETORIC: California's top Colorado River water official says the state is supportive of the direction negotiations are headed, but that states in the river's lower basin need assurances they'll receive their fair share. JB Hamby, chair of the Colorado River Board of California, said in an email Tuesday that multi-state discussions around a concept known as 'natural flow', based on how much water would travel downstream without human intervention, could send 55 to 75 percent of its flow to California, Arizona and Nevada, a figure 'we believe that provides enough room to negotiate a balanced, reasonable release number.' Hamby emphasized, however, that a deal won't be reached without guarantees that states in the upper basin — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico — will meet their end of the bargain, Jennifer Yachnin reports for POLITICO's E&E News. 'Without clear, binding commitments from all parties — including reductions or conservation — there can be no seven-state agreement,' Hamby said. Hamby warned that without those commitments, the lower basin states could demand their share under a provision of a 1922 compact that's never been invoked. The seven states face a November deadline to reach a water sharing deal or have federal officials step in with their own plan. — AN, JY — Newsom is circulating a legislative proposal to bolster a fund that covers utilities' liability in case they spark a fire — to the tune of another $18 billion, according to Bloomberg. — The United Nations' top official is calling on major tech firms to fully power data centers with renewable energy by 2030. — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy writes in an op-ed that Newsom's defense of high-speed rail shows he 'has no clue what functional government looks like.'
